Though the truism "absolute power corrupts absolutely" has been proven far too many times to be doubted, it is perhaps too pithy to capture the full truth. For it is not enough to simply say that power is corruptible. We must understand why it corrupts. We must grasp precisely what forces, temptations and inclinations lead men and women of good character down the road to autocracy and authoritarianism. Is it that self-doubt is an essential and underappreciated aspect to the good life that keeps in check our worst excesses? Are we not built to bear the responsibility for the lives of the many? Or is it that we simply lack the proper understanding of institutions and their capacity to corrupt those who rise through its ranks to helm its tentacled arms? These are but a few theories amongst many that attempt to answer this most important mystery. If Mr. Dash's excellent micro-history is any indication, he too considers this a question of serious note.
Since "the trial of the century," New York City has changed beyond recognition. Today, it is a clean city of power and finance with safe streets, a thriving multiculture and gentrified boroughs that make it an ornament of human urbanism. But a hundred years ago, it was something else entirely, a lawless sprawl of immigrants and hedonists, honest laborers and cunning thieves, all vying for a piece of American prosperity. Prohibition was on the horizon, a foolish law that would only further empower the city's criminal element while institutionalizing the kind of widespread corruption that had been the city's hallmark for decades. From glorious city hall to the most fetid back alley, everything in this American melting pot was purchasable. A price had only to be named for negotiations to begin.
Into this fast-talking, gun-toting maelstrom plunged Charles Becker. The child of German immigrants, he came to new York City looking for a life of opportunity. He joined a notoriously corrupt police service which, in the early decades of the 20th century, not only allowed the criminal element to run unchecked, it encouraged it in exchange for its slice of this most profitable pie. However, rather than simply following in the footsteps of tradition, Becker took NYPD corruption to the next level, helming a special anti-vice unit that oversaw much of the extortionist activities within Satan's Circus, the colloquial name for one of Manhattan's most iniquitous districts. Despite Becker's legendary influence and control, however, his empire quickly fell when he was personally fingered for having orchestrated the murder of a legendary gambler about to blow the whistle on police corruption. What resulted was the Trial of the century, a grandstanding affair that not only cost Becker his life but lead to the dawning of a new era for the NYPD and the city it was meant to protect.
Though it revels in the sensationalism of the period, Satan's Circus is, nonetheless, a breathless and breathtaking examination of a now forgotten time. Mr. Dash, an Welsh writer, deploys becker's life and trial as a lens through which to view turn-of-the-century New York in all of its sinful splendor. From prostitutes to gamblers, from crooked cops to immigrant gangs, the author chronicles the haunts, the practices, the legends and the schemes that characterized this gin-soaked period of American history, doing so with style and veracity. In this, Mr. Dash lucks out. For though Becker himself is something of a predictable creature, a man who could not resist the twin seductions of power and money within a corrupt system, the host of long-since forgotten gangsters and gamblers pulled to the surface by Becker's literary excavation are as delightful as they are utterly ruthless.
While Satan's Circus succeeds on the merits of its aspirations as a cultural micro-history, it is equally adept at highlighting the political corruption of the period. The 21st-century media is obsessed with the downfall of American politics, but one glimpse of the machinations of the 1910s reveals a nation where not just votes but candidates were bought and sold, promoted and discarded, by a relentless and unstoppable machine that had been in place since the mid 19th century. Though this will hardly be a revelation to some, the detail here is nonetheless an excoriation of the notion that politics are today in a bad state. For what today can compare to a sham democracy run by crooked administrators who selected their own candidates for the most powerful offices imaginable.? Truly very little.
Satan's Circus delights in the debauchery of pre-prohibition new York. It gets down with the gutter snipes to tell the tales of some decidedly slimy characters. But though it may, at times, openly root for some of its villains, it is so charming and shocking that these relatively minor sins can easily be forgiven. An excellent romp through a blood-soaked time of injustice and corruption. (4/5 Stars)
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