Good Morning POU! Today is Part 5 of the Life of Hannah Elias!
On Tuesday, May 30, 1904, John Platt, under pressure from this family, filed a lawsuit against Hannah Bessie Elias in the amount of $685, 385 ($18.5 million) in New York Superior Court. In the suite, which his lawyers from the firm of Warren, Warren and O’Beirne published in local papers, he alleged that Elias had extorted money from him over the previous eight years. The lawsuit also requested that all her accounts, which included holdings in 26 savings institutions, 34 trust companies and 69 banks, be frozen. It also requested that she be prevented from selling any of the twelve properties she owned, including the boarding house in Midtown, her Central Park west mansion or her rental properties in upper Manhattan.
It had taken months by convincing Platt’s younger brother, Isaac Platt and his son-in-law W.S. Cassard, to get Platt to sign off on the lawsuit. “They convinced me that the woman was determined to ruin not only my reputation in the end, but in the meantime to squeeze all the money possible out of me,” he explained. The only concession he demanded from his relatives was that Elias not be arrested.
When Elias heard the news, she panicked. She flew into a fit and began barking orders at her servants to run to the banks where she had holdings and drain her accounts. When they returned later in the day, they hold her that they had not been able to get all of the money. Collectively they had come up with $156,000 ($4.2 million) in cash. Elias put the money in a sack, gave it to the doorman, Patrick Dugan, and instructed him to put into a safe in his house. After the cash was hidden, she collapsed and was carried to bed by her servants.
That evening, crowds of angry protesters began to gather outside her home, their jeers coming through the walls and windows. As Elias had long feared, the public revelation of a black woman being in possession of such wealth caused outrage. Though some blacks were known to own businesses, it was unfathomable that a black woman was living next to millionaires and was a millionaire herself. Moreover, she was not even a full generation out of slavery having been born in the free territory of Philadelphia in August 1865.
The day after the suit was announced, Platt’s lawyers obtained a civil order for Elias’s arrest. They told a judge that they feared she might flee to Japan with her butler Kato. The judge granted the order along with a mandate for her arrest.
When the deputy arrived, he had to push past the crowd to climb the stairs to ring the bell. Kato greeted him and told the deputy he was denying him entrance because Elias was ill. The deputy being shouting at Kato, at which point Washington Brauns, an attorney hired by Elias, arrived at the house and interceded.
“There is no reason on earth for trying to arrest my client” he told the deputy, getting between him and Kato. After arguing with Brauns, the deputy conceded that the civil order did not allow him forcible entry into the home. Elias could only be arrested on a criminal complaint.
For a week after the lawsuit was filed, Elias stated in the home. Platt’s attorney remained frustrated that they were unable to serve her with the lawsuit or the order for civil arrest. The crowd outside her home grew, blocking the sidewalk and street. As the gathering grew, the prospect of violence loomed. Kato and two black errand boys she employed had been assaulted when trying to leave the house. They had been able to flee back to the home with only a few bruises. Afterward a mounted police detail had been assigned to her block to keep the crowd under control. One detective put the number of people gathered at ten thousand.
The Elias scandal had been in the papers for days with writing that the “Negress extorted nearly $1,000,000.” The ordeal sparked racial outrage and inflamed the economic tensions simmering in the city. Protesting at Elias’s house became so popular in the city that men and women were known to pack lunches and bring their children to stand outside her home to hurl profanity and trash at her windows.
On June 7, 1904, 2 New York assistant district attorneys and a judge went to see Platt in his home, hoping to get him to sign a criminal complaint so that they could arrest Elias. Platt held out until 10pm, finally giving in to the persuasions of the judge, the attorneys, and his family. After they received Platt’s signature, the judge issued a warrant for Elias to be arrested on the spot.
Tomorrow: The Trial and Aftermath