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Iroquois victim and his family
Joseph Austrian (1833-1908) married Julia Mann's
sister, Mary Mann (1851-1915) and the pair had six
children, all girls except Alfred, who died sometime
before 1886,* and Walter Austrian (b.1886), who
died at the Iroquois Theater fire in 1903.
Seventeen-year-old Walter was home for the holiday after his first semester at
Yale when he went to the Mr. Bluebeard matinee. His
body was identified by his sister Belle's husband,
Benjamin R. Cahn, and he was buried at Rosehill Cemetery
following a private funeral on Sunday morning, Jan
3, 1904.†
Newspapers did not report the names of Walter's theater
companions.
It was later reported that he died while trying to
save women and children. For that to
have been learned, someone in his party or someone
who recognized the boy, survived to tell the story to his
family. The Austrian family's prominence make
that credible.
A $6,000 scholarship was
established in Walter's name by his father and
brother in law, Henry Block, husband of his sister,
Alice Austrian Block (1879-)
Walter's father, Joseph Austrian, was a Great Lakes
shipping titan. As an officer in Leopold & Austrian,
that later morphed into Lake Michigan and Lake
Superior Transportation, his company maintained ten
ships, hauling grain, metal and passengers between
Chicago and Duluth, Minnesota. In their fleet were
steamers: "Peerless," "City of Duluth," "City of
Fremont," "J. I. Hurd," "J. R. Whiting," "Guiding
Star" and "Jay Gould."
Joseph retired in January 1902.
The Leopold name turns up elsewhere in Austrian
genealogy; Joseph's and Solomon's brother, Julius
Austrian, married Hannah Leopold (1830-1910).
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Cousin of Iroquois victim, who defended Iroquois
Theater manager
Solomon Austrian (1837-1889) married Mary Mann's
sister, Julia Rebecca Mann Austrian (1849-1933) and
the pair had seven children. Their son, Alfred S.
Austrian, got his law degree and went to work for
Levy Mayer. In 1904 that meant defending the
man accused of playing a role in the death of his
cousin, Walter Austrian.
Alfred S. Austrian (1871-1932)
came to Chicago around 1891 after receiving his undergraduate degree from Harvard. He
passed the bar in 1893 and went to work for Levy
Mayer's law firm, later becoming a named partner.
(More about Alfred's career in box below.)
Agreeing to help Mayer defend
Davis may well have presented an ethical quandary
for Alfred since his seventeen-year-old cousin,
Walter Austrian, died at the Iroquois.
Austrian had been with Mayer for a decade but wasn't
yet a partner and had been married just two years to Mamie Rothschild Austrian (1879-1960). Adding
to his conflict was the responsibility of an infant
child, his first, given birth to thirty-five days
after the fire.
Alfred's father, Solomon,
was twelve years dead so never had to look his
brother Joseph in the eye and explain why his nephew
was defending a man who may have contributed to
the death of his son. However, Mary, Alfred's mother,
surely thought about her sister, Julia, mourning her
son's death.
Alfred Austrian was an avid collector of
rare books, an interest shared with the firm's
client, Iroquois Theater
manager,
Will J. Davis
and senior partner, Levy Mayer. Austrian's collection was
more impressive than Davis' but similar enough that
they might have enjoyed discussions about their
collections during off-trial moments. Austrian's
collection was sold at auction seven years after his
death.
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Alfred Austrian was a passionate
opponent of the 18th amendment (prohibition) and
appeared before the Supreme Court numerous times in
a variety of cases. History most remembers him,
however, for conflicting representation of Charles
A. Comiskey, owner of the White Sox, and legendary
White Sox hitter, "Shoeless Joe Jackson," one of
eight players involved in throwing the 1919 World
Series to the Cincinnati Reds. Jackson's role in the
game fix is still debated, as is the authenticity of
a confession made while under the influence. 'Sounds
like a case of situational ethics. He may
or may not have been overly inebriated when confessing to
receipt of $5,000 of an agreed-upon $20,000 bribe,
and he may or may not have altered his game
performance to enhance the results for the
Reds. A signed bank deposit slip and his
wife's testimony established that he did, however,
put the money in the bank instead of taking it to
the police and reporting a crime, and he then spent
the next year spending the dough, about $62,000 in
today's money. Joe may not have been able to
read but he was smart enough to play ball and smart
enough to know the money was dirty. He spent
the rest of his life trying to explain away his bad
decision.
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