The Society “Distiller” and the Crooked Cop

                   

Long before the name Hollywood became identified with the motion picture industry, New Yorkers were drinking a popular brand of whiskey by that name, as shown here on a 19th Century bar token.  The liquor was the product of William Maynard Fliess, a prominent New York businessman, government reformer and philanthropist whose fall from grace was intwined with his relationship to a New York police inspector known as  “Clubber” Williams.

Shown here, Fliess was born in German Prussia in 1833, the son of Dr. Jules Fliess, a physician who with his family immigrated to the United States and settled in Baltimore.  When a yellow fever epidemic broke out in Norfolk, Virginia, the doctor hurried to the scene to minister to the victims and ultimately died there of the disease.  William’s mother, Joan, a leading church-woman and charity benefactor, had the resources to send William to England where he studied for the law.

Upon his return, disinclined to follow a legal career, Fliess settled in New York City and, his biography claims,  “became a distiller.” That was an exaggeration.  In reality, he purchased a liquor dealership in Manhattan and was mixing raw spirits at the 47 Broadway address to create the blended “Hollywood Whiskey.”  He bottled his products in embossed amber quarts. Unlike most in the liquor trade Fliess took the trouble and expense of trademarking the Hollywood name in 1873 and claimed it had been used for the past 10 years.  During that period the German immigrant had become very rich from whiskey sales.

Fliess used his much of his wealth to fund enterprises in the Far West.  Said to be one earliest New York City money men to invest in mines, he became president of the California Mining and Water Company located in Utah.  Later he is said to have declined President Grant’s offer to make him territorial governor of that state.  Fliess also invested in railroad transportation, listed as president of the St. Joseph and Kansas line.  He established a reputation as a philanthropist, for thirty years annually hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for New York’s orphan newsboys. 

Orphan Thanksgiving

In Fliess’s day New York was ruled by the highly corrupt “Tammany Hall Ring,” run by the notorious Boss William Tweed.  In July 1871, an investigation and eventual prosecution was undertaken by a committee of seventy citizens, led by Samuel J. Tilden, later elected Governor of New York.  Fliess, considered one of New York City’s upright and progressive citizens, was chosen as a member and became chairman of its law committee, a singular honor.

  

Tweed subsequently was indicted in 1872 for forgery and grand larceny, and sentenced to prison, as were others in Tammany Hall.  The power of the ring was broken.  The resulting prestige appears to have vaulted Fliess into the upper echelons of New York society.  Advertised as “the only recognized fashionable society magazine in the City of New York,” Rider and Driver magazine in 1893 listed its “blue blood” stockholders, leading off with John Jacob Astor. Four names below was “William M. Fliess.”  A biographer called him:  “A thorough businessman, a good public speaker, an enthusiastic fisherman and an excellent rife shot.”

Enter Alexander S. Williams, a New York policeman who in 1887 had risen to the rank of inspector in charge of the West 13th Street Station in Manhattan. Because of his aggressive police methods including the liberal use of his night stick, the inspector was widely known as “Clubber" Williams.” 

Although hailed for having put down local gangs, he was not immune from the corruption then endemic in the New York police force.  William’s district included night clubs, gambling resorts and brothels.  He called it “The Tenderloin,” presumably for the perceived opportunities the area presented him for bribes.  The name stuck.  In time Williams would merit a song entitled “Czar of the Tenderloin.”

Fliess’ Hollywood Distilling Company was located on Broadway within the Tenderloin.  Just how and when the businessman might have met Williams is unclear.  Soon, however, the district’s police officials were taking great interest in the sale of Hollywood Whiskey.  Police captains and ward detectives were introducing company salesmen to the saloonkeepers of the precinct “with special recommendations of the excellence of the beverage offered, and of the high favor with which its sale is regarded at ‘headquarters’” (i.e, Inspector Williams).  With implied police protection for those who purchased it, many proprietors agreed.  “…The Hollywood Company is said to be in a highly prosperous condition, yielding large profits,” said an investigative report.

The report continued: “All those who have bought the Hollywood whiskey admit that it has turned out a good thing for them, for they have not been troubled by the police for violations of the excise laws.”  Other publicans who had their own proprietary blended whiskeys, the report continued, bought a few barrels of  Hollywood Whiskey simply to please the police, storing the barrels in the basement with no intention of using it.  The motto Fleiss put on a bar token seems prophetic:  "Don't tell a soul."

Alarmed as police “persuasion” benefiting Hollywood Whiskey spread across Manhattan, in 1888 a group of New York liquor house owners created a Wholesale Liquor Dealer’s Association for mutual protection against police interference.  The group petitioned the State Legislature with a detailed report entitled “The Police as Liquor Sellers.”  As a result the legislature eventually passed a law that barred cops from holding a commercial interest in or meddling with the sale of liquor.  Fear of police retaliation, unfortunately, made enforcement impossible.

In 1894, a New York state senator, named Clarence Lexow, shown here, was outraged by the many legitimate complaints about police and headed a legislative investigation of corruption within the NYPD.  One of the principal persons of interest to the Lexow Committee was “Clubber” Williams.  The committee heard testimony from accomplices that the Czar of the Tenderloin had received money from gambling house operators and brothel keepers as well as other sources. The inquiry found that that Williams' personal finances and properties included a house at Cos Cob, Connecticut, a yacht and other valuables —  well beyond the reach of a policeman’s salary.

Lexow had a particular interest in the relationship of Williams to the Hollywood Distilling Company and Fliess.  One report suggested that Fliess had given Williams a part ownership in his company.  Others believed it was just a standard case of bribery with Clubber filtering some of the money down to his foot soldiers in blue.  I can find no record of Fliess being called to testify.  A Mr. J. Kalt, representing the Hollywood Company, denied  to investigators any knowledge of a meeting at which the scheme allegedly was hatched.  

Williams, as expected, denied any wrongdoing but did admit receiving  $6,000 from "my friend" William Fliess.   In today's dollar that would amount to $132,000. But "Clubber" denied it had anything to do with promoting Hollywood Whiskey, as had been charged. The police inspector eventually was removed from his position but never went to jail.

With the Lexow Committee hearings meriting daily stories in all of New York’s newspapers, Fliess’s reputation as a businessman, anti-corruption leader, and member of New York high society clearly was besmirched.  But why would such a man stoop to deal with Clubber Williams, a known shady character?  My belief is that the liquor dealer was in financial distress, possibly over the collapse of his Western investments.  The St. Joseph and Kansas Railroad, it appears, was never built.  Moreover, investments in mining frequently went bust.  Fueling his need for money may well have been the cost of keeping up with the Astors and other “blue bloods” both socially and in philanthropy.  So Fliess had swung to the dark side.

Less than a decade later, William Maynard Fliess was dead, his cause of his death in 1904 at the age of 71 is not available from Internet sources. Details of his life during that time period are scanty.  He was able to keep the Hollywood Company in business despite the police scandal, but almost nothing else about him appears in the public record, including his place of interment.  Although Fliess’s has biographical material on ancestry.com, a descendant has taken much of it private, unavailable for general viewing.  The last New York City directory entry for the Hollywood Company was 1910.  At that time a son, William M. Fliess Jr., was president.

Notes:  This post is gathered from a variety of sources.  The most important are the biography of Fliess in the 1896 Cyclopedia of America Biography and the transcript of the Lexow Committee that encompasses five large volumes.  Key passages about the relationship betweem Fliess and Williams unfortunately are found in volumes not currently available on the Internet.