The Right Place, The Right Time And The Right Combination
the enterprise of bootlegging was ended for Rothstein. He decided that it was better to let others take the chances with the law and each other in areas of competition. He felt it was best to use his influence and loansharking powers to turn a profit in this area. Plan Three
Through the connections with politicians, Rothstein was able to continue his role as a major problem fixer for bootleggers that had run afoul with the law. At a cost one could take their problems to AR, who in turn would do what he could to see that the problems went away. An examination of the arrests and convictions, during these time period reveals, many of the charges would be dismissed before prosecution took place. Rothstein would also continue to finance up and coming business efforts by rising gangs. In particular he provided financing for a young set of toughs under the leadership of Salvatore Lucania. This association would lead to creation of a new organizational structure that followed the lines of an Americanized business system. AR would leave a legacy with this group that would allow for an expansion of organized crime that the original Mafia Families never saw as possible.
Rothstein would meet a violent end in 1928 when he was killed following refusal to meet payments on a gambling debt. It seems strange that AR was gunned down for this reason since he had the money to pay and the resources to cover his losses. It should be noted that he was expanding into the drug trade during this period and was attempting to create the same importing process for drugs as he had created for liquor. Also many felt that Rothstein stood in the way of the efforts of Dutch Shultz to expand his own liquor and numbers empire throughout the Big Apple. For what ever the reason, AR was gone and it would be left to those that had learned at his feet to carry on his ideas about organization and a business approach to crime. His presence has passed into almost a folklore level through publicity and literature. In the novel "The Great Gatsby", one of the characters, Meyer Wolfsheim, is pointed out by Gatsby in the following manner.
" See that guy over there? He's the one that fixed the 1919 World Series"
Wolfsheim was a product of the era, much like Rothstein, materialistic and ever ready to use
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