The lonesome death of William Zantzinger

[struggle4progress]

Deferred Sentence
Friday, Sep. 06, 1963

... At a restaurant, Zantzinger whacked two employees with a cane. Later that evening, at a white-tie dance in a Baltimore hotel, he used the cane again on a Negro bellhop and a Negro waitress. Then he scolded a Negro barmaid, Mrs. Hattie Carroll, 51. "What's the matter with you, you black son of a bitch," he snarled, "serving my drinks so slow?" With that, he beat the woman with his cane. She collapsed and was taken off in an ambulance. Eight hours later Mrs. Carroll, mother of eleven children, died of a brain hemorrhage. She had had high blood pressure and an enlarged heart ...

Last week the judges announced sentence. For the assault on the hotel employees: a fine of $125. For the death of Hattie Carroll: six months in jail and a fine of $500 ...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,870451,00.html

pdf: FARMER SENTENCED IN BARMAID'S DEATH (NYT 29 Aug 63)

Zantzinger, Who Inspired Bob Dylan Ballad, Dies
By Dave Itzkoff

... During a visit to a Baltimore hotel in 1963, Mr. Zantzinger struck Ms. Carroll with a toy cane because he felt she wasn’t serving him fast enough. Ms. Carroll suffered a fatal hemorrhage, and Mr. Zantzinger was charged with murder. At a trial later that year, he was convicted of the reduced charge of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to six months in prison and fines totaling $625, provoking public outrage and prompting Mr. Dylan to write the song ...

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/zantzinger-who-inspired-bob-dylan-ballad-dies/

Southern farmer who attacked barmaid in '63 dies
Zantzinger's killing of barmaid Carroll chronicled in Dylan song
By Jacques Kelly and Frederick N. Rasmussen and
January 10, 2009

... Zantzinger, dressed in tails and wearing a carnation in his lapel, had complained that Carroll, a barmaid at Baltimore's old Emerson Hotel, was slow in bringing a drink he had ordered at the Spinsters Ball, an invitation-only social event.

"Give me a bourbon," the 24-year-old was quoted as saying in court testimony as he approached the bar. He later upbraided Carroll and struck her with a 26-cent, lightweight carnival-style cane.

After she was struck, Carroll, the mother of 11 children, leaned against the bar and told her fellow workers: "This man has upset me so, I feel deathly ill." She died hours later at Mercy Medical Center.

Zantzinger was also charged with striking another waitress, Ethel Hill, who suffered arm injuries, and a bellman, George N. Gesell ...

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-md.ob.zantzinger10jan10,0,7002389.story

William Zantzinger, villain in Dylan song, dies
Sat Jan 10, 4:14 pm ET

... Zantzinger was allowed to delay the start the sentence two weeks so he could harvest his tobacco crop and served the time in the Washington County jail, working in its kitchen ...

News accounts at the time said Zantzinger had been seen drinking with his wife at a dinner before a ball. While dining, Zantzinger told jurors he began hitting waitresses with the cane ...

"I had no other purpose than to have a good time," Zantzinger testified. "The last thing I intended was to harm or injure anyone. I never even thought about it" ...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090110/ap_on_re_us/obit_zantzinger

Life after a lonesome death
Ian Frazier
Friday 25 February 2005

... According to press accounts of Zantzinger's trial, he and his wife, Jane, arrived at the dance, a charity event called the Spinsters' Ball, at the Emerson Hotel on Friday evening, February 8 1963. He was in top hat, white tie and tails - attire with which a cane is optional. Unlike other guests, Zantzinger didn't check his cane at the door because, as he said: "I was having lots of fun with it, tapping everybody." Tapping turned to hitting; a bellboy named George Gessell said Zantzinger struck him on the arm, and a waitress named Ethel Hill said Zantzinger argued with her and struck her several times across the buttocks.

At about 1:30am, he ordered a drink from Hattie Carroll, one of the barmaids. When she didn't bring it immediately, he cursed at her. Carroll replied: "I'm hurrying as fast as I can." Zantzinger said: "I don't have to take that kind of shit off a nigger," and struck her on the shoulder with the cane. Soon after, Carroll said: "I feel deathly ill, that man has upset me so." She then collapsed and was taken to the hospital.

"What makes it hard to bear was that no one at the party challenged him, no one stopped him," Jessup said. "He was bold enough to behave like this in the presence of many people, and not one of them intervened. Maybe they had connections to him, maybe they came for business, or their hands were tied by who he was. But not one of those people stood up for her" ...

Zantzinger was sentenced on August 28 1963. As it happened, that was the day of the march on Washington, when Martin Luther King Jr delivered his "I have a dream" speech. The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Baltimore Sun all ran brief stories about the sentencing; none mentioned that anybody objected to the lightness of the sentence ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2005/feb/25/bobdylan

OBITUARIES
William Zantzinger, convicted of killing Hattie Carroll and denounced in Bob Dylan song, dies at 69

... As he continued to drink throughout the night, Zantzinger, who was a husky 6 feet 1, became more threatening in his demeanor. He assaulted a bellhop with his cane and, according to news accounts at the time, shouted at a waitress, "Hey, black girl, bring me a drink." He fell down on his wife while dancing with her. Then he went back to the bar and demanded a drink from Hattie Carroll, a 51-year-old black barmaid with 11 children and a history of heart problems. "Just a minute, sir," she said, which angered Zantzinger. It was not how the white man was used to being treated on his 630-acre farm.

He thrust a racial profanity at Carroll and struck her with his cane. She served him his bourbon and then stepped away. Hours later, she collapsed and died of a stroke, and William Devereux Zantzinger, at 24, was charged with homicide. Because of several inconclusive factors, including Carroll's already poor health, the charge was reduced to manslaughter ...

Outside his circle of friends, Zantzinger did not like to draw attention. But he did in 1991 when he was indicted for collecting more than $64,000 in rent on properties he had not owned for more than five years. He lost the homes, described as rural shacks in the county's Patuxent Woods subdivision, because of failure to pay taxes.

Nevertheless, Zantzinger continued to collect rent -- suing some when they did not pay and evicting others. He also raised the rent on the properties. The homes were located off a dirt road and lacked indoor plumbing ...

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-zantzinger10-2009jan10,0,7023960.story

The lonesome death of William Zantzinger
The man who inspired Bob Dylan's The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll has died aged 69
Sean Michaels
Friday 9 January 2009 11.03 GMT

... He was fined $62,000 and sentenced to 2,400 hours of community service ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2005/feb/25/bobdylan

Dylan on The Steve Allen Show

William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie Carroll
With a cane that he twirled around his diamond ring finger
At a Baltimore hotel society gathrin
And the cops were called in and his weapon took from him
As they rode him in custody down to the station
And booked William Zanzinger for first degree murder
But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears
Take the rag away from your face
Now aint the time for your tears

William Zanzinger who at twenty four years
Owns a tobacco farm of six hundred acres
With rich wealthy parents who provide and protect him
And high office relations in the politics of Maryland
Reacted to his deed with a shrug of his shoulders
And swear words and sneering and his tongue it was snarling
In a matter of minutes on bail was out walking
But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize fears
Take the rag away from your face
Now aint the time for your tears

Hattie Carroll was a maid of the kitchen
She was fifty one years old and gave birth to ten children
Who carried the dishes and took out the garbage
And never sat once at the head of the table
And didn't even talk to the people at the table
Who just cleaned up all the food from the table
And emptied the ashtrays on a whole other level
Got killed by a blow - lay slain by a cane
That sailed through the air and came down through the room
Doomed and determined to destroy all the gentle
And she never done nothing to William Zanzinger
And you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears
Take the rag away from your face
Now aint the time for your tears

In the courtroom of honor the judge pounded his gavel
To show that alls equal and that the courts are on the level
And that the strings in the books aint pulled and persuaded
And that even the nobles get properly handled
Once that the cops have chased after and caught em
And that the ladder of law has no top and no bottom
Stared at the person who killed for no reason
Who just happened to be feelin that way without warnin
And he spoke through his cloak most deep and distinguished
And handed out strongly for penalty and repentance
William Zanzinger with a six month sentence
O but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears
Bury the rag deep in your face
For nows the time for your tears

[struggle4progress]

1. 'A regular old southern Maryland boy' (WaPo 1991)

By Peter Carlson
Sunday, August 4, 1991; 9:34 AM

... Wednesday, April 24, 1991 ... The Maryland Independent ran a story by reporter Kristi Hempel revealing that Zantzinger had been collecting rent for five years from several poor black families even though he no longer owned the houses where they lived. The county had foreclosed on the properties in 1986 because Zantzinger had failed to pay taxes on them. The houses, located in a place called Patuxent Woods, were battered wooden shacks, with no running water or toilets or even outhouses. The tenants had to dump their wastes in the woods, which polluted the water in their shallow hand-pumped wells. Not only had Zantzinger collected rent after losing the properties, he'd actually raised the rent, and he'd even taken some tenants to court for nonpayment. And won ...

Then, a few minutes before 6 p.m. on June 5, 1991, Charles County Detective Eric DeStefano walked up the steps of W&Z Realty and served Billy Zantzinger with a summons charging him with the crime of "deceptive trade practice."

In the document, State's Attorney Len Collins charged Zantzinger with one count of making a "false and misleading oral and written statement" that had served to mislead a couple who had rented a house in Patuxent Woods a year earlier. The charge, a misdemeanor, carried a potential penalty of a year in jail and a $1,000 fine ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/31/AR2006053100658_5.html


Man whose conviction Dylan sang about dies
Zantzinger, 69, served 6 months in woman's death
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
New York Times
Jan. 10, 2009, 9:28PM

... In 1991, The Maryland Independent disclosed that Zantzinger had been collecting rent from black families living in shanties that he no longer owned. He also went to court to demand past-due rent, and won. He pleaded guilty to 50 misdemeanor counts of deceptive trade practices, paid $62,000 in penalties and, under an 18-month sentence, spent only nights in jail ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/31/AR2006053100658.html

[lostnotforgotten]

2. Racism, Bigotry, & Discrimination Is The Legacy That Infuses The Republican Party Today

It is represented by the 20 percenters that still believe Bush is a good pResident.

[Cronopio]

3. A prototype of George W. Bush. Just fewer connections and less money.

"Doomed and determined to destroy all the gentle."