HUNTING DOWN THE GANG
Now we will see how much crime, even in the most successful case, profited the criminals. In the first place, Tracy was in prison before it happened. "Western George," who solved the lock, was murdered. Patrick Shevelin, the watchman, received, instead of the quarter of a million, actually $1,200 in cash. Within a few days Jimmy Hope took half of this back again on the plea that it was needed at Washington to buy off legislators who were to pass a bill through Congress ordering the issue of duplicates in place of the stolen securities. As an actual fact, all Shevelin ever profited from this robbery was $600.
Jimmy Hope and John D. Grady, the fence, quarreled over the disposition of the bonds and stocks, which Hope spirited away and hid in the Middle West. The dissension spread to other members of the gang and the underworld began to hear details of the robbery.
Hope failed in his efforts to prevent the passage of the bill canceling the stolen securities, and then came the final blow—the confession of Shevelin.
Hope was caught in San Francisco, his son, Johnny Hope, was captured in Philadelphia while trying to dispose of some of the bonds—and one after another the gang was run down.
Considered from a technical viewpoint, this robbery was the most Napoleonic feat ever achieved. My husband, Ned Lyons, said Hope ought to have managed without the aid of Shevelin or, if his aid was absolutely necessary, he should have been killed. This point of view regarding murder is one of the distinguishing differences between my husband and Jimmy Hope.
And thus we find that the greatest bank robbery in the history of the world, which enlisted the time, brains, and special skill of a dozen able men over a long period of time, resulted in failure to dispose of the valuable securities, and landed sooner or later most of the operators in prison. If an enterprise of such magnitude, successfully accomplished, was not worth while, then surely CRIME DOES NOT PAY!