David Gonzalez
Obituary Story
August 17, 1929—Miami Daily News
As editor of the Miami Daily News, it has never been my philosophy to intercede on behalf of my staff. The delineation between my role and that of my writers is a line of which I’ve felt no reason to cross. And much like the demarcation between responsibilities here at the Daily—much like the boundaries between the “wets” of Palm Beach and the “drys” of Dade and Broward—there exists a distinct distance between the editorial column and the tragic ink that crams the obituary page.
However, given the circumstances surrounding the death of Glendale Lythgoe I felt it was my obligation to unequivocally assert that which has been hanging from the bitter end of our city’s tongue for almost a week now. Glendale Lythgoe was a rummy, a bootlegger, a peddler of evil stump juice and his death, while tragic and sickening, was also inevitable. Live by the pirate’s code and die a pirate’s death. Or so I believed.
For residents unaware of the notoriety of Glendale Lythgoe suffice it to say that he was little more than a slant-eyed New Yorker, a truculent thug with hunched shoulders and a slow moving gait as a result of an injury suffered during the Great War. By all accounts, Lythgoe was a dandy, a dark and brooding gentleman who measured his worth by the stitches he wore. He cared little for the social mores of our day, cared even less for the letter of the law, and though some may couch his wickedness beneath the veneer of a philanthropic businessman, rest assured dear reader, Lythgoe was no angel.
As a staunch supporter of the Anti-Saloon League and a proponent of the Volstead Act, I have never wavered in our paper’s incessant reportage on the successes of Prohibition. Needless to say, Glendale Lythgoe was—and is no longer—one of the most elusive reprobates this town has ever seen.
What follows is a litany of Lythgoe’s less than noble entanglements. He has, at one time or another, been accused of collusion between himself and various members of both the Miami and Broward County Police departments, been a board member of the now infamous Bimini Bay Rod and Gun Club, a facilitator for the original Rum Row, which supplied hooch to every port and harbor along the Eastern seaboard, and rumored to have been responsible for the death of Teddy Hassel, a fellow boozehound and bootlegger.
As for his more noble contributions, Glendale Lythgoe had his knobby hand firmly entrenched in the completion of Atlantic Coast Line, The Gandy Toll Bridge, the championship golf course at the newly built Biltmore Hotel & Resort, the St. Francis Hospital on Allison Island, and the relocation of Miami Senior High School.
Unfortunately, it would appear that some of Lythgoe’s acts of generosity had bought him the esteem and admiration of some of South Florida’s most respected citizenry. In attendance at his memorial today were Mabel Walker Willebrandt, attorney general for the state of Florida, Sheriff Bob Baker of Palm Beach county, Federal Judge Halstead Ritter, Bird and Wallace King, founders of King’s Boatyard, Commander William Willoughby of the United States Coast Guard and Frank Schutts, the owner and editor of our competition, the Miami Herald.
There are many who would decry the Eighteenth Amendment as folly, and those that flaunt its message as indulging in a “Gentleman’s crime,” yet as the body of Glendale Lythgoe was slowly drifting towards the shores of North Hollywood Beach there could be few who debate the escalation of violence that has overtaken our city. There is no man free of sin that would have outlaw justice enacted upon him such as the violence enacted upon Glendale Lythgoe.
It is in my humble opinion, as a man of the press, when I say that the authorities acted judiciously in releasing the details of Lythgoe’s death as slowly as possible.
We, dear reader, are a God-fearing city, a city that takes no pride in having bad men meet bad fates, especially by forces outside of the law. We take no salacious joy in learning that Lythgoe’s eyes had been forcibly plucked from his head, that his tongue had been removed so that he could not call out for help, that his shoulders and pelvis were shattered by sledges before being tossed into the nighttime waters of the Atlantic Ocean. This is not the kind of news we relish in relating.
In addition to discovering the horrific details, I also had the great misfortune of seeing the body while it was still at the mortuary and believe me when I say, there is no romance in the world of the rumrunners. There is no glory to be had that can outweigh the mortal danger we plunge into when we turn a negligent eye to the evil of distilled spirits.
What I saw that day, laying upon the coroner’s table, was not merely the body of a fallen bootlegger. It was the scarred and mangled remains of a lifestyle that must be abolished. What I saw when I looked into the black vacuums of Glendale Lythgoe’s eye sockets was not proof of a comeuppance, but proof that our souls will continue to be just as black and as hollow as long as alcohol continues to flood our streets, our homes, and our sodden, decadent mouths.
D.S. Bobbol
Editor-in-Chief
Miami Daily News
August 17, 1929