The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll

The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll

William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie Carroll With a cane that he twirled around his diamond ring finger At a Baltimore hotel society gath'rin' 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 ain't 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 all fears Take the rag away from your face Now ain't the time for your tears.

Hattie Carroll was a maid in 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 ain't the time for your tears.

In the courtroom of honor, the judge pounded his gavel To show that all's equal and that the courts are on the level And that the strings in the books ain't pulled and persuaded And that even the nobles get properly handled Once that the cops have chased after and caught 'em And that 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 witout 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 Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fearsv Bury the rag deep in your face For now's the time for your tears.

1. Who is William Zanzinger and what does he do to get in trouble?

2. Is Hattie Carroll similar to any character in Mockingbird?

3. What is Zanzinger’s punishment? Is it fair?

4. What message is the judge trying to send? What is your impression of his message? http://jungle-bar.blogspot.com/2009/01/william-zantzinger-dead-at-69.html

William Devereux Zantzinger Dead at 69

From the New York Times: By Douglas Martin / January 9, 2009

William Devereux Zantzinger, whose six-month sentence in the fatal caning of a black barmaid named Hattie Carroll at a Baltimore charity ball moved Bob Dylan to write a dramatic, almost journalistic song in 1963 that became a classic of modern American folk music, died on Jan. 3. He was 69.

His death was confirmed by an employee of the Brinsfield-Echols Funeral Home, who said Mr. Zantzinger’s family had prohibited the release of more details.

Mr. Dylan took some liberties with the truth in the song, “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” though there is disagreement over just how many. He recorded it in 1964 for the Columbia album “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” for some reason dropping the letter “t” from Mr. Zantzinger’s name.

The incident occurred on Feb. 8, 1963. Mr. Zantzinger, a 24-year-old Maryland tobacco farmer, and his wife, Jane, had stopped with friends at a restaurant on their way to Baltimore’s annual Spinsters’ Ball, a white-tie affair.

Mr. Zantzinger was wearing a top hat and carrying a toy cane he had picked up at a farm fair. At the restaurant, he became disorderly, hitting employees with the cane, then left with his group after they were refused more drinks.

The party moved on to the ball, at the Emerson Hotel. A recapitulation of the evening in The Washington Post Magazine in 1991 said Mr. Zantzinger had entered bellowing: “I just flew in from Texas! Gimme a drink!”

As the evening progressed, he hit several hotel employees with the cane and used racial epithets. Time magazine said he pushed his wife to the floor. He later strode to the bar and ordered a drink from Mrs. Carroll, 51. But she was too slow, he said, and began criticizing her. Then he repeatedly struck her with the cane. Fleeing to the kitchen, she told co-workers that she felt “deathly ill.” An ambulance was called.

Mr. Zantzinger was charged with disorderly conduct and released on $600 bail. But on the morning of Feb. 9, Mrs. Carroll died of a stroke. Now Mr. Zantzinger was charged with murder.

In the trial, Mr. Zantzinger testified that he could not remember hitting anyone. His lawyers said Mrs. Carroll’s stroke could have been caused by the hypertension she was known to have. A three-judge court agreed that the caning alone could not have caused the death and reduced the charge to manslaughter.

Mr. Zantzinger was convicted in June, and in August he was sentenced to six months in prison.

On Aug. 29, The New York Times published a dispatch by United Press International, reporting on the sentencing. A friend of Mr. Dylan showed the singer the article. Some accounts say he wrote the song at an all-night coffee shop on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, others that he wrote it at the singer Joan Baez’s house in Carmel, Calif.

The literary critic Christopher B. Ricks wrote a chapter about the song in his book, “Dylan’s Visions of Sin” (2004), praising Mr. Dylan’s “exact control of each word.”

Clinton Heylin, in his book “Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited” (2001), countered that the song “verges on the libelous” because of “its tenuous grasp of the facts of the case.” One criticism was that Mr. Zantzinger’s “high office relations,” as Mr. Dylan called them, were overstated: his father had been a one-term state legislator and a member of the Maryland planning commission.

The song did not mention that Mrs. Carroll was black, although listeners made that correct assumption. It also did not refer to the reduced charge of manslaughter, only the six-month sentence.

One error of fact in the song was that Mrs. Carroll had 10 children; she had 11. Critics suggested that 11 did not fit the meter.

Time magazine called Mr. Zantzinger “a rural aristocrat,” who enjoyed fox-hunting. He attended Sidwell Friends School in Washington and the University of Maryland. The magazine Mother Jones reported in 2004 that he had worked alongside his farm employees, including blacks.

After prison, Mr. Zantzinger left the farm and went into real estate. He sold antiques, became an auctioneer and owned a night club.

In 1991, The Maryland Independent disclosed that Mr. Zantzinger had been collecting rent from black families living in shanties that he no longer owned; Charles County, Md., had foreclosed on them for unpaid taxes. The shanties lacked running water, toilets or outhouses. Not only had Mr. Zantzinger collected rent for properties he did not own, 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.

Information on Mr. Zantzinger’s survivors was unavailable. Though he long refused interviews, he did speak to the author Howard Sounes for his book “Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan” (2001), telling him of his scorn for Mr. Dylan.

“I should have sued him and put him in jail,” he said.

Time Magazine's contemporary report of the sentencing went like this: Time Magazine Friday, Sep. 06, 1963

Early this year, William Devereux Zantzinger, 24, a prosperous tobacco farmer in southern Maryland, went on a bender with his wife, ended the evening charged with homicide (TIME, Feb. 22). 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.

In June, after Zantzinger's phalanx of five topflight attorneys won a change of venue to a court in Hagerstown, a three-judge panel reduced the murder charge to manslaughter. Following a three-day trial, Zantzinger was found guilty.

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. The judges considerately deferred the start of the jail sentence until Sept. 15, to give Zantzinger time to harvest his tobacco crop.