The Roanoker - January/February 2020 - 11

NELSON HARRIS is a former mayor of Roanoke and author of a dozen books on
the region's history. He is the minister at Heights Community Church in Roanoke
and a past president of the Historical Society of Western Virginia.

daily society columns. Front-page coverage was given to the club's
weekly meetings, and the matters championed were significant. The
club supported a public hospital for the city and tried to convince
officials of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad to come to Roanoke.
By the end of the club's first month, they welcomed to the city
British and German industrialists interested in steel and iron
production.
Helper could not have been more pleased. Membership was
growing, the press was raving, Europeans were visiting, and the
club's influence was unchallenged. Helper enlisted the aid of his
cousin, Walter Murphy, of Salisbury, North Carolina, to serve as
assistant secretary. The Commercial Club was from all appearances
a quick and emerging success.
But there were rumors.
Helper dropped comments that he was having marital troubles.
He claimed little tolerance for his wife of fifteen years and
disparaged the institution of marriage itself. His marriage, however,
was considered a personal matter by most and was overshadowed by
his skill in promoting the club's interests and cultivating its many
prospects.
With the club barely open for more
than a month, Helper announced he was
leaving temporarily for surgery in New York
City. Club members were distressed by the
news but were assured by Helper that his
condition was not serious. Friends offered
to look in on Helper's wife who was herself
in ill health.
While Helper was away, a friend spied
a notice in the Philadelphia Press as he
lunched at the club that seemed quite
odd. Among the hotel arrivals in that city
were the names of Mr. and Mrs. Hinton
Helper. Being advised of the notice, Mrs.
Helper rummaged through her husband's
suits and found letters, many in fact, signed
"Madeline" which even addressed Helper
as "My dear husband" and solicited from him money for hotel bills,
dresses, and trips. Given Mrs. Helper's frail condition, her friends
demanded Helper's immediate return.
Meanwhile, officials at the club had inquired as to Helper's surgery
and quickly discovered that on the day he was supposedly having
surgery in New York he had attended a land sale in Petersburg,
Virginia, then spent a day or so thereafter in Richmond.
Murphy, being Helper's assistant and relation, contacted him and
asked for an explanation. After sending several telegrams, Helper
finally responded indicating he would be returning to Roanoke soon
and wiring $60 for his wife.
The Roanoke Times, the same newspaper that had a few weeks
prior championed the suggestion of having Helper's bust placed at
the entrance to the Commercial Club, made calls including one to
Helper's sister. "She denounced him in the strongest terms," the
newspaper reported. Helper's associates were now insisting that he
was delayed in his return to Roanoke due to business in Richmond.
The newspaper followed up and found that Helper was not there

and not engaged in any business in that city. The Commercial Club
simultaneously announced that Helper had resigned due to "ill
health."
Hinton Helper was in Philadelphia with Madeline. He had been
there for several days with no intent to return to Roanoke.
Walter Murphy was quickly promoted to secretary at the
Commercial Club, and Mrs. Helper left for her parents' home in
Savannah. With all the dirty linen of the Helpers publicly aired ("A
Case of Abandonment?" read one front-page headline), the club was
anxious to distance itself from Helper.
Murphy moved to enhance the club's appeal with billiard tables and
liquor service. This met with the ready approval of the club's board. The
Commercial Club could now get on with its mission of promoting the
business growth of Roanoke. Club members unanimously expressed
confidence in Murphy and the organization's future such that the
club rebuffed an effort to be absorbed by the Real Estate Exchange.
The club maintained a steady schedule of activities, visitors, and
public pronouncements on a variety of issues. Membership grew as
men enjoyed the social elements as much as the business relationships.
The club published pamphlets to promote Roanoke to outside investors
and hosted businessmen from several
surrounding states.
In early January, however, the Commercial
Club was broadsided by another scandal. This
one involved Murphy. He had left town, but
not for a mistress. Murphy had slipped into
the club's membership a man named LaBaer
that Murphy claimed was his old college
roommate. LaBaer was a pool shark who was
picking clean the well-liquored club members
at Murphy's orchestrated billiard nights.
Once club members caught on that
LaBaer was skilled with the cue, the scheme
came to an end but not before Murphy and
LaBaer had pocketed significant sums.
Murphy had also been organizing all-night
poker at the club.
The poker games were invitation-only involving men not members
of the club, and Murphy and LaBaer racked up chips as the chips
of everyone else "melted like an ice chip on a sidewalk in July"
according to one disgruntled player. One night's poker game went
until 3 a.m. between Murphy and Moten Word, a young official with
the Norfolk & Western.
When Word lost serious money, he charged Murphy with
discarding cards after the draw. When Word's wife complained to
the club president that Murphy was running a poker den out of the
club's back room, Murphy's gambling operation unraveled.
The club's board promptly dismissed Murphy. Rumor had it that
many were looking for Murphy, victims no doubt of he and LaBaer.
Murphy's exit from Roanoke was during the dark of night and with
a slew of accounts payable.
The Roanoke Commercial Club could not survive its second
scandal. The club re-organized, decided it would only hire "natives,"
and changed its name to the Roanoke Board of Trade. The Roanoke
Commercial Club had lasted three months. -NELSON HARRIS

"It is a mighty lever.
The union of forces
the Commercial Club
represents can do
three-fold the work
of its individual
members acting
separately."

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The Roanoker - January/February 2020

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