Where I Stand — Lee Fisher: Hank Greenspun’s editorial crusades leave great legacy

Wednesday, Aug. 26, 1998 | 11:28 a.m.

MOST OF THE CASINO operators -- and there weren't too many in those days -- stood up for Hank Greenspun. Men such as Benny Binion, Wilbur Clark, Jakie Friedman and Al Parvin saw Hank as a stand-up guy who could take the heat and call the shots as he saw them -- even if he stepped on their toes with a heavy journalistic boot at times.

Even Moe Dalitz, a gentle ex-Clevelander who was mentioned at times in the same breath as citizens whose membership included Murder Incorporated, La Cosa Nostra, Al Capone's Chicago associates and The League of Women Voters, was a Hank booster.

On one memorable occasion when Hank was being attacked from all sides by troops managed by the sheriff of Clark County, he acquired front-page justice by picturing the sheriff riding a bicycle. His caption on the photo, as I recall, called public attention to the fact that the bike rider was caught "peddling." Not "pedalling," you understand. What Hank was riding the sheriff about was his alleged cash communion with the owners of ROXY's Fourmyle -- way out there on the Boulder Highway in the same area where the Showboat hotel and casino now flourishes. Let us make it crystal clear that the Showboat had no relationship with that infamous establishment either before or after ROXY's was shut down, once and for all.

ROXY's Fourmyle? The French would describe it as a "Maison d'Tolerance." Brothel operator Joe Conforte would say, "You mean it's a whorehouse." Right.

The sheriff was livid. Hank felt that the local sheriff had no business being intimately involved in this kind of business. It was not only illegal in Clark County, but it reeked of white slavery, political fixes and narcotic addiction of the svelte ladies of the evening and their younger sisters, enticed into the basic-training calisthenics demanded by the procession.

Nevada's numerous whoremasters and pimps took umbrage at Hank's bicycle expose. Some even canceled their Sun subscriptions, it is said.

Most of Hank's editorial crusades were directed toward nobler enterprises. Honest elections. The dismal plight of the black population herded into that part of Las Vegas called the Westside. Overcrowding in classrooms. Foul, inadequate jails. The miseries of the homeless. Con artists. Racketeers.

Hanks's indelible markings in our own Book of Virtues is topped with his editorial work circa 1954-56 when thousands of U.S. citizens -- 9,000 in Clark County -- filed for a small-tract homesite on the public lands in and around Las Vegas. He enlisted the support of Las Vegas attorney Mort Galane and then-U.S. Rep. Cliff Young in a two-year court battle that wound its way thru the Bureau of Land Management and Department of Interior, thence into the appeals court after which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the contention of the homesiters: The so-called miners who had filed sand and gravel mining claims on the homesite lands were attempting to use the venerable 1892 Mining Laws as a ruse to come into possession of the public domain previously classified by the Secretary of Interior as in best use for homesites. The phony mining claims were voided.

An estimated 40,000 to 50,000 citizens received their government land patents (i.e., "deeds") following the Supreme Court decision issued in 1956. The homesite tracts were either 1 1/4, 2 1/2 or five acres. The tract purchase prices: From $60 to $1,200.

A land speculator named Colonel Bradley owned one of the $1,200 tracts. It was a five-acre "piece of ground" on the same corner of Bond Road and U.S. Highway 95. Today, the same corner is shown on the map as Tropicana Avenue and the fabulous Las Vegas Strip -- also recognized as Las Vegas Boulevard South.

In the early 1950s, Colonel Bradley offered his five-acre homesite for sale. He was asking $64,000. Most locals thought he ought to be declared legally insane for putting such a ridiculously high price on a small piece of desert way out in the middle of nowhere. Yes, this is the corner that now houses the luxurious resort known as the Tropicana hotel-casino.

A biography worthy of Hank Greenspun has yet to be written. Hopefully, a skilled writer will assume this literary challenge.

Until a retrospective, updated chronicle of Hank's career is written, there is the excellent book Hank co-authored with Alex Pelle: Where I Stand -- The Record of a Reckless Man (hard cover, 304 pages).

For a recounting of Vegas gaming from the time Hank moved here from Springfield, Mass., in 1946 (he was born in Brooklyn in 1909) with his wife, Barbara, and their expanding brood, I would suggest "The Green Felt Jungle."

Still, the fascinating story of Las Vegas that began in 1905 and became the 20th century's most dazzling and fastest-growing city should enlist the insights and shared experiences of his wife, Barbara, who married Hank in Belfast, Ireland, in 1944, and is now the Sun's publisher; Hank's son, Brian Greenspun, the paper's president and editor; Mike O'Callaghan, executive editor and chairman of the Sun's board of directors; Ruthe Deskin, longtime assistant to the publisher; Sandra Thompson, vice president/associate editor; Michael J. Kelley, managing editor; Myram Borders, former UPI bureau chief who now directs the Las Vegas News Bureau; Nevada Gov. Bob Miller; Kenneth Bouton, former Sun investigative reporter/columnist; banking executive E. Parry Thomas; attorney Mort Galane; Nevada Supreme Court Justice Cliff Young; and so many others who love our town.

To me, Hank was more than a role model. He was a hero. The definitive book on Las Vegas will have a literary imperative named Hank Greenspun.