The Boss, and How He Came to Rule New York
“Have you given much attention to political economy?” This with an erudite cough. “Have you made politics a study?”
“From me cradle,” returned Old Mike. “Every Irishman does. I knew so much about politics before I was twinty-one, th’ British Government would have transhported me av I’d stayed in Dublin.”
“I should think,” said the reputable old gentleman, with a look of one who had found something to stand on, “that if you ran from tyranny in Ireland, you would refuse here to submit to the tyranny of Tammany Hall. If you couldn’t abide a Queen, how can you now put up with a Boss?”
“I didn’t run from th’ Queen, I ran from th’ laws,” said Old Mike. “As for the Boss – everything that succeeds has a Boss. The President’s a boss; the Pope’s a boss; Stewart’s a boss in his store down in City Hall Park. That’s right; everything that succeeds has a boss. Nothing is strong enough to stand the mishtakes av more than one man. Ireland would have been free th’ long cinturies ago if she’d only had a boss.”
“But do you call it good citizenship,” demanded the reputable old gentleman, not a trifle nettled by Old Mike’s hard-shell philosophy of state; “do you call it good citizenship to take your orders from a boss? You are loyal to Tammany before you are loyal to the City?”
“Shure!” returned Old Mike, puffing the puffs of him who is undisturbed. “Do ye ever pick up a hand in a game av ca-ards?” The reputable old gentleman seemed properly disgusted. “There you be then! City Government is but a game; so’s all government, Shure, it’s as if you an’ me were playin’ a game av ca-ards, this politics; your party is your hand, an’ Tammany is my hand. In a game of ca-ards, which are ye loyal to, is it your hand or the game? Man, it’s your hand av coorse! By the same token! I am loyal to Tammany Hall.”
That closed the discussion; the reputable old gentleman went his way, and one might tell by his face that the question to assail him was whether he had been in a verbal encounter with a Bedlamite or an Anarchist. He did not recognize me, nor was I sorry. I liked the reputable old gentleman because of that other day, and would not have had him discover me in what he so plainly felt to be dangerous company.
“He’s a mighty ignorant man,” said Old Mike, pointing after the reputable old gentleman with the stem of his pipe. “What this country has mosht to fear is th’ ignorance av th’ rich.”
It stood perhaps ten of the clock on the morning of election day when, on word sent me, I waited on Big Kennedy in his barroom. When he had drawn me into his sanctum at the rear, he, as was his custom, came pointedly to the purpose.
“There’s a fight bein’ made on me,” he said. “They’ve put out a lot of money on the quiet among my own people, an’ think to sneak th’ play on me.” While Big Kennedy talked, his eyes never left mine, and I could feel he was searching me for any flickering sign that the enemy had been tampering with my fealty. I stared back at him like a statue. “An’,” went on Big Kennedy, “not to put a feather-edge on it, I thought I’d run you over, an’ see if they’d been fixin’ you. I guess you’re all right; you look on the level.” Then swinging abruptly to the business of the day; “Have you got your gang ready?”
“Yes,” I nodded.
“Remember my orders. Five-thirty is the time. Go for the blokes with badges – th’ ticket peddlers. An’ mind! don’t pound’em, chase’em. Unless they stop to slug with you, don’t put a hand on’em.”
Being thus re-instructed and about to depart, I made bold to ask Big Kennedy if there were any danger of his man’s defeat. He shook his head.
“Not a glimmer,” he replied. “But we’ve got to keep movin’. They’ve put out stacks of money. They’ve settled it to help elect the opposition candidate – this old gent, Morton. They don’t care to win; they’re only out to make me lose. If they could take the Alderman an’ the police away from me, they would go in next trip an’ kill me too dead to skin. But it’s no go; they can’t make th’ dock. They’ve put in their money; but I’ll show’em a trick that beats money to a standstill.”
It was as I had surmised; Big Kennedy feared treachery and the underhand support of the enemy by men whom he called his friends. For myself, I would stand by him. Beg Kennedy was the only captain I knew.
To the commands of Big Kennedy, and their execution, I turned with as ready a heart as ever sent duck to drink. No impulse to disobey or desert so much as crossed my slope of thought. Tammany Hall has ever been military in its spirit. Big Kennedy was my superior officer, I but a subaltern; it was my province to accept his commands and carry them forward without argument or pause.
In full and proper season, I had my Tin Whistles in hand. I did not march them to the polling place in a body, since I was not one to obstreperously vaunt or flaunt an enterprise in advance. Also, I was too much the instinctive soldier to disclose either my force or my purpose, and I knew the value of surprise.
There were a round twenty of my Tin Whistles, each a shoulder-hitter and warm to shine in the graces of Big Kennedy. I might have recruited a double strength, but there was no need. I had counted the foe; the poll-tenders of the opposition numbered but ten; my twenty, and each a berserk of his fists, ought to scatter them like a flock of sparrows. My instructions given to my fellows were precisely Big Kennedy’s orders as given to me; no blows, no blood unless made necessary by resistance.
As the time drew down for action, my Tin Whistles were scattered about, sticking close to the elbows of the enemy, and waiting the signal. The polling booth was a small frame construction, not much larger than a Saratoga trunk. On other occasions it served as the office of a wood and coal concern. The table, with the ballot-box thereon, stood squarely in the door; behind it were the five or six officers – judges and tally clerks – of election. There was a crush and crowd of Big Kennedy’s clansmen to entirely surround the little building, and they so choked up the path that ones who had still to vote couldn’t push through. There arose, too, a deal of shoving and jostling, and all to a running uproar of profanity; affairs appeared to be drifting towards the disorderly.
The reputable old gentleman, his face red with indignation, was moving to and fro on the outskirts of the crowd, looking for a police officer. He would have him cut a way through the press for those who still owned votes. No officer was visible; the reputable old gentleman, even though he searched with that zeal common of candidates anxious for success, would have no aid from the constabulary.
“And this is the protection,” cried the reputable old gentleman, striding up to Big Kennedy, and shaking a wrathful finger in his face, “that citizens and taxpayers receive from the authorities! Here are scores of voters who are being blocked from the polls and robbed of their franchise. It’s an outrage!”
Big Kennedy smiled upon the reputable old gentleman, but made no other reply.
“It’s an outrage!” repeated the reputable old gentleman in a towering fury. “Do you hear? It’s an outrage on the taxpaying citizens of this town!”
“Look out, old man!” observed a young fellow who stood at Big Kennedy’s side, and who from his blackened hands and greasy blue shirt seemed to be the engineer of some tug. “Don’t get too hot. You’ll blow a cylinder head.”
“How dare you!” fumed the reputable old gentleman; “you, a mere boy by comparison! how dare you address me in such terms! I’m old enough, sir, to be your father! You should understand, sir, that I’ve voted for a president eight times in my life.”
“That’s nothin’,” returned the other gayly; “I have voted for a president eighty times before ten o’clock.”
In the midst of the laugh that followed this piece of characteristic wit, Big Kennedy crossed to where I stood.
“Send your boys along!” said he. “Let’s see how good you are.”
My whistle screamed the signal. At the first sharp note, a cry went up:
“The Tin Whistles! The Tin Whistles!”
It was done in a moment; a pair to a man, my Tin Whistles were sending their quarry down the streets as fast as feet might follow. And they obeyed directions; not a blow was struck, no blood was drawn; there was a hustling flurry, and the others took to their heels. The hard repute of the Tin Whistles was such that no ten were wild enough to face them or meet their charge.
As the Tin Whistles fell upon their victims, the press of men that surged about the polling place began to shout, and strain, and tug. Suddenly, the small building commenced to heave and lift suspiciously. It was as though an earthquake were busy at its base. The mob about the structure seemed to be rolling it over on its side. That would be no feat, with men enough to set hand upon it and carry it off like a parcel.
With the first heave there came shouts and oaths from those within. Then arose a crashing of glass, and the table was cast aside, as the threatened clerks and judges fought to escape through door and window. In the rush and scamper of it, a sharp hand seized the ballot-box.
Ten minutes the riot raged. It was calmed by Big Kennedy, who forced himself into the middle of the tumult, hurling men right and left with his powerful hands as though they were sacks of bran, while he commanded the peace in a voice like the roar of a lion.
Peace fell; the little building, which had not been overthrown, but only rocked and tipped, settled again to a decorous safe solidity; the judges and the clerks returned; the restored ballot-box again occupied the table.
As that active one, who had saved the ballot-box when the downfall of the building seemed threatened came edgewise through the throng, he passed close to Big Kennedy. The latter gave him a sharp glance of inquiry.
“I stuffed it full to the cover,” whispered the active one. “We win four to one, an’ you can put down your money on that!”
Big Kennedy nodded, and the zealot who saved the ballot-box passed on and disappeared.
When the Tin Whistles fell upon their prey, I started to go with them. But in a moment I saw there was no call; the foe went off at top flight, and my twenty would keep them moving. Thus reasoning, I turned again to see what was going forward about the booth.
My interest was immediately engaged by the words and actions of the reputable old gentleman, who, driven to frenzy, was denouncing. Big Kennedy and all who wore his colors as scoundrels without measure or mate.
“I defy both you and your plug-uglies,” he was shouting, flourishing his fist in the face of Big Kennedy, who, busy with his own plans, did not heed him. “This is a plot to stuff the ballot-box.”
The reputable old gentleman had gone thus far, when a hulking creature of a rough struck him from behind with a sandbag. I sprang forward, and fended away a second blow with my left arm. As I did so, I struck the rough on the jaw with such vengeful force that, not only did he drop like some pole-axed ox, but my right hand was fairly wrecked thereby. Without pausing to discover my own condition or that of the sandbag-wielding ruffian, I picked up the reputable old gentleman and bore him out of the crowd.
The reputable old gentleman had come by no serious harm; he was stunned a trifle, and his hat broken. With me to hold him up, he could stand on his feet, though still dazed and addled from the dull power of the blow. I beckoned a carriage which Big Kennedy had employed to bring the old and infirm to the polling place. It came at my signal, and I placed the reputable old gentleman inside, and told the driver to take him to his home. The reputable old gentleman was murmuring and shaking his head as he drove away. As I closed the carriage door, he muttered: “This is barbarous! That citizens and taxpayers should receive such treatment – ” The balance was lost in the gride of the wheels.
The hurly-burly had now ceased; all was as calm and equal as a goose pond.
“So you saved the old gentleman,” said Big Kennedy, as he came towards me. “Gratitude, I s’pose, because he stood pal to you ag’inst Sheeny Joe that time. Gratitude! You’ll get over that in time,” and Big Kennedy wore a pitying look as one who dwells upon another’s weakness. “That was Jimmy the Blacksmith you smashed. You’d better look out for him after this.” My dander was still on end, and I intimated a readiness to look out for Jimmy the Blacksmith at once.
“Mind your back now!” cautioned Big Kennedy, “and don’t take to gettin’ it up. Let things go as they lay. Never fight till you have to, d’ye see! an’ never fight for fun. Don’t go lookin’ for th’ Blacksmith until you hear he’s out lookin’ for you.” Then, as shifting the subject: “It’s been a great day, an’ everything to run off as smooth an’ true as sayin’ mass. Now let’s go back and watch’em count the votes.”
“Did we beat them?” I asked.
“Snowed’em under!” said Big Kennedy.
CHAPTER VI – THE RED JACKET ASSOCIATION
BIG KENNEDY’S success at the election served to tighten the rivets of his rule. It was now I looked to see him ferret forth and punish those renegades who had wrought against him in the dark. To my amazement he engaged himself in no such retaliatory labor. On the contrary he smiled on all about him like the sun at noon. Was it folly or want of heart that tied his hands? Assuredly it was error, and this I submitted to Old Mike. That veteran of policy disagreed with this, meanwhile beaming upon me in a way of fatherly cunning.
“Jawn knows his business,” said Old Mike. “Thim people didn’t rebel, they sold out. That’s over with an’ gone by. Everybody’ll sell ye out if he gets enough; that’s a rishk ye have to take. There’s that Limerick man, Gaffney, however; ye’ll see something happen to Gaffney. He’s one of thim patent-leather Micks an’ puts on airs. He’s schemin’ to tur-rn Jawn down an’ take th’ wa-ard. Ye’ll see something happen to that Limerick man, Gaffney.”
Gaffney made his money with flour and horse feed and hay and similar goods. Also, as Old Mike said, Gaffney was ambitious. It was within the week, when a midnight shower of stones smashed sash and glass and laid waste that offensive merchant’s place of business. Gaffney restored his sash and glass only to invite a second midnight storm of stones. Three times were Gaffney’s windows smashed by hands unknown; and no police officer would go within two blocks of Gaffney’s. In the end, Gaffney came to Big Kennedy. The latter met him with a hectoring laugh.
“Why do you come to me?” asked Big Kennedy. “Somebody’s been trying to smash the windows of my leadership for over a year, but I never went howling about it to you.”
Gaffney showed not a little shaken. He asked, in a manner sullen yet beaten, what he should do.
“I’d get out of th’ ward,” replied Big Kennedy as cool as ice. “Somebody’s got it in for you. Now a man that’ll throw a brick will light a match, d’ye see, an’ a feed store would burn like a tar barrel.”
“If I could sell out, I’d quit,” said Gaffney.
“Well,” responded Big Kennedy, “I always like to help a friend.”
Grocer Fogel bought Gaffney’s store, making a bargain.
This iron-bound lesson in practical politics I dwell on in full. I drew from it some notion of the stern character of that science. Old Mike, from the pinnacles of his hard experience, looked down to justify it.
“Gaffney would do th’ same,” said Old Mike, “if his ar-rm was long enough. Politics is a game where losers lose all; it’s like war, shure, only no one’s kilt – at any rate, not so many.”
As the days drew on, I grew in favor with Big Kennedy, and the blossom thereof took this color.
“Why don’t you start a club?” he asked one afternoon, as we sat in his sanctum. “You could bring two hundred young fellows together, couldn’t you?”
“Yes,” I replied. I spoke doubtfully; the suggestion was of the sharpest, and gave me no space to think. It was one, too, which asked questions of the kind that don’t answer themselves. “But where would they meet?” I put this after a pause.
“There’s the big lodgeroom over my saloon,” and Big Kennedy tossed his stubby thumb towards the ceiling. “You could meet there. There’s a dumb waiter from the bar to send up beer and smokes.”
“How about the Tin Whistles?” I hinted. “Would they do to build on?”
“Leave the Tin Whistles out. They’re all right as shoulder-hitters, an’ a swifter gang to help at the polls, or break up the opposition’s meetin’s, never walked the streets. But for a play of this kind, they’re a little off color. Your Tin Whistles can join, man by man, but if they do they must sing low. They mustn’t try to give the show; it’s the back seat for them. What you’re out for now is the respectable young workin’-man racket; that’s the lay.”
“But where’s the money?” said I. “These people I have in mind haven’t much money.”
“Of course not,” retorted Big Kennedy confidently, “an’ what little they have they want for beer. But listen: You get the room free. Then once a year your club gives an excursion on the river; it ought to sell hundreds of tickets because there’ll be hundreds of officeholders, an’ breweries, an’ saloon keepers, an’ that sort who’ll be crazy to buy’em. If they aint crazy to start with, you ought to be able to make’em crazy th’ first election that comes ‘round. The excursion should bring three thousand dollars over an’ above expenses, d’ye see. Then you can give balls in the winter an’ sell tickets. Then there’s subscriptions an’ hon’ry memberships. You’ll ketch on; there’s lots of ways to skin th’ cat. You can keep th’ club in clover an’ have some of the long green left. That’s settled then; you organize a young men’s club. You be president an’ treasurer; see to that. An’ now,” here Big Kennedy took me by the shoulder and looked me instructively in the eye, “it’s time for you to be clinchin’ onto some stuff for yourself. This club’s goin’ to take a lot of your time. It’ll make you do plenty of work. You’re no treetoad; you can’t live on air an’ scenery.” Big Kennedy’s look deepened, and he shook me as one who demands attention. “You’ll be president and treasurer, particularly treasurer; and I’ll chip you in this piece of advice. A good cook always licks his fingers.” Here he winked deeply.
This long speech was not thrown away. Big Kennedy, having delivered himself, lapsed into silence, while I sat ruminating ways and means and what initiatory steps I should take.
“What shall we call it?” I asked, as I arose to go.
“Give it an Indian name,” said Big Kennedy. “S’p-pose you call it the Red Jacket Association.”
Within the fortnight the Red Jackets held their maiden meeting. It was an hour rife of jubilation, fellowship, and cheer. While abstinence from drink was my guiding phrase, I made no point of that kind in the conduct of others, and a nearby brewery having contributed unlimited beer those whom it pleased lacked no reason for a light heart.
As Big Kennedy had advised, I was chosen for the double responsibilities of president and treasurer. I may say in my own compliment, however, that these honors came drifting to my feet. There were reasons for this aside from any stiffness of heart or fist-virtues which might be mine. I have said that I was by disposition as taciturn as a tree, and this wondrous gift of silence earned me the name of wisdom, I was looked upon as one whose depth was rival to the ocean’s. Stronger still, as the argument by which I rose, was my sobriety. The man who drinks, and whether it be little or much, never fails to save his great respect for him who sets whisky aside.
“An’ now,” remarked Big Kennedy, when the club had found fortunate birth, “with these Red Jackets to make the decent front, th’ Tin Whistles to fall back on for the rough work, and Gaffney out of th’ way, I call th’ ward cleaned up. I’ll tell you this, my son: after th’ next election you shall have an office, or there’s no such man as Big John Kennedy.” He smote the table with his heavy hand until the glasses danced.
“But I won’t be of age,” I suggested.
“What’s the difference?” said Big Kennedy. “We’ll play that you are, d’ye see. There’ll be no one fool enough to talk about your age if I’m at your side. We’ll make it a place in the dock department; that’ll be about your size. S’ppose we say a perch where there’s twelve hundred dollars a year, an’ nothin’ to do but draw th’ scads an’ help your friends.”
Jimmy the Blacksmith was an under-captain of Big Kennedy’s and prevailed as vote-master in the northern end of the ward. Within certain fixed frontiers, which ran on one side within a block of my home, it was the business of Jimmy the Blacksmith to have watch and ward. He had charge of what meetings were held, and under the thumb of Big Kennedy carried forward the campaign, and on election day got out the vote.
Having given the question its share of thought, I determined for myself on a forward, upward step. My determination – heart and soul – became agate-hard to drive Jimmy the Blacksmith from his place, and set up my own rule over that slender kingdom.
Nor would I say aught to Big Kennedy of this private war which I meditated. Not that he would have interfered either to thwart or aid me, but by the ethics of the situation, to give him such notice was neither proper nor expected. To fight Jimmy the Blacksmith for his crown was not only right by every rule of ward justice, but it was the thing encouraged as a plan best likely to bring the strongest to the fore. Take what you may, keep what you can! was a Tammany statute; I would be right enough in that overthrow of Jimmy the Blacksmith, I was bent upon, if only I proved strong enough to bring it about. No, I was not to give word of my campaign to Big Kennedy, it was none of his affair, and he would prefer to be ignorant since he was bound to stand neutral. It is policy thus to let the younger cocks try beak and spur among themselves; it develops leadership, and is the one sure way of safety in picking out your captains.
There was one drawback; I didn’t live within the region of which I would make prize. However, ambition edged my wits and I bethought me of a plan whereby I might plow around that stump.
It was my own good fortune that I had no love, but only hate, for Jimmy the Blacksmith. I was yet so softened of a want of years, that had we been friends I would have withheld myself from attacking him. Youth is generous, wherefore youth is weak. It is not until age has stopped these leaks in one’s nature, and one ceases to give and only lives to take and keep, that one’s estate begins to take on fat. Have the word, therefore, of him whose scars speak for his experience: that one will be wise who regards generosity as a malady, a mere disease, and sets to cure it with every sullen, cruel drug the case demands. I say it was my good luck to hate Jimmy the Blacksmith. He had never condoned that election-day blow, and I must confess there was reason for this hardness. His jaw had been broken, and, though mended, it was still all of one side and made of him a most forbidding spectacle. And he nursed a thought of revenge in his breast; there came a light to his eye when we met that belongs with none save him whose merest wish is murder. I would have had more than black looks, but his heart was of a pale and treacherous family that can strike no blow in front, and thus far the pathway of chance had not opened for him to come upon me unaware. For all of which, not alone my ambition, but my safety and my pleasure urged me about the destruction of Jimmy the Blacksmith.
That epithet of the Blacksmith was born of no labors of the forge. Jimmy the Blacksmith was no more a blacksmith than a bishop. If he ever did a day’s work, then the fact was already so far astern upon the tides of time that no eye of memory might discern it. The title was won in a brawl wherein he slew a man. True to his nature, Jimmy slunk away from his adversary and would not face him. He returned, carrying a blacksmith’s fore-hammer. Creeping behind the other, Jimmy suddenly cried, with an oath:
“I’ll clink your anvil for you!”
With that word, the hammer descended and the victim fell, skull crushed like an eggshell. It required a deal of perjury to save the murderer from noose and trap. I should not say he was set backward by this bloodshed, since most men feared him for it and stepped out of his way, giving him what he asked for in the name of their own safety. It was for this work he was called the Blacksmith, and he carried the word as though it were a decoration.