Kitabı oku: «The Boss, and How He Came to Rule New York», sayfa 12
The reputable old gentleman made a most amazing Major. He was puffed with a vanity that kissed the sky. Honest, and by nature grateful, he was still so twisted as to believe that to be a good Mayor one must comport himself in an inhuman way.
“Public office is a public trust!” cried he, quoting some lunatic abstractionist.
The reputable old gentleman’s notion of discharging this trust was to refuse admittance to his friends, while he sat in council with his enemies. To show that he was independent, he granted nothing to ones who had builded him; to prove himself magnanimous, he went truckling to former foes, preferring them into place. As for me, he declined every suggestion, refused every name, and while there came no open rupture between us, I was quickly taught to stay away.
“My luck with my father,” said Morton, when one day we were considering that lofty spirit of the reputable old gentleman, “is no more flattering than your own, don’t y’ know. He waves me away with a flourish. I reminded him that while he might forget me as one who with trowel and mortar had aided to lay the walls of his career, he at least should remember that I was none the less his son; I did, really! He retorted with the story of the Roman father who in his rôle as judge sentenced his son to death. Gad! he seemed to regret that no chance offered for him to equal though he might not surpass that noble example. Speaking seriously, when his term verges to its close, what will be your course? You know the old gentleman purposes to succeed himself. And, doubtless, since such is mugwump thickness, he’ll be renominated.”
“Tammany,” said I, “will fight him. We’ll have a candidate on a straight ticket of our own. His honor, your father, will be beaten.”
“On my soul! I hope so,” exclaimed Morton. “Don’t you know, I expect every day to find him doing something to Mulberry Traction – trying to invalidate its franchise, or indulging in some similar piece of humor. I shall breathe easier with my parent returned to private life – really!”
“Never fear; I’ll have the city in the hollow of my hand within the year,” said I.
“I will show you where to find a million or two in Wall Street, if you do,” he returned.
The downfall of the reputable old gentleman was already half accomplished. One by one, I had cut the props from beneath him. While he would grant me no contracts, and yield me no offices for my people, he was quite willing to consider my advice on questions of political concern. Having advantage of this, I one day pointed out that it was un-American to permit certain Italian societies to march in celebration of their victories over the Pope long ago. Why should good Catholic Irish-Americans be insulted with such exhibitions! These Italian festivals should be kept for Italy; they do not belong in America. The reputable old gentleman, who was by instinct more than half a Know Nothing, gave warm assent to my doctrines, and the festive Italians did not celebrate.
Next I argued that the reputable old gentleman should refuse his countenance to the Irish exercises on St. Patrick’s Day. The Irish were no better than the Italians. He could not make flesh of one and fish of the other. The reputable old gentleman bore testimony to the lucid beauty of my argument by rebuffing the Irish in a flame of words in which he doubted both their intelligence and their loyalty to the land of their adoption. In another florid tirade he later sent the Orangemen to the political right-about. The one powerful tribe he omitted to insult were the Germans, and that only because they did not come within his reach. Had they done so, the reputable old gentleman would have heaped contumely upon them with all the pleasure in life.
It is not needed that I set forth how, while guiding the reputable old gentleman to these deeds of derring, I kept myself in the background. No one knew me as the architect of those wondrous policies. The reputable old gentleman stood alone; and in the inane fullness of his vanity took a deal of delight in the uproar he aroused.
There was an enemy of my own. He was one of those elegant personalities who, in the elevation of riches and a position to which they are born, find the name of Tammany a synonym for crime. That man hated me, and hated the machine. But he loved the reputable old gentleman; and, by his name and his money, he might become of utmost avail to that publicist in any effort he put forth to have his mayorship again.
One of the first offices of the city became vacant, that of chamberlain. I heard how the name of our eminent one would be presented for the place. That was my cue. I instantly asked that the eminent one be named for that vacant post of chamberlain. It was the earliest word which the reputable old gentleman had heard on the subject, for the friends of the eminent one as yet had not broached the business with him.
When I urged the name of the eminent one, the reputable old gentleman pursed up his lips and frowned. He paused for so long a period that I began to fear lest he accept my suggestion. To cure such chance, I broke violently in upon his cogitations with the commands of the machine.
“Mark you,” I cried, in the tones wherewith I was wont in former and despotic days to rule my Tin Whistles, “mark you! there shall be no denial! I demand it in the name of Tammany Hall.”
The sequel was what I sought; the reputable old gentleman elevated his crest. We straightway quarreled, and separated in hot dudgeon. When the select bevy who bore among them the name of the eminent one arrived upon the scene, the reputable old gentleman, metaphorically, shut the door in their faces. They departed in a rage, and the fires of their indignation were soon communicated to the eminent one.
As the result of these various sowings, a nodding harvest of enemies sprung up to hate and harass the reputable old gentleman. I could tell that he would be beaten; he, with the most formidable forces of politics against him solid to a man! To make assurance sure, however, I secretly called to me the Chief of Police. In a moment, the quiet order was abroad to close the gambling resorts, enforce the excise laws against saloons, arrest every contractor violating the ordinances regulating building material in the streets, and generally, as well as specifically, to tighten up the town to a point that left folk gasping.
No one can overrate the political effect of this. New York has no home. It sits in restaurants and barrooms day and night. It is a city of noisome tenements and narrow flats so small that people file themselves away therein like papers in a pigeonhole.
These are not homes: they grant no comfort; men do not seek them until driven by want of sleep. It is for the cramped reasons of flats and tenements that New York is abroad all night. The town lives in the streets; or, rather, in those houses of refreshment which, open night and day, have thrown away their keys.
This harsh enforcement of the excise law, or as Old Mike put it, “Gettin’ bechune th’ people an’ their beer,” roused a wasps’ nest of fifty thousand votes. The reputable old gentleman was to win the stinging benefit, since he, being chief magistrate, must stand the brunt as for an act of his administration.
Altogether, politically speaking, my reputable old gentleman tossed and bubbled in a steaming kettle of fish when he was given his renomination. For my own side, I put up against him a noble nonentity with a historic name. He was a mere jelly-fish of principle – one whose boneless convictions couldn’t stand on their own legs. If the town had looked at my candidate, it would have repudiated him with a howl. But I knew my public. New York votes with its back to the future. Its sole thought is to throw somebody out of office – in the present instance, the offensive reputable old gentleman – and this it will do with never a glance at that one who by the effect of the eviction is to be raised to the place. No, I had no apprehensions; I named my jelly-fish, and with a straight machine-made ticket, mine from truck to keel, shoved boldly forth. This time I meant to own the town.
CHAPTER XVIII – HOW THE BOSS TOOK THE TOWN
THE reputable old gentleman was scandalized by what he called my defection, and told me so. That I should put up a ticket against him was grossest treason.
“And why should I not?” said I. “You follow the flag of your interest; I but profit by your example.”
“Sir!” cried the reputable old gentleman haughtily, “I have no interest save the interest of The public.”
“So you say,” I retorted, “and doubtless so you think.” I had a desire to quarrel finally and for all time with the reputable old gentleman, whose name I no longer needed, and whose fame as an excise purist would now be getting in my way. “You deceive yourself,” I went on. “Your prime motive is to tickle your own vanity with a pretense of elevation. From the pedestal of your millions, and the safe shelter of a clean white shirt, you patronize mankind and play the prig. That is what folk say of you. As to what obligation in your favor rests personally upon myself, I have only to recall your treatment of my candidate for that place of chamberlain.”
“Do you say men call me a prig?” demanded the reputable old gentleman with an indignant start. He ignored his refusal of the eminent one as chamberlain.
“Sir, I deny the term ‘prig.’ If such were my celebration, I should not have waited to hear it from you.”
“What should you hear or know of yourself?” said I. “The man looking from his window does not see his own house. He who marches with it, never sees the regiment of which he is a unit. No more can you, as mayor, see yourself, or estimate the common view concerning you. It is your vanity to seem independent and above control, and you have transacted that vanity at the expense of your friends. I’ve stood by while others went that road, and politically at least it ever led down hill.”
That was my last conference with the reputable old gentleman. I went back to Fourteenth Street, and called on my people of Tammany to do their utmost. Nor should I complain of their response, for they went behind their batteries with the cool valor of buccaneers.
There was but one question which gave me doubt, and that was the question of the Australian ballot, then a novelty in our midst. Theretofore, a henchman of the machine went with that freeman to the ballot-box, and saw to it how he put no cheat upon his purchasers. Now our commissioners could approach a polls no nearer than two hundred feet; the freeman went in alone, took his folded ticket from the judges, retired to privacy and a pencil, and marked his ballot where none might behold the work. Who then could know that your mercenary, when thus removed from beneath one’s eye and hand, would fight for one’s side? I may tell you the situation was putting a wrinkle in my brow when Morton came lounging in.
“You know I’ve nothing to do with the old gentleman’s campaign,” said he, following a mouthful or two of commonplace, and puffing the while his usual cigarette. “Gad! I told him that I had withdrawn from politics; I did, really! I said it was robbing me of all fineness; and that I must defend my native purity of sensibility, don’t y’ know, and preserve it from such sordid contact.
“‘Father,’ said I, ‘you surely would not, for the small cheap glory of a second term, compel me into experiences that must leave me case-hardened in all that is spiritual?’
“No, he made no reply; simply turned his back upon me in merited contempt. Really, I think he was aware of me for a hypocrite. It was beastly hard to go back on the old boy, don’t y’ know! But for what I have in mind it was the thing to do.”
Now, when I had him to counsel with, I gave Morton my troubles over the Australian law. The situation, generally speaking, showed good; the more because there were three tickets in the field. Still, nothing was sure. We must work; and we must omit no usual means of adding to our strength. And the Australian law was in our way.
“Really, you’re quite right,” observed Morton, polishing his eyeglass meditatively. “To be sure, these beasts of burden, the labor element, have politically gone to pieces since our last campaign. But they are still wandering about by twos and threes, like so many lost sheep, and unless properly shepherded – and what a shepherd’s crook is money! – they may fall into the mouths of opposition wolves, don’t y’ know. What exasperating dullards these working people are! I know of but one greater fool than the working man, and that is the fool he works for! And so you say this Australian law breeds uncertainty for our side?”
“There is no way to tell how a man votes.”
Morton behind that potent eyeglass narrowed his gaze to the end of his nose, and gave a full minute to thought. Then his eyes, released from contemplation of his nose, began to brighten. I placed much reliance upon the fertility of our exquisite, for all his trumpery affectations of eyeglass and effeminate mannerisms, and I waited with impatience for him to speak.
“Really, now,” said he, at last, “how many under the old plan would handle your money about each polling place?”
“About four,” I replied. “Then at each polling booth there would be a dozen pullers-in, to bring up the voters, and go with them to see that they put in the right ballots. This last, you will notice, is by the Australian system made impossible.”
“It is the duty of artillery people,” drawled Morton, “whenever the armor people invent a plate that cannot be perforated by guns in being, don’t y’ know, to at once invent a gun that shall pierce it. The same holds good in politics. Gad! we must invent a gun that shall knock a hole through this Australian armor; we must, really! A beastly system, I should call it, which those beggarly Australians have constructed! It’s no wonder: they are all convicts down there, and it would need a felon to devise such an interference. However, this is what I suggest. You must get into your hands, we’ll put it, five thousand of the printed ballots in advance of election day. This may be secretly done, don’t y’ know, by paying the printers where the tickets are being struck off. A printer is such an avaricious dog; he is, really! The tickets would be equally distributed among those men with the money whom you send about the polling places. A ballot in each instance should be marked with the cross for Tammany Hall before it is given to the recruit. He will then carry it into the booth in his pocket. Having received the regular ticket from the hands of the judges, he can go through the form of retiring, don’t y’ know; then reappear and give in the ticket which was marked by your man of the machine.”
“And yet,” said I breaking in, “I do not see how you’ve helped the situation. The recruit might still vote the ticket handed him by the judges, for all our wisdom. Moreover, it would be no easy matter to get hold of fifty thousand tickets, all of which we would require to make sure. Five thousand we might manage, but that would not be enough.”
“You should let me finish; you should, really!” returned Morton. “One would not pay the recruit until he returned to that gentleman of finance with whom he was dealing, don’t y’ know, and put into his hands the unmarked ballot with which the judges had endowed him. That would prove his integrity; and it would also equip your agent with a new fresh ballot against the next recruit. Thus you would never run out of ballots. Gad! I flatter myself, I’ve hit upon an excellent idea, don’t y’ know!” and with that, Morton began delicately to caress his mustache, again taking on his masquerade of the ineffably inane.
Morton’s plan was good; I saw its merits in a flash. He had proposed a sure system by which the machine might operate in spite of that antipodean law. We used it too, and it was half the reason of our victory. Upon its proposal, I extended my compliments to Morton.
“Really, it’s nothing,” said he, as though the business bored him. “Took the hint from football, don’t y’ know. It is a rule of that murderous amusement, when you can’t buck the center, to go around the ends. But I must have a ride in the park to rest me; I must, really! I seldom permit myself to think – it’s beastly bad form to think – and, therefore, when I do give my intelligence a canter, it fatigues me beyond expression. Well, good-by! I shall see you when I am recuperated. Meanwhile, you must not let that awful parent of mine succeed; it would be our ruin, don’t y’ know!” and Morton glared idiotically behind the eyeglass at the thought of the reputable old gentleman flourishing through a second term. “Yes, indeed,” he concluded, “the old boy would become a perfect juggernaut!”
Morton’s plan worked to admiration. The mercenary was given a ballot, ready marked; and later he returned with the one which the judges gave him, took his fee, and went his way.
In these days, when the ballot furnished, by the judges is stamped on the back, each with its separate number in red ink, which number is set opposite a voter’s name at the time he receives the ballot, and all to be verified when he brings it again to the judges for deposit in the box, the scheme would be valueless. There lies no open chance for the substitution of a ready-made ballot, because of the deterrent number in red ink.
Under these changed conditions, however, as Morton declared they must, the gunners of party have invented both the projectile and the rifle to pierce this new and stronger plate. The party emblems, the Eagle, the Star, the Ship, and other totems of partisanship, are printed across the head of the ticket in black accommodating ink. The recruit now makes his designating cross with a pencil that is as soft as fresh paint. Then he spreads over the head of the ticket, as he might a piece of blotting paper, a tissue sheet peculiarly prepared. A gentle rub of the fingers across the tissue, stains it plainly with the Eagle, the Star, the Ship, and the entire procession of totems; also, it takes with the rest an impression of that penciled cross. This tissue, our recruit brings to that particular paymaster of the forces with whom he is in barter, and a glance answers the query was the vote made right or wrong. If “right” the recruit has his reward; if “wrong,” he is spurned from the presence as one too densely ignorant to be of use.
The reputable old gentleman, when the vote came on, was overpowered; he retired to private life, inveighing against republics for that they were ungrateful. My jelly-fish of historic blood took his place as mayor, and Tammany dominated every corner of the town. My word was absolute from the bench of the jurist to the beat of the policeman; the second greatest city in the world, with every dollar of its treasure, was in my hands to do with it as I would. I drew a swelling sense of comfort from the situation which my breast had never known.
And yet, I was not made mad by this sudden grant of power. I knew by the counsel of Big Kennedy, and the dungeon fate of that Boss who was destroyed, that I must light a lamp of caution for my journeyings. Neither the rôle of bully, nor the bluff method of the highwayman, would serve; in such rough event, the people, overhanging all, would be upon one like an avalanche. One must proceed by indirection and while the common back was turned; one, being careful, might bleed the public while it slept.
When the town in its threads was thus wholly in my hands, with every office, great or small, held by a man of the machine, Morton came to call upon me.
“And so you’re the Czar!” said he.
“You have the enemy’s word for it,” I replied. “‘Czar’ is what they call me in their papers when they do not call me ‘rogue.’”
“Mere compliments, all,” returned Morton airily. “Really, I should feel proud to be thus distinguished. And yet I’m surprised! I was just telling an editor of one of our rampant dailies: ‘Can’t you see,’ said I, ‘that he who speaks ill of his master speaks ill of himself? To call a man a scoundrel or an ignoramus, is to call him weak, since neither is a mark of strength. And when you term him scoundrel and ignoramus who has beaten you, you but name yourself both viler, weaker still. Really,’ I concluded, ‘if only to preserve one’s own standing, one should ever speak well of one’s conqueror, don’t y’ know!’ But it was of no use; that ink-fellow merely scowled and went his way. However, to discuss a theory of epithet was not my present purpose. Do you recall how, on the edge of the campaign, I said that if you would but win the town I’d lead you into millions?”
“Yes,” said I, “you said something of the sort.”
“You must trust me in this: I understand the market better than you do, don’t y’ know. Perhaps you have noticed that Blackberry Traction is very low – down to ninety, I think?”
“No,” I replied, “the thing is news to me. I know nothing of stocks.”
“It’s as well. This, then, is my road to wealth for both of us. As a first move, don’t y’ know, and as rapidly as I can without sending it up, I shall load myself for our joint account with we’ll say – since I’m sure I can get that much – forty thousand shares of Blackberry. It will take me ten days. When I’m ready, the president of Blackberry will call upon you; he will, really! He will have an elaborate plan for extending Blackberry to the northern limits of the town; and he will ask, besides, for a half-dozen cross-town franchises to act as feeders to the main line, and to connect it with the ferries. Be slow and thoughtful with our Blackberry president, but encourage him. Gad! keep him coming to you for a month, and on each occasion seem nearer to his view. In the end, tell him he can have those franchises – cross-town and extensions – and, for your side, go about the preliminary orders to city officers. It will send Blackberry aloft like an elevator, don’t y’ know! Those forty thousand shares will go to one hundred and thirty-five – really!”
Two weeks later Morton gave me the quiet word that he held for us a trifle over forty thousand shares of Blackberry which he had taken at an average of ninety-one. Also, he had so intrigued that the Blackberry’s president would seek a meeting with me to consider those extensions, and discover my temper concerning them.
The president of Blackberry and I came finally together in a parlor of the Hoffman House, as being neutral ground. I found him soft-voiced, plausible, with a Hebrew cast and clutch. He unfurled his blue-prints, which showed the proposed extensions, and what grants of franchises would be required.
At the beginning, I was cold, doubtful; I distrusted a public approval of the grants, and feared the public’s resentment.
“Tammany must retain the people’s confidence,” said I. “It can only do so by protecting jealously the people’s interests.”
The president of Blackberry shrugged his shoulders. He looked at me hard, and as one who waited for my personal demands. He would not speak, but paused for me to begin. I could feel it in the air how a halfmillion might be mine for the work of asking. I never said the word, however; I had no mind to put my hand into that dog’s mouth.
Thus we stood; he urging, I considering the advisability of those asked-for franchises. This was our attitude throughout a score of conferences, and little by little I went leaning the Blackberry way.
To be sure, the secret of our meetings was whispered in right quarters, and every day found fresh buyers for Blackberry. Meanwhile, the shares climbed high and ever higher, until one bland April morning they stood at one hundred and thirty-seven.
Throughout my series of meetings with the president of Blackberry, I had seen no trace of Morton. For that I cared nothing, but played my part slowly so as to give him time, having confidence in his loyalty, and knowing that my interest was his interest, and I in no sort to be worsted. On that day when Blackberry showed at one hundred and thirty-seven, Morton appeared. He laid down a check for an even million of dollars.
“I’ve been getting out of Blackberry for a week,” said he, with his air of delicate lassitude. “I found that it was tiring me, don’t y’ know; I did really! Besides, we’ve done enough: No gentlemen ever makes more than one million on a single turn; it’s not good form.” That check, drawn to my order, was the biggest of its kind I’d ever handled. I took it up, and I could feel a pringling to my finger-ends with the contact of so much wealth all mine. I envied my languid friend his genius for coolness and aplomb. He selected a cigarette, and lighted it as though a million here and there, on a twist of the market, was a commonest of affairs. When I could command my voice, I said:
“And now I suppose we may give Blackberry its franchises?”
“No, not yet,” returned Morton. “Really, we’re not half through. I’ve not only gotten rid of our holdings, but I’ve sold thirty-five thousand shares the other way. It was a deuced hard thing to do without sending the stock off – the market is always so beastly ready to tumble, don’t y’ know. But I managed it; we’re now short about thirty-five thousand shares at one hundred and thirty-seven.”
“What then?” said I.
“On the whole,” continued Morton, with just a gleam of triumph behind his eyeglass, “on the whole, I think I should refuse Blackberry, don’t y’ know. The public interest would be thrown away; and gad! the people are prodigiously moved over it already, they are, really! It would be neither right nor safe. I’d come out in an interview declaring that a grant of what Blackberry asks for would be to pillage the town. Here, I’ve the interview prepared. What do you say? Shall we send it to the Daily Tory?”
The interview appeared; Blackberry fell with a crash. It slumped fifty points, and Morton and I were each the better by fairly another million. Blackberry grazed the reef of a receivership so closely that it rubbed the paint from its side.
