Thompson and Dundy made a great team but they couldn’t have been more different, in their backgrounds or temperament. Thompson was a spendthrift with a weakness for drink. Dundy was focused and had a steely core. He helped keep his business partner on track and was the one person who could persuade Thompson to leave the bar when alcohol got too strong a grip on him. But Dundy had his own vices, namely women and gambling. Just as Dundy helped him, Thompson would return the favor on occasion, turning up at the gaming tables when he got word that Dundy was on a losing streak. The two men worked hard and didn’t believe in keeping books.8 Despite their differences, they rarely argued, perhaps because of their shared worldview that in order to make a fortune they would first have to spend one.
It was this shared worldview that had led them to where they now stood on the evening of April 12, 1905, in an office high above the Hippodrome stage, where they took a few moments away from the crowds to drink a toast to each other and their latest venture. If they could pull this off, the Hippodrome’s opening-night spectacular, then the sky really was the limit. Two upstarts from Coney Island dragging the theater spotlight away from Broadway and over to Sixth Avenue. Who’d ever heard the like? They looked each other in the eye as they threw back their drinks. A knock at the door of Thompson’s office signaled it was time to go.
Thompson slapped Dundy firmly on the back. The two men put down their glasses and stepped outside the door. They would meet again when the curtain fell. By then their fate would be known. Thompson made his way downstairs. He wanted to make a final check backstage. Dundy was far more superstitious than he cared to admit, and, during his time at Coney, he had come to regard elephants as his lucky charm. At his insistence, the auditorium of the Hippodrome had been festooned with ornamental bronze Indian and African elephant heads, cast especially for him at great expense. Their tusks held electric lightbulbs. Before seating himself in his box, Dundy reached up to give the trunk of one of his beloved elephant lamps a rub for good luck. Thompson had taken two boxes next to Dundy’s for himself and his friends but Thompson’s own seat would remain empty for most of the evening as the popular frontman dashed around backstage, ensuring the show went off without a hitch.
Dundy surveyed the crowded auditorium. Along with the rich and famous in their fine evening wear were hundreds of ordinary hardworking Americans dressed in their Sunday best. It was exactly the mix Thompson and Dundy strove to bring to all of their attractions. Tickets for that night’s opening gala ranged from $575 for a seat in a private box down to 25 cents for a seat in the family circle—the same price Thompson and Dundy charged for their top attractions at Luna Park. To their delight, the pair would learn later that the Hippodrome’s box office raked in twenty thousand dollars that night (more than half a million dollars in today’s money).9
The audience was treated to the show of a lifetime. Beautiful young women in pink leotards spun in midair using nothing but their teeth to grip the thinnest of ropes. Dundy’s beloved elephants danced. Cavalry troops on horseback dodged gunfire and explosions in a mock battle that raged across an eight-thousand-gallon clear glass water tank that was raised from below the stage by hydraulic pistons. A thousand dancers, actors, and circus performers filled the stage with color and action. “Magnificent, astounding and almost paralysing in its brilliance,” was the verdict of one critic.10 New York had never seen anything like it. When the curtain came down, the audience leaped to their feet, clapping, cheering, and shouting, “Hip, hip for The Hippodrome.”11
The triumphant opening would have satisfied the ambitions of lesser men but it only served to drive Thompson and Dundy on, as they turned their attention to their next scheme.
The Igorrotes were coming. Thompson was determined to get them for Luna Park—at any price. By now they must have landed on American soil. When Truman had cabled from Kobe, Thompson had made him an offer and urged Truman to give him first refusal on the Igorrotes. He was expecting to hear from the showman again any day now.
5
Welcome to America
EN ROUTE TO SEATTLE, APRIL 18, 1905
Sketch from the Seattle Sunday Times of two Igorrote men and a dog they are about to slaughter for a canine feast, by the artist L. C. Mullgardt
TRUMAN WOKE UP to the acrid smell of burning. Smoke was pouring from the hat in his lap. Throwing it onto the floor, he stamped the fire out. The Igorrotes looked over, intrigued. A cinder must have drifted across from the stove; it had burned a hole the size of a silver dollar in the crown. Darn it, that hat had cost him five dollars. Julio stifled a smile. Callahan and Moody laughed. Truman shot them a furious glance.
Truman and his charges were traveling in a private car attached to the Canadian Pacific regular passenger train. Most of the Igorrotes had never set eyes on a train before and it took them awhile to get used to its endless rocking and jolting. All of a sudden, Truman heard a loud retching sound. He looked around and saw Tainan bent double, with his head between his legs, vomit running down his bare calves. Truman gagged. He got up and moved to the other end of the carriage.
The showman rubbed his eyes. The air was heavy with the Igorrotes’ pipe smoke and fumes from the stoves and kerosene lamps. The conductor’s many duties included removing cinders from passengers’ eyes. The Filipinos were not permitted to eat in the dining car. For one thing Truman didn’t have the money; for another, the American passengers would have complained. Instead the tribespeople cooked rice and beans for themselves over a coal stove. They had just a bucket of sand to protect them and their wooden train car if the fire got out of control.
Truman cast his mind back to a more pleasant journey—the luxurious Pullman car that had carried him and Sallie from St. Louis to Oregon the previous year. They’d been on their way to be married and had been full of excitement, not to mention the numerous flutes of champagne they drank on the journey.
He was jolted out of his happy memory as the train screeched to a stop. Sedro-Woolley was a glorified railroad junction, where four lines converged just south of the Canadian border. It was an undistinguished place for the Igorrotes to make their American premiere, but Truman had banked on the fact that nothing ever happened here. He leaped from his seat and peered through the window. As he had planned, the platform was lined with pressmen and eager townsfolk. In this nowhere place, the arrival of the Igorrotes was big news.
The showman led the tribespeople on to the platform and turned to the waiting group of reporters. In a booming voice, he told them that his Igorrotes were “tired from their long sea voyage and complaining of being so long denied their customary diet of dog meat.”1 A burly man standing on the platform with a hunting dog recognized his cue and discreetly took the dog’s leash off.
At a signal from Fomoaley, the tribespeople charged along the platform. The crowd watched as the Filipinos closed in on the dog. When Tainan made a grab for its tail, the animal squealed and snarled.
Truman shouted a few harsh words in Bontoc and the Igorrotes came to a sudden stop. Feigning fury, Truman ushered them back onto the train. Tomorrow the newspapers from Seattle to Portland would be full of tales of the Igorrote savages who had burst from their carriage to attack an innocent American dog. Truman saved a final wave for the dog’s owner (who had been primed several days earlier by Truman’s advance man) as the train puffed on, taking the tribe closer to their fame.
The sky was already growing dark when they arrived in Seattle on the evening of April 19, 1905. Truman had rented a small cottage on Blanchard Street, an area given over to manufacturing and workers’ houses. They could stay there for a night or two until his local fixer found them somewhere cheaper. Truman told the Igorrotes to rest, though he could hear them talking long into the night. The showman sat up smoking. He felt excited about what lay ahead. A great adventure was about to begin.
The next morning Truman took a streetcar to the offices of the Seattle Daily Times, where a reporter was waiting to conduct the first big interview with the Filipinos�
� manager. Truman needed little prodding to sell the tribe. “It’s a fine lot we have . . . The natives are excellent dancers,” he enthused, though he confessed in a conspiratorial tone that “There was not much keen enjoyment in gathering the party [in their Philippine mountain home] . . . I walked more than 250 miles. It was impossible to ride or get through the country in any other way than on foot.”2
The showman said he had been inundated with volunteers, far more than he needed, due largely to the positive experience of the Igorrotes who had exhibited at the St. Louis Exposition the previous year. “The natives were greatly impressed by the stories told of the American visit [by] the party that attended the St. Louis Exposition,” said Truman.3 “All of those natives took home trinkets and money that created a great deal of comment and envy, but the stories of their travels and the unending versions of America’s wonderful development were the matters which aroused the deepest interest among the Igorrotes. They all wanted to see and to hear, and we could have brought almost any number had it been possible to do so,”4 he added.
Truman was ready to talk next about head-hunting rituals and dog feasts and was taken aback to find that the reporter wanted instead to discuss a new system of taxation that the Philippine Commission was considering rolling out to the remote areas of the islands. Puzzled, but never stuck for words, Truman said the group traveling with him was “strongly opposed to the collection of taxes.”5
The reporter called a photographer over, and Truman began dusting imaginary pieces of lint off his jacket and straightening his tie. Thankfully, he had worn his smartest suit. He must buy several copies of the paper, enough for his mother and sister back in Iowa, and Sallie, too. She would get a kick out of her husband’s newfound fame.
After his interview, Truman called in at the telegraph office. There was a message waiting for him from Henry W. Goode, the president of the Lewis and Clark Exposition, inviting him to Portland that week to discuss terms for setting up an Igorrote Village there. Truman telegraphed his reply: he would be delighted to take up the invitation. Thompson and Dundy would be waiting to hear from him, but Truman decided to hold off making contact until he heard what Goode had to say. There was another note from his local fixer, informing Truman that he’d found lodgings for the showman and his charges, over on Pike Street, near the wharf. Truman put the piece of paper with the address in his jacket pocket.
Truman was in good spirits when he returned to the little house on Blanchard Street. He opened the front door to discover the Igorrotes’ clothes hanging all over the place. The tribe had spent the day doing their laundry. The showman smiled and shouted to Julio to tell them all to pack up. They were moving to new accommodations.
Pike Street was a low, wide thoroughfare by the port and the railroad tracks. The smell from the San Juan fish-packing company mingled with the aroma of burning fat and animal flesh from the tannery across the street. Truman led the Igorrotes up to number twenty-two and opened the door. This would be their home until he decided where they were going next. The accommodations were basic, two big empty rooms, but they would do fine. Best of all, there was space for them to give performances, which would bring in some much-needed money. The showman instructed the Filipinos to make themselves at home. He was going out to spread the word that an exotic tribe had arrived in town, and they were giving daily performances in their Pike Street lodgings.
When Truman and his business partner Edmund Felder first came up with their plan to exhibit the tribe in America, they had written to the War Department seeking permission. In their letter, they declared their intention “to arrange for [the Igorrotes’] stay in this country for about two years, exhibiting them at the Portland Exhibition, at Coney Island, or other amusement centers, and at the larger State Fairs.”6
Clarence Edwards, head of the War Department’s Bureau of Insular Affairs, approved the plan to put the Igorrotes on display at the Lewis and Clark Exposition in Portland, timed to mark the centennial of Lewis and Clark passing through Oregon on their epic trek westward. The Exposition was planned as a piece of economic boosterism that would celebrate local, national, and international culture. But if exhibiting the Igorrotes in the educational, anthropological setting of an exposition was acceptable, Edwards had major doubts about showing the tribe in an amusement park.
Edwards wrote to the civil governor of the Philippines about Truman and Felder’s request, stating, “I rather deprecate the idea of taking these people to Coney Island and giving the people of the United States the idea that the majority of the people of the Philippines are similar to the Igorrots [sic] and Negritos, in the same way as I would rather deprecate the idea of having Apachee [sic] Indians travelling around to represent Americans.”7
By exhibiting the tribe in Portland, Truman would be abiding by the terms of his agreement with the government. But could the showman resist the lure of Coney’s big bucks?
Truman arrived in Portland on the morning of April 23, 1905, to find the Exposition grounds a hive of activity. He had brought Moody, Julio, and Fomoaley with him. Henry Goode welcomed his visitors and invited them to take a tour with him. The sound of hammers, shovels, and picks rang out as builders, carpenters, and plumbers put the finishing touches on the Exposition buildings. Once marshland forested with dogwoods, blackberry vines, and flowering currants, the grounds had been transformed into a wonderland of Spanish Renaissance-style buildings and ornamental gardens. The man charged with taming the wilderness was John Olmstead, the nephew of Frederick Law Olmstead, the celebrated creator of New York’s Central Park.
Goode showed them the large patch of ground he had earmarked for the Igorrotes and began enthusing about what a beautiful setting it was. The spot was overlooked by a hill. Truman pointed to it. This wouldn’t do at all. Goode was confused. Why was that a problem? Truman spoke slowly, as if to a child. If the Igorrote village could be seen from a hill, then any fairgoer would be able to climb up the slope and peer down into his village without paying a cent. The village needed to be moved. As they argued a third man walked over to join them. Truman, already in a foul mood at Goode’s stupidity, turned and noticed the man standing beside him was Edmund Felder. Without stopping to think, he swung for his erstwhile business partner but Goode grabbed his arm and held him back. Fomoaley and Julio stood silently watching the scene. Truman demanded to know what Felder was doing there. Without waiting for an answer, he screamed at him that he didn’t want to hear an apology, he would never forgive Felder for leaving him stranded in Manila without any money to get the tribespeople to America. But Felder ignored him. He was there to claim his share in the enterprise that he had been instrumental in setting up. Truman was livid.
Goode turned to the showman and tried to persuade him to cut Felder in on the deal as per their original plan. Outraged, Truman accused Goode of double-dealing and stormed off, threatening to sue Felder and vowing to take his Igorrotes elsewhere. The Portland deal was off. Moody, Julio, and Fomoaley hurried after him.
The Exposition’s director of concessions, John Wakefield, had been standing nearby and had witnessed the whole scene. He’d heard rumors that Truman had been speaking to Thompson and Dundy and sensed the showman was up to no good. When a group of reporters called later that day, Wakefield told them that Truman had stormed out of Portland in order “to raise a big hullabaloo and have the fact that [the Igorrotes] are here advertised over the country . . . as a result of the advertising they will receive they will be sought by all the amusement managers of the country.”8 Asked whether they would miss the Igorrotes in Portland, Wakefield, who as director of concessions had had a vested financial interest in the Igorrote deal, couldn’t contain his rage: “The majority of the board does not think [the Igorrotes] would be a great benefit to the Exposition any way, as they consider them a band of dirty little cannibals.”9
On the train to Seattle, Truman’s mind whirled with possibilities. Exhibiting the Igorrotes in Portland would have been easy money and would have satisfied t
he authorities who were anxious that the tribespeople should be exhibited in an “authentic” setting. But Truman felt sure he could make much more money at Coney Island or elsewhere on the American fair and amusement circuit. Getting the tribe to New York would be a logistical and financial headache, but once they were there the returns could be astronomical. Truman needed to come up with a plan fast.
The showman sent a telegram to Thompson as soon as he got back to Seattle. He lied that he had had a better offer for the Igorrotes and invited the Coney showman to increase his own bid. Then he made his way to Pike Street. When he opened the door to the Igorrotes’ room, he found them gathered around Falino, who lay on a pile of blankets on the floor. Maria was wiping the old man’s forehead with a damp cloth while Daipan tried to get him to drink sips of water. Truman went over and placed his hand on the patient’s brow. He had a raging fever and seemed to be slipping in and out of consciousness. There was no alternative but to get him to a hospital.
Truman spent much of the night at Providence Hospital with Falino, until a nurse sent him home. He was worried about the old man but decided to focus his attention on work. The next morning he contacted every newspaper in the area to tell them that the Igorrote tribespeople had landed safely on American soil and were celebrating with a huge outdoor show. Their tribal spectacular would be held an hour from downtown Seattle, in the forests of Blake Island. Here, on the former ancestral camping ground of the Suquamish tribe, the Filipinos would perform tribal dances, sing their native songs, throw spears, and cook up an authentic dogmeat feast.
The Lost Tribe of Coney Island Page 6