The Lost Tribe of Coney Island

by Claire Prentice

  Where the perspiration runs.

  Dressed alone in my complexion,

  With a palm-leaf fan, perchance,

  I would rather be a savage

  Than a magnate, wearing “pants.”19

  The Buffalo Courier considered a statement made by Fomoaley in the Independent that Igorrote women wouldn’t marry their men until they had taken a head. “Those Igorrote girls seem to be mighty particular,” read the article. “An American girl will be pleased with fine clothes and plenty of ice cream, but the Igorrote belle must be attracted by the exhibition of a head lopped off some neighbor. Tastes differ the world over.”20

  Sometimes the tribespeople found unlikely allies. Following an outcry from humane societies, Vogue sprang to the Filipinos’ defense. Of their taste for dog, the writer reflected, “Shocking, very, but after all is there any real difference between killing a calf and eating its flesh and performing a like operation on a dog?”21

  The tribespeople even had a puzzle named after them, the Igorrote Double Cross puzzle, “made of Philippine mahogany,” and described as “difficult and fascinating.”22

  But the real sign that the Igorrotes had been taken to America’s heart came in an advertising campaign. The Los Angeles–based company Bowles Bros. began using the Filipino tribe to sell their Short-O cooking oil with the words:

  We poked fun at the Igorrote

  Because he dined on dog

  And he, within, indulged a grin

  Because we fried potatoes in

  The fuming fat of hog.

  But that was many moons ago;

  We now are better bred.

  No more our distant, savage ward

  Can laugh because we fry in lard—

  It’s SHORT-O oil instead.

  SHORT-O Fries Everything23

  They were famous. America had fallen in love with them. But not everyone was in favor of the way the Filipino tribe was being exhibited. Cultural commentators and newspaper editorials called for them to be displayed in a more dignified, appropriate setting such as a museum or university. Others called for them to be returned to their homes in the Philippines. The Post Standard of Syracuse took a stand, demanding: “The less we have of exhibits of dog-eating Igorrotes and other backward people the better we shall be able to look the lower animals in the face.”24

  Savage or innocent, noble or childlike. The Igorrotes were like one of the distorting mirrors at the Coney funfair. How they were portrayed reflected the views of those looking at them more often than it gave a true picture of the Igorrotes themselves. And though the tribespeople never expressed a word about politics, they were constantly drawn into the debate about America’s place in the Philippines.

  The Filipinos who had been portrayed in a stereographic image popular at the 1904 World’s Fair as “Members of Uncle Sam’s Infant Class” were constantly signed up for one side in the argument or the other. The Democratic-leaning newspapers called for America to pull out of the Philippines, while those on the right pointed to the “savage” Igorrotes as evidence that the Filipinos were incapable of running their own country. This view was in stark contrast to that expressed in the New York Tribune, which described the Igorrotes as “stalwart specimens of mankind, so high in morality and industry that it has been said of them that they will eventually become dominant among the [Philippine] island people.”25

  Such lofty arguments couldn’t have been further from the minds of the crowds who came to see the tribe. On busy Saturdays and Sundays, they threw so many coins into the village that Truman instructed Callahan to go around with cloth bags every half hour to collect the money. When he took the coins to Truman in his office, the showman stuck his hand inside one of the bags and gave Callahan a handful. He wasn’t paying him much but he knew it was in his best interests to keep his security man happy.

  After Callahan had gone, Truman took the cloth bags one by one and tipped them upside down. Nickels, dimes, quarters, and silver dollars spilled out onto his desk. The showman began counting them. The tips totaled almost as much as the gate receipts. The tribe’s ability to make money had vastly outstripped even Truman’s expectations.

  10

  Head-hunting the Star Attraction

  LUNA PARK, JULY 1905

  The entrance to Luna Park, 1905

  IN THE SUMMER of 1905, a leading vaudeville promoter named Colonel John D. Hopkins came to Coney Island to see Truman. Colonel Hopkins’s military rank was honorary and self-awarded. He was a plump, white-haired, bespectacled man whose vigor made him seem a good deal younger than his seventy-five years. He was exceptionally vain and routinely deducted a decade and a half from his age. Hopkins was tenacious, quick-witted, and irascible. A former prizefighter in his native Australia, he had never lost his desire to win. No price was too high when it came to getting a star he wanted.1 The impresario’s gambles were frequently disastrous, though he hit gold regularly enough to stay comfortably afloat. One of the productions that almost sank him was the operetta HMS Pinafore, which he staged on a ship docked in a river. The extravagant production wiped out his savings but with typical resilience he quickly bounced back.2 He had many friends—and enemies—in the theatrical world. His friends included the actor John Wilkes Booth, who conversed with Hopkins just an hour before he assassinated President Lincoln in 1865, a fact Hopkins never tired of mentioning.3

  The day before his meeting with Truman, Hopkins caught a train from his home in St. Louis to New York City. He was determined not to return home without a contract in his pocket bearing the signature of Truman and giving him the right to exhibit the Igorrotes in America.

  He arrived at Luna Park to find Truman in a cheerful frame of mind. The two men shared a no-nonsense style and after exchanging a few pleasantries, they got straight down to business. Hopkins proposed using his many contacts to organize an Igorrote tour that would take the tribespeople to theaters, amusement parks, and town and county fairs across America. The impresario would put up the money to cover the initial costs of taking the tribe on the road. He could deliver confirmed bookings in Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and Kansas, with many more to follow. In return he wanted 50 percent of the profits.

  The prospect of a nationwide tour thrilled Truman. There was a lot of money to be made from stacking up short engagements. He had hoped to arrange a similar tour himself through the Elks. There was a lodge in most large American towns and cities and they often arranged charity events and carnivals. But so far Truman’s plan had failed. The lodges were run at the local level and trying to coordinate anything centrally was proving complicated.

  By October, Hopkins reasoned, Coney Island’s gates would be closed for the season. As temperatures dropped in the Northeast, bookings would become increasingly thin on the ground. Taking the fifty tribespeople farther afield would be costly. All this was true, but Truman was reluctant to give up half of his business without a fight. For three hours Truman and Hopkins wrangled and blustered with each other. By turns Hopkins was jovial and profane. A bottle of whiskey was sent for. Truman’s cigar box grew empty. The Igorrotes were going nowhere without Truman. But Hopkins had contacts, expertise, and exceedingly deep pockets, which could take them far. Finally the two men reached an agreement.

  Truman would allow fifteen of the tribespeople to go on the road with Hopkins. Hopkins would arrange the bookings for this group and he would take 60 percent of the profits they generated, with the rest going to Truman. Truman would keep the other thirty-five Filipinos. But, added the showman, he would retain overall control of all the tribespeople, including Hopkins’s group. Hopkins agreed. He had no intention of complying with such a ludicrous condition, but they would deal with that later. Contracts were drawn up and signed. That night the two men celebrated with a first-rate meal. During dinner, Hopkins mentioned that he wanted to leave with his Igorrotes as soon as possible. He planned to show them first in Kansas City and then in Louisville and St. Louis. Truman understood Hopkins’ impatience, but he explain
ed that the tribespeople had to be handled carefully. He would have to choose the right moment to tell them of the arrangement.

  Truman arrived home that night to find Sallie already asleep. Lying in bed next to her, the showman stared up at the ceiling and pondered the best way to tell the Igorrotes that the group was to be split up. He could ask Julio to do it. No, that wasn’t fair. He was their boss. And their friend. He should tell them himself. They would be upset. He wondered whether he could soften the blow by telling them it was just for a short time. He didn’t want to upset them any more than necessary.

  There was something about the colonel that Truman didn’t like or entirely trust, but he wasn’t in this game to make friends. Hopkins was a successful businessman and his grand tour would earn them a handsome profit. The showman would welcome the extra money.

  At the end of the week, Truman called the Filipinos together to tell them of his plan. He did his best to present the split as temporary. He read out the names of the fifteen Igorrotes who were going with Hopkins. The tribespeople sat in silence, digesting the news. Feloa, who was not part of the colonel’s group, was the first to speak up: When were they going? And for how long? Truman said that Hopkins would be taking them on the train the following morning. The other details were still to be finalized, but he hoped they wouldn’t be apart long. This wasn’t true, but Truman told himself it was a white lie. The tribespeople barely slept that night. The thought had never occurred to them that they might be split up.

  The following morning when the time came to say their good-byes, Maria hugged Tainan tightly. Hopkins had wanted to take Julio and Maria, but Truman had refused. He’d offered him Tainan instead. The boy spoke some English and could help translate. Tears coursed down Maria’s cheeks as Hopkins and his fifteen Igorrotes exited the village. Daipan, who was standing close by, put her arms around Maria and reminded her the others would be back soon. Truman gazed over at them. He caught Daipan’s eye and hurriedly looked away. He felt for them. Being alone in a strange place together had made the bonds between the tribespeople closer than ever.

  Coney Island had been good to Truman, but he didn’t want to get stuck there. His ambitions were bigger than Luna Park. He wanted to be the talk of America. And though he didn’t have Hopkins’s personal connections, Truman had already received offers for the Igorrotes from fair and amusement park operators in several US states. On top of that, Truman had just been made a handsome offer closer to home. He knew the gentlemanly thing to do would be to discuss it with Thompson first, but he was feeling impetuous.

  The rivalry between the three big Coney parks—Dreamland, Luna Park, and Steeplechase—was intense. No trick was too dirty, no stunt too cheap when it came to getting one over on the competition. Despite the bitterness that existed between George Tilyou, the owner of Steeplechase; Thompson and Dundy at Luna Park; and Dreamland’s William Reynolds, together the men had been hailed as the saviors of Coney, rescuing the seaside resort from its corrupt, criminal past of debauchery.

  The lion’s share of the praise belonged to Frederic Thompson, most observers agreed, the young man with the panatela, the slouch hat, the winning smile, and the unrivaled reserves of energy. “Do you remember Coney Island in the old days—a place where frothy beer, bold eyed females, strong-armed thugs and the foul-mouthed offspring of every gutter in the land ran things with an utter disregard of law and the rights of decent folk?”4 asked an article in the Spotlight, the weekly political and current affairs newspaper. “Fred Thompson is the man who delivered the solar plexus [punch] to this picaresque social cesspool and he did it by opening Luna Park as a place where a man could bring his wife, his mother, his sister or his sweetheart without running the risk of having her confounded with the ladies of the-less-than-half-world.”5

  Dreamland was the newest of the three big parks, having opened the previous summer, and so far its owner William Reynolds, a former New York senator turned real estate developer, had failed in his bid to overtake Luna Park as the most popular, most profitable park in Coney Island. Reynolds was a businessman first and he didn’t have the same feeling for amusement parks that his competitors over at Steeplechase and Luna Park had. If Luna Park was colorful and chaotic, Reynolds wanted Dreamland to be refined and elegant. Inspired by the Court of Honor at the heart of the Chicago World’s Fair, Reynolds insisted that all the buildings in Dreamland be painted white. The former politician thought this would make his park seem classy, but visitors to Dreamland complained that it lacked the exoticism of Thompson’s wonder world.

  Where Thompson and Dundy were always pushing forward with new and exciting innovations, Reynolds simply ripped them off, creating replicas of his rivals’ most popular attractions within his own gates. Where Reynolds did succeed was in portraying his park as a family-friendly place with an emphasis on wholesome fun and exhibits with a strong moral message, like The End of the World and Creation, which depicted the creation of the Earth in realistic scenes, from chaos to man. His most popular attraction was the Lilliputian Village, a miniature town populated by midgets, in which everything, from the vehicles and the houses to the furniture, was built to scale. It was Samuel Gumpertz who brought the vision for Lilliputia to life after he scoured America and beyond looking for little people to fill the town. Though business was brisk at Dreamland, Reynolds was not raking in the huge sums he had anticipated. He promoted Gumpertz to the position of general manager and charged him with turning things around.

  Gumpertz had been pestering Truman for weeks to break his contract with Thompson and Dundy and bring the tribe over to his rival park. At first Truman had resisted, but Gumpertz had kept upping his offer until Truman could no longer refuse. Behind Thompson and Dundy’s backs, Truman had agreed to deliver the Igorrotes to Dreamland on Sunday, August 6, 1905.

  Truman summoned Julio to his office the day before the move and told him they were relocating across Coney Island to another park. The tribespeople would be better off at Dreamland. Thompson and Dundy had put a lot of pressure on him to make the dog feasts a daily feature of the village, said Truman. Samuel Gumpertz, the manager of Dreamland, would be more respectful of their customs. Julio was surprised. They had finally settled in at Luna Park and had assumed that they would be there till the end of the season. But if what Truman was saying was true, that at Dreamland they could present a more accurate version of their customs, then of course that was good news.

  Before Julio could say anything, Truman told him that he had to go away on business that afternoon. Julio should have everyone ready to leave Luna Park early the following day, Sunday. They would go before the park opened. They should take their belongings with them along with whatever bits of the Igorrote Village they could carry. They would need to move quickly. Thompson lived on-site at Luna Park and he might try to stop them. They must not leave through Luna’s main gates; rather, Callahan and Julio were to smuggle them out through a side exit. Won’t all the gates be locked? asked the interpreter. Callahan will take care of that, said the showman. Once they arrived at Dreamland, Gumpertz would look after them. He had some publicity stunts lined up to announce their arrival and the Igorrotes should go along with them. Truman would be back within a few days. If there were any problems with the new arrangement, he would sort them out on his return.

  When Julio woke the tribe early the next day and told them they were moving, all the tribespeople had one question: Why? Weren’t they the stars of Luna Park? Julio relayed what Truman had said. Excited chatter broke out. But not all the tribespeople believed what they were hearing. Feloa and Dengay exchanged a suspicious glance. Fomoaley walked over to join them. Just then Callahan appeared and told everyone to get a move on. They had not a minute to lose. The tribespeople did as they were told and began packing up their possessions. The women scooped up armfuls of rings, bracelets, and fabrics.

  A park worker noticed the commotion and rushed to fetch Thompson. The owner of Luna Park was fast asleep when the man called. He threw on his cloth
es and dashed over to the Igorrote Village just in time to see the tribespeople bundling up the last of their belongings.

  It took a lot to anger Thompson. But he despised disloyalty and double-dealing. Where are you going? he demanded to know. Julio avoided his gaze. The tribe stood in silence. Someone must have offered Truman more money than he could say no to, thought the owner of Luna Park. Why hadn’t Truman come to him first instead of going behind his back?

  Thompson could hardly force the Igorrotes to stay against their will. They were wards of the United States government, and the government had given permission to Truman, and Truman alone, to exhibit them. Thompson had no choice but to watch as his biggest moneymaker walked out of Luna Park’s gates. Where was that scoundrel Truman? It had been bad enough that the showman had leased some of the Igorrotes out to Hopkins, but now, to have the rest of the tribe simply leave like this and for Truman not even to have the decency to show up and give an account of himself, was unforgivable. Thompson had met many rogues in his career but Truman beat them all. Thompson vowed that he would make the showman pay for this.

  Led by Callahan and trailed by Thompson, the Igorrotes emerged from the self-contained wonder world of Luna Park and out onto Surf Avenue. With the exception of Julio, it was the first time any of the Filipinos had stepped outside the park grounds in the three months since they had arrived in New York. An automobile glided past, its engine thrumming. Friday ran over to the edge of the sidewalk to get a better look. As the vehicle disappeared into the distance, the street fell eerily quiet. It would be several hours before the crowds arrived and the shooting gallery, the Boer War attraction, and the shops and sideshows opened up for another day. But this was not a sightseeing trip for the Filipinos. Callahan shouted at them to hurry up and cross the street. He could see Dreamland in the distance.

  Thompson stood in the road cursing Truman, the Igorrotes, Gumpertz, and the whole double-dealing profession of hucksters and sideshow men that had deprived him of his tribe. Impotently he watched as the Filipino headhunters walked toward the gates of his biggest rival.