In Boston, “high Irish” like the Kennedys who had made it out of the cellars and attics of the East End, and out of the tiny maids’ rooms of Beacon Hill, had never been accepted by the Brahmin group who ruled the city’s social seas. They still have not, and few names beginning with O’ or Mc decorate the rosters of such clubs as the Somerset, the Chilton, and the Myopia Hunt, although more than a few are listed in the Social Register. Faced with this state of affairs, Boston’s new-rich Irish had formed their own, and pathetically imitative, social institutions. In Boston, Rose Kennedy had been a member of the Cecilian Guild, the Irish answer to the exclusive Junior League, and had helped organize the Ace of Clubs, a group of “better” Irish girls (an ability to speak French was a requirement for admission, indicating that Boston’s Irish families were already beginning to draw lines within their own ranks) that had an annual ball at the Somerset Hotel (not Club) which was a thin echo of the no-Irish-allowed debutante parties on the Hill. In her own Irish Catholic group, Rose Kennedy was something of a social leader; after all, her father had been Mayor of Boston. But the second-rateness of it all could not have escaped Rose Kennedy’s notice, and it probably rankled within her. She wanted something better.
The Kennedys had spent several summers at the Massachusetts beach resort of Nantasket, which was predominantly rich Irish Catholic. Moving on, they then took a large house at Cohasset, predominantly Old Guard Protestant, where they suddenly discovered that they had unfriendly neighbors. When Joseph P. Kennedy applied for a family membership in the Cohasset Country Club, he was blackballed.
“It was petty and cruel,” admitted Brahmin Ralph Lowell. “The women of Cohasset looked down on the daughter of ‘Honey Fitz,’ and who was Joe Kennedy but the son of Pat, the barkeeper?”
The same thing happened in Palm Beach, where the family attempted to establish a social base. The old families of Palm Beach came to the Kennedys’ parties, mostly out of curiosity when there was nothing better to do, but they did not invite the Kennedys to theirs. The Kennedys applied for membership to the Everglades Club, and were turned down. In order to play golf, they were obliged to apply to the Jewish Palm Beach Country Club, where they were accepted. McDonnells and Murrays snickered at the Kennedys’ social striving, not least when, as Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, Joseph P. Kennedy succeeded in having all his daughters, including the tragic Rosemary, presented at Court. He took inordinate delight in reminding his friends that one of the daughters had married the Duke of Devonshire, and that he had had the temerity to tell a British journalist that he thought the Queen was a cute trick.
Long after the family had moved to New York, the wounds from the snubs of Boston had not healed in Rose Kennedy. Once, on the eve of a holiday when he was a student at Harvard, John F. Kennedy was picked up by his family in the big limousine for the drive down to New York. He brought with him a friend and classmate who was a member of one of Boston’s topmost families. When he introduced his friend to his mother, and she heard his name, Rose Kennedy reacted with nervousness. She was tense during the drive, and at one point she turned suddenly to her son’s friend and, “with a note of desperation in her voice,” according to Richard Whalen, asked the young man, “Tell me, when are the nice people of Boston going to accept us?”
The answer, from the “nice” people of Boston even today, is: not yet.
Part Three
HIGH SOCIETY
Chapter 17
THE DUCHESS BRADY
In Rome in the 1920’s, one of the loveliest villas in the city was the Casa del Sole, perched on the Janiculum Hill at 16 Via Aurelia Antica, the winter home of an American couple, Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas F. Brady. Its view took in a breathtaking panorama of the Eternal City, with St. Peter’s in the distance, and the house was surrounded by beautiful gardens and terraces, groves of lemon trees, and hushed avenues of tall cedars designed for meditative strolls. There were fountains and statues and tennis courts, and one tiny garden created just for tea. Servants in slippered feet waited on the Bradys, who were the Roman equivalent, in that sunlit era, of Gerald and Sara Murphy, the Americans who entertained with similar elegance slightly to the north, on the French Riviera. There was one difference. The Murphys’ guests were largely artistic, from the worlds of letters, the theater, and dance. The Bradys’ guests were ecclesiastical, consisting predominantly of Princes of the Church. Three particularly good friends were Cardinal Bonzano, Cardinal Gasparri, and Cardinal Pacelli.
Nicholas Brady had inherited a fortune from his father, the utilities emperor Anthony N. Brady (who had been the first to spy and promote the inventing talents of Grandpa Thomas E. Murray), and his wife was the former Genevieve Garvan, a sister of the celebrated detective, Francis P. Garvan, who headed the Bureau of Investigation of the United States Attorney General’s office (to confuse things somewhat, Nicholas Brady’s sister, Mabel, was married to Mr. Garvan). Nick Brady, a lapsed Catholic, had, under the influence of his wife’s dynamic personality, returned to the Church. One of the reasons for the Brady’s winter residence in the city was Mrs. Brady’s strong affinity to the Roman Church, particularly the Jesuit Order. She had selected the site of Casa del Sole largely because of its unimpeded view of St. Peter’s.
In the autumn of 1925, a young priest in his middle thirties named Francis J. Spellman had arrived in Rome, where he had been assigned to duty with the Papal Secretariat of State, something of an honor for an American priest. Born in the little town of Whitman, Massachusetts, the son of a grocer and the grandson of an immigrant cobbler from Limerick who had made shoes for the rich of Boston, Francis Spellman had, on his graduation from Fordham and his decision to enter the priesthood, been told by his father, “Always go with people who are smarter than you are—and in your case it won’t be difficult.” In Rome, where his title was the modest one of “playground director,” Father Spellman was actually working closely with the Papal Secretariat of State and the important Cardinals who were the nucleus of the Brady circle. One day at St. Peter’s, Spellman noticed Mr. and Mrs. Brady sitting a few pews behind him. There were two much better seats up front, which had been reserved for the Ambassador of Portugal, who had not shown up, and Spellman suggested to Cardinal Bonzano that the Bradys might prefer these seats. The Bradys were delighted to be moved up front, and so was Cardinal Bonzano, an old friend of the Bradys and an important star in the Brady set. Cardinal Bonzano jotted down the name and address of the young priest who had been so helpful and gave it to the Bradys, and presently Father Spellman was joining the red-hatted guests at the little lunches and dinners at Casa del Sole. The Bradys were charmed by the young priest from Boston, and when a chaplain was needed for the Bradys’ private chapel, the Bradys asked Father Spellman if he would like the job. He eagerly accepted.
From then on, his letters home were full of the doings of his new and enormously rich friends. “Yesterday was Monsignor Bernardini’s feast day, the feast of St. Philip,” he wrote. “Mrs. Brady gave a dinner in his honor. Cardinal Gasparri, Monsignor Borgongini, Monsignor Pizzardo, Monsignor Bernardini and I were the guests.” He was in heady company. A few months later, he wrote, “Yesterday Cardinal Gasparri, Monsignor Borgongini, Monsignor Pizzardo and Mr. Brady and I had a one hundred and fifty mile ride in the country. We brought our lunch and had it in the old Monastery of Subiaco.…” There were other pleasant picnics and excursions with the Bradys and their high-placed Vatican friends, and after saying morning Mass for the family Father Spellman enjoyed tennis games with Mr. Brady on the private courts of Casa del Sole. While helping, and being helped by, the Bradys, Father Spellman was also able to help the Brady money help the Vatican. He suggested to Mr. Brady that Cardinal Gasparri needed a new automobile, and particularly admired the new Chrysler Limousine 82. Mr. Brady said, “Sure.” The Cardinal was delighted with his new car. Through the Bradys, Father Spellman quickly got to know virtually everyone of importance in Rome, including the most important Cardinal of all, Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli.
In 1928, Father Spellman noted in his diary, “October 19: Heard indirectly that I am to be made a Monsignor.” And a few days later, “October 30: Monsignor Borgongini told me I was made a Monsignor on October the fourth.”
His next elevation, to the rank of domestic prelate, was not long in coming and, in 1931, Monsignor Spellman was named Auxiliary Bishop of Boston and, seven years later, he was appointed Archbishop of New York. In the process, he was able to reward his friends and sponsors, the Bradys. In 1927, through his offices, Mr. Brady was given the Grand Cross of St. Gregory, and Mrs. Brady and Mrs. James A. Farrell were named two of the three Dames of Malta in the entire United States. Thus Genevieve Garvan Brady became the Duchess Brady.
The Bradys also maintained a huge estate called “Inisfada” on the North Shore of Long Island near Manhasset. The road on which “Inisfada” was situated had been nicknamed “The Irish Channel” because so many wealthy Irishmen had large estates along its length. In addition to “Inisfada,” there was the big place belonging to Nicholas F. Brady’s nephew, James Cox Brady, Jr. James Cox Brady had inherited $25 million and directorships in fifty corporations from his father, though he had started out “shoveling coal by the side of Polish and Italian immigrants” at the Consolidated Gas Company in the Bronx—which his uncle happened to own, so his rise was not too slow. It was James Cox Brady who “bailed out” Walter Chrysler when his company was in difficulties. James Cox Brady put substantial money into the Chrysler Corporation, and went on its board. In addition to his place on the Channel, James Cox Brady owned a racing stable in Ireland and the lovely old Cashel Palace Hotel.
Next door to “Inisfada” was the Joseph P. Grace estate. Joseph Grace was one of the sons of the Irish-born William Russell Grace who, with his brother Michael, founded W. R. Grace & Company, the Grace Steamship Line, and the Grace National Bank. W. R. Grace & Company was founded in Peru in the 1850’s, and old William R. had married a Yankee skipper’s daughter and, in the 1860’s moved to New York, where he built up a substantial business and became the first Irish-born Mayor of New York. His son, Joseph P. Grace, divided his time comfortably between the Long Island place, a grouse-shooting moor in Scotland, a big house in Northeast Harbor, Maine, and another big place in Aiken, South Carolina. On the other side of “Inisfada” was the estate of Cornelius F. Kelly, the Anaconda Copper king.
But “Inisfada” was the greatest showplace on the Channel, even though, after Nicholas Brady’s death in 1930, the Duchess rarely visited it, and the estate was looked after by gardeners and caretakers. Late in the summer of 1936, however, the Duchess arrived in New York from Rome and confided to a few close friends what she described as her “secret.” The secret was that her friend Cardinal Pacelli was coming to America in October to spend his vacation with her “in seclusion” at “Inisfada,” which she would open for the occasion. One of the first people she told was Bishop Spellman.
The Bishop was not entirely pleased with the news. A visit from the Cardinal Secretary of State, who had already been mentioned as a leading candidate for the Papacy (Pacelli would become Pope Pius XII three years later), was an event of international importance, with vast religious and political implications. Franklin D. Roosevelt was just concluding his first term as President, and, as part of his appeal to combined minority groups in the country, he had already suggested the need for United States diplomatic representation at the Vatican, where there had never before been an American ambassador. Discreet feelers on the subject had gone out from the White House to Rome, and the right moment for some sort of agreement seemed close at hand. But, at this delicate stage, and to the President’s distinct annoyance, a Catholic priest from Detroit, Charles E. Coughlin, had stepped into the proceedings and was thoroughly muddying the diplomatic waters. Father Coughlin had, in addition to his parish, a highly popular and controversial radio program—a single Coughlin broadcast once drew as many as 350,000 letters—and, earlier that year, Coughlin had entered the Presidential campaign, concentrating his attack on Roosevelt. On the air, he had referred to “Franklin Double-Crossing Roosevelt,” and he had called the President “a liar.” He had also referred to him as “a scab President,” “anti-God,” and “an upstart dictator,” and said that Roosevelt’s chief supporters were Communists. He had publicly recommended the use of bullets “when any upstart dictator in the White House succeeds in making a one-party Government and when the ballot is useless.” The situation had, of course, been noted in Rome, and the Osservatore Romano had called Coughlin’s statements “improper.” But Coughlin’s Archbishop, Michael James Gallagher, who supported him, had announced to the Associated Press that “The Vatican never interfered in the Coughlin matter.” In light of all this, the Duchess Brady’s notion of having Cardinal Pacelli spend three weeks “in seclusion” at “Inisfada” struck Bishop Spellman as grotesque, and even impossible to carry out. The press would make much of the visit, and there would be endless speculation about its true nature—particularly if His Eminence were to be kept in mysterious, even ominous, sequestration in Manhasset. Spellman, on the other hand, owed much to the Duchess and knew her to be a woman of fierce determination and will. His notation in his diary the day he received her news was understandably terse: “Had telephone call from Mrs. Brady in Paris about proposed visit to America.”
A month later—with the visit still a month off—the Spellman diary noted: “Labor Day. Luncheon with Mrs. Brady … We spent the whole afternoon talking. I did not contradict her, but I shall have to oppose some of her plans.…”
Following this luncheon, Spellman sent off four lengthy dispatches to Rome, explaining the situation. He received a cable a few days later, saying that his suggestions would be followed. Mrs. Brady was not at all happy when Bishop Spellman showed her the cable, but, since it was a directive from the Vatican, there was nothing she could do. She had had her heart set, she said, on “seclusion” for His Eminence, for a very private visit during which she and he would while away their days discussing high ecclesiastical matters.
On September 30 the news was released from the Vatican that Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli would sail for New York the following day on the Conte di Savoia. A statement was issued from the Cardinal which said, “I am going to America simply on a vacation. I have a great longing to see the United States. There is no political aspect to my trip whatever.” But these words did not satisfy the American press, and immediately there were stories claiming that the real reason for the Cardinal’s visit was the Pope’s concern over Roosevelt’s Communist supporters; or that he was coming to try to establish diplomatic relations between the United States and the Holy City. All the newspapers brought in the Coughlin matter.
The Church, meanwhile—the three American Cardinals, the Apostolic Delegate, and the hierarchy below—was thrown into a frantic state of worry over how to treat and handle, and how to interpret, the signal honor that the Duchess Brady had arranged to have paid to the United States. A plan to have the Cardinal taken off the liner by tug before it entered the harbor was abandoned when it was remembered that Queen Victoria of Spain had taken the same short cut with unpleasant consequences. While the ship was still twenty hours away from New York, Bishop Spellman telephoned the Cardinal in his stateroom to prepare him for his first American press conference. Managing the Cardinal’s visit had naturally become Francis Spellman’s job.
On his arrival in New York, Cardinal Pacelli handled the throng of reporters waiting to interview him with considerable agility, wittily fielding their questions without, in the process, really saying anything at all. He read a short prepared statement which said, in part, “Despite the private character of my visit I know well that I am expected to make my little contribution to the representatives of the press as a sort of ‘journalistic tax of entry’ into the United States.” The press was charmed by the Cardinal and, from then on, would see to it that his visit was hardly “private,” and his every move about the country was enthusiastically chronicled.
After
a few days’ rest at “Inisfada,” there began a heavy schedule of public and semipublic appearances. There was a motor trip to Boston, with a stop en route to visit the Knights of Columbus headquarters in New Haven, and a visit to Bishop Spellman’s parish in Newton Center, where the Cardinal said Mass twice. There were trips to Philadelphia and Washington, which included numerous stops at various Catholic churches, schools, colleges, and orphanages, and endless lunches, dinners, and speeches, and honorary degrees conferred. There was an extended trip to the West Coast, with stops along the way in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis, and South Bend, during which the Cardinal’s plane made detours so that His Eminence could have aerial views of such sights as Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, and Boulder Dam. There were only a few tense moments, such as one in Washington where it turned out that Bishop Spellman had not received an invitation for a Press Club luncheon at which the Cardinal was to speak. The Cardinal insisted on the Bishop’s being included. In Philadelphia, the Bishop and the Duchess crossed swords briefly over a businessmen’s luncheon which the Duchess wanted the Cardinal to attend, and which the Bishop did not (the Bishop prevailed). In Washington, Joseph P. Kennedy had arranged a lunch with Roosevelt at Hyde Park, but Spellman insisted that the invitation come directly from the President, and not through Kennedy as an intermediary.
The glittering capstone to the future Pontiff’s visit was the huge reception, on October 24, which the Duchess Brady gave at “Inisfada.” As the guests arrived at twilight, the long and winding driveways of the estate were lined with thousands of tallow lights like those used for solemn illumination in the Vatican. Inside, the great house was filled with flowers, with vases of long-stemmed roses banked in every corner, and lighted candles everywhere, and the leaders of American society in furs and feathers and jewels mingled with the beribboned dignitaries of the government and Church—the Cardinals and Bishops in their brilliant cinctures and silk ferraiuoli. While Pietro Yon played softly in the background on “Inisfada’s” famous pipe organ, the Duchess Brady and her guest of honor received in the great hall in front of a blazing fire. For pomp and sumptuousness, it was said, the Duchess’s mid-Depression party had been matched in American social history only by the famous dinner and ball given in 1924 by Clarence Mackay at “Harbor Hill” for the Prince of Wales. As for privacy and seclusion with her guest, however, the Duchess complained that the only way she had been able to have any conversation with Pacelli at all had been to get him into “Inisfada’s” private elevator with her, and have the car stopped between floors.
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