Murderers, Scoundrels and Ragamuffins

by Richard Sullivan

  The Alderman had been way around back of the icehouse next to the open rail cars supervising their loading when he heard the distant shouting of the men. Mistaking the noise for a row or a celebration, he was not too concerned. But soon a foreman ran around the corner of the building to fetch him, and screamed, “One of the men fell into the lake!”

  JP ran through the narrow icy pathway that had been cut into the snowdrifts as fast as his limp and the prevailing slippery conditions would allow. He felt as if trapped in one of those nightmares he periodically dreamed in which he was trying to escape danger but felt like he weighed a thousand pounds. When he reached the office door at the far side of the building, he saw workers peering into the windows. JP rushed inside to find twelve men, all in various states of undress, some completely naked and shivering, gathered round as close to the stove at the center of the room as they could without burning themselves. Making light of the situation he began tearing off his own coat and hat as if to join in and said, “Yous been thowin’ a party and not one o’ yous thought t’ invite me?”

  Then he saw his sons among the group, Thomas as blue as the deep Pacific, coughing, Daniel with his arms around him, pounding on his back, rubbing him, trying to get the circulation moving. One look at Thomas’ face revealed the shock in his faraway eyes, and JP realized that it was his own sons who had narrowly escaped death. JP rushed over, removed his wool overcoat and enfolded his boys in it.

  “Daniel saved ‘im...Mr. Sullivan,” stuttered worker John Bell. “It was...Daniel. He had just one ch…chance, one second, and he took it...grabbed it by the balls... and snatched...yer T...T...Thomas away from death, he did. Yer Daniel’s a... h...hero.” The words were blurted out between shudders, staccato-like.

  Thomas and Daniel shivered in unison with Billy McMahon and their mates as the dry towels, blankets and clothes that were stored at the ready for just such an event were quickly brought out of the cupboard and distributed. When it was realized they were running short it was decided the horses’ blankets would have to be stolen away from them to supplement the shortage. There had never been a time when so many men had toppled in or gotten so drenched.

  All the big, strong and humbled men who’d gathered round the stove replayed their own individual Edison moving picture of the preceding ten minutes in their heads, knowing how close they’d come to losing Thomas and perhaps others as well—Daniel, Billy McMahon, boss Cleary, any one or more of the boys in the crew. They were all brothers now, all members of one family, bonded forever by this fraction of an hour that could have ended any one—or all—of them.

  Thomas, wrapped in blankets, was quickly driven in a sleigh to the hospital. There the doctors bent him over a rail and relentlessly pounded his back over each lung and forced him to cough and spit until he felt like passing out. They were determined that he dislodge every drop of dirty lake water from his lungs, “Otherwise, you could end up with pneumonia and die.” It went on like that for an hour, this heaving and coughing. It was incredibly laborious and painful, his lungs and throat burning, aching, and ultimately exhausting. Two hours later he was safe at home on the sofa in the parlor alongside Daniel, both covered in blankets, feeling quite beaten-up and enjoying all the attention a little too much.

  In the kitchen, a tray of hot dinner for her sons in hand, Annie, with tears of anger and relief sparkling in her eyes, leaned into her husband in a confidential manner and quietly said in her familiar I-mean-business tone, “Now that’s enough. No more ice cutting for our boys. They know now how it all gets done. They don’t need to know no more.”

  JP had no need to respond. He knew that right or wrong, when it came to the kids, Annie had the final word.

  Daniel was very quiet. Introspective. Thomas managed to put on a jovial, unfettered front for the family all evening, until he and Daniel retired to their room to get ready for bed, away from eyes and ears of the family.

  Thomas quietly shut the door, meekly walked over to his younger brother head bowed, and sliding his arms around him, laid his head on his shoulder and began to tremble and sob.

  “You saved my life Danny. I never thought I’d come out of that. I was sucked right under the ice so fast and so strong I couldn’t even help myself, and then you grabbed me, Danny. No one else could reach me. But you did. You grabbed me.”

  Thomas then tried to pull away to obscure his tears but the emotion was too great. He broke. Daniel, already crying, held his brother in a vise-grip, and in response Thomas’ embarrassed sobs poured forth. His self-appointed position as the unflappable stalwart older brother evaporated.

  Safe now behind the closed door both boys’ barriers crumbled. The full emotion of what had almost happened could finally be exorcised in private. Daniel sat down on the edge of the bed, grabbed a pillow to cry into, and wailed with such an outpouring of fear and love and horror that Thomas forgot about himself for once in his life. Still in shock, Thomas hadn’t even considered the effect that all this may have had on Daniel. Overwhelmed by the unexpected power of his brother’s unleashed emotions, Thomas sat down on the edge of the bed with him and put both arms around him. Together, unmasked and unashamed, the brothers in unison purged the horror of that day.

  Annie lingered outside their door, listening to the stifled sobs of her almost-grown sons, then went into the bathroom to ready herself for bed. JP was already huddled under the covers when she came out; she crawled in behind him, buried her face in the back of his neck, and sobbed. “I won’t be losin’ no more children, JP. I simply will not.”

  “We won’t be, darlin’.” JP said. “We won’t. I promise.”

  William Randolph Hearst For Governor

  ◆◆◆

  Hannah and Jim had attended a memorial 7 o’clock mass at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church to honor their late son Johnny. Jim went right to work afterward and Hannah returned to their home and tried to keep her mind busy. As she sat at the kitchen table with that morning’s Buffalo Express and her third cup of coffee, Hannah sighed deeply and shook her head in judgment upon reading a piece that someone at that newspaper thought worthy of precious space. “That man has no shame,” she said out loud.

  And John P. Sullivan,

  He Grinned Suspiciously

  Everybody had a fit of sneezing in the aldermanic chamber yesterday. Aldermen, spectators, lobbyists and even the sergeant-at-arms fell into line and the city clerk blew a remonstrance against a paving job clear off his desk. Every time Honest John Martin cut loose the massive chandeliers threatened to come down, and Uncle Henry Moest was on the point of going into convulsions several times. During it all Alderman John P. Sullivan’s face wore a suspicious grin, and, as might have been expected, it was the red pepper with which the alderman from the 1st had loaded John Kick’s cigar that caused all the trouble. As a rule, it’s a safe proposition not to accept a cigar from Sullivan without having it subjected to a chemical analysis.

  “Oh Lord. What a damned fool your uncle is,” she said to Zeke as she got up to rinse the dishes. The dog raised his big head and looked at her attentively from his place on the floor. She had always forbidden the children from feeding him from their plates at the table but these days with them at work or at school, she shared her morning toast equally with the big black Labrador, grateful for his company. After tidying up she decided to walk him up to Elk Street to shop for some bread at the bakery and a few odds and ends. She was reluctant to brave the crush of the crowd at the giant Elk Street Market. Anyway, the Elk Market always made her think of her Johnny, gone exactly twelve years now.

  She pictured him in her mind, how handsome he might look today at age twenty-one, had he not drowned right outside the family home while she watched terrified and helpless from the kitchen window. The Elk Street Market was the last place she had visited with him. She didn’t need reminding, especially not today. She was troubled nowadays about how often she felt disturbed by things over which she had no control. Her friend Ruth had encouraged her to simply sto
p herself whenever she felt her blood beginning to boil and instead think positive thoughts. Hannah found such a feat too difficult. Aware of how with age more unwilling she’d become to tolerate certain distasteful things, she stopped dead in her tracks to stare up at the giant hideous face of William Randolph Hearst. It was downright disgusting.

  “Just look at that monstrosity!” she exclaimed out loud to Zeke who barked complicitly. Passersby could not have agreed with her more. All bristled over the neighborhood intrusion.

  William Randolph Hearst for Governor of New York, Friend Of The Workingman, it blared in a bald lie.

  “Dear God save us,” she scoffed. “Friend of the workingman my foot!”

  His ugly smug countenance stared back at her nine feet tall from the obnoxious billboard at the corner of Elk and Hamburg Streets. When she returned home to the house at No. 16, Jim was there. He had been sent home from work, limping.

  “What happened to your leg?” she asked.

  “Oh, nothin’. I hurt it a bit cuttin’ down that billboard there at Main and Chippewa. You know, where the old North Presbyterian Church used to be.”

  “You’re a police detective! And you’re old! What right do they have to expect you to do such dangerous work?” she angrily wanted to know. “That’s a job for the axe brigade!”

  The axe brigade was the moniker assigned the firemen who were so incensed that the city law restricting Whitmier and Filbrick’s advertising monstrosities to a height of seven feet had been blatantly ignored that they attacked the offending billboards themselves with axes and chopped them down. The company had erected dozens of billboards on Buffalo’s finest boulevards and avenues. Some topped nine feet and more. The one at Main and Chippewa was a preposterous fifteen feet high. They were a looming death trap to firemen and a festering eyesore to any decent person. The members of the Common Council, among them Alderman JP Sullivan, along with the local police captains who’d been bribed, had conveniently looked askance as they were erected despite the public outcry.

  “The department has no right to expect a man of your age and your position to be climbing to the tops of buildings to tear down these billboards, Jim! What if you were seriously injured? What then? Whose idea was this?”

  The older he got the more unwilling Jim was to squabble with his wife.

  “I’m goin’ over to the boathouse for a beer. Call out the window when lunch is ready.”

  He limped away.

  The phone rang at the city hall. Mrs. Honan picked up.

  “Alderman Sullivan’s office,” she stated professionally.

  “Yes Emma. This is Hannah Sullivan. How are you today, dear?”

  “Oh, I’m very well Hannah, thank you for asking. Did you want to speak to the alderman?”

  “Yes, if he’s in.”

  “He is,” she responded. “Please hold while I connect you. Have a pleasant afternoon.”

  “Yes, I will. You too. Thank you Emma.”

  Mrs. Honan rang the alderman.

  “Alderman, your sister-in-law is on the line.”

  “Jesus, Emma. I told you to warn me when she called. I don’t have the time!”

  “Sorry Alderman. It won’t happen again. I already told her you were in.”

  “God damn it! If I have to tell you one more time Emma, I’ll can you, I swear!”

  “So sorry, Alderman, really. Please forgive me,” Emma smiled vengefully.

  She too had the anniversary of Johnny’s drowning on her mind. She had seen her boss in his truest light on that day twelve years ago. The emergency phone call came in with the terrible news. Instead of rushing off to comfort his family, JP remained in his office commiserating with Fingy Conners and that newly-elected criminal alderman John Sheehan for yet an additional half hour before he finally emerged laughing and joking. Emma had stood interminably outside his closed office door with his hat and umbrella at the ready expecting him at any moment to rush home to attend to his loved ones as any decent human being might. She finally gave up waiting. His business with his crooked cronies took precedence even over a family catastrophe. Emma Honan had never looked at Alderman Sullivan quite the same way since.

  Irritated, JP took the call.

  “What is it now Hannah?”

  “JP, your brother was atop that building at Main and Chippewa today tearing down that hideous billboard you and your friends allowed to be erected there. Are you trying to kill him? He’s fifty one years old!”

  “Hannah I had nothing to do with it!”

  “Do you know how many firemen might be killed if there was ever a fire there? You and your lads down there at the city hall have done a fine job allowing our city to be turned into a disgrace with these horrible advertisements assaulting us everywhere we go. The final straw was seeing today that propagator of yellow journalism Hearst’s smirking mug looking down his nose at us there on our own Elk Street! And who in God’s name directed the police to tear down these hazards when the builders themselves should be tearing them down? My Jim is limping from an injury he received today JP! I’m so mad I could spit! Do something! Respect your brother! Respect the policemen and the firemen! Do what you have to do to get those scofflaws to undo their own misdeeds!” She hung up on him before giving him a chance to respond. She didn’t want to hear his excuses.

  Little did she know he had rested the ear-piece on his desk blotter to attend to other matters before she’d even begun her second sentence.

  ◆◆◆

  Fingy Conners had long idolized William Randolph Hearst.

  He greatly admired Hearst’s methods of controlling conversations regarding the events of the day both planned and happenstance through his many newspapers across the nation.

  Hearst had almost single-handedly set off the Spanish American War by proclaiming through his insidious journals that the USS Maine, which blew up in Havana Harbor in 1898—by all accounts accidentally—had been, according to the inveterate rabble-rouser, sabotaged by the Spanish. The nation believed his lie, and thousands of American boys thus died or were immutably wounded, physically, psychologically, or both, all due to the unchecked hubris of the despicable scandal-sheet publisher. Ironically, only 400 American military men had died in battle compared to over 2000 who succumbed to yellow fever.

  In 1902 Hearst had successfully run for Congress. In his campaign he had colored himself as a hero, and oftentimes the hero, of the Spanish American War. On November 5th of that year at about 10 p.m. during a celebration of his election victory, a massive fireworks explosion took place at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Fifteen people were killed, including four police officers. Seventy souls were permanently disabled.

  On the corner of 24th Street and Madison Avenue stood the handsome brownstone residence of David Wolf Bishop. Crumpled together on its capacious limestone steps lay the bodies of three boys about 14 years old. They had been catapulted there from their place in the crowd immediately adjacent to where the fireworks were being launched. All three children were gruesomely burned and mangled, apparently killed even before landing there with a sickening thud. Scattered along Madison Avenue lay several more bodies and parts of bodies and several severed limbs. In addition, nearly a score of injured, many of whom were terribly disfigured, burned, and gutted, moaned piteously on the surrounding blood-puddled asphalt, alternately pleading for God to either help them or take them.

  Hearst’s lawyers sprinted into action. They obfuscated legal actions long enough to set up a dummy corporation in the manner of the Standard Oil crowd on which to land legal responsibility when lawsuits would ultimately be brought in the courts in regards to the tragedy. Hearst then sought to degrade the Supreme Court of New York by colluding with the staggeringly corrupt New York State Democratic party boss Charles Murphy to consent to placing thereon Hearst’s own hired attorneys, judges likely to be on the bench when damage cases aggregating three million dollars were brought against Hearst for injuries and deaths caused by the reckless blast.

 
Fingy Conners found these defensive actions of Hearst’s as fully genius as motivational.

  In 1906, Hearst decided to run for governor of New York State, initially as an Independent candidate, so delusional and self-assured was he of his universal appeal.

  The Republican candidate, Charles Hughes, was an attorney and law professor at New York Law School alongside Woodrow Wilson. Hughes, having followed the publisher-criminal’s checkered career since the hedonist’s infamous Harvard days, heavily maligned Hearst, making specific charges of the most serious character against him. The New York Sun stated “Failing refutation (of Hughes’ accusations) Mr. Hearst must assert his candidacy as a self confessed criminal of the same type as that which he has himself taught the public (through his newspapers) to abhor as the most repulsive and abhorrent in our time. The figure of Hearst that Mr. Hughes depicts is one that a sane people cannot tolerate.”

  Another deal was struck between Hearst and Charles Murphy, the same Charles Murphy that Hearst had cold-bloodedly vilified in his newspapers only just recently. Both in editorial rants and stinging political cartoons, Hearst had crucified Murphy as an example of the worst kind of corrupt public official, promising to send him to state prison and picturing him in the stripes of a felon.

  But there was no question of pride when Murphy ultimately delivered the Buffalo Convention to his hated enemy Hearst. Something much more substantial than mere pride or malevolence was at issue with Murphy, something far more crucial: the hundred million dollars earmarked to be spent on the upgrading of the Erie Canal to make the water route more competitive with the new St. Lawrence Seaway in Canada, and the fifty million additional designated to be spent on the state’s roads. The figures made Murphy drool. In exchange Murphy would receive from Hearst the nomination for one of his cohorts for State engineer and surveyor, which amounted to Murphy being provided the keys to the state treasury.