Murderers, Scoundrels and Ragamuffins

by Richard Sullivan

  “When Mrs. Meegan returned from her sister’s, she was tastefully dressed in a black gown trimmed with lace and sequins and carried a silk umbrella with a silver head.

  When the statement of Alderman Sullivan was read to her, Mrs. Meegan

  replied: ‘Well, all I can say is that the money was withheld from me for over a year and a half, and I was told upon one occasion that the committee and Mr. Conners had heard that I was an extravagant woman and gave a great deal to my brothers and that they wished to safeguard my interests in the matter for my children’s sake. I called at the office of The Courier three or four times between February 1907 and July 1908 asking for the money, and finally got it all, with interest. Mr. Conners never tried to make me buy any property belonging to him. He said he would buy me a home anywhere I wanted it and would see that I got just interest on my money.’”

  Annie Sullivan read the account printed in Fingy’s own Courier newspaper with great interest, having three years previous personally opened her door to Mrs. Meegan when she had came in search of the Alderman in order to enlist his help in her attempts to collect the money. She was captured by the last sentence in Mrs. Meegan’s statement and scoffed. Mrs. Meegan still lived in the same small poor rooms at 92 Tennessee, and Fingy Conners had most certainly never bought her a house, and here it was three years after the fact. What did Mrs. Meegan mean by that? Annie puzzled.

  “I got all the money that was due me and I, for my part, certainly have no complaint to make against Mr. Conners or any of the committee, although I did not like being kept so long without the money.”

  Why would he print Mrs. Meegan’s incriminating statements in his own newspaper, Annie wondered. The statements may have been politely sugar-coated, but in essence they did agree with the Alderman’s accusations. Even stranger, the Courier quoted the Alderman as well, and his statements read as more believable than any argument the Courier was making. Their headline’s claim, “SULLIVAN MAKES VILE ATTACK AND HIS CHARGES ARE ENTIRELY DISPROVED,” held little water once Mrs. Meegan’s and Sullivan’s quotes within the piece were combined by the reader:

  “Sullivan introduced his resolution at the close of the meeting of the board of aldermen yesterday asking that the corporation counsel report to the board the progress made by the city in the collection of $2,000, alleged to be owed by William J. Conners for the grading of the lot at school No. 29.

  “Sullivan said: ‘This man Conners poses as a charitable and benevolent man—I say he poses as such, but I have never seen any evidence of it. If he is so benevolent as he claims, let this first citizen of Buffalo, self styled, pay his just debts. He is said to have given a bond that the money for this (school lot) grading work would be paid, but I know that he has many times laughed when spoken to about this and boasted that it was a ‘straw bond.’ Now we want to know if this was a straw bond or not.

  “All this benevolent citizen does is to attack people who can’t get back at him. He owns two newspapers and attacks them through the columns of these papers, but is too much of a coward to come out into the open and substantiate his attacks.

  “I’ve known him all his life. I went to school with him, and he has been a bluff all his life and will make good on nothing.’

  “Why, you’ve got to prosecute this crook if you want him to pay his debts,” Sullivan continued. “At the time of the tragic fire in Seneca Street this faker held up the money raised by his paper, The Courier, for Stephen J. Meegan’s widow, from January 1907 to July 1908, and said that it was too much money for her to handle and that he, the charitable citizen, would keep it for her and save her the interest. Only when Conners was finally threatened with an exposure via lawsuit did he pay the money—one day before the formal investigation was to have begun!

  “Now the fact is that Conners held this money to try to force this poor suffering widow to buy a lot from him with part of the money subscribed for her aid. This scheme is highly reminiscent of his scheme requiring his workers to spend their wage in his saloons if they expected employment the next week! He devotes the same amount of attention and applies the same conniving tactics to a poor suffering widow that he applies to his dealings with the railroads, shipping lines and contracting business! What does this so clearly say about him? I make this charge in public and challenge him to deny it either here at the city hall on the floor before this Council or in the columns of his newspaper. But he won’t deny it—he can’t deny it.”

  Alderman Fisher at this point protested against the attack against Mr. Conners on the floor of the chambers as “inappropriate and uncalled for.” Sullivan, angered at the opposition, asked Fisher. ‘Do you want us to think that you are in cahoots with this thief in mulcting the public out of money?’”

  Upon being confronted with Sullivan’s bulls-eyed challenge, Fisher immediately fell silent and seated himself.

  The $2 Million Man

  ◆◆◆

  From the New York Times, May 25, 1909:

  CONNERS PROMISED

  $200,000 FOR STOCK

  Rochester, N.Y., May 24 — Counsel in the action brought by Charles M. Lane to recover $4000 alleged investment losses from the Directors of the United States Independent Telephone Company, stipulated today that the testimony given last week in the preliminary examination should stand in the case brought against the same defendants by Julia Diefendorf of Brooklyn.

  The testimony revealed that large blocks of the stocks were given away to various persons interested in the deal. One of these was W. J. Conners of Buffalo who got $2,000,000 worth of stock without paying a cent.

  Thomas W. Finucane, the Democratic State Committeeman, was examined again this morning by Counsel Adams for the plaintiff about the $2,000,000 in bonus stock given to W. J. Conners, the Democratic State Chairman:

  Q.—Mr. Finucane, did Mr. Conners subscribe any money?

  A—Not actually; he agreed to.

  Q—Why did you instruct Mr. Fenn to give Mr. Conners $2,000,000 in bonus stock?

  A—Mr. Conners is an important and influential man, owning two newspapers in Buffalo, and a man of wealth and power in the financial world. He agreed to furnish $200,000 in cash, but his payment was postponed from time to time. Finally it became unnecessary for him to give it because we had already raised the amount necessary.

  Q—Then Conners got his $2,000,000 of bonus stock without putting up the money?

  A—Yes he did.

  Q—Was it not because of his political power in New York State and City that he got the stock?

  A—No, Sir; it was because of the general all-around fine standing of the man.

  Ragamuffins

  ◆◆◆

  The adults, exhausted from their reveling the previous night at the Mutual Rowing Club’s masked Thanksgiving Eve Ball, wanted to sleep in. Annie Sullivan had balked at costuming herself in ragamuffin garb, it reminding her of olden days she’d rather forget. Most others however enthusiastically adhered to the odd custom and a festive time was enjoyed by all. For some, the allure of having social permission to conduct one’s self as if a member of a lower class while eating and drinking unconcerned about spilling on one’s clothing was an irresistible attraction.

  The tradition of children dressing as ragamuffins on Thanksgiving Day may have cooled somewhat in other more starchy areas of the country, but not in Buffalo’s First Ward. As might be expected, as an example, elderly Protestant ministers with dour evangelical congregations railed against it. But what more could be expected from those who themselves have never had a lick of wicked fun in their entire lives, let alone during their own childhood?

  In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, the First Ward’s boys and girls set about assembling their costumes. These included old, ripped, clouted clothing items and complementary shoes with flapping soles and toes protruding. The backs of closets, the depths of spider-populated root cellars and the Ward’s dark cobwebbed attics were all braved without the usual complaint in search of the perfect suitable items. E
specially popular with boys were their sisters’ old dresses, aprons and bonnets.

  The Alderman’s menagerie stirred before first light, unable to sleep due to their excitement over the holiday. It was cold. On mornings like this someone in the house invariably said, “I miss the old wood stove,” the reliable kitchen warmer having been replaced under protest with a modern gas model. Their mother and father remained in bed, door closed. Puzzling furtive noises escaped from under the door. Their parents’ “recovering” was how this familiar activity was explained.

  Sophie the Polish servant girl was in charge, coaxing the brood to wash properly and brush their teeth, albeit quietly. She had set a big pot of oatmeal to start, with apples and cinnamon and brown sugar, at 5 a.m. in the dark kitchen. She did not enjoy the bright light of the Edison bulb. Adhering to the old ways she lit an oil lamp, then went to fetch the goods soon after hearing the milkman fidgeting at the side door. She had forgotten to put out the wire basket, so the bottles of milk and cream awaited uncrated in the milk box. The square-foot-sized pass-through was located adjacent to the side entrance. It had one small door that opened from the outside and another that opened from the inside. The milk bottles in the nook’s confines were cold and sweaty. She nearly dropped a slippery one in their gathering due to her lazy effort at avoiding making a second trip. On her return visit to the box there lingered outside cousin David from next door, his arms full of rags. In one hand was a burnt cork.

  “Why, it’s still pitch black out! Come on in here out of the cold, Davey,” Sophie said. “The oats is almost done. What’s that in yer hand?”

  “It’s burnt cork, for my face. Can you help me put it on?”

  “Tak! After we eat oats I will help. Come in, come in!” She shivered in the chill.

  Hearing the noises from the adults’ bedroom Sophie knew JP and Annie were awake. It was safe to holler. “Come eat!” she commanded as the kids scurried around paying no attention to her or to their breakfast, trying on their rag outfits, debating tactics, gathering their baskets, predicting the size of the bounty to come.

  The huge turkey, head dangling over the edge of the table, awaited stuffing. Annie insisted on performing that ritual herself.

  The Alderman entered in his bathrobe. Instantly things settled down.

  “Come here, sit. All of you. Now! Daniel. Mazie. Set an example for the little ones please,” he said.

  Everyone gathered around the table. Their mother then appeared, hair brushed, face flushed, cozied in her bathrobe and slippers. She liked her coffee freshly made. Sophie had readied the coffee pot. Annie set it on the gas flame. It was difficult trying to keep the excited children seated at the table. The adults were too depleted to force them.

  Little Mildred stated her determination to contribute the coins purloined to the benefit of the city’s poor on her costumed begging crawl through the First Ward’s streets. Most kids claimed the money they solicited was to help fill the stomachs of those less fortunate, but it was more often than not used to fill their own at the nearest candy store. Older siblings shamelessly confessed they were in the scheme entirely for the loot.

  Mildred had for weeks hunted the perfect mask. There was a fine collection exhibited right around the corner at Dalton’s store. Atop the glass case that protected the spiced jellies, licorice, and crystallized ginger from grimy hands, a display of papier-mache masks, fantastically and frighteningly painted, tempted the neighborhood children. Cheaper lithographed paper versions hung on the wall behind, priced at ten cents. Virtually every business that attracted children—the corner grocery, the toy store, the confectioners’—displayed an impressive collection of both varieties. Traditionally, masks typifying well-known characters in history or recent events or mythology were favored. There were Uncle Sams, Boers, Czars and Czarinas; Mephistos, John Bulls and Abe Lincolns; harlequins, bandits, Apollos, Filipinos and Fausts. Well represented were Admirals Dewey and Byrd, Teddy Roosevelt, Martha and George Washington, soldiers and sailors, parrots and bears. Likenesses of hobos, bums, vagrants, and trolls appealed to those suitably garbed in dirty, threadbare and torn discards worn preferably many sizes too big.

  The masking that little Mildred finally settled on for herself consisted of a heavy white veil descending from one of her mother’s old hats that the dog had chewed as a puppy.

  Not everybody could afford a mask. Still others had no desire to wear a mask—one’s artistry as expressed in bizarre or clownish face painting was their preference. Parents wishing to keep their young ones safe from speeding carriages and automobiles, from tripping on sidewalk cracks or tumbling into ditches due to an ill-fitting mask might decorate their charges instead with elaborate painted disguises or simple dabs of vermilion, Luxor rouge, boudoir powder or generous applications of burnt cork.

  The street charivari was the delight of little boys and girls and a delightfully convenient excuse for rowdy young men and vexatious young women to misbehave. Any citizen out and about whether rich or poor would be shaken down for pennies or nickels, apples or candy by horn-tooting, drum-beating, rattle-shaking hordes throwing confetti or dousing their adult victims with flour. Outlandish behavior was tolerated in the spirit of that singular day. A dozen or more masked children, including toddlers, roaming sidewalks and streets in gangs might be seen scrambling after pennies tossed recklessly to them by fun-seeking adults.

  A few First Ward lads had the brilliant idea of taking the streetcar up to Delaware Ave. They demanded a place atop the cow catcher or would hang off the sides and backs of the cars whooping loudly. Motormen vacillated between keeping safe order and allowing the boys to have their one day of insolent fun. The lads on this one day of the year were bold enough to walk through towering iron gates to knock on intimidating mansion doors which otherwise were forbidden to their class, where sometimes a whole dollar might be obtained by the fantastically garbed beggars.

  As the Sullivan children readied themselves for their invasion of the immediate neighborhood, the Alderman was banished to the front porch. An agitated man approached from up Hamburg Street and swung open the little gate. “Alderman!” he called as he climbed the steps. The Alderman was bundled against the cold, sitting on a rocker with a cutting board in his lap, chopping onions. Sophie was allergic and Annie refused to have the smell in her house. “If you want your favorite dish then you’re going to have to do the work,” she coerced. He would not do without his Onions-in-Cream. The older boys were gone. There was no one else he could pass the odious task along to. JP stammered. He was unable to recall the man’s name. “Well, hello there… sir,” he began.

  “Oh, Alderman Sullivan. I’m so sorry!”

  He took off his hat, placed it over his heart, and wore a look of horror on his face. Knowing as he did that the family had lost two babies in recent times, and seeing the tears and hearing the sniffles, he assumed…

  “No, no…sir.” JP thought furiously trying to remember the man’s name as he pulled out his handkerchief and blew his nose. Cleary? Cotter? Starts with a C. “Don’t be concerned. It’s only just the onions. My wife won’t have me do it in the house. She makes the most wonderful Onions-in-Cream. It’s for our Thanksgiving dinner.”

  The man seemed relieved there had been no unexpected tragedy as it permitted him his intended rancor. He was quite agitated. He started in with a complaint about the terror inevitably to be inflicted by mobs of dirty hobo children overrunning the Ward.

  “Me and the wife, Mrs. Callahan, we’re at our wits’ end with these shenanigans, and we…”

  JP interrupted, pleased for the name reminder. “Mr. Callahan, I completely agree with you about the inconvenience of it all, most certainly, sir. Now you see, I can do quite a bit to help those magnificent people like yourself who were intelligent enough to have voted for me, but here and there are some things that I cannot control, and the Ragamuffin Parade is unfortunately one of those. I fear the Thanksgiving convention of our juniors is here to stay, sir. As a matter of fact
, thinking about it, I would be sorry to see it given up, truth be told. To watch our tots wake on Thanksgiving morning, put on old, patched, but warm clothing, floppy shoes, paint their happy little faces or obscure them with a mask and then go out into the crisp November morning playing pranks on our neighbors…” JP leaned in to loudly whisper. “...neighbors like that cranky old spinster Miss Flynn next door to you,” he resumed a normal tone, “well it makes a father’s heart just sing! Can you understand that, sir? Why, I wish you and I had this custom when we were children, don’t you? Since you and I can do nothing about it, I just try to live vicariously through the children. Might you try that? Might you try, Mr. Callahan, since it’s just one day out of the entire year, to not just tolerate, but enjoy the day through their fresh young eyes?”

  Callahan felt a bit silly now, and realized he was conducting himself precisely like the sort of old man he had not until that moment realized he’d become.

  “All right, Alderman. Sorry to interrupt. Thank you for your time and trouble, sir.” He raised his nose and took in the scent. “Enjoy your turkey feast. Smells wonderful.”

  “That I will, Mr. Callahan, that I will!” JP sniffled. “You too. No trouble at all. Thank you again for your vote, sir.”

  JP returned to the table with his mountain of onion rings after blowing his nose out on the porch for a full minute and a half. Annie grabbed the bowl quickly and dumped the onions into a pot on a low flame and slammed the lid shut.