Five Points
Page 18
The bulk of Donoho’s power derived not from his status as barman but from his position as Sixth Ward “street inspector,” a post he had held since at least 1839. In this capacity, Donoho hired men to clean, pave, and repair the ward’s streets, giving him more patronage power than any other man in the ward. Con filled these dozens of positions not merely with loyal Democrats, but with “all the roaring, fighting, brawling heroes of his locality” who could be trusted to battle for whichever party faction he chose to support. Donoho also rewarded men who could deliver the votes of a particular tenement or of an ethnic or regional constituency within the neighborhood. Con would be sure to stretch his hiring budget to the limit in the month or so before an election, in order to ensure that influential Democrats and their friends and families had received a share of the proverbial “loaves and fishes.” Donoho’s status as street inspector benefited his grocery business as well. Those hoping for a job were sure to visit Con’s establishment to remind him of their willingness to labor (both physically and politically) upon his behalf. Five Pointers whom he had favored with the coveted patronage posts would likewise show their gratitude by patronizing his bar. Rainy days in particular were “Con’s harvest-time, for then the streets could not be swept, and knights of the broom, hoe, and shovel kept holiday at their chieftain’s rendezvous.”13
The support of Con Donoho and other local men of influence was the most important asset an aspiring politician could acquire to position himself for a nomination at the ward’s annual Democratic primary meeting. As a prerequisite to running for alderman, a liquor dealer had to not only establish himself as one of the most powerful Democrats in his own election district, but earn endorsements from party leaders in others as well. This would take years of service on behalf of the party, along with building popularity in the neighborhood, and doling out patronage to influential neighborhood residents. In advance of the primary, the would-be alderman would treat potential voters in the ward’s saloons and make deals with other party leaders to obtain their support. Endorsements might be offered in return for a promise of patronage, the pledge of a reciprocal endorsement in the future, or an up-front cash payment. Sixth Ward Democrats were generally divided into two factions, so in most cases the aldermanic hopeful would canvass support from just one and then hope to rally that faction to victory at the primary.
The leaders of each faction drew up a slate of candidates in advance of the primary meeting. By the 1850s, it was said that most candidates for significant offices such as alderman had to bribe these leaders to be assured a realistic chance at a nomination. The faction leaders also chose nominees for the minor ward offices (such as assistant alderman, constable, and school board member) and candidates to represent the ward at nominating conventions for city, state, and federal posts. With this ticket set, faction leaders had barely enough time to mollify disappointed officeseekers before the ward primary meeting, which typically took place three to four weeks before election day.
“A point of utmost consequence is the determination of the place at which the primary is to be held,” Ivins noted in the 1880s, explaining that “the voting is usually done at that liquor store, cigar store, livery-stable, or other place where the contestant favored by the [party’s ward] leader can best control the house, its exits and entrances, and can most easily and speedily gather his voters together.” Before about 1858, the situation in the Sixth Ward was somewhat different. Until then, all Democratic factions had agreed that the ward primary meeting should be held in the neutral territory of “Dooley’s Long-Room,” the large barroom in the Sixth Ward Hotel on Duane Street near Centre and Cross. Kernan wrote in 1885 that in Dooley’s Long-Room “there has come off more Irish jollifications, benefit balls, raffles for stoves, primary meetings, and political rows than in any other public place in the city.” In the antebellum years, Dooley’s Long-Room “was as famed in politics as was ever Tammany Hall. To hold a meeting there made it orthodox and regular. The ticket that was indorsed at that famed political head-quarters” almost always carried the ward. Consequently, all factions “struggled hard, even to bloody rows, to obtain an indorsement” at the annual primary meeting held there.14
In a city that became renowned for its rough and bloody primary meetings, those in the Sixth Ward were the most violent of all. “Regularity in the old Sixth was ofttimes only won by black eyes, torn coats, and dilapidated hats,” recalled Kernan. “The knowing politicians of the ward never went well dressed to a caucus meeting at Dooley’s Long-Room.” The meeting’s very first vote was the most crucial, because the faction that managed to elect the convention chairman controlled the proceedings and could, with official sanction, use its fighters to “maintain order,” the typical excuse given for expelling the weaker faction’s supporters from the building. If its strongmen failed to appear promptly, disaster loomed for even the most popular and seemingly invincible clique. “Once,” Kernan remembered, “when John Emmons was the candidate [for alderman, in either 1843 or 1844], nothing gave him the victory but the fact that Bill Scally [a noted pugilist], with Con Donoho and his men, arrived just in the nick of time to save the chairman from going out of the window, and the secretary following him; but their timely arrival changed the complexion of things, and sent the opposition chairman and officers out through the same window.” Candidates for even the most prestigious Sixth Ward office could not sit idly by while hired bullies did the rough work for them. Kernan noted that those nominees who did not “take a hand with their friends in battling for their cause” in Dooley’s Long-Room would be derided as cowards and “lack votes on election days.”15
The ticket that emerged victorious could claim to be the official slate of the Democratic party, its “regular” nominees. Supporters of the winning ticket would boast of their primary meeting heroics and gloat whenever they encountered the defeated faction’s adherents. In contrast to most of the rest of the city, however, the losing side in a Sixth Ward primary did not usually agree to work dutifully for the party’s official nominees. Because Democrats there so outnumbered their opponents, they could split their votes between two slates of candidates and still be relatively sure that one or the other would carry the ward. Consequently, a few days after the convention, the defeated faction typically announced that because of treachery at the primary, or the demands of the “true Democrats” of the ward, it would field its own set of candidates in the general election. Candidates running “on the split” (as this practice was called) hoped to convince voters that they would better represent their constituents’ interests than would the nominees of the ruling cabal.
But there was also an ulterior motive for remaining in the race. By threatening to make a deal with the ward’s Whigs or Republicans and thereby possibly defeating the regular nominees, the renegade Democrats were often able to extract concessions from the leaders of the ruling faction. Those running on the split might receive the promise of a certain share of the ward patronage for withdrawing from the race. Or the aldermanic candidate defeated at the primary might be promised that nomination the following year. Such concessions were most common in presidential or gubernatorial election years, especially when party unity was considered crucial for victory in an important state or national contest. But in most cases, the ascendant faction refused to make any concessions to the renegades, knowing full well that having won the nomination at Dooley’s Long-Room, success on election day was usually assured.
One of Con Donoho’s most important tasks was to ensure that the “regular” nominees outpolled those running on the split. To this end, he employed every means at his disposal. According to Kernan:
When Con was away on business, his good woman, Mrs. Donoho, stood behind the counter to attend to all customers; and an able helpmate was she to just such a rising man and politician as Con gave promise to be. Should Mrs. Conlan, or Mrs. Mulrooney, or the wife of any other good voter of the old Sixth, come for her groceries, or with a milk pitcher for a drop of good gin, or a herri
ng to broil for the good man’s twelve o’clock dinner, she would avail herself of the opportunity to have a bit of a talk with her concerning how her James, Patrick, or Peter would vote on the approaching aldermanic election . . . and heaven help the customer if she talked up in favor of John Foote on the split, or hinted that her man believed in Bill Nealus. If she did, the smallest herring or potatoes to be found in the barrel would be dealt out with a jerk, and a wink with it, that said when she had sense, and wanted to see her old man with a broom in his hand and ten shillings a day, work or no work, and pay from Con’s own hand on Saturday nights, she had only to make her husband send the Nealuses to the devil, and hurrah for Felix O’Niel! In this way, Mrs. Con Donoho made many a convert to the banner of her liege lord, the bold Con Donoho.16
Although they could not vote, women like Mrs. Donoho could help determine the outcome of a close election.
The boisterous scene at the ticket booths outside a New York City polling place on election day 1856. The names on the booths are those of the presidential candidates. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper (November 15, 1856). Collection of the New-York Historical Society.
Even if defections to candidates running on the split had been kept to a minimum, party leaders such as Donoho had plenty of work to do on election day. If renegade Democrats used their fighters to gain control of the polling places, they might discourage many voters from casting ballots and carry the election by intimidation. One such struggle for the polls occurred in 1848, when Democrat Frederick D. Kohler challenged incumbent Thomas Gilmartin in the race for Sixth Ward alderman. Although it is not evident which candidate was the party’s “regular” nominee, Gilmartin clearly held the upper hand at the “First District poll” located on the second floor of the Sixth Ward Hotel. According to the Tribune, “Gilmartonians . . . occupied the staircase for the purpose of exercising a wholesome supervision over the ballots of democratic voters. As soon as a man came up to vote they demanded to see his tickets, and if he refused[,] snatched them out of his hand for examination. If a Whig, he was suffered to go up and vote; but if a Kohlerite” he was thrown down the stairs. Around four-thirty, a large contingent of Kohlerites arrived at the hotel to remove the obstacle to their voting, “when all of a sudden the Gilmartonians brought forth a store of stout and heavy bludgeons, all ready for fight.” The similarly armed Kohlerites initially routed their opponents, but the Gilmartonians soon returned with bricks. “The struggle now became really fearful; hard blows were given, heads broken and blood flowed freely.—Several men were cut severely.”
Police finally arrived to disperse the fighters, but the combatants regrouped at the second district polls near the Tombs (the city jail located on Centre Street between Leonard and Franklin) “and there attempted to renew the melee” before the authorities again subdued them. Kohler’s success in the first district helped him carry the election. Such gory struggles, which made the Sixth Ward “notorious for the free indulgence of election privileges,” were especially common from 1834 to 1856.17
“BLOODY AND HORRIBLE IN THE EXTREME”
On occasion, polling place fights in the Sixth Ward escalated into full-scale riots. One such melee—that of 1834—was described earlier. Another erupted in 1842, when the already violent world of Sixth Ward politics was convulsed by the volatile “school question,” the controversy surrounding the role of religion in New York’s public education system. Until 1842, public schools in New York City were run by a private Protestant organization, the Public School Society. Its schools featured readings from the Protestant King James Bible, the singing of Protestant hymns, and textbooks that—according to Catholics—presented “the grossest caricatures of the Catholic religion, blaspheming its mysteries, and ridiculing its authority.” As immigration increased their numbers, New York Catholics complained bitterly about the overtly Protestant curriculum and asked that either religion be removed altogether from the schools or that the state fund Catholic schools to complement the overtly Protestant ones run by the Public School Society.
In April 1842, the New York legislature, attempting to mollify both dissatisfied Catholics and Protestants who felt threatened by Catholic demands, passed the Maclay Act, which created a new city-run public school system while leaving the Public School Society and its schools intact. Policy in the new schools on issues such as Bible reading would be set by school boards popularly elected in each ward. Neither side was completely satisfied with the Maclay Act. Catholic leaders such as Bishop John Hughes of New York were disappointed that the legislature would not finance Catholic schools and believed that the Catholic minority would not receive fair treatment from the new boards. Protestants, who perceived any changes to the prevailing system as capitulation to Catholics, were even more unhappy. Walt Whitman, the young editor of a Democratic organ called the Aurora, condemned the new law as a “statute for the fostering and teaching of Catholic superstition.”18
Given the Democratic party’s subsequent reputation as the organization most sympathetic to the city’s Irish Catholic immigrants, Whitman’s comments may come as a surprise. But city Democrats actually split over the school question, with Protestants generally supporting the Public School Society and Catholics endorsing the Maclay Act. Whitman argued in the Aurora that city Democrats should not submit to a “coarse, unshaven, filthy, Irish rabble” that did the bidding of the city’s Catholic leaders. Describing Catholic priests, Whitman asked, “shall these dregs of foreign filth—refuse of convents—scullions from Austrian monasteries—be permitted to dictate what Tammany must do?” No, the young editor insisted, because if Democrats yielded to “the foreign riffraff . . . in this case . . . there will be no end to their demands and their insolence.” Whitman asserted that he had “no prejudice against foreigners, because they are such,” but felt that “they are becoming altogether too domineering among us.” The best way to teach the newcomers to respect American institutions, Whitman argued, was to resist Catholic educational demands.19
The school question would have made the municipal election of April 1842 a contentious one in any event, but passage of the Maclay Act just two days before that contest threw city politics into virtual anarchy. The Sixth Ward, with its unusually high concentration of Irish Catholic voters, was especially volatile. “All the discordant and jarring elements and bones of contention seemed to have been concentrated in the unfortunate Sixth Ward, of bloody and riotous and immortal memory,” lamented the Herald. In the race for alderman, William Shaler (the incumbent assistant alderman) apparently captured the “regular” Democratic nomination, though a second Democratic ticket headed by former alderman James Ferris entered the fray as well. It was not unusual to find two Democratic candidates vying in a Sixth Ward aldermans’ race. But as the Herald pointed out, “all this quarrel arose out of the School question also. For Con Donohue [Donoho], the former Collector of the ward, was turned out by the Common Council for the part he took in the School Question. . . . When the nominations were made, Donohue was sacrificed and thrown overboard; on this his Irish friends rallied, made a new ticket, with Ferris at the head, to run it against Shaler, who had become very unpopular by his crusade against the little boys for crying Sunday newspapers.” The late entry into the race of a third Democratic candidate, Shivers Parker, whom the Herald described as “the Bishop Hughes’ candidate,” further complicated matters, raising the real possibility that the Whig candidate, Clarkson Crolius Jr. (whose family had made a fortune manufacturing earthenware in the Sixth Ward), might win the contest.20
Tension in the Sixth Ward was thus palpable as voters went to the polls on April 12. Balloting progressed with no more than the usual fisticuffs until late in the afternoon, when the “Spartans” arrived at the Sixth Ward Hotel polls. The Spartans were a violent Democratic gang that had become renowned in the previous few years for its use of intimidation at primary meetings and general elections. Although membership in the gang was not limited to any particular locale, its leader, Mike Walsh, a
nd most of his adherents lived outside the Sixth Ward. The inimitable Walsh, a self-styled “subterranean” radical who advocated workingmen’s rights and Democratic independence from Tammany Hall, had in recent years led his troops into election day battles against the Whig “Unionist” Club. But on this occasion, Walsh decided to devote his energies to his Democratic foes.
Accompanied by noted pugilists “Yankee” Sullivan and Bill Ford, as well as dozens of less well known but equally tough Spartans, Walsh and his men picked a fight with the Ferris supporters distributing ballots outside the hotel. A phalanx of Unionists stood by “urging on the quarrel.” When the Unionists realized that the Spartans considered this a fight between “Americans” and the Irish Catholics over the school question, they joined in on the Spartan side, attacking Irishmen up and down Centre Street. “Here the Irish got the worst of it, from the Americans” reported the Herald, as the Spartans and Unionists attacked them with both fists and bricks. The Irish initially retreated toward the Five Points intersection, but soon returned with reinforcements armed with sticks and clubs, “driving everything before them; and then the fight was bloody and horrible in the extreme.” Police officers led by the mayor finally arrived on the scene and made many arrests, mostly of Irishmen, “and many who were taken to the Tombs were so beaten about the head that they could not be recognized as human beings.”21