Fingy Conners & The New Century

by Richard Sullivan

  Get Well Wishes

  Alderman Sullivan was feeling much improved, fidgeting with his get-well cards, moaning on and on about how his life was in limbo due to his illness. Annie, still feeling weak and unsettled from the loss of her baby, sat in a straight-backed chair across the empty room distracted, bored by his prattle and transfixed by the beautiful view of the snow-covered hills outside the window. She was wondering why she’d bothered to take the train all the way out to Hornellsville only to see her husband more interested in the well wishes sent by strangers’ secretaries than with news of his own family.

  “You do look so much better now, dear. I’m so relieved,” she whispered gently.

  “Dodged a bullet yet again, me love. Death seems to follow me wherever I go Annie, droolin’ down the back of my neck like some crazed bull mastiff raging with hydrophobia. But it can never quite sink its rotten teeth into me, can it? I should’ve died fifty times over by this stage in my life, but I haven’t yet, have I? See? I am getting better. I told you. Didn’t I tell you?”

  “Yes, dear, you surely did.”

  The room was studded with flowers in vases from the Mayor, the Governor, fellow aldermen, the Pan-American Exposition Directors, members of the Common Council, and the Mutual Rowing Club.

  “See, Annie? It’s not just the Democrats who are lost without me. Even Roosevelt feels the void created by my absence!”

  He held up the tiny card that was attached to the greenhouse roses sent from Albany by the governor, or more accurately, the governor’s secretary in charge of such niceties.

  “They need me for the Pan-American!” he bragged.

  “Dr. Buchanan said you might be discharged day after tomorrow if you keep improving at the rate you have been, so be cautious, JP. Try and stay in bed. These floors are icy. I brought your hairy slippers for a reason. You don’t need another relapse.”

  The slippers were ridiculous, the insides brimming with curly auburn bison fur spilling out in such abundance as to almost trip the wearer. They were handmade in a little teepee or some frontiersman’s cabin out on the plains in Nebraska someplace, JP explained, his fascination with the personalities of the West expressed this time in his choice of footwear. Perhaps because he couldn’t wear normal shoes, or wear shoes in a normal way, he was fascinated by their outlandishness.

  JP was frustrated by all his illnesses and confinements to bed over the years. So much precious time lost, he worried. He had nearly died even as his first successful campaign for city alderman was coming to its logical conclusion. That was a close call. To have worked all those years toward that single goal, only to be close to death as election day approached, and he, silenced, unable to strike back at his opponents and political enemies. He never forgot those who’d kicked him when he was down and helpless. He made sure they paid.

  “The children are doing well,” Annie said, having waited in vain a half hour for him to bother to inquire. “They miss you.”

  “Oh, that’s nice.”

  He was fixated on other things. More important things. The Common Council. The Democratic Executive Committee. The Pan American Exposition. The Sullivan Ice Company. The Mutual Rowing Club. Annie should have taken it as a compliment of sorts, his being so secure in the knowledge that the family ran like a well-oiled machine with her at the helm. She had shielded him from far too much family responsibility, she realized too late. His children needed their father more than they ever got him. But she knew all too well that as long as she continued to have everything efficiently under control, he’d feel free to focus his energies elsewhere.

  Maybe she could change that.

  “That’s good, Annie. Good to hear. I can’t wait to be back home to coach my little team.”

  He was determined to have nine children, so they could form a family baseball team. As captain of the Buffalo Aldermens, the informal team made up of the city fathers that played at the Island Beach grounds, he took the pastime much too seriously, considering all the other responsibilities that he had assumed already.

  “I hate to leave you, JP, but Hannah has been run ragged taking care of both of our families, as well as David Nugent’s, and I’m anxious to get back before that blizzard hits. I’m so happy you’re nearly well again.”

  Chicago was already buried under two feet of snow and the telegraphed warnings from the west were ominous. Trainloads of individuals were being left stranded on the tracks from Wisconsin to Ohio right in the middle of nowhere.

  “Of course, my love. I’ll be fine. I have a pile of papers to look over. You just hurry home so you can outrun the storm.”

  “The whole idea of bed rest, JP,” she reminded him, “is rest. In bed. You do understand that, don’t you?”

  He just smiled. She bent over and kissed him. He was sitting in a chair next to his bed.

  “Now climb back in and I’ll cover you up. Stay warm. Do what the Sisters tell you to. We all need you at home.”

  She glanced back as she stepped out the doorway to smile a last goodbye, but his head was already buried in his papers.

  A cold blast hit her in the face as she walked out onto the veranda. A carriage was waiting to take her to the nearby station.

  “Don’t you have any enclosed carriages?” Annie asked the driver, annoyed and shivering. “This weather is dreadful!”

  “We do have one ma’am, but it’s already been hired. Sorry. The drive to the station will only take just three minutes.”

  ...

  JP held his precious cards in his hands, the celebrity signatures reinforcing his lofty stature as conceived in his own mind.

  “Best Wishes For Your Recovery. Best, Conrad,” came from the Mayor.

  It was just over a year previous that the Mayor had sent a letter to the Board of Aldermen containing recommendations which called into life the Pan American Exposition Company. As Council president, Alderman Sullivan offered the resolution at the meeting of the lower house, directing the Corporation Counsel to draft a special act giving the Mayor power to appoint a committee to attend at the birth of the new enterprise. This was adopted and the Board of Councilmen at its meeting the following afternoon endorsed the action of its colleagues.

  The Mayor then appointed the members of the Provisional Committee, which included three other alderman besides JP, as well as the city’s top business leaders, and as well too, the man who had his finger in just about every pot these days, Fingy Conners.

  JP shuffled through the cards again. There was nothing to be found from Conners. No get well wishes. No flowers. They were having their predictable periodic differences of opinion these days. Conners was supposedly spending time in Québec on business, it was said. The idea registered quizzically in the alderman’s still-drugged mind. What kind of business would Fingy have up in Canada? he wondered. He’d forgotten all about his realization of such the night of the Scoopers Strike ending.

  JP resumed filing through the deck of well wishes: “T.R.”, read the signature on the governor’s card. JP didn’t dare call him “T.R.” to his face, and Roosevelt never made himself so familiar to JP as to encourage him to call him anything other than “Governor Roosevelt.”

  Almost exactly one year before to the day, JP had boarded the Empire State Express for Albany with Mayor Diehl, Fingy’s attorney Bill Hoyt, Judge J. Henry Metcalf, Alderman Kennedy, and the various major boosters among the city’s businessmen, led by George Urban and J.N. Scatcherd.

  They were headed to the capitol to present the Pan American Exposition bill for approval. Chairman Brackett of the State Judiciary committee asked Judge Metcalf to explain just what the bill which the committee had under consideration was intended to accomplish.

  Judge Metcalf cleared his throat as he stood and faced his audience in the Assembly Chamber and began to explain the bill in detail. He had not proceeded very far when Mr. Brackett interrupted that he did not believe that there was any opposition to it and suggested that a vote be taken. The vote resulted in a unanimous agre
ement to report the bill favorably without amendment. This decision was greeted with enthusiastic applause by the Buffalo boomers.

  The committee next marched across the Grand Staircase and down the barrel-ceilinged hallway to meet with Teddy Roosevelt in the Executive Chamber. Various members took turns explaining the object of their visit. Alderman Sullivan, well aware that he was a Democrat standing before the Republican Governor, humbly asked for the Governor’s pledge of approval of the bill. Roosevelt replied that he would take a look at the bill and if he had any questions, he would get back to them on it.

  Mr. Urban interrupted tactfully, explaining that the need for haste on the Governor’s part was caused by the efforts of the city of Detroit to secure the exposition for the state of Michigan. Alderman Sullivan explained to Roosevelt that it was necessary they raise half a million dollars by the following Saturday night, and they needed the Governor’s approval in order to get moving on that.

  “Then I will rush it right through,” Teddy boomed, looking JP straight in the eye. “Buffalo is obviously the rightful place for such an important exposition.”

  ...

  JP glanced out the window of his hospital room and noticed that it still had not begun snowing. He was sure that Annie would make it home all right, without the train experiencing any delay from the approaching blizzard. He opened once again the card from little James, their youngest, barely six months old. It was covered with embossed violets and smelled of that flower’s scent. Annie had imitated a child’s scrawl in signing it: “Get well soon Pa, we miss you. Love, James.”

  JP placed all the cards in a neat stack on the bedside table, then pulled the covers up around himself.

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” he mumbled to the empty room.

  Just as he began to doze off, the nasty Sister Seraphim came in with that day’s issue of the Buffalo Express.

  “Here’s your newspaper, Alderman Sullivan.”

  “Thank you, Sister,” JP said with a wink, never considering for an instant whether winking at a nun was appropriate for he had never attended parochial school. He fully meant to place the newspaper aside until later and settle in for a nap, but the headline caught his eye: NUGENT SENTENCED.

  The sub-headlines set his mind to stirring: TWO YEARS IN AUBURN THE PENALTY IMPOSED, and below that, HOYT IS STILL FIGHTING.

  Fingy’s top attorney and JP’s fellow Pan-American Exposition committee colleague Bill Hoyt was intent on exhausting every legal source to save his client. He planned to make an appeal.

  County Judge Emery imposed the sentence, and JP mused about Nugent’s destination, Auburn State Prison, practically a second home to the Sullivan brothers’ abominable stepfather, the late Peter Halloran. For various despicable offenses committed before and throughout his marriage to his mother Mary, including plunging a kitchen butcher knife into her neck right in front of the children, Peter Halloran had come to know that particular prison as he did others very well through the decades.

  Ashamed of his sordid history Halloran was not. Peter Halloran delighted in relating disturbing recollections of his adventures behind bars at the place he called “the castle” for its architectural resemblance to such an edifice. The young JP had figured this made perfect sense since every castle had a dungeon in which to toss its worst scoundrels.

  JP continued reading.

  The Express’ story told of the fight that attorney Hoyt and second attorney Shire had waged in defending his sister-in-law’s brother on the charge of assault, first degree. They objected to the indictments. They objected to the jurisdiction of the court. They held that the grand jury that found the indictments was irregular and unauthorized. They fought against David Nugent’s arraignment to plead. They had the trial put off many times. They exhausted their challenges of jurymen. They quibbled and objected and took exceptions throughout the trial. They opposed District Attorney Penney at every point. They produced a wonderful number of witnesses who swore on Nugent’s behalf. They took exceptions to the court’s charge, and when the jury reported the verdict, they moved for a new trial. They delayed the arguments on the motion for over a month. Judge Emery denied the motion and appointed the day of sentencing.

  When Nugent was arraigned for sentence, Attorney Hoyt demonstrated that his resources were still not exhausted. He objected to sentence on all his old grounds as to alleged irregularity of the court, the grand jury and the indictments, and additionally on one new ground, the novel argument that the case should have been tried by a United States Court. He argued that the scene of the alleged crime, which was the armed assault upon Polish ore handlers in the hold of the steamer Mather lying at the Minnesota ore dock, was under Federal jurisdiction. The court overruled his objections. Then Hoyt moved for an arrest of judgment. Judge Emery denied the motion.

  Hoyt then made a plea for leniency. As a testimony to Fingy Conners’ extraordinary talent for manipulation, Hoyt presented a statement signed by ten of the twelve men on the jury asking that Nugent be set free with a $250 fine as his only penalty. Hoyt called the court’s attention to the evidence as to Nugent’s previous good character and asked the court to be merciful.

  The Buffalo Express story reported that Judge Emery imposed sentence in these words:

  “Nugent, the jury by its verdict has found you guilty of assault on the lesser charge of assault in the second degree. Your boarding of the Mather with a gang with loaded pistols drawn is a clear indication of planning and forethought, which fits the criteria for the original charge of assault in the first degree.

  “The jury has now seen fit to show its mercy, however misplaced that might be, by finding you guilty of this lesser charge, that you were concerned in the commission of the crime which resulted in the shooting and grave injury of Mr. Molik on the boat Mather.

  “While acting as jurymen the members of the jury decided that it was their duty, from the evidence presented, to render their verdict, and performed that duty. Certain members of the jury, now, as individuals, have signed a paper asking that you be let off with a fine.

  “Under this verdict you could be sentenced to imprisonment for five years and in addition be fined $1000, but the fact that jury has recommended you to the mercy of the court is to be taken into consideration in fixing the penalty for your crime.

  “It is a very unpleasant duty to sentence a man, and especially a man who has a family and who has heretofore borne a good reputation, but the court must do what the law requires, and the court believes it to be a plain duty. In view of the enormity of the offense of which the jury has found you guilty, to impose a more severe punishment than a mere fine.

  “According to the evidence in this case which the jury must have believed in order to have reached this verdict, you, being armed with a loaded pistol and having gathered a number of men who were likewise armed, took forcible possession of a vessel lying at anchor in the harbor of this city which was wholly entitled to the protection of our laws, and fired or caused to be fired, shots at innocent unsuspecting men densely confined within the hold of this vessel with nowhere to run and no way to protect or defend themselves.

  “Such crimes cannot be punished lightly or our laws and the authority of our courts would be defiled at will by lawless men and afford no protection to the community. It is most fortunate for every person present on the boat that night that no one was killed, as if anybody had been killed the charges would have been more serious.

  “Nevertheless there is a possibility which the jury seems to have considered in recommending you to mercy, that you may have acted under great excitement without understanding fully the consequences of your acts. The court has concluded, after much deliberation, to give you the benefit of the doubt in that respect and also the doubt always raised by previous good character, and not impose the extreme penalty of the law.

  “In imposing the penalty which the court will pronounce, it is deemed by the court that due weight has been given to the recommendation of the jury at the time of
rendering the verdict. It is proper for the jury to make that recommendation whenever deemed proper, and it is the duty of the court to heed the same, and the court believes that due consideration and due weight have been given to the recommendation of the jury for leniency.

  “The sentence of the court in your case is that you be confined in the State Prison at Auburn at hard labor for the term of two years.”

  Nugent jumped to his feet in shock as his wife and sister cried out. Fingy in contrast looked confident and stoic. Quickly Attorney Hoyt took a few moments to calm his client and his client’s relatives, then proceeded.

  Hoyt immediately asked for a certificate of reasonable doubt upon which to make an appeal, which was granted. Hoyt then asked for a stay of execution of the sentence for 60 days, which was also granted.

  This allowance and the posted bond of $5000 would allow David Nugent to remain a free man until a decision could be reached on his appeal. If the appeal were granted, Bill Hoyt could easily get an order allowing Nugent to remain free until the appeal is determined.

  “The attorney seems to be confident,” the Express editorialized, “that he can secure a new trial for his client.”

  JP put the newspaper down just as his brother walked into his room. Sister Mary Seraphim contorted her face in an expression of undisguised contempt at first sight of the policeman, then imperiously stormed out.

  “Hello brother!” cheerily called JP. “It’s awful late in the day for you to be in this neck of the woods.”

  “I had to return a boy to his mother in Hornell before the storm hit. Well, I didn’t have to. A patrolman could’ve done it. But it gave me the opportunity to come see you, being right in the next town over. Any news about your release from the clutches of these Angels of Misery and Death?”

  JP laughed. “That ugly one certainly knows you’ve got her number. She treads very lightly around me.”