Fingy Conners & The New Century

by Richard Sullivan

  “Who better than a gee-gaw man who shouts out to thousands of revelers every day—visitors unfamiliar with the environs and eager for a good time, to send customers over to us?” reasoned Junior to Herr Mueller. The light went on in Mueller’s eyes, and at the nightly meeting after closing he encouraged the staff from that day forward to troll the Midway for those personalities who could best send them the business he wanted by giving them their first beer for free, as well as every-second beer after that also. Treats were delivered to their tables periodically too, depending on fluctuating supplies and stores.

  Junior had been right when he said, “You know, Mr. Mueller, the best show don’t have to be goin’ on out there along the Midway; it could be happenin’ right here at the Pabst, if we just encourage it.”

  So, contrary to the original plan of convincing flush customers to leave as soon as possible after their meal in order to make way for other well-heeled diners who failed to materialize, the opposite tact was now taken.

  “The more full the pavilion is, the more popular ve look,” Herr Mueller concluded. “Don’t hurry them out anymore.”

  It was one thing for Exposition-goers to see Chiquita on her Midway throne in her own venue, Chiquita’s Palace, beautifully jeweled and costumed. There she ruled, surrounded by treasures presented her by European royalty, along with a landau and two miniature horses gifted to her the year before by President McKinley. Lately there was a brand new present of a miniature electric automobile which she used to zoom all over the Exposition grounds, waving to well-wishers wildly as she weaved between the pedestrians a little too close and a bit too fast. On her throne she was ballyhooed endlessly, gawkers staring in either disbelieving wonder or repulsion.

  It was quite another though to see the tiny thing lounging at the Pabst at a table half-soused, with her towering seventeen-year-old lover’s hand disappearing under the table and vice-versa, surrounded as they quickly became by intrigued, free-spending customers loving every minute of the dinner show.

  It was as well wondrous to see the famous Geronimo sitting atop his horse at the Indian Congress, majestic, dignified, posing for photographs with dignitaries like William Jennings Bryant or Vice President Teddy Roosevelt, but perhaps more interesting to see him at the Pabst, relaxing with his friends, laughing, smoking, telling stories, trading insults with the waiters and acting nothing like the savage Indian of his purported reputation.

  At the corner of the restaurant where the Mall and the Midway intersected, where passers-by could look in on the patio and clearly view the clientele, where Junior had seated Chiquita on the evening that turned the Pabst’s fortunes, was the place newly designated for entertaining the house’s preferred customer lately reconsidered. When this change was made and vividly-costumed, elegantly-dressed performers and celebrities poured in, trailed by Midway entrepreneurs the likes of Frank Bostock the Animal King, or the press agent Doc Waddell, business increased dramatically. Fair-goers couldn’t wait to go home and tell their friends who they had seen or dined alongside, and what those people were doing—at the Pabst.

  As word spread and interest in dining in the vicinity of exotic personalities like Selica the beautiful lady lion tamer, Mlle. Dodo from gayest Paree, the astonishing Gypsy Princess Stellita crowned in her priceless jeweled tiara, The Man in the Moon, Polatie the Strongman, geisha girls from Fair Japan, and even the Prussian Giant Guard from the Alt Nuremberg who had made new friends here and dropped by regularly, business boomed.

  Now it was the Pabst Pavilion where people flocked to see and be seen. It had taken a few months, but the Pabst had become a cosmopolitan gathering place the likes of which few fair-goers had ever frequented previously or ever would again have the opportunity to in the future.

  Since Pabst’s business had increased less dramatically for lunch than for dinner, Junior suggested they invite others on the midway during the sparser midday hours who could not usually afford to eat at the Pabst, but whose costumed exoticism would help attract the paying customer. These included the hula-hula girls and boys from the Olupa halau in the Hawaiian Village, the Singalese stick dancers, the Japanese acrobats, and the Italian Adonis. Rickshaw drivers were encouraged to come in and have a free beer and to park their jinrikisha out front of the Pabst giving the impression that the place was being patronized by the hioty-toity customer who could not only afford a dollar an hour to be wheeled around the Fair, but could also afford to park his idle rickshaw as he dined.

  Junior made four times as much money in tips during August as he had made in the entire previous period from late April to the end of July.

  Herr Mueller would not be “loosink” his shirt after all.

  As the Pan American Exposition wound down and colder weather set in, Chiquita disappeared from her lavish apartment on the Midway at about 11 p.m. on November 7.

  Rumors spread that she had been kidnapped, which made the happy couple giggle.

  Justice Thomas Rochford married the 26-inch tall, 18.5 lb. Chiquita, legally known as Alice Zenda, and seventeen year old boyfriend Tony Woeckener in the judge’s home, at midnight.

  Frank Bostock, King of the Midway and Chiquita’s infamously possessive and physically abusive employer, was not at all pleased.

  Neither were Tony Woeckener’s parents.

  Emma Goldman

  “Sully, we need you at the Exposition to help out during the President’s visit.”

  Those were words Detective Jim Sullivan didn’t want to hear.

  “Chief, I could sure use a day off. I been workin’ eleven days straight. Hannah’s not feelin’ right and these huge crowds have made all our jobs ten times harder than before. I tell ya, I’ll be happy once the Pan is over and done with.”

  Cusak looked at him wondering what was going on. It wasn’t like Jim Sullivan to complain.

  “Sully, everybody’s workin’ double shifts and havin’ to pull extra duty, includin’ me. It’s either you go along with the President’s detail to Niagara Falls tomorrow, or stay here and work the Exposition detail. Either way, we need your eyes.

  “Six of one, half a dozen of the other,” moaned Jim.

  “Choose,” said the Chief of Detectives.

  “Okay Pat. The Exposition. It’s closer.”

  “Good boy.”

  Hannah wasn’t the only one feeling not so good, but Jim had to do his duty, whatever that happened to be.

  “Oh, Jim.” said Hannah. “You look so tired. You need a rest.”

  “I know. I feel it in my bones, Hannah. But I got no choice. What good can I be if I’m sleepin’ standin’ up? We’re all exhausted. The whole department. Good thing McKinley’s got his own men. Courtelyou, and the Secret Service. They’re on the ball.”

  Publisher William Randolph Hearst’s years of abusive slandering of President McKinley had stirred up a hornet’s nest, most prominently among them a stinger going by the name of Emma Goldman. The East European jewess had strong ideas about socialism and anarchy and she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. The yellow newspapers, hungry for salacious material to sell their rags, attributed to her far more importance than her campaign against American capitalism deserved, allowing her to gain a prominence well out of proportion to her actual standing.

  Goldman had emigrated from Kovno, in the Russian empire, to Rochester New York to join family members who’d preceded her. There she became polarized by the Haymarket Affair. A dynamite bomb had been thrown into a crowd in Chicago killing seven policemen. Although there was no evidence that any of those who were ultimately arrested threw the bomb, four of the men were hanged for the deed and one more committed suicide. After a gubernatorial election brought a new Illinois governor to office, John P. Altgeld vigorously condemned the trial that caused the arrest of the defendants as a travesty and pardoned those accused who yet remained in prison.

  Goldman became a writer and a famed lecturer on rights for women, anarchist philosophy, birth control, free love, tolerance of homosexuality, and other soci
al issues unspoken of in polite society. Her lectures attracted thousands of frustrated and angry people. Goldman’s brand of rhetoric appealed mainly to immigrants like herself who had arrived expecting streets paved in gold but more often than not found them covered in shit, literally. Their American Dream shattered, they were looking for something or someone to blame.

  William Randolph Hearst was an expert at pointing fingers in the wrong direction and fabricating stories out of thin air to promote sales of his tawdry penny sheet newspapers. So expert had he been in fact, that his bellicose ramblings had gotten the United States into a war with Spain.

  Penny sheets, obviously given their price, were the most likely newspaper that a poor person might read. Hearst knew his audience, and gave the penny sheet reader precisely what he wanted.

  Leon Czolgosz found Emma Goldman inspirational. He approached her after one of her lectures in Cleveland and attempted to become her friend, but seeing clearly that something was seriously off with him, suspecting perhaps he was an infiltrator like many police agents sent to spy on radical groups, she rejected his overtures.

  Czolgosz felt he needed to somehow prove to Emma Goldman that he was worthy. And so he headed to Buffalo to attend the Pan American Exposition, pistol in hand.

  September 5, 1901

  James “Big Ben” Parker

  It had been a long hot day for the President, but Niagara Falls had refreshed him a bit. Still, The First Lady was feeling poorly and instead of accompanying the President back to the Exposition, she decided to remain at the Milburn mansion on Delaware Avenue to rest. McKinley was eager to leave Buffalo and get his sickly wife back to Washington.

  George Cortelyou, the President’s private secretary, was anxious in a different way. A spate of assassinations in Europe had prompted him to cancel a number of McKinley’s recent public receptions. But the President was thrilled and energized by the Exposition and the enormous crowds. He viewed the Pan as a unique opportunity to positively influence a vast audience in one fell swoop.

  He insisted on going through with the public reception in the Temple of Music.

  James Parker, a towering powerfully built Negro known to his coworkers at Bailey Catering as Big Ben, was delighted to find a place in the public reception queue only about 200 people back from the head of the line. He was certain with so few ahead of him that he would surely get to shake the hand of the President of the United States.

  The man standing directly in front of him, a rather nice looking slight young white man, much shorter than he, gave him no suspicions.

  Along the queue were stationed a number of Buffalo Police, the men sent in especially as an adjunct to the Pan-American Exposition Police Force in maintaining control of the mammoth crowds attracted to the fair that day by the President’s visit. Included in this auxiliary force were Detective Sergeants Jim Sullivan and John Geary.

  The sun was broiling, and since he was feeling poorly to begin with, Jim chafed standing in its cruel direct rays. His luckier partner John Geary was assigned inside the building. Jim regretted not having chosen to perform his Presidential duty at Niagara Falls instead, where at least there might have been a refreshing mist. Further up near the entrance to the Temple of Music lazed Detective Wright, cool as a cucumber, standing in the shade. Jim tried for some minutes to attract Wright’s attention. Once he did, Jim signaled for Wright to switch places with him. Wright wasn’t about to willingly stand in the hot sun so he pretended not to understand, quickly devoting his full attentions to keeping people in an orderly line.

  Jim Sullivan did not take any special notice of the slight man with the handkerchief-bandaged hand as he passed him by; Jim’s eye was drawn instead more strongly to the huge Negro standing directly behind him. Although the Negro looked benign, his powerful stature made Sullivan nervous. Attracting Wright’s attention again, Sullivan pointed out the Negro so that Wright could size him up as he passed. But Wright found his attention directed rather to the smaller man in front of the black, the man with the bandaged hand. The small man was talking animatedly to the man in front of him, and Wright thought it hilarious to hear a polack and a wop, each with accents so thick that Wright couldn’t understand either one of them, chattering away and perfectly able to understand each other.

  Wright waited to catch the polack’s eye to ask about his hand, but the little man never looked at him. At any rate with such an obvious injury he didn’t look like he could be much of a threat to anyone. On the other hand, the big Negro standing behind him in line…that giant might prove a different story.

  Wright signaled to Detective Geary standing ahead just inside the entrance to size up the six-foot-six-plus Negro as he passed. Geary gave Parker the once-over as he filed by but found no special reason to be concerned.

  As he edged close to the President, James Parker noticed that Exposition President Milburn stood on McKinley’s left, and thought he might like to shake that man’s hand as well, considering his splendid achievement.

  Parker had just been laid off from his job at the exposition’s Plaza Restaurant with much regret being expressed by his manager, for Parker was a damn good worker. The Exposition was winding down and it was clear that the Bailey Catering Co. was not going to make the kind of profit projected so optimistically the previous spring, so the management was cutting back.

  The 250-pound Parker was a modest man and a gentleman. He’d enjoyed a career as a Constable in Savannah Georgia previously, and before that he was a newspaper man for the Southern Recorder. He was known as an imposing gentleman of few words by the citizens of the east side of Savannah. In his role as Constable, his command to submit to arrest was always meekly complied with.

  Dejected by his firing from the Bailey Catering Co., Parker decided to hang around and enjoy the Exposition as a visitor, since he likely wouldn’t be able to afford to come back again as a paying attendee. Looking on the bright side, if he hadn’t been laid off he’d never have gotten the chance to meet the President, so he positioned himself to be near the door of the Temple of Music when it opened at 4 p.m.

  As the sun beat down mercilessly the line moved forward surprisingly quickly. Big Ben found himself third man from President McKinley. It was very hot inside the building, about ninety degrees. Most people had handkerchiefs out, fanning themselves, wiping their brows and necks.

  Suddenly the line halted.

  The Italian man who had been ahead of and talking to the Polish man with the bandaged hand in front of Parker would not let go of the President’s hand and move on. He spoke effusively to McKinley, but Big Ben could see that the President’s associates and his secret service men, most notably Mr. Ireland, were looking perturbed. Finally, as the Italian continued chattering away to McKinley loudly, even as he was being physically moved along, everyone, distracted by the Italian, and all eyes on him, heard two shots fire from the handkerchief-bandaged hand of the young man standing directly in front of Big Ben.

  Stunned, it took people more than a moment to react.

  McKinley leered at his assassin with an expression of absolute repugnance; the assassin’s handkerchief was aflame.

  Before anyone including the secret service men could pounce, Big Ben slammed the assassin from behind on the neck with one mighty hand and reached for the pistol still aimed at the President ready to fire again with the other. Instantly then a dozen men piled on the assassin driving him to the floor, but despite his slight build and the scramble of men atop him, Czolgosz attempted yet again to fire the pistol.

  Once more, it was Big Ben who reacted in time. Parker knocked the revolver from the hand of Leon Czolgosz before the assassin could get off a third shot, sending the weapon sliding across the floor.

  The President, with two bullets lodged in him, remained upright, and Exposition President Milburn and secretary Cotelyou led him to a chair to have a seat.

  Chaos ensued.

  Women shrieked and men bellowed. The electric ambulance was called from the Exposition hospita
l. Jim had heard the shots from his position outside and immediately reacted by charging the entry door and forcing his way in.

  “Stay out!” he shouted to the crowd as they began to jam the entry. Losing no time, Detectives Geary and Solomon along with Mr. Ireland dragged the assassin out and away from the scene just as the ambulance raced up to take the President the short distance to the Exposition facility.

  Jim was incredulous.

  “Take him instead to the General Hospital!” he shouted, knowing that the small facility on the exposition grounds was in no way prepared or equipped to attend to such an urgent matter. No one seemed to hear him, or perhaps others thought they knew better. Perhaps if McKinley were splayed on the floor unconscious they might have reacted more urgently, but the President was seated and calmly speaking.

  Pandemonium reigned as Detectives Geary and Solomon escorted Czolgosz away from the Music Hall. Knowing the crowd would be out for his blood, they sped their way through the unsuspecting hordes of fairgoers converging on the scene. They rushed the shooter downtown to police headquarters and into a jail cell not a moment too soon.

  McKinley was hurried into the small hospital. The first surgeon to examine him there was Herman Mynter, who had been first introduced to the President only the day before. As Mynter examined the President’s wounds, McKinley raised his head, smiled and said, “Doctor, when I met you yesterday, I did not imagine that today I should have asked a favor of you.”

  Other physicians quickly arrived, and just as quickly a decision had to be reached as to who would be appointed head surgeon. As a testament to the dearth of qualified physicians attending him, Dr. Matthew Munn was selected as chief despite the fact he was a gynecologist with no expertise in surgery of the upper abdomen where McKinley’s wounds were located. Additionally, Munn had never before operated on a gunshot wound.

  Surgery began at 5:20 p.m. with the President’s personal physician, Presley Marion Rixey, holding a mirror to reflect the waning sunlight onto the President’s wound because there were no electric lights in the operating room. There were also few surgery implements on hand.