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And I prospered with my boxing. I think I owned much native stomach for the business, since in my sullen fashion I was as near the touch of true happiness when in the midst of a mill as ever I hope to stand. My heart, and with that word I mean courage, was of fighting sort. While I was exceedingly cautious, my caution was based on courage. Men of this stamp stay until the last and either conquer or fall. There be ones who have courage, but their construction is the other way about. Their courage is based on caution; such if hard bested run away. Should you seek the man who will stand to the work of battle to the dour end, pick him whose caution, coming first in the procession of his nature, is followed by his courage, rather than that one whose caution follows his courage to tap it on the shoulder, preach to it of peril, and counsel flight.
You are not to assume that I went about these boxing gymnastics because of any savageries or blood-hunger dominant in my breast, or was moved solely of that instinct by which the game-cock fights. I went to my fist-studies as the result of thought and calculation. In my slow way I had noted how those henchmen of the inner circle who surrounded Big Kennedy – those who were near to him, and upon whom he most relied, were wholly valued by him for the two matters of force of fist and that fidelity which asks no question. Even a thicker intellect than mine would have seen that to succeed as I proposed, I must be the gladiator. Wherefore, I boxed and wrestled and perfected my muscles; also as corollary I avoided drink and tobacco as I would two poisons.
And Big Kennedy, who had a little of his eye on me most of the time, was so good as to approve. He applauded my refusal of alcohol and tobacco. And he indorsed my determination to be a boxer.
“A man who can take care of himself with his hands,” said he, “an’ who never lets whisky fool him or steal his head, can go far in this game of politics. An’ it’s a pretty good game at that, is politics, and can be brought to pay like a bank.”
It chanced that I met with an adventure which added to my celebration in a way I could have wished. I was set upon by a drunken fellow – a stranger. He was an invader, bent upon mischief and came from an adjacent and a rival ward. I had offered no provocation; why he selected me to be his victim and whether it were accident or design I cannot say. Possibly I was pointed out to this drinking Hotspur as one from whose conquest honor would flow; perhaps some enemy of the pattern of Sheeny Joe had set him to it. All I know is that without challenge given, or the least offer of warning, the creature bore down upon me, whirling his fists like flails.
“You’re the party I’m lookin’ for!” was all he said.
In the mix-up to follow, and which I had neither time to consider nor avoid, the visitor from that other ward was fully and indubitably beaten. This was so evident that he himself admitted it when at the finish of hostilities certain Samaritans gave him strong drink as a restorative. It developed also that my assailant, in a shadowy subdued way, was a kind of prizefighter, and by his own tribe deemed invincible. My victory, therefore, made a noise in immediate circles; and I should say it saved me from a deal of trouble and later strife, since it served to place me in a class above the common. There came few so drunk or so bold as to ask for trouble with me, and I found that this casual battle – safe, too, because my prizefighter was too drunk to be dangerous – had brought me a wealth of peace.
There dawned a day when Big Kennedy gave me a decisive mark of his esteem. He presented me to his father. The elder Kennedy, white-haired and furrowed of age, was known as “Old Mike.” He was a personage of gravity and power, since his was the only voice in that region to which Big Kennedy would yield. Wherefore to be of “Old Mike’s” acquaintance shone in one’s favor like a title of knighthood.
Big Kennedy’s presentation speech, when he led me before his father, was characteristic and peculiar. Old Mike was in the shadow of his front porch, while three or four oldsters of the neighborhood, like a council or a little court about a monarch, and all smoking short clay pipes, were sitting about him.
“Here’s a pup,” cried Big Kennedy, with his hand on my shoulder, “I want you to look over. He’s a great pup and ought to make a great dog.”
Old Mike glanced at me out of his twinkling gray eyes. After a moment he said, addressing me:
“Come ag’in.”
That was all I had from Old Mike that journey.
Big Kennedy it should be said was a model for all sons. He kept his father in ease and comfort in a house of his own. He was prone to have Old Mike’s advice, particularly if what he proposed were a step novel or one dangerous in its policy, and he never went to anything in the face of Old Mike’s word. It wasn’t deference, it was faith; Big Kennedy believed in the wisdom of Old Mike and relied upon it with a confidence that was implicit. I shall have more to tell of Old Mike as my story unrolls to the eye. If Big Kennedy were my example, Old Mike should be called my mentor. Taking the cue from Big Kennedy, I came to own for Old Mike that veneration which the youths of Ancient Greece felt for their oracles, and as utterly accepted either his argument or conclusion. It stood no wonder that I was impressed and played upon by this honor of an introduction to Old Mike. To bring you before Old Mike and name you for his consideration was the extremest proof of Big Kennedy’s regard. As I’ve said, it glittered on one like the chain and spurs of knighthood, and the fact of it gave me a pedestal among my fellows.
After my bout with that erring one who came out of his own ward to sup grief at my hands, there began to collect about me a coterie of halfway bruisers. This circle – and our enemies were quick to bestow upon it the epithet of “gang” – never had formal organization. And while the members were of the rougher sort, and each a man of his hands, the argument of its coming together was not so much aggression as protection.
The town forty years ago was not a theater of peace and lambs’-wool safety. One’s hand must keep one’s head, and a stout arm, backed by a stout heart, traveled far. To leave one’s own ward, or even the neighborhood where one lived, was to invite attack. In an alien ward, one would be set upon and beaten to rags before one traveled a mile. If one of the enemy were not equal to the business, others would lend a hand. Whether it required one or two or three or twenty, the interloper was fated to heir a drubbing. If his bones were not broken, he was looked upon as fortunate, while those who had undertaken to correct his wanderings went despised as bunglers who had slighted a task.
Now and then a war-party would make a sortie from their own region to break windows and heads in the country of an enemy. Such hands often descended upon the domain of Big Kennedy, and it was a notion of defense against these Goths which brought the militant spirits I have mentioned to my shoulder. It was we who must meet them, when they would make desolate our territory. The police were of no use; they either walked the other way in a spirit of cautious neutrality, or were driven into hiding with a shower of stones.
By the common tongue, this coterie to collect at my back was named the “Tin Whistle Gang.” Each member carried a whistle as part of his pocket furniture. These were made of uniform pattern, and the same keen note, like the screech of a hawk, was common to all.
The screaming fife-like song would bring out the Tin Whistles as hotly bent for action as a colony of wasps. In those days, when might was right, the sound of these whistles was a storm signal. Quiet people shut their doors and drew their bolts, while apothecaries made ready to sell lint and plasters.
It is required that I speak of the Tin Whistles in this place. I was now for the first time to be called into political activity by Big Kennedy. I was eighteen, and of a sober, steady, confident cast, and trustworthy in a wordless way. Because I was sober of face and one not given to talk or to laughter, men looked on me as five years better than my age; I think these characteristics even imposed on Big Kennedy himself, for he dealt with me as though I were a man full grown.
It was in the height of a campaign. Two days before the balloting, Big Kennedy sent for me. There was a room to the rear of his bar. This room was a holy of holies; no one entered there who was not established in the confidence of Big Kennedy. It was a greater distinction even than the acquaintance of Old Mike. Knowing these things, my brow flushed when Big Kennedy led me into this sanctum of his policies.
“Now, if I didn’t trust you,” said Big Kennedy, looking me hard in the eye, “if I didn’t trust you, you’d be t’other side of that door.” I said nothing; I had found that silence pleased Big Kennedy, and I learned early to keep my tongue between my teeth. Big Kennedy went on: “On election day the polls will close at six o’clock. Half an hour before they close, take that Bible Class of yours, the Tin Whistles, and drive every one of the opposition workers an’ ticket peddlers away from the polling place. You’ll know them by their badges. I don’t want anyone hurt mor’n you have to. The less blood, the better. Blood’s news; it gets into the papers. Now remember: half an hour before six, blow your whistle an’ sail in. When you’ve got the other fellows on the run, keep’em goin’. And don’t let’em come back, d’ye see.”
CHAPTER V – THE BATTLE OF THE BALLOTS
BIG KENNEDY’S commands concerning the Tin Whistles taught me that lurking somewhere in the election situation he smelled peril to himself. Commonly, while his methods might be a wide shot to the left of the lawful, they were never violent. He must feel himself hard pressed to call for fist and club. He lived at present cross-purposes with sundry high spirits of the general organization; perhaps a word was abroad for his disaster and he had heard some sigh of it. This would be nothing wonderful; coarse as he seemed fibered, Big Kennedy had spun his web throughout the ward as close-meshed as any spider, and any fluttering proof of treason was certain to be caught in it.
The election, while the office at local bay came to be no weightier than that of Alderman, was of moment to Big Kennedy. Defeat would mean his eclipse, and might even spell his death of politics. To lose the Alderman was to let fall the reins of ward direction. The Alderman and his turtle-devouring fellows cracked the whip over the police whom they appointed or dismissed, and the police were a ballot-engine not to be resisted. He who held the Alderman, held the police; and he who had the police, carried victory between his hands.
Doubtless it was some inner-circle treachery which Big Kennedy apprehended. The regular opposition, while numerous and carrying on its muster rolls the best respectability of the ward, lacked of that organization which was the ridgepole of Big Kennedy’s supremacies. It straggled, and was mob-like in its movements; and while, as I’ve written, it showed strong in numbers, it was no more to be collected or fashioned into any telling force for political effort than a flock of grazing sheep. If there were to come nothing before him more formidable than the regular opposition, Big Kennedy would go over it like a train of cars and ask no aid of shoulder-hitters. Such innocent ones might stand three deep about a ballot-box, and yet Big Kennedy would take from it what count of votes he chose and they be none the wiser. It would come to no more than cheating a child at cards.
The open opposition to Big Kennedy was made up of divers misfit elements. At its head, as a sort of captain by courtesy, flourished that reputable peppery old gentleman who aforetime took my part against Sheeny Joe. A bit in love with his own eloquence, and eager for a forum wherein to exercise it, the reputable old gentleman had named himself for Alderman against Big Kennedy’s candidate. As a campaign scheme of vote-getting – for he believed he had but to be heard to convince a listener – the reputable old gentleman engaged himself upon what he termed a house-to-house canvass.
It was the evening of that day whereon Big Kennedy gave me those orders touching the Tin Whistles when the reputable old gentleman paid a visit to Old Mike, that Nestor being as usual on his porch and comforting himself with a pipe. I chanced to be present at the conversation, although I had no word therein; I was much at Old Mike’s knee during those callow days, having an appetite for his counsel.
“Good-evening, sir,” said the reputable old gentleman, taking a chair which Old Mike’s politeness provided, “good-evening, sir. My name is Morton – Mr. Morton of the Morton Bank. I live in Lafayette Place. Incidentally, I am a candidate for the office of Alderman, and I thought I’d take the freedom of a neighbor and a taxpayer and talk with you on that topic of general interest.”
“Why then,” returned Old Mike, with a cynical grin, “I’m th’ daddy of Big Jawn Kennedy, an’ for ye to talk to me would be loike throwin’ away your toime.”
The reputable old gentleman was set aback by the news. Next he took heart of grace.
“For,” he said, turning upon Old Alike a pleasant eye, although just a dash of the patronizing showed in the curve of his brow, “if I should be so fortunate as to explain to you your whole duty of politics, it might influence your son. Your son, I understand, listens greatly to your word.”
“He would be a ba-ad son who didn’t moind his own father,” returned Old Mike. “As to me jooty av politics – it’s th’ same as every other man’s. It’s the jooty av lookin’ out for meself.”
This open-air selfishness as declared by Old Mike rather served to shock the reputable old gentleman.
“And in politics do you think first of yourself?” he asked.
“Not only first, but lasht,” replied Old Mike. “An’ so do you; an’ so does every man.”
“I cannot understand the narrowness of your view,” retorted the reputable old gentleman, somewhat austere and distant. “You are a respectable man; you call yourself a good citizen?”
“Why,” responded Old Mike, for the other’s remark concluded with a rising inflection like a question, “I get along with th’ p’lice; an’ I get along with th’ priests – what more should a man say!”
“Are you a taxpayer?”
“I have th’ house,” responded Old Mike, with a smile.
The reputable old gentleman considered the other dubiously. Evidently he didn’t regard Old Mike’s one-story cottage as all that might be desired in the way of credentials. Still he pushed on.
“Have you given much attention to political economy?” This with an erudite cough. “Have you made politics a study?”
“From me cradle,” returned Old Mike. “Every Irishman does. I knew so much about politics before I was twinty-one, th’ British Government would have transhported me av I’d stayed in Dublin.”
“I should think,” said the reputable old gentleman, with a look of one who had found something to stand on, “that if you ran from tyranny in Ireland, you would refuse here to submit to the tyranny of Tammany Hall. If you couldn’t abide a Queen, how can you now put up with a Boss?”
“I didn’t run from th’ Queen, I ran from th’ laws,” said Old Mike. “As for the Boss – everything that succeeds has a Boss. The President’s a boss; the Pope’s a boss; Stewart’s a boss in his store down in City Hall Park. That’s right; everything that succeeds has a boss. Nothing is strong enough to stand the mishtakes av more than one man. Ireland would have been free th’ long cinturies ago if she’d only had a boss.”
“But do you call it good citizenship,” demanded the reputable old gentleman, not a trifle nettled by Old Mike’s hard-shell philosophy of state; “do you call it good citizenship to take your orders from a boss? You are loyal to Tammany before you are loyal to the City?”
“Shure!” returned Old Mike, puffing the puffs of him who is undisturbed. “Do ye ever pick up a hand in a game av ca-ards?” The reputable old gentleman seemed properly disgusted. “There you be then! City Government is but a game; so’s all government, Shure, it’s as if you an’ me were playin’ a game av ca-ards, this politics; your party is your hand, an’ Tammany is my hand. In a game of ca-ards, which are ye loyal to, is it your hand or the game? Man, it’s your hand av coorse! By the same token! I am loyal to Tammany Hall.”
That closed the discussion; the reputable old gentleman went his way, and one might tell by his face that the question to assail him was whether he had been in a verbal encounter with a Bedlamite or an Anarchist. He did not recognize me, nor was I sorry. I liked the reputable old gentleman because of that other day, and would not have had him discover me in what he so plainly felt to be dangerous company.
“He’s a mighty ignorant man,” said Old Mike, pointing after the reputable old gentleman with the stem of his pipe. “What this country has mosht to fear is th’ ignorance av th’ rich.”
It stood perhaps ten of the clock on the morning of election day when, on word sent me, I waited on Big Kennedy in his barroom. When he had drawn me into his sanctum at the rear, he, as was his custom, came pointedly to the purpose.
“There’s a fight bein’ made on me,” he said. “They’ve put out a lot of money on the quiet among my own people, an’ think to sneak th’ play on me.” While Big Kennedy talked, his eyes never left mine, and I could feel he was searching me for any flickering sign that the enemy had been tampering with my fealty. I stared back at him like a statue. “An’,” went on Big Kennedy, “not to put a feather-edge on it, I thought I’d run you over, an’ see if they’d been fixin’ you. I guess you’re all right; you look on the level.” Then swinging abruptly to the business of the day; “Have you got your gang ready?”
“Yes,” I nodded.
“Remember my orders. Five-thirty is the time. Go for the blokes with badges – th’ ticket peddlers. An’ mind! don’t pound’em, chase’em. Unless they stop to slug with you, don’t put a hand on’em.”
Being thus re-instructed and about to depart, I made bold to ask Big Kennedy if there were any danger of his man’s defeat. He shook his head.
“Not a glimmer,” he replied. “But we’ve got to keep movin’. They’ve put out stacks of money. They’ve settled it to help elect the opposition candidate – this old gent, Morton. They don’t care to win; they’re only out to make me lose. If they could take the Alderman an’ the police away from me, they would go in next trip an’ kill me too dead to skin. But it’s no go; they can’t make th’ dock. They’ve put in their money; but I’ll show’em a trick that beats money to a standstill.”
It was as I had surmised; Big Kennedy feared treachery and the underhand support of the enemy by men whom he called his friends. For myself, I would stand by him. Beg Kennedy was the only captain I knew.
To the commands of Big Kennedy, and their execution, I turned with as ready a heart as ever sent duck to drink. No impulse to disobey or desert so much as crossed my slope of thought. Tammany Hall has ever been military in its spirit. Big Kennedy was my superior officer, I but a subaltern; it was my province to accept his commands and carry them forward without argument or pause.
In full and proper season, I had my Tin Whistles in hand. I did not march them to the polling place in a body, since I was not one to obstreperously vaunt or flaunt an enterprise in advance. Also, I was too much the instinctive soldier to disclose either my force or my purpose, and I knew the value of surprise.
There were a round twenty of my Tin Whistles, each a shoulder-hitter and warm to shine in the graces of Big Kennedy. I might have recruited a double strength, but there was no need. I had counted the foe; the poll-tenders of the opposition numbered but ten; my twenty, and each a berserk of his fists, ought to scatter them like a flock of sparrows. My instructions given to my fellows were precisely Big Kennedy’s orders as given to me; no blows, no blood unless made necessary by resistance.
As the time drew down for action, my Tin Whistles were scattered about, sticking close to the elbows of the enemy, and waiting the signal. The polling booth was a small frame construction, not much larger than a Saratoga trunk. On other occasions it served as the office of a wood and coal concern. The table, with the ballot-box thereon, stood squarely in the door; behind it were the five or six officers – judges and tally clerks – of election. There was a crush and crowd of Big Kennedy’s clansmen to entirely surround the little building, and they so choked up the path that ones who had still to vote couldn’t push through. There arose, too, a deal of shoving and jostling, and all to a running uproar of profanity; affairs appeared to be drifting towards the disorderly.
The reputable old gentleman, his face red with indignation, was moving to and fro on the outskirts of the crowd, looking for a police officer. He would have him cut a way through the press for those who still owned votes. No officer was visible; the reputable old gentleman, even though he searched with that zeal common of candidates anxious for success, would have no aid from the constabulary.
“And this is the protection,” cried the reputable old gentleman, striding up to Big Kennedy, and shaking a wrathful finger in his face, “that citizens and taxpayers receive from the authorities! Here are scores of voters who are being blocked from the polls and robbed of their franchise. It’s an outrage!”
Big Kennedy smiled upon the reputable old gentleman, but made no other reply.
“It’s an outrage!” repeated the reputable old gentleman in a towering fury. “Do you hear? It’s an outrage on the taxpaying citizens of this town!”
“Look out, old man!” observed a young fellow who stood at Big Kennedy’s side, and who from his blackened hands and greasy blue shirt seemed to be the engineer of some tug. “Don’t get too hot. You’ll blow a cylinder head.”
“How dare you!” fumed the reputable old gentleman; “you, a mere boy by comparison! how dare you address me in such terms! I’m old enough, sir, to be your father! You should understand, sir, that I’ve voted for a president eight times in my life.”
“That’s nothin’,” returned the other gayly; “I have voted for a president eighty times before ten o’clock.”
In the midst of the laugh that followed this piece of characteristic wit, Big Kennedy crossed to where I stood.
“Send your boys along!” said he. “Let’s see how good you are.”
My whistle screamed the signal. At the first sharp note, a cry went up:
“The Tin Whistles! The Tin Whistles!”
It was done in a moment; a pair to a man, my Tin Whistles were sending their quarry down the streets as fast as feet might follow. And they obeyed directions; not a blow was struck, no blood was drawn; there was a hustling flurry, and the others took to their heels. The hard repute of the Tin Whistles was such that no ten were wild enough to face them or meet their charge.
As the Tin Whistles fell upon their victims, the press of men that surged about the polling place began to shout, and strain, and tug. Suddenly, the small building commenced to heave and lift suspiciously. It was as though an earthquake were busy at its base. The mob about the structure seemed to be rolling it over on its side. That would be no feat, with men enough to set hand upon it and carry it off like a parcel.
With the first heave there came shouts and oaths from those within. Then arose a crashing of glass, and the table was cast aside, as the threatened clerks and judges fought to escape through door and window. In the rush and scamper of it, a sharp hand seized the ballot-box.
Ten minutes the riot raged. It was calmed by Big Kennedy, who forced himself into the middle of the tumult, hurling men right and left with his powerful hands as though they were sacks of bran, while he commanded the peace in a voice like the roar of a lion.
Peace fell; the little building, which had not been overthrown, but only rocked and tipped, settled again to a decorous safe solidity; the judges and the clerks returned; the restored ballot-box again occupied the table.
As that active one, who had saved the ballot-box when the downfall of the building seemed threatened came edgewise through the throng, he passed close to Big Kennedy. The latter gave him a sharp glance of inquiry.
“I stuffed it full to the cover,” whispered the active one. “We win four to one, an’ you can put down your money on that!”
Big Kennedy nodded, and the zealot who saved the ballot-box passed on and disappeared.
When the Tin Whistles fell upon their prey, I started to go with them. But in a moment I saw there was no call; the foe went off at top flight, and my twenty would keep them moving. Thus reasoning, I turned again to see what was going forward about the booth.
My interest was immediately engaged by the words and actions of the reputable old gentleman, who, driven to frenzy, was denouncing. Big Kennedy and all who wore his colors as scoundrels without measure or mate.
“I defy both you and your plug-uglies,” he was shouting, flourishing his fist in the face of Big Kennedy, who, busy with his own plans, did not heed him. “This is a plot to stuff the ballot-box.”
The reputable old gentleman had gone thus far, when a hulking creature of a rough struck him from behind with a sandbag. I sprang forward, and fended away a second blow with my left arm. As I did so, I struck the rough on the jaw with such vengeful force that, not only did he drop like some pole-axed ox, but my right hand was fairly wrecked thereby. Without pausing to discover my own condition or that of the sandbag-wielding ruffian, I picked up the reputable old gentleman and bore him out of the crowd.
The reputable old gentleman had come by no serious harm; he was stunned a trifle, and his hat broken. With me to hold him up, he could stand on his feet, though still dazed and addled from the dull power of the blow. I beckoned a carriage which Big Kennedy had employed to bring the old and infirm to the polling place. It came at my signal, and I placed the reputable old gentleman inside, and told the driver to take him to his home. The reputable old gentleman was murmuring and shaking his head as he drove away. As I closed the carriage door, he muttered: “This is barbarous! That citizens and taxpayers should receive such treatment – ” The balance was lost in the gride of the wheels.
The hurly-burly had now ceased; all was as calm and equal as a goose pond.
“So you saved the old gentleman,” said Big Kennedy, as he came towards me. “Gratitude, I s’pose, because he stood pal to you ag’inst Sheeny Joe that time. Gratitude! You’ll get over that in time,” and Big Kennedy wore a pitying look as one who dwells upon another’s weakness. “That was Jimmy the Blacksmith you smashed. You’d better look out for him after this.” My dander was still on end, and I intimated a readiness to look out for Jimmy the Blacksmith at once.
“Mind your back now!” cautioned Big Kennedy, “and don’t take to gettin’ it up. Let things go as they lay. Never fight till you have to, d’ye see! an’ never fight for fun. Don’t go lookin’ for th’ Blacksmith until you hear he’s out lookin’ for you.” Then, as shifting the subject: “It’s been a great day, an’ everything to run off as smooth an’ true as sayin’ mass. Now let’s go back and watch’em count the votes.”
“Did we beat them?” I asked.
“Snowed’em under!” said Big Kennedy.