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Maryland State Archives Jeffersonian, Towson, Maryland mdsa_sc3410_1_81-1000 Enlarge and print image (5M) |
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Maryland State Archives Jeffersonian, Towson, Maryland mdsa_sc3410_1_81-1000 Enlarge and print image (5M) |
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NewsgravTire Section, THE JEFFERSOttlAN> Towson, Md., May 24, 1924.
"SILENT CHARLIE," THE MAYOR MAKER, STARTED IN
• POLITICS AS GAS HOUSE DISTRICT LEADER
Ship-Calker, "Semi-Pro" Baseball Catcher, Street-Car Driver And
Saloon Keeper Made Himself Boss Of One Of World's Greatest
Cities, Holding Down Job For Twenty-Two Years.
A husky young ship calker, a "semi-pro" baseball catcher, a street-car driver, a powerful oarsman, a saloon-keeper, and then a rising young politician, Charleys Francis Murphy made himself boss of one of the world's greatest cities, and held the job for twenty-two years. His sudden
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death a short while ago, at the height of his power, left thousands of humble people and hundreds of prominent personages sincerely mourning a real friend, who had never broke a promise. It also, points out the press, left} the enigma of American politics just as unsolvable as ever.
The almost perfect type, many papers called him, of the political (boss. Such a boss is generally supposed to be a typical product of American government, by historians who doubtless have not thought of Hugh Capet, the Paris butcher, or Lorenzo dei Medici, the Florentine wood merchant, as having been much the same sort of man. If the ways by which men rise .to power are the most important feature in the study of democracy, then the road which Charlie Murphy traveled to be chief of Tammany Hall and to be the "uncrowned king" of New York City constitutes a vital study in government. Judged thus, he is not, say acute observers, just one man, but a portent of modern democracy.
"What is Tammany Hall?" jeeringly asked an opponent at a political convention back in the eighties. "This," replied one of the society's orators, indicating "Honest John" Kelly, then boss, "this—and a brick building on Fourteenth street."
If this was true of John Kelly, it was even truer of Charles F. Murphy, whom it fitted "up to the very hour of his death," declared the New Haven Journal-Courier. Holding n o formal elective office save that of district leader, he yet dominated the society, most critics agree, as it had never been dominated by Aaron Burr, Tweed, Kelly or Croker, and a glance at Tammany's recent achievements, they further point out, shows a steady rise in the character of the men it has backed for political office during the last ten years.
Dying, Murphy left one of his proteges as Governor of the State, and another as Senator,
not to mention innumerable judges and State officials for whose political careers he was responsible. Says the New York American, so often his outspoken enemy, "he undoubtedly sent more men to the lower House of Congress than any 'boss' wlio ever lived." Difficult as it was to divorce Mr. Murphy from the organization he controlled, it would be hard to see which was more responsible for the following record of achievement, namely: four Democratic Governors in New York State since 1910, and five Democratic mayors since 1903. In other words, only one man, John Purroy Mitchel, ever defeated him for the mayoralty, since Murphy became boss of the city. The full irony of fate lies in the fact, as pointed out in the article on the Tammany chief recently, that within a few weeks there is to start in New York a Democratic convention which might possibly have crowned Murphy's whole career with the nomination of his protege, Al Smith, for President.
The Gas House District, on New York's East Side, was the scene of this remarkable Warwick's rise, and it was in a stately brown stone house only a few blocks from it that he finally died. This humble district, dotted with huge gas tanks from which it takes its name, and edged along the river front with shipyards and lumberyards, has been famous in song and story. It was here the Irish immigranats to New York in the fifties thronged, and it is from here that many famous political leaders have come, as well as leaders of the bar, prominent professional men of all kinds, captains of industry, noted prizefighters, soldiers of fortune and strong men. And it is here, scattered among their more humble neighbors, that there still live judges, commissioners, and men prominent in civic life who remain loyal to the "sidewalks of New York." Against a background of fierce upward struggle, tempered with a warm-hearted sympathy for the troubles of your neighbors, is to be read the absorbing tale of Charles M. Murphy's rise, as it appears in the New York World:
.He was the second son of a family of eight, sired by Dennis Murphy, an Irishman, from whom Charles inherited much of his sturdy build and stamina.
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The future boss was born in 1858. He went to public school until fourteen, and then went to work in Roach's shipyard at Ninth Street and the East River, with the idea of becoming a calker. There he began to develop his characteristics of leadership. The work was rough and so were his fellow workers. The work gave young Murphy muscle and sinew, of which his fellows soon learned.
In two years he was the leader of the youngsters around the shipyard, not only through brute force but because he excelled them all in swimming, foot races and other athletic contests in the vacant lots and along the waterfront of the East Side.
At seventeen Murphy displayed his first genius at organizing in the creation of the Sylvan Social Club, composed of boys of the neighborhood from fifteen to twenty, and made himself leader. That was his first political step upward, for that society became the nucleus of the Tammany organization in the Eighteenth District.
The Sylvan Social Club gave much time to athletic contests, in which Murphy excelled. Within that club Murphy organized an amateur baseball team called the Senators, of which he was catcher, captain and the best player. The team vanquished all local opponents and made a victorious tour up-State.
Murphy received offers from professional clubs, but turned them down. Crowds of 5,000 and 10,000 sometimes gatheed at East Side vacant lots on Sundays to watch the Senators play; usually for a stake of $100 a side. For many years the trophies of that team were exhibited in Murphy's old saloon, the Senate, at Twentieth Street and Second Avenue.
Transit is no new element in Tammany politics. In those days Tammany was as vitally interested in the horse-drawn street-cars as it is today in the five-cent fare and the contracts and control of subways. So it came to pass that the energetic young organizer in the Eighteenth District got a job on the front platform of a Blue Line car. It ran from Twenty-third Street ferry down Avenue A to Eighteenth Street, across to Broadway, and then by way of Fourteenth Street to the Hoboken ferry.
A brother, John Murphy, who was to become a councilman, brought the driver's lunch in a tin bucket, and Charlie ate it in a corner of the car.
After two years Charles had hoarded $500, and he quil the car line to become a business man on his own responsibilily.
He rented a two-story building on the north side of Nineteenth Street just east of Avenue A. It had a narrow door and one window on the first floor. He bought bar fixtures second hand, and there Charlie Murphy's first saloon came into being. That was in 1870.. He installed the Sylvan Social Club and the Senators' baseball team on the second floor.
Club members, street-car conductors, shipyard workers, neighborhood business men. gas-works employees—the whole district-made ' "Charlie's" their headquarters and received beer and a
big bowl of soup at five cents a throw.
The saloon prospered; the Sylvan Club grew locally powerful, and Charles F. Murphy, politician, was born. Heretofore, he and the Sylvans had confined their interest in -politics largely to attending meetings, marching in parades, and doing the general whooping up. They still were interested mainly in athletics and good times. That verry interest is reputed to have produced an incident which precipitated Murphy into politics.
The Sylvans never had taken much interest in rowing, and Murphy himself was not keen on it. But up the East River in the Twentieth District Barney Biglin and his three brothers were the leaders of a Harlem boat club. Biglin was Republican, leader of that district, where incidentally, Chester A. Arthur was just beginning a career that led to the White House.
Murphy was not excited particularly because Biglin was Re--publican leader, but the boastings of the Biglin brothers that they could outrow any other four men in town finally became so obnoxious to the Sylvans that Murphy gathered up his four best oarsmen and challenged the Big-lins.
On a fine Sunday afternoon the race was set to be rowed from the foot of One Hundredth Street to One Hundred and Twenty-ninth Street. There was a big stake, and in addition the Sylvan adherents turned out in force and bet the Biglin pockets bare. But
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