Once Upon a Time in New York

by Herbert Mitgang

  He also loved to give speeches before political and charitable organizations. Here he was at his best, in the opinion of his close friend and fellow skirt-chaser George Jessel, a stand-up monologist and showbiz impresario:

  “Jimmy Walker and I have been a team as after-dinner speakers at a thousand different affairs, including churches, synagogues, and every conceivable charity, regardless of race, creed or color,” Jessel said. “Jimmy is the greatest impromptu speaker of his or anybody else’s time. The greatest example of his presence of mind happened during his last campaign for the mayoralty, with Dudley Field Malone, Collector of the Port of New York, and myself.”

  The three friends were making a series of political speeches in the Bronx, from early in the morning until midnight. Tired as they were after returning downtown, Walker suddenly remembered that there was one more affair they had neglected to attend, a dinner at the Biltmore Hotel in Manhattan. Although he was hoarse, the mayor insisted on doing his duty for the electorate one more time.

  “We hurried up to the Cascade Room, where a group of men were seated, and somebody was making a speech,” Jessel said. “What and who these men were, neither Jim nor I knew. We were rushed to the dais and the speaker stopped immediately at our entrance. There was applause and Jim whispered to me, ‘Start talking, George, stall for a few minutes till I find out what this is all about.”

  The boastful Jessel—he called himself the Toastmaster General of the United States—warmed up the audience with a speech replete with platitudes masquerading as wisdom. Jessel began: “Gentlemen, this is an evening to be remembered, a memory to conjure with.” Then he delivered a series of set gags, most of which began, “A funny thing happened on the way down here tonight . . .” Nobody laughed; he had no idea what nationality these people were. All he knew was that they were sitting on their hands.

  In an aside to Walker, Jessel muttered, “They’re all yours, Jim.” Facing the audience, Jessel wound up, “Now, gentlemen, I bring you the Magistrate of this, our great city, Father Knickerbocker’s truly begotten son, James J. Walker.”

  Taking his time, Mayor Walker stood up, cocked his head, and began with his own all-purpose routine: “Gentlemen, in this kaleidoscopic era that we live in, this great melting pot, where from all walks of life men come closer together, it is needless for me to tell you what the people of Polish birth have meant to the progress of the City of New York. I can take you back to the great General Thaddeus Kosciuszko in 1776 . . .”

  There was no reaction from the audience; they were definitely not Polish. Undaunted, Walker continued:

  “And the simple Italian ditchdigger, imbued with the spirit of the great Giuseppe Garibaldi, has been more helpful to Greater New York than anyone I can think of.”

  Again, no sign of recognition; they were definitely not Italians. Walker continued with his praise of ethnic New Yorkers, until he finally ran out of countries, except for Denmark and a few South American nations. At last, he had a memory flash and remembered the name of the organization. Brightening, Walker began:

  “If only the streets of New York were as clean as those of Copenhagen, the great capital of Denmark . . .”

  The Danish-American New Yorkers cheered Walker for the first time. With a faint smile, he continued to describe the virtues of their country. “From then on,” Jessel claimed, “Jimmy had their votes in his pocket.”

  So boasted the Toastmaster General, who would give anything for a punchline.

  Robert Moses, the nonpareil parks and highway administrator of New York City and State, also admired Mayor Walker’s ability to think on his feet. Moses, who prided himself on his own eloquence, remembered when Walker was one of the scheduled speakers at the hundredth anniversary of the Erie Canal, which links New York City with the Great Lakes. The long-winded speakers included the grandson of DeWitt Clinton, builder of the big ditch, who droned on for forty-five minutes, and the lawyer for the Port Authority, who spoke for nearly an hour. The bored crowd began to leave just as Jimmy Walker got up to speak.

  Rising lightly to his feet, the mayor pointed to the clock and said:

  “I see before me the busiest and most powerful leaders of the world of industry. They must get back to their desks. Neither wind, nor snow, nor rain, nor gloom of night, nor Jimmy Walker shall keep them from their appointed rounds. Gentlemen, this meeting is adjourned for one hundred years.”

  But most of Mayor Walker’s outings were for amusement, not speeches. In the evening, a beautiful companion sitting next to him on the buttery leather backseat of his limousine, he took off in his official town car, with his liveried chauffeur at the wheel, for a night on the town.

  James J. Walker had traveled a twisting road from Greenwich Village to City Hall, with interludes along the way among Tin Pan Alley’s balladeers and political pit stops in Albany’s legislative halls.

  He was born on June 19, 1881, at 110 Leroy Street on the Lower West Side of Manhattan. His father, William Walker, originally from a small town outside Dublin, married a Greenwich Village girl, also of Irish background, soon after he arrived in New York. It didn’t take long for Tammany Hall to flow in the family’s blood. Jimmy’s father, a carpenter, was a friend of John R. Voorhis, a stair builder who became a police commissioner. In New York City, the police department and Tammany Hall were often Celtic kith and kin.

  With the backing of the police commissioner, Tammany supported William Walker for membership on the Board of Aldermen. After serving four terms as an alderman, Mr. Walker became a member of the State Assembly in Albany and then went on to a more lucrative post: superintendent of public buildings in Manhattan.

  As the family’s fortunes improved, the Walkers moved to a house on St. Luke’s Place. In those growing years, Jimmy Walker behaved like a good choirboy.

  Young James attended St. Francis Xavier School and LaSalle School, where he developed an interest in sports. He was too small to box, but he loved to play and watch baseball. No mayor was better equipped to throw out the first ball on opening day during the era when there were still three major league teams in New York—the Yankees, the Giants, and the Dodgers. One of his friends from the old neighborhood claimed that Jimmy had once put in a season on a semi-pro baseball team in Hoboken.

  Walker was a little too impatient for straight classroom work. After a year at St. Francis Xavier, he dropped out and, at the urging of his father, enrolled in New York Law School. Once again he left after a year, working as a bank messenger, then returned to law school while living under the family roof. During this time, he frequently took part in amateur theatricals and tried his hand at writing one-act plays, none of which went anywhere.

  He became an aspiring songwriter in Tin Pan Alley—his main interest rather than the law books. Early in his musical career, he had two songs published—“Good-by Eyes of Blue” and “I Like Your Way.” Neither ballad was successful. Then, in 1908, came his one memorable song, “Will You Love Me in December as You Do in May,” with music by Ernest R. Ball. It remained a hit longer than most popular ballads before World War I and later would be played during his entrances and exits at nightclubs and whenever he mounted a public platform.

  Jimmy Walker’s lyrics were surprisingly romantic. His sentimental language appeared in marked contrast to the uncharitable comments that he made in the heat of political campaigns and that would haunt him later. The plain, rather unsophisticated words to his one big hit went:

  Now in the summer of life, sweetheart,

  You say you love but me,

  Gladly I’ll give my heart to you,

  Throbbing with ecstasy.

  But last night I saw, while a-dreaming,

  The future, old and gray,

  And I wondered if you’ll love me then, dear,

  Just as you do today.

  Will you love me in December as you do in May?

  Will you love me in the same old-fashioned way?

  When my hair has turned to gray?

  Will you kis
s me then and say,

  That you love me in December as you did in May?

  The words were apparently directed at Janet Allen, a pretty young singer he had met while playing piano in amateur theatricals. The diminutive Miss Allen—Walker called her Allie—was a little more experienced in show business than the aspiring law student. She had once played a chorus girl and understudied the leading lady in The Duke of Duluth, a Broadway production. During their courtship in Greenwich Village, what especially pleased Jimmy Walker was that while he played the piano Janet sang all his songs.

  Jimmy earned $10,000 in royalties from the sale of sheet music, and spent much of it on his wardrobe. Already he was wearing custom-made suits, shirts, and shoes and sporting a walking stick. At the same time, he could now afford to take Allie to Rector’s for an expensive dinner between her jobs in vaudeville. He also took Allie home to his mother and father and the rest of his family on St. Luke’s Place.

  After a few years, they became engaged, but Walker was in no hurry to get married. He was at the start of his sixteen-year career as a legislator—a job handed to him by virtue of his father’s Tammany connections—traveling to Albany and enjoying its bachelor opportunities. According to his fellow legislators, he was effective as a speaker and learned how to compromise with both the upstate Republicans and the downstate Democrats. Allie waited patiently until 1912, the year Walker was finally admitted to practice law. She abandoned her Christian Science religion when they were married.

  The wedding took place at St. Joseph’s Church in New York; Jimmy arrived two hours late. He blamed a mishap involving the best man, who was carrying the wedding ring, and horse-drawn fire engines that delayed both of them. The best man was a fire buff, the story went, and was sidetracked by a fire on the way to the ceremony.

  Later Jimmy would be famous for his lateness. He was credited with having kept President Calvin Coolidge waiting for forty minutes while on a visit to Washington. A wisecracking columnist wondered if Coolidge knew the difference. After his meeting at the White House, Walker had an appointment with Andrew Mellon, the secretary of the Treasury. He showed up an hour late. Disdainfully, Walker said, “I refuse to live by the clock.”

  Not long after his wedding, Jimmy returned to his old ways. He took up with a French-Canadian dancer and singer, Yvonne Shelton. His relationship with the mercurial showgirl continued for several tumultuous years. He called her Little Fellow because she was five feet tall and weighed only eighty-five pounds. She called him J.J. Yvonne liked to cook for the senator from Greenwich Village; he enjoyed her meals and whatever other pleasures she offered.

  Eventually, Senator Walker and the Little Fellow drifted apart. When they broke up, in a hotel room overlooking Central Park, she reportedly told him: “This is good-bye. You’re in love with a town. It’s the first time I ever had to compete with that. And I’m overmatched.”

  Other performers in the musical comedy world were attracted to the dashing legislator with theatrical connections who worked the night beat like a newspaper reporter. The faithful Allie Walker was aware of her husband’s infidelities; so were his Tammany mentors and colleagues in the state senate. But most of Jimmy Walker’s liaisons at the time were passing affairs.

  “Mr. Walker took naturally to the game of politics as it is played by Tammany,” commented The New York Times of the beginning of his public career. “His first experience in the game was as a worker for the election of Seth Low, a Fusion candidate for Mayor. Under the tutelage of his father, the former Alderman and Assemblyman, Jimmy Walker was nominated and elected to the New York State Assembly in 1909. While in the Assembly, he came under the guidance of Alfred E. Smith, who had become an important figure in Albany. The Assemblyman could not have had a greater sponsor.”

  Al Smith served as a bridge between Walker and Roosevelt. Smith remembered with pride and humor that he and Jimmy began as Tammany flag bearers on the East Side and West Side of Manhattan during local elections. Walker would prove an apt student of party politics during his service in the legislature. “This boy is a greater strategist than General Sheridan and he rides twice as fast,” Smith said. Assemblyman Walker learned the ropes of parliamentary procedure—stalling, lobbying, and eventually achieving cross-party unity.

  Occasionally, the raucous goings-on between the upstate Republican majority and downstate Democrats made the Assembly resemble the agora of ancient Athens more than an austere legislative body. They also revealed party differences that were rooted in class differences—the old-time prosperous legislators from upstate New York versus the striving sons of immigrants from New York City.

  “The New York State Assembly session of 1911 had a moment when partisanship on both sides of the house was running high,” Al Smith recalled. “Ed Merritt, Fred Hammond and Jesse Phillips, representing the Republican side, and I, representing the Democratic side, were engaged in a crossfire of debate on a bill that had to do with the removal of the Commission of Jurors in Nassau County. There were considerable hard feelings on both sides of the chamber when Assemblyman Wende from Buffalo rose in his place and asked for the privilege of interrupting. It was readily granted.

  “Mr. Wende said, ‘Mr. Speaker, I have just heard that Cornell won the boat race.’ ”

  “Merritt said, ‘That doesn’t mean anything to me. I’m a Yale man.’ ”

  “Hammond said, ‘It doesn’t mean anything to me. I’m a Harvard man.’ ”

  “Phillips said, ‘It doesn’t mean anything to me. I am a U. of M. man.’ ”

  Assemblyman Al Smith found himself the only one of the quartet standing—and the only one without college credentials. Nevertheless, he confidently addressed his colleagues:

  “It doesn’t mean anything to me because I am an F.F.M. man.”

  The Republicans looked puzzled. “What is that, Al?”

  Smith replied, “F.F.M.—Fulton Fish Market. Let’s proceed with the debate.”

  This was not the first time Al Smith had referred to his blue-collar upbringing. He often used homespun similes about the Fulton Fish Market. Once, describing someone he didn’t like, Smith referred to him as having “an eye as glassy as a dead cod.” Of another he said, “He shakes hands like a frozen mackerel.”

  In the Smith and Walker years in Albany, the state legislature was a training camp for wisecracks. Once Al Smith was making a speech and a heckler yelled, “Tell me all you know, Al, it won’t take long.” Smith replied, “I’ll tell them all we both know and it won’t take any longer.”

  In 1912, at the age of thirty-one, Walker passed the bar examination in Albany and was admitted to practice law. At that time, a college degree was not needed and the requirements for admission to the bar were not stringent for newly minted attorneys.

  In the Assembly, Walker attracted the favorable attention of Tammany’s Silent Charlie Murphy. After Walker had served a few years, Murphy tapped him to run for the state Senate. Walker had proved that he could work effectively with his fellow Democrats. In Manhattan’s Assembly and senatorial districts, the Democratic nomination was tantamount to election.

  Senator Walker and Assemblyman Smith became close allies. Together, over the opposition of corporation lawyers and lobbyists, they helped obtain the enactment of the state’s first Workmen’s Compensation Act, which placed responsibility for occupational accidents largely on employers. After six years in the upper house, Walker was advanced to Democratic minority leader with, of course, Boss Murphy’s approval. Tammany and his colleagues in the legislature agreed that Walker acquitted himself creditably. Smith moved up to the governor’s chair in 1919, where he advocated liberal social welfare laws.

  Senator Walker was best remembered by his colleagues and the public for a wisecrack that effectively killed the so-called Clean Books Bill. This had been introduced by John S. Sumner and was supported by upstate Republicans as well as by a handful of New York City Democrats. Passages from the novels of D. H. Lawrence and other authors were read in the chamber as
examples of “dirty books.” (Lawrence’s Women in Love had been written in 1916 but the British author was unable to find a publisher until 1920 in New York, where an action against its publication failed.)

  Supporters of the censorial Clean Books Bill said that if such smut-filled works were permitted in the schools and on public library bookshelves, the lives of women would be placed in danger and the sanctity of marriage and the home would break down.

  Turning toward Senator Sumner and his allies, Walker said, “I have heard with great interest the addresses of the gentlemen on the other side, and I have the utmost respect for what they have said. But I submit, gentlemen, that they are either naive or confused. Why all this talk about womanhood?” And then he delivered what became a clinching argument in future censorship cases: “I have never yet heard of a girl being ruined by a book.” His familiar crack is usually shortened to “No girl was ever ruined by a book.”

  Walker’s designation to run for mayor—arguably the most important job in city politics aside from whichever title was held by the leader of Tammany Hall—resulted from a split in the Democratic party. Prompted by Governor Smith, in 1925 the Tammany organization decided to deny Mayor John F. Hylan renomination. George W. Olvany, then leader of Tammany Hall, and Edward J. Flynn, the Bronx Democratic leader, stood by Governor Smith; John H. McCooey of Brooklyn and Maurice E. Connolly of Queens, the Democratic leaders in their boroughs, supported Hylan. On the sober editorial page of The New York Times, Hylan was called “an imperfect demagogue.”

  With the Sachems divided, other forces in state politics decided to offer Surrogate James A. Foley the nomination. (It was no coincidence that Surrogate Foley was the influential Charlie Murphy’s son-in-law.) However, Foley declined on the grounds of ill health, preferring to remain in judicial robes. More than any other court, the Office of the Surrogate, which handled wills, estates, and guardianships, was a rich source of patronage for clubhouse lawyers and their relatives and friends.