Island of Vice

by Richard Zacks

Mayor Strong dismissed Commissioner Parker.

  On Wednesday, March 17, the mayor’s secretary took the 4:30 p.m. train to Albany to hand deliver the mayor’s verdict to the governor and to request his signature to finalize the dismissal. The document stated that the mayor judged three of the five charges against Parker proven—poor attendance, failure to handle pensions, and citizens’ complaints. He added in a cover note that this one commissioner was paralyzing the board.

  Parker, who had spent $3,000 on legal fees, had recently written a letter to the mayor demanding a resolution of the charges pending against him; he had probably not expected this resolution.

  Roosevelt, newly chastised by Lodge about inflammatory rhetoric, gave little public comment; privately, however, he told Lodge that he doubted Governor Black would sign the papers because Boss Platt feared giving TR more power with such an important election coming up. In the meantime, Parker remained a full member of the fractured Police Board.

  Roosevelt, in his irritable state, could not let go of the Social Reform Club incident. He refused to accept the private apology of club official E. W. Ordway, who explained that Oppenheimer had simply taken advantage of the “free discussion” period. TR countered that free discussion had nothing to do with an ambush or a joint debate, and that he would no more agree to debate Oppenheimer than he would anarchist Johann Most. He added that the club’s applause for Oppenheimer’s “lies” meant an endorsement of them.

  Ordway forwarded one of the letters from the “gentlemanly and lamblike Roosevelt” on to the club president, Charles B. Spahr. “As he virtually tells me I lie two or three times I suppose that settles it—it seems to be his method of argument. So I think the whole matter better be dropped.”

  On Monday, March 22, Colonel James argued his case for Captain Devery in the friendly confines of the chambers of supreme court judge Frederick Smyth. The witty lawyer framed his argument by taking the concept of a bipartisan four-man commission to its most absurd lengths. “If at any time in the six years in which a member holds office he comes to the same conclusion on State and National issues as two other colleagues, he then thinks himself out of office.”

  James stressed that the sloppily written bipartisan law was unconstitutional because it denied freedom of political thought.

  Justice Smyth asked what the result would be if the Police Board were declared an illegal entity. Colonel James replied, “One result would be that it could not try this relator (pointing to Devery). With any other results we have no concern.”

  Justice Smyth said he would take these considerations under advisement and that for now the writ of prohibition would remain in effect. (Smyth would die before he would make a ruling.)

  The New York Tribune later commented: “For a big man, Devery has crawled through some exceedingly small holes.”

  Roosevelt despised trading favors or recommendations; a man either believed in a candidate or a cause, or he didn’t. Horse-trading was beside the point. So it must have pained him to write four letters to Republican congressmen from New York asking for help. To Murray Mitchell: “If you are at liberty to say a good word for me I should be very much obliged.” To Sereno Payne: “If you are in any way hampered about this, just tear this note up without answer.” More of the same to Philip Low and James W. Wadsworth.

  Roosevelt wrote the notes, placed them in envelopes, and mailed them all to Lodge on March 25. He was clearly uncomfortable. “This is a new kind of business for me and I may have put the matter wrong or it may be unwise to send them.”

  Boss Platt cracked open the door. Word spread as far as Lodge in Washington that Platt might welcome TR leaving the state, if Platt could influence Mayor Strong’s choice for a new police commissioner. Lodge telegraphed TR to investigate and he reported that the mayor hadn’t touched the topic of a replacement yet. “You know the Mayor makes up his mind in a good many different directions … and he talks with even greater ambiguity than he thinks.”

  Roosevelt hastily began exploring a complicated stratagem to force out “weak and treacherous” Chief Conlin and have loyal Republican John McCullagh replace him.

  On April 1, President McKinley offered a cabinet post to a New York police commissioner … but Colonel Grant turned down assistant secretary of war. He still expected something more prestigious or an embassy post overseas. The Chicago Tribune reported that had Grant accepted, that would have filled the administration quota of New Yorkers. This time, Grant’s boneheadedness aided Roosevelt.

  On Tuesday, April 6, at 6:05 p.m., TR sent a telegram to Henry Cabot Lodge: SINBAD HAS EVIDENTLY LANDED THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA.

  President McKinley, bowing to the wishes of Secretary Long, sent Roosevelt’s name that evening to the Senate for confirmation.

  Roosevelt was overjoyed; he described himself as “astonished.” He soon admitted that the police job had become intolerable. “I do not object to any amount of work and worry where I have a fair chance to win or lose on my merits; but here at the last, I was playing against stacked cards. Now that I am going, all the good people are utterly cast down and can not say enough of my virtues!” (His sense of humor was returning.)

  Reverend Parkhurst called Roosevelt’s departure “a municipal affliction” and a “personal bereavement.” The New York World sounded as arch as Town Topics: “As Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Theodore Roosevelt will have to be obliged to leave New York for four years. It is hard to see how the Administration could have made a selection better calculated to please New Yorkers.” When reporters informed Commissioner Parker that the Senate had confirmed Roosevelt, he laughed for a very long time; then, catching his breath, he said: “What a glorious retreat!”

  hat November, Tammany Hall—campaigning against the sour preachiness and enforced sobriety of reform—succeeded in electing its candidate, Robert Van Wyck, as the first mayor of Greater New York. And on May 21, 1898—within fourteen months of Roosevelt’s exit—a new Tammany-dominated Police Board swore in Big Bill Devery as police chief. Big Bill—born on the tough Irish East Side, never convicted of a crime, Tammany’s own—now commanded a police force of 7,600 men, the nation’s largest.

  The Tenderloin immediately erupted in celebration. “It has been a long time since the sporting man was in such good spirits as Saturday,” declared the Herald. The paper ran a clever cartoon of a joyous Tammany tiger popping out of a jack-in-the-box with a demonic grin and a brimming mug of beer. The New York Times, citing Tammany’s “utter unscrupulousness,” predicted the city would be run “wide open.”

  Devery, on his first day, issued a most amusing policy statement: “I shall insist upon a fair and impartial enforcement of all the laws and ordinances, without fear and without favor … Gambling of all kinds must go. I will not tolerate it in any shape.”

  Lincoln Steffens would write: “[Devery] was no more fit to be chief of police than the fish man was to be director of the Aquarium, but as a character, as a work of art, he was a masterpiece.”

  The 250-pound chief knew that in a week he would be leading the first ever Greater New York police parade through the streets of Manhattan. So he borrowed a majestic bay horse named Bullet from the parks police and started brushing up his riding skills.

  At almost the same time, Roosevelt, too, was practicing his riding—although more cavalry charge than parade step. Less than a year after landing his dream job as assistant secretary of the navy, Roosevelt defied his Republican friends and quit to volunteer to fight in the Spanish-American War in Cuba.

  The expeditionary force, known early on as “Teddy’s Terrors,” then as the “Rough Riders,” landed at a small fishing village, Daiquiri, on the coast of Cuba. Roosevelt was wearing a military uniform ordered from Brooks Brothers; he carried extra eyeglasses in a secret compartment in his hat. He climbed aboard an undersized horse called Texas, his blue neckerchief at his throat, providing a fat target for snipers.

  United States Army troops, marching ahead, had slogged up a muddy path and
captured a key hill; they then lay flat and waited for further orders. When Roosevelt arrived there with his recruits, he demanded that all the American forces fight onward through the intense Mauser rifle fire up to the summit. The army soldiers and their officers replied they would wait; two men—perhaps mockingly—trampled down a fence for him, and Roosevelt ordered his troops to follow on foot as he rode up into a hail of bullets.

  His charge was extremely brave and reckless; eighty-nine Rough Riders would die that day. At one point, he shouted to his men: “Are you afraid to stand up when I am on horseback?” A bullet glanced off TR’s elbow and scraped his horse’s flank; he pulled his pistol and killed a Spaniard ten yards away. By mid-afternoon on July 1, he and his orderly stood atop a crest above Kettle Hill, victorious, soon swamped by back-slapping comrades.

  He would later write to Lodge: “Three days I have been at the extreme front of the firing line; how I have escaped I know not; I have not blanket or coat; I have not taken off my shoes even; I sleep in the drenching rain & drink putrid water.” (TR never sounded happier.)

  His hunting pal Robert “Fergie” Ferguson wrote to Edith:

  We’ve been having the devil of a fine time of it—shooting Spaniards and being stormed at by shot and shell—No hunting trip so far has ever equalled it in Theodore’s eyes.

  …When I caught up with him the day of his famous charge … T. was reveling in victory and gore—He had just “doubled up a Spanish officer like a Jack-rabbit” as he retired from a block house, and all the way down to the next line of entrenchments he encouraged us to “look at these damned Spanish dead.”

  He seldom uses such strong language.

  Thanks to naval firepower, American forces and the Cuban rebels quickly achieved victory over Spain, just as yellow fever began to ravage the troops. Colonel Theodore Roosevelt arrived back in Montauk, Long Island, on August 15, 1898, hailed as a national hero. He readied his war memoirs for rapid publication. (Humorist Dooley would call them “Alone in Cuba” and recount how TR’s single shot had killed the entire Spanish army and the archbishop eight miles away in Santiago.)

  Within days, even Senator Platt was boosting war hero Roosevelt to run for governor to replace the scandal-scarred Republican then in office. Roosevelt, with little hesitation, agreed; the order instantly went out to manufacture thousands of campaign buttons. After intensive campaigning, he won the statewide election by a scant 17,000 votes, the slim margin due to losing still-irritated New York City by 60,000.

  On Monday, January 2, 1899, Theodore Roosevelt was governor and Big Bill Devery was police chief.

  Devery was fulfilling the reformers’ worst fears, throwing the city “wide open” for vice. He blessed gambling, prostitution, and after-hours drinking all over town … for a shakedown price. The cops rediscovered curse words, quashed riots with a fierceness, and kept crime such as burglary and assault at about the same levels as in the Roosevelt years. Devery shipped squealer Schmittberger to “goatville,” in the Wakefield section of the Bronx.

  And Devery also began hanging out on a street corner at 28th Street and Eighth Avenue till past midnight, smoking cigars, leaning on a fire hydrant, meeting with Tammany politicians, underworld pals such as Frank Farrell, bagman Glennon, various police captains, ordinary citizens. He carried two fat rolls of cash in rubber bands and often treated at the oyster stand across the street or at Ruppert’s saloon. One of his favorite expressions was: “When you get caught with the goods on you, you don’t want to know nothin’.”

  The New York Times—finally resurrecting itself as an aggressive paper—published an exposé revealing that gamblers were paying a staggering $3 million a year for protection: 400 poolrooms at $300 a month, 500 crap games at $150 a month, 200 gambling houses at $150 a month, 20 elaborate casinos at $1,000 a month, and ten-dollar bills from hundreds of small “numbers” shops.

  Devery, in response to the increasingly harsh criticism, decided to adopt a page out of Roosevelt’s playbook and enforce the letter of the law, only in this case against … bandleaders in posh restaurants and hotels for playing music without a license. The big chief vowed to stop those lawbreakers from performing Schubert and Brahms to lunching ladies at Sherry’s, Delmonico’s, and the Savoy. None of the reformers seemed to appreciate Devery’s sense of humor.

  As for Roosevelt, his principled belligerence was once again infuriating New York State Republican power brokers and bumping him upwards. Governor Roosevelt, fine-tuning his reform agenda, imposed a corporate tax on public franchises such as railroads and was ousting corrupt administrators, both Republican and Democrat. “I have found out one reason why Senator Platt wants me nominated for the vice-presidency,” Roosevelt wrote to Lodge on February 3, 1900. “The big-monied men … whose campaign contributions have certainly been no inconsiderable factor in his strength, have been pressing him very strongly … to get me out of the state.”

  Senator Mark Hanna, McKinley’s right-hand man, deeply opposed the vice presidential “boom” for TR, still one of the nation’s most popular heroes from the brief war in Cuba. “Don’t you realize there’s only one life between this madman and the White House?” Hanna told several high-ranking fellow Republicans.

  In the runup to the November 1900 election, Police Chief Devery decided to refuse to cooperate with the voter fraud investigations overseen by the head of the New York State election bureau, Roosevelt’s John McCullagh.

  On Sunday, November 4, Devery officially ordered all 7,600 policemen to refuse to allow New York State inspectors to perpetrate “tactics and methods of intimidation upon respectable citizens.” When informed at Oyster Bay, Roosevelt turned apoplectic with anger and threatened the Tammany mayor and district attorney with legal proceedings. He urged McCullagh to rush to the grand jury with Devery’s “obnoxious order” on Monday morning, and the panel promptly indicted the chief of police for the felony crime of hindering duly appointed election officials. Chief Devery—whose first reaction was “They’re crazy!”—surrendered in Recorder Goff’s courtroom to avoid the shame of public arrest.

  The McKinley-Roosevelt ticket won in a national landslide, although native son Theodore Roosevelt yet again failed to win over New York City, this time losing by 29,000 votes. “I hope you noticed how I called down [Tammany Boss] Croker, [Mayor] Van Wyck and Devery when there threatened to be trouble in New York,” Roosevelt crowed to Lodge. “I was glad Croker gave me the chance through his man Devery.”

  On September 14, 1901, after the assassination of McKinley, Roosevelt ascended to the presidency. He took the oath of office in a borrowed top hat, the youngest president in the history of the country, six weeks shy of his forty-third birthday. His pals Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and Dr. William Sturgis Bigelow sent him a giddy telegram: VIVE LE ROI [Long Live the King].

  Two months later, the reformers in New York City, with Mark Twain campaigning and Roosevelt in the White House, finally won another election. The new mayor, Seth Low, in one of his first acts in office on January 1, 1902, fired Big Bill Devery. Soon after, the former police chief spent the extraordinary sum of $377,800 to buy a dozen buildings at auction in Manhattan, several in Hell’s Kitchen, others in prime West Village territory. That purchase alone would place Devery’s fortune on par with Theodore Roosevelt’s. Devery also bought a share in a racetrack.

  Tammany Hall, in the final desperate days leading up to the mayoral election, had abandoned Devery. Big Bill fought back and ran for mayor as an independent Democrat. “Elect me and I’ll bunch Tammany and these reformers into the cage over there at 102nd street and drop them all into the river with the rest of the dogs.” He lost, despite hosting lavish barbecues of 700-pound oxen, beer picnics, and boat excursions.

  Devery and his bookmaker pal Frank Farrell bought a struggling baseball team in Baltimore for $18,000 and brought it north in 1903, defying Tammany’s edict that the New York Giants of the National League have a monopoly on baseball in the city. That ball club, which had no official name
, was soon called the “Highlanders” or “Hilltoppers” but would later take the name … the New York Yankees.

  The partners had to fork over a hefty $250,000 to clear and build on a rocky hilltop at 165th and Broadway (today’s Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital). Their hurriedly constructed stadium included 5,000 folding chairs and held about 15,000 fans; the contractors failed to fill in a pond properly in right field, the muddy gulley had to be roped off, and umpires judged balls hit there a ground-rule double.

  The team, despite bringing in marquee stars such as Wee Willie Keeler, who had hit .427 in 1897, didn’t win many games. An early-twentieth-century riddle ran: “What animal comes from the bushes, doesn’t know what to do with a bat, cannot even catch a fly, and lives on goose eggs?” Answer: “The New York Yankees.”

  In 1909, Devery suggested introducing a new team logo, one that resembled an old New York police award badge and would become a sports icon; it featured the now classic interlocking N and Y and was placed on hats and uniform sleeves. (Louis Tiffany himself had designed this “valor” medal in 1877, and the commissioners had given it to a wounded policeman, John McDowell, right around the time Devery had joined the force.)

  In 1915—four years before the arrival of Babe Ruth—Devery and Farrell sold the Yankees to brewery heir Colonel Jacob Ruppert and his partner, Colonel Tillinghast L’Hommedieu Huston, for $460,000.

  President Roosevelt had a pretty good run over those same years, busting trusts, creating national parks, flexing the United States’ muscles abroad, hosting Easter egg hunts at the White House. Some of his presidential success can be attributed to having intelligent, cautious advisors such as Henry Cabot Lodge and Elihu Root nearby, unlike his lone-wolf days at 300 Mulberry Street. TR never lost his astounding energy, confidence, or his desire to preach.