Island of Vice

by Richard Zacks

  25 “they were fashionable”: Lexow, Vol. V, p. 5467.

  26 “Corner lots in Japan”: Ibid., Vol. V, pp. 5431, 5456; “Kellam’s Trial for Forgery,” NYT, Mar. 13, 1895 (John Goff reminiscing).

  27 looking “annoyed and angry”: “Will Byrnes Follow?” NYW, May 25, 1895, p. 2.

  28 WILLIAMS GONE, BYRNES TO GO: NYES, May 24, 1895.

  29 “muttonhead”: TR to HCL, Dec. 26, 1896, HCL Papers (this word deleted from MOR I).

  30 “Inspector Williams has asked for retirement”: “Williams Off the Force,” NYS, May 25, 1895, p. 1.

  31 “Goodbye”: Ibid.

  32 “last rescue boat”: Ibid.

  33 “I ain’t ashamed”: “Williams Is Out of It,” New York Press, May 25, 1895, TR Scrapbook, TRP.

  34 “Murderers and thugs”: “Williams Off the Force” NYS, May 25, 1895, p. 1.

  35 “how he could give”: “To Force Byrnes Out,” Chicago Tribune, May 25, 1895, p. 3.

  36 “worth $1.5 million and every dollar”: NYS, NYW, NYH, and other dailies, May 25, 1895.

  37 board later issued a statement: “Byrnes May Soon Retire,” NYT, May 26, 1895.

  38 “Admiral of the United States Navy”: “Chief Byrnes No Longer,” NYS, May 28, 1895.

  39 “Never have I felt sadder”: “Byrnes Is Ex-Chief,” NYW, May 28, 1895.

  40 “fortunes of war”: Ibid.

  41 “Why Frank this is nonsense”: Ibid.

  42 “Even the newspaper reporters”: Ibid.

  43 “Not one of us”: Riis, Making of an American, pp. 219, 222.

  44 “the very opposite of Roosevelt”: Ibid.

  45 “a keen, handsome little man”: “Capt. Peter Conlin in 1864,” NYT, July 12, 1896.

  46 “getting the police department under control”: TR to Bamie, June 2, 1895, MOR I, p. 459.

  47 “more full of life energy”: Edith to Bamie, June 1, 1895, Anna Roosevelt Cowles Collection (MS Am 1834.1), in TRC, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

  CHAPTER 7: MIDNIGHT RAMBLES

  1 “one of the longest and busiest streets”: Shepp, Shepp’s New York, p. 74.

  2 “Where in thunder does that copper sleep?”: Riis, Making of an American, p. 214.

  3 “I have read your book”: Riis, Theodore Roosevelt the Citizen, p. 131.

  4 “the happiest by far”: Ibid.

  5 “one of my truest and closest friends”: Riis, Making of an American (introduction by TR), p. xiii.

  6 “snoring so that you could hear”: “Roosevelt’s Stroll,” New York Press, June 8, 1895.

  7 “Is that the way you patrol your post?”: “Roosevelt as Roundsman,” NY Trib, June 8, 1895.

  8 “Come now, get a hustle on”: New York Press, June 8, 1895.

  9 “Officer, is this the way”: Bits of dialogue from this avalanche of coverage: “A Modern Haroun Al Raschid,” Brooklyn Eagle, June 7, 1895; “Police Caught Napping,” NYT, June 8, 1895; “Roosevelt on Patrol,” NYS, June 8, 1895; “Roosevelt’s Stroll,” New York Press, June 8, 1895; “Out on Patrol,” New York Advertiser, June 8, 1895; “Roosevelt Out Incognito,” NYW, June 8, 1895.

  10 “if the whole police force had dropped dead”: “Roosevelt as a Roundsman,” New York Evening World, June 7, 1895.

  11 “What the %$#%$# is that your business?”: Brooklyn Eagle, June 7, 1895; “Sly Police,” New York Journal, June 8, 1895; coverage by New York Press and NYW, June 8, 1895.

  12 “May I ask who you are”: Brooklyn Eagle, June 7, 1895.

  13 “huge frightened guardians of the peace”: TR to Bamie, June 8, 1895, MOR I, p. 461.

  14 HUNTS IN VAIN FOR POLICEMEN AFTER MIDNIGHT: New York Evening World, June 7, 1895.

  15 “The passing policeman is afraid”: Brooklyn Times as quoted in NY Trib, June 11, 1895, p. 7.

  16 “These midnight rambles are great fun”: TR to Bamie, June 16, 1895, MOR I, p. 463.

  17 “finest avenue on the American continent”: Shepp, Shepp’s New York, p. 76.

  18 “the first class theaters”: E. Idell Zeisloft, The New Metropolis, p. 636.

  19 “I drank it just to see”: “After the Saloon Men,” NYT, June 11, 1895, p. 9.

  20 “bad women openly walk Broadway”: Town Topics, June 13, 1895, p. 12. The arch, gossipy “Saunterings” column of Town Topics helped inspire the New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town.”

  21 “I did not see a patrolman putting forth”: “Andrews On Post,” New York Evening World, June 10, 1895.

  22 “I want you all to understand”: “After the Saloon Men,” NYT, June 11, 1895.

  23 an “earthquake” shake-up: “Police Earthquake,” New York Advertiser, June 14, 1895.

  24 “this is Execution Day”: “Shots Don’t Disturb Roosevelt,” NYW, June 14, 1895, p. 7.

  25 “narrow unlighted apologies for streets”: “Caught Seven Asleep,” New York Press, June 15, 1895, p. 82, TR Scrapbook, TRP.

  26 “No bluecoat was lounging”: Ibid.

  27 “suggested a veritable departmental millennium”: “Brass Buttons Loose,” New York Recorder, June 15, 1895.

  28 “Your precinct is in very good order”: “Caught Seven Policemen,” NYS, June 15, 1895.

  29 “shouting or singing of drunks”: Cornelius Willemse, Behind the Green Lights, p. 58.

  30 “It was a dog’s life”: Max Fischel, interview typescript, TR Subject File “Police Commissioner,” in Pringle Folder at TRC/Harvard.

  31 “green, their favorite color”: Cornelius Willemse, A Cop Remembers, pp. 73, 89.

  32 “more or less mad dogs”: Jacob Riis, “The Police Department of New York,” The Outlook, Nov. 5, 1898, p. 583.

  33 “cops who have never taken a dollar”: Willemse, A Cop Remembers, p. 105.

  34 “Mayor of the Bowery”: “Lights Out at Twelve at Mike Lyons’s Now,” NYT, June 23, 1905.

  35 “Three young men walked into ‘Mike’ Lyons”: “And Lo, It Was Roosevelt,” NYW, June 15, 1895.

  36 “Mr. Roosevelt expects his dream of discipline”: “Police Earthquake,” New York Advertiser, June 14, 1895.

  37 “long time since a New York policeman”: The Outlook, June 22, 1895, pp. 1085, 1089.

  38 “to the handle”: “Sandwiches Not a Meal,” NYT, July 2, 1895.

  CHAPTER 8: THIRSTY CITY

  1 “jugglers, acrobats … and rope-dancers”: C. D. Rust, Penal Code of the State of New York, Section 277.

  2 selective enforcement of the law: “Vain Plea to the Mayor,” NYT, June 30, 1895; NYW, July 5, 1895. He started out with the phrase “lax enforcement.” He used “partial enforcement” in “Roosevelt Tells Why,” NYW, July 6, 1895.

  3 “The saloons form”: Roosevelt, Historic Towns: New York, p. 219.

  4 “I do not deal with public sentiment”: NYES, June 20, 1895 (mistakenly identified as NYS in TR Scrapbook, TRP, and in The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, compiled by Hermann Hagedorn).

  5 “New York has never been so shocked and surprised”: “Enforcement of Liquor Laws,” Review of Reviews, August 1895.

  6 “The Excise Law didn’t bother us”: “Coney Island Went Wet,” NYT, June 24, 1895.

  7 “This city is ruled entirely by the hayseed”: Plunkitt, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, p. 28.

  8 “impractical”—being opposed by 19/20ths of the population: “Talking About Liquor,” NYT, Jan. 25, 1884, p. 1.

  9 “Archie loves me better than anything”: TR to Bamie, June 23, 1895, MOR I, p. 463; see also “Memories of Corinne Robinson Alsop,” interview transcript, 1965, Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace, New York (hereafter TRB).

  10 “we’ll bust your head open with an ax!”: “Captain Bourke’s First Meeting with Theodore Roosevelt,” typescript, Oct. 1, 1923, box #79, TRB. (Bourke worked at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace after retiring from the NYPD.) Fight story supplemented by newspaper accounts (all June 24, 1895): “Mike Callahan Beaten,” NYW; “Callahan Up in Court,” NYES; “Saloon Shades Useless,” NYT.

  11 “The first man who interferes, I’l
l shoot down like a dog”: “Mike Callahan Beaten,” NYW, June 24, 1895, p. 1.

  12 “All this talk about the impossibility”: “Excise Law Must Be Respected,” NYT, June 25, 1895, p. 9.

  13 “I do not thank you”: NYS, June 25, 1895.

  14 “You have done very well indeed!”: “Pulls Really Gone,” NYW, June 26, 1895, p. 2.

  15 “How do you want it, French or American?”: “Charges Preferred Against Captain Jos. B. Eakins,” testimony of William Sawyer, pp. 568, 599.

  16 “notorious liars”: “Advised Against Appeal,” NYT, June 25, 1895, p. 9. See also “Captain Devery Is Reinstated,” NYH, June 4, 1895; “Decided in Devery’s Favor,” NY Trib, June 4, 1895; “Devery Is Reinstated,” NYT, June 4, 1895; and “To Fight Devery,” New York Evening World, June 10, 1895.

  17 “to moderate” his “zeal”…“listen to a lecture”: McDougall, This Is the Life, pp. 116, 140.

  18 “wide toothsome grin”: “A Joke On Our Nervous Policemen,” NYW, June 30, 1895, p. 25.

  19 “none of the false dignity of most great men”: McDougall, This Is the Life, p. 131.

  20 “Not only all my class”: TR to Bamie, June 30, 1895, MOR I, p. 463.

  21 “pretzels, frankfurters and sauerkraut, Limburger”: Zeisloft, New Metropolis, p. 272.

  22 “On every side are family groups, father, mother”: Helen Campbell, Thomas W. Knox, and Thomas Byrnes, Darkness and Daylight; or Lights and Shades of New York Life, p. 470.

  23 “harsh” and “tyrannical” enforcement: Coverage by the NYES, June 29, 1895; “Germans Up in Arms,” NYT, June 29, 1895; “Strong Defies Beer Men,” NYW, June 29, 1895; “No Sunday Liquor,” NYH, June 30, 1895, TR Scrapbook, TRP, May 7, 1895, to May 9, 1896, microfilm reel No. 454 at Library of Congress; see also Ferdinand Iglehart, King Alcohol Dethroned, p. 199.

  24 “dry sense of humor”: Avery Andrews, Citizen in Action, p. 10, NYPD.

  25 “the risk of falling off the plank”: “Climax of Dry Sundays,” NYT, July 1, 1895.

  26 “sat around a table with a bottle of whiskey”: “Was Hard to Get a Drink,” NYS, July 1, 1895.

  27 “ ‘growlers’ concealed in hat boxes”: Ibid.

  28 “The law is no good anyhow”: “New Police Allies,” NYW, July 1, 1895, p. 2.

  29 “WE VOTED FOR REFORM AND THIS IS WHAT WE GET”: Ibid., p. 1.

  30 “So dry a Sunday and so dull a Sunday”: “Was Hard to Get a Drink,” NYS, July 1, 1895.

  31 “If the Sunday laws were properly adjusted”: NYW, June 24, 1895.

  32 “After making a tour of the beer saloons”: Town Topics, June 20, 1895, p. 11.

  33 “I have now run up against an ugly snag”: TR to Bamie, June 30, 1895, MOR I, p. 464.

  CHAPTER 9: ELLIOTT

  1 “Elliott has sunk to the lowest depths”: Edith to her mother, Aug. 10, 1894. Quoted in Sylvia Jukes Morris, “Edith Kermit Roosevelt,” p. 142.

  2 “There once was an old fellow named Teedie”: Elliott to Archibald Gracie, Sept. 5, 1873, quoted in David McCullough, Mornings on Horseback, p. 125.

  3 “He was distinctly the polished man of the world”: TR to Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, Aug. 29, 1894, MS Am 1540, TRC.

  4 “partly to drown the smell of my bedfellow”: Elliott to Theodore Roosevelt Sr., Jan. 9 and 12, 1876, quoted in McCullough, Mornings on Horseback, p. 148.

  5 “I enjoy being with the old boy so much”: Ibid., p. 228.

  6 “he took some ale to get the dust out of his throat”: TR to Corinne, Sept. 12, 1880, quoted in McCullough, Mornings on Horseback, p. 228.

  7 “She is so pure and holy”: Carleton Putnam, Theodore Roosevelt, the Formative Years, p. 209, quoted in Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, p. 132.

  8 “It is the life, old man. Our kind. The glorious freedom, the greatest excitement”: Elliott to TR, Apr. 24, 1881, quoted in McCullough, Mornings on Horseback, p. 240.

  9 “one of the most brilliant weddings of the season”: “The Roosevelt-Hall Wedding,” NYT, Dec. 2, 1883, p. 3.

  10 “drank like a fish and ran after the ladies”: McCullough, Mornings on Horseback, p. 247.

  11 “amateur circus exhibition”: “The Funeral Next Friday,” NYH, Aug. 16, 1894, p. 3.

  12 “horns played a little”: Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, p. 37. Elliott was the father of Eleanor Roosevelt, who married her distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Edith once commented about her: “Eleanor has been here too. Poor little soul; she is very plain. Her mouth & teeth seem to have no future but as I wrote Theodore the ugly duckling may turn out to be a swan” (Edith to Bamie, May 18, 1895).

  13 “chaffed”: TR to Bamie, undated letter #294 among letters from TR to Bamie, MS Am 1834, TRC. A birth certificate announced the arrival of Elliott R. Mann, Mar. 11, 1891; he worked at Chase Bank in New York City, and died in California on Dec. 20, 1976, without meeting his half sister Eleanor Roosevelt.

  14 “It is like a brooding nightmare”: TR to Bamie, Feb. 15, 1891, MS Am 1834, TRC.

  15 “I regard it as little short of criminal”: TR to Bamie, Mar. 1891, MS Am 1834, TRC.

  16 “His curious callousness and selfishness”: TR to Bamie, May 23 and June 7, 1891, MS Am 1834, TRC.

  17 “It is his business to be an expert in likenesses”: TR to Bamie, July 12, 1891, MS Am 1834, TRC.

  18 “DEMENTED BY EXCESS”: “Elliott Roosevelt,” NYH, Aug. 18, 1891, p. 11.

  19 “Dear Elliott has been such a loving tender brother”: Corinne to Douglas Robinson, Mar. 19, 1881, quoted in “Mornings” pp. 243–244.

  20 financial decisions: McCullough, Mornings on Horseback, p. 278; Morris, Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, p. 301; Morris, Edith, p. 138; Rixey, Bamie, pp. 45, 52.

  21 “I wish emphatically to state”: “A Personal Assertion,” NYH, Aug. 21, 1891.

  22 “I live in constant dread of some scandal”: Edith to her mother, Aug. 10, 1894, Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, p. 142.

  23 “utterly broken, submissive and repentant”: TR (in Paris) to Bamie, Jan. 21, 1892, MS Am 1834, TRC (TR, upset, misdated it 1891).

  24 “This morning, with his silk hat, his overcoat”: Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, p. 38.

  25 “DO NOT COME”: Ibid., p. 44.

  26 “He is now laid up from a serious fall”: TR to Bamie, July 29, 1894, MS Am 1834, TRC.

  27 “The terrible bloated swelled look was gone”: Corinne to Bamie, Aug. 15, 1894, MS Am 1834.1, TRC.

  28 “would have been in a strait jacket”: TR to Bamie, Aug. 14–18, 1894, MS Am 1834, TRC; also quoted in Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, pp. 143–144.

  CHAPTER 10: LONG HOT THIRSTY SUMMER

  1 “determined attitude”: “Police Board’s Crusade,” NYT, July 18, 1895.

  2 “Blue laws and blue skies”: NYH, July 29, 1895.

  3 “ALBANY’S MAYOR BLIND”: “New York Alone Dry,” NYW, July 15, 1895, p. 2.

  4 for whiskey, “cold tea”: New York Advertiser, July 8, 1895, Avery Andrews scrapbook, TRC.

  5 “Go into a drug store and tell the member of the Lucrezia Borgia”: Washington Post, “Dyspepsia is Epidemic,” July 18, 1895, p. 3.

  6 “a colored youth turned a crank”: “Wide Open,” NYW, July 22, 1895.

  7 “even sapped the moisture and coolness from the overnight watermelon”: Ibid.

  8 “I am not going to take any blank from any blankety-blank blank man”: “Callahan Arrested Again,” NYW, July 22, 1895; “Callahan on the Rack,” NYS, July 23, 1895; “Callahan Pays a Fine of $5,” New York Evening World, July 23, 1895; “Callahan Escapes,” New York Evening World, July 30, 1895; “Callahan’s Immunity,” NYW, Aug. 1, 1895.

  9 “police to arrest lemonade peddlers or druggists”: “Excise and Sunday Laws,” NYT, July 13, 1895, p. 1; “Only Water to Drink Now,” NYH, July 13, 1895, p. 3; “No Sunday Soda Water,” NYW, July 13, 1895, p. 2.

  10 “The average citizen … has been leading a life of crime”: “Warning! Read These Sunday Blue Laws,” NYW, July 28, 1895, p. 30. />
  11 “It is an awkward and ugly fight”: TR to HCL, July 14, 1895, MOR I, p. 466.

  12 “I have plunged the [New York City] Administration”: TR to Bamie, July 4, 1895, MOR I, p. 465.

  13 “narrow, harsh and unreasonable”: “Hill on the Blue Laws,” NYW, p. 1; “Mr. Hill Says ‘Agitate,’ ” NYT, p. 8, July 12, 1895.

  14 “waste of time for the criminal classes and their allies”: “Roosevelt Unyielding,” NYW, July 16, 1895, p. 3.

  15 “a little tin Czar”: NYW, July 16, 1895, p. 6.

  16 “as full as an L”: “Mr. Roosevelt’s Defiance,” NYW, July 17, 1895, p. 1.

  17 “What is right in the Union Club is not wrong”: Ibid.

  18 “I come here to speak caring nothing for …”: Text of speech carried in most New York City dailies, including the NYW; see also “Roosevelt’s Retort to Hill,” NYH, p. 3;“Mr. Roosevelt Answers,” NYT, p. 1, July 17, 1895.

  19 “Your speech is the best”: For description of July 18 telegram, see TR to HCL, July 20, 1895, MOR I, p. 469.

  20 “I’ll sit in the electric chair”: NYW, July 22, 1895.

  21 “orderly”: NY Trib, July 23, 1895, p. 12.

  22 “raise its voice against this wholly un-American doctrine”: “Roosevelt Tells Why,” NYW, July 29, 1895, p. 2.

  23 “syrups,” “confectionary”: “Soda Water Is Left Us,” NYW, July 21, 1895, p. 5.

  24 “Roosevelt don’t know how to lift the canvas”: Washington Post, July 18, 1895.

  25 “New York is rapidly becoming a jay and hayseed”: Town Topics, July 11, 1895, p. 12.

  26 “he has had such a worn and tired look”: Edith to Bamie, July 29, 1895, Anna Roosevelt Cowles Collection, MS Am 1834.1, TRC.

  27 Edith, of course, persists in regarding me as a frail”: TR to HCL, Aug. 8, 1895, MOR I, p. 474.

  28 “strongest and most hopeless”: “The Case of Capt. Eakins,” New York Evening Post, Aug. 3, 1895.

  29 “You have got one of those daisies”: “Charges Preferred Against Captain Jos. B. Eakins,” testimony of Eakins, p. 3942.

  30 “colored wenches”: Ibid., p. 3927.

  31 “talk about except whorehouses”: Ibid., p. 4016.