The Old Navy

by Daniel P. Mannix

  Although I always felt that the Marine guards were justified in shooting trespassers on sight, there was one occasion when I must admit I’m very glad they didn’t. Every afternoon we used to receive the countersign for the day from the Marine Barracks. Returning at night, if we didn’t know it we might be stopped by a sentry and taken to the guardhouse until our identity was established. One afternoon a number of us went ashore early before the countersign had been received by our ship. We returned about 3 A.M., very tired and anxious to get to bed, so we decided to avoid the sentries if possible and, instead of entering the Sands Street Gate, we went to a place where we knew there was a broken picket in the fence and crawled through, one by one. Just as we straightened up with a feeling of relief, a voice at our very ear cried, “Halt! Who goes there?” We answered “Officers” and advanced confidently. The voice shouted, “Don’t come near me! Don’t you dare come near me!” We halted dead in our tracks and from the darkness emerged a very young, nervous sentry, his bayonet advanced. He was so relieved to discover that we really were officers that he luckily forgot all about the countersign. I’m glad that one didn’t decide to fire.

  During our tours of duty, I got to know New York quite well, or at least, the parts of it that would interest a gay young ensign. Among the most popular restaurants were Martin’s (very elegant on the Fifth Avenue side, not so elegant on the Broadway side); Murray’s (on Forty-second Street), the Café Boulevard (way down on Ninth Street), the Marlborough Rathskeller (very popular Thursday nights for some reason), the Knickerbocker Grill with its famous murals, the Ritz Roof, Terrace Garden (an open air place at Fifty-ninth Street and Lexington Avenue; it was a terrific journey to get there in a hansom) and Pabst in Harlem, way out on 125th Street. I wonder if anyone else alive today remembers these famous spots.

  Of course, there were no movies but instead there was continuous vaudeville. In order to discourage the habit that some patrons developed of sitting through several shows, the vaudeville theaters always had one or two acts that were called “chasers”. They were so terrible that no human being was supposed to be able to sit through them more than once.

  The theaters included the famous Weber and Fields Music Hall with Lillian Russell, Dave Warfield (before his serious days), Fay Templeton and Pete Daley (who was very fat). Hence this sally:

  “Be careful or the bugaboos will carry you off.”

  “Are the bugaboos anything like derricks?”

  And, of course, Weber and Fields themselves:

  “You are a business man someting like a tief.”

  “Vat is a tief?”

  “Subbose I should come up to you on de street and should take ten tollars oudt of your pocket; vat vould I be?”

  “You vould be a vonder.”

  It all seemed very funny then.

  Then there was the Old Casino, at Thirty-ninth and Broadway, with a new musical show every year. Here were lugubrious, “dead pan” Dan Daley (“These Johnnies Give Me the Willies”) and beauteous Marie George:

  How would you like to pet a beautiful gay soubrette?

  Oh, you can bet we’d like to pet the gayest soubrette that we could get.

  How would you like to be, a little bit gay with me?

  Oh, Hully Gee, we’d like to be as gay as the very old deuce with thee.

  At another theater, further uptown, The Wild Rose was playing with Evelyn Nesbit in the chorus; Irene Bently was the star and Eddie Foy was the comic:

  I fell into a mortar bed from the 42nd Floor.

  I never was, in all my life, so mortified before.

  There was a patter song in this show, one of the numerous verses went:

  Lady gets on street car with a crying baby

  Conductor stares at kid which angers the lady

  She says “Rubber!” as she hands him pennies five

  Conductor says “Is it? I thought it was alive.”

  Ah well, after a few beers it was a lot of fun.

  Then there was the old Hippodrome with its water ballets and elephants sliding down into the tank and splashing us in the front row where we were enjoying a “worm’s eye view of the stage”. Also the old Madison Square Garden with Diana on top. We saw Sir Henry Irving in the theater there in Dante and, a few years later, just missed seeing Harry Thaw shoot Stanford White in the Roof Garden. It was the opening night of a new show; I remember it was called Mademoiselle Champagne. I was cruising around with a charming young lady from Maine and we tried to get tickets for the show but the box office was sold out so we went elsewhere. Three hours later, when the theaters let out, the newsboys were crying the murder.

  Despite all the attractions ashore, I kept up with my reading. I remember that some of the books out that year were Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, Kim by Rudyard Kipling, Monsieur Beaucaire by Booth Tarkington, Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad, Graustark by George McCutcheon, and The Hound of the Baskervilles by Conan Doyle. Besides the music hall attractions, there were Richard Mansfield in Cyrano de Bergerac at the Garden; Julia Marlowe in The Countess Valeska, If I Were King with Edward Sothern, and William Gillette in Sherlock Holmes. Among the musicals were The Wizard of Oz with Montgomery and Stone, Ethel Barrymore in Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, little George M. Cohan in Peck’s Bad Boy, and Victor Herbert’s Babes in Toyland. I watched Houdini escape from a strait-jacket at the Colonial and mounted to the top of the newly erected Flatiron Building, the highest in the world at twenty stories. Coming home in the evenings with our girls, we sang, “I Love You Truly”, “Mighty Lak’ a Rose”, “In the Good Old Summer Time”, “Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home?” and “Oh, Didn’t He Ramble?” We would see horse-drawn fire engines, belching smoke, galloping down the streets, wooden Indians to mark cigar stores (I had taken to smoking a pipe and my particular brand of tobacco — which I kept to all my life — was Prince Albert); watched “Gentleman Jim” Corbett work out at his gym where Gimbel’s now stands, and admired Charles Dana Gibson’s drawings. I still think the Gibson Girl was the loveliest of all feminine ideals. We enjoyed cartoon strips such as “Happy Hooligan” (who always wore a tin can for a hat and was famous for his team of ultra-polite Frenchmen “Pardon me, my dear Alphonse”. “After you, my dear Gaston”) and the brattish Katzenjammer Kids. In those days, all small boys had to be portrayed as little monsters.

  I spent as much time at the opera as the music halls — well, almost as much. I saw Il Trovatore, Pagliacci, Aida, Tosca and many more. I heard the famous Melba (the only singer in history to have a dessert named after her) do the mad scene from Lucia, the lovely Fritzi Scheff (who later went into musical comedy) as Zerlina in Don Giovanni, the great Madam Schumann-Heink sing Tristan, and even — some years later — listened to the most notable of them all, Caruso. I recall that the day before he opened at the Met — I think it was in Rigoletto — he had been arrested in the monkey house at the zoo for pinching a woman; an act that would have caused no comment in his native Italy. When he appeared, the boys in the peanut gallery shouted, “Monkey house, monkey house!” at him which notably disconcerted the great tenor.

  But my most vivid memory of Caruso was in La Bohème, when, carried away by a scene in which the mad, gay students stage an orgy in their attic he took a flying leap onto a bed. As Caruso was a little fat man, built along the lines of Bud Costello, the bed collapsed under his weight and the whole cast had to rescue Rodolfo from the wreck.

  I also saw Lina Cavalieri in Fedora, a stunning beauty who could have gotten by on her looks even if she didn’t sing a note. She had a famous affair with Willie Vanderbilt, and as a result his father — who was one of the directors of the Metropolitan — had her fired. This didn’t bother Lina in the least as she promptly married another millionaire named Robert Chanler, first stipulating that he had to sign over all his fortune to her. This the infatuated young man did whereupon Lina divorced hi
m. Chanler had a brother innured in a madhouse who promptly telegraphed him, “Who’s loony now?” I missed seeing Lilli Lehmann, one of my lifelong regrets, but on subsequent leaves I heard Galli-Curci and Rosa Ponselle.

  Perhaps it is only nostalgia, but it seems to me that these great divas were far more colorful and romantic than the actresses and motion picture stars of today. It was an era of glamorous women. The girls then looked like girls. They had full figures and graceful costumes, not like the skinny flappers of the twenties or the girls of today, all of whom look exactly alike and have no allure. It was so different in New York when I was a young man.

  In 1903, the fleet, together with the Kearsarge, was transferred to Pensacola, Florida. There I had an experience which convinced me, if I had ever doubted it, of the authenticity of the “miracle cures” of Lourdes and Saint Anne de Beaupré.

  I have mentioned that I had a game leg, resulting from an accident I suffered during the Spanish-American War. While the Kearsarge was at anchor in Pensacola Harbor, my leg began acting up and by the evening of April 16th the pain became almost unbearable. I was unable to stand on it; when my right heel touched the deck a hot flash of pain shot up my leg from knee to hip. Suddenly we received word that a major riot had broken out in the “red-light district” of the town involving both Army and Navy personnel and civilians. One man had already been killed and half a dozen were down with gunshot wounds. The local police were completely unable to handle the situation. To make matters worse, one of our two Marine officers was on leave and the other was ashore visiting a country house several miles away.

  Since the time I had had the bad luck to command the landing force in Buffalo at the time of President McKinley’s assassination, I’d done considerable thinking over how to handle troops sent to suppress a riot so I was eager to put my theories to the test. Completely forgetting my leg, I ran on deck and volunteered to take our Marine Guard ashore. As no else cared to undertake this thankless job, Lieutenant Eberle, flag secretary to Admiral Barker in command of the fleet, was only too happy to send me. It was a more delicate mission than I realized at the time (I was only twenty-four), for if we had killed anyone — or if any of the men under my command had been killed or seriously injured — I could have been tried for murder or at least lost my dearly won commission in the Navy.

  Ensign Mannix at the time of the riots.

  First, let me explain what had happened. As I have said, the sailors in those days were a far rougher lot than the modern bluejackets. One man from the fleet, obviously drunk, had tried to gain admission to a brothel, which was refused. He then started to kick the door down. The madam called the police and two officers answered the call. By the time they arrived, the man had succeeded in entering the house and was attacking the women. The policemen dragged him out, sent for a patrol car, and were trying to put him inside when a crowd of sailors, hearing his cries, came to his help and attacked the police. They had knocked down one policeman and were trampling him when his comrade and the officer driving the patrol wagon, drew their revolvers and fired, killing one sailor. The crowd drew back, the patrol wagon was able to drive away, and all might have been well had not a petty officer blown his whistle, signaling for help. In seconds, scores of men came racing to the scene . . . not only seamen and marines but also the rougher element from the city slums. The officers were attacked again and forced to fire blindly into the crowd. The furious seamen began to break into downtown shops to obtain firearms, only knowing that their messmates were being fired upon. Naturally, local roughs seized on the situation to start a general looting of the town and the whole situation got out of hand.

  Let me say that when anyone in authority, be he in the armed services or not, undertakes to lead a handful of men against a mob numbering several hundred rough, dangerous individuals, his first duty should be to his own contingent. The Marines put under my command had no choice but to obey my orders, and it was up to me to look out for their interests and not risk them unduly. Too often it seems to me that the general public and a certain type of newspaper reporter regard men in uniform as fair game for any gang of hoodlums who cares to attack them. They seem to think that because the representatives of law and order have guns that fact renders them invulnerable to rocks, bottles, or even bullets fired at them by a crowd outnumbering them several hundred to one. There have been cases when troops attacked by a mob (as happened in the Pennsylvania coal fields) and ordered not to fire have allowed the guns to be torn from their hands by the crowd rather than defend themselves. The natural result was that a number were killed and still others blinded for life when the half-mad crowd gouged out their eyes with bits of broken glass. A gun, if you are forbidden to use it, is of no more value than a stick. I had long ago come to the conclusion that if there was the slightest question of whether one of the men entrusted to my care or a rioter was to die, I would not hesitate in making my choice.

  At the same time, I perfectly realized that it was my responsibility to restore order without bloodshed if possible. It is a great mistake not to train troops for possible riot action because it is extremely easy for an ignorant officer to blunder into a position where he has no option but to fire a volley into his attackers with disastrous results. I had had no training yet after the Buffalo experience, I had luckily turned over in my mind the various situations with which I might be confronted in such an event and how to deal with them.

  I had under my command about forty men; consisting of the Marine Guard on the Kearsarge plus our master-at-arms who took with him all our available supply of hand irons, our bugler (so signals could be given above the roar of a crowd), and two hospital corpsmen. I had no idea how large the mob was or how much of the city was in their hands.

  It was nine o’clock in the evening when we landed on Palafox Wharf, where we were met by a most excited chief of police. I left a non-commissioned officer and two men on the wharf to guard our boats and make sure our retreat would not be cut off, always an important consideration when your force is greatly outnumbered. We then marched up Palafox Street, dropping off marine guards at each corner to prevent our being attacked from the rear. So far we had seen only scattered rioters and encountered no resistance.

  But at the conflex of Palafox and Saragossa we saw waiting for us a large and very belligerent crowd covering both sidewalks and most of the street. They clearly intended to stop our advance and there seemed no way to disperse them except by firing a volley.

  The only description of the mental workings of a mob that I had ever read was in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. Twain emphasizes that a mob is absolutely dependent on its leaders; once they are eliminated it will break up easily. My trouble was that I could not see any signs of leaders. Then it occurred to me that they would in all probability be well in the background, hiding themselves behind their more excited . . . or drunken . . . followers. The question was how to get at them? I saw a restaurant named Nick’s with a second floor balcony so I ordered a non-commissioned officer and two men whom I knew to be sharpshooters to break in the door and take up positions on the balcony. Here they could look down on the crowd and see anyone directing the action.

  As soon as they were in position, I shouted to the mob to clear the street or they would be hurt. I then ordered the marines to advance with fixed bayonets. At once a man in the crowd began shouting, “Fire on the bastards!” I halted the guard and directed two privates to make a rush for him. The man turned and ducked back into the crowd, but the three marines on the balcony of Nick’s establishment could keep track of him and saw him run into a saloon. Again I ordered the guard to advance. The mob held for a few seconds but their leader had fled and as a newspaper reporter who was present later wrote: “The appearance of the men from the Kearsarge with bristling bayonets and rattling chains that they were carrying showed they were not out for pleasure.” The mob broke and ran. I sent a corporal’s guard into the saloon and they soon return
ed with their prisoner in chains. I told them to hand him over to the guard at the dock and then return immediately. Meanwhile, we continued down Saragossa to the corner of Baylen.

  Here there was another large mob, and I could see several men urging the crowd to attack us. I sent two details into houses at either side of the street with orders to station themselves at windows commanding the intersection and to be prepared to pick off any agitators. This turned out not to be necessary for as soon as the troublemakers saw rifles trained on them from above making it impossible for them to hide behind their fellows, they promptly lost heart. As the marines came on steadily the crowd dispersed. This was the last resistance. The chief of police now came up to me and requested that we allow “the more orderly people to return as otherwise it would interfere with the business of the saloons and disorderly houses.” So we retired to the docks. In all, we took twelve prisoners who were later turned over to the authorities. Not a shot was fired and no one hurt.

  I was gratified — and rather surprised — to find that I had become something of a hero. The next day, two newspapers ran headlines praising my part in suppressing the riots. One read: “Ensign Daniel Mannix receives deserved praise. The commander in chief of the fleet commends him for his services.” The other ran: “Commended by the Admiral. Ensign Mannix receives very nice notice from commander in chief for the way he handled the marines.” Leslie’s Weekly, a popular periodical, ran a picture of me and a brief description of the riot on a page, “People Talked About”. It said, “Young Ensign Mannix led a company of marines with a bravery and discretion which effected a prompt suppression of the riot without bloodshed.” Quite different from the “double reflecting, triple-flattering” individual who had led the landing party at Buffalo! And yet surprisingly I was the same person and had behaved much the same on both occasions.