In an area of territory including something like forty thousand residents of the crowded East Side of New York there dwells and rules an individual whose political significance might well be a lesson to the world. Stout, heavy-headed and comfortably constituted, except in the matter of agility, he walks; and where he is not a personal arbiter he is at least a familiar figure. Not a saloon-keeper (and there is one to every half-block) but knows him perfectly and would be glad to take off his hat to him if it were expected, and would bring him into higher favor. Not a street cleaner or street division superintendent, policeman or fireman but recognizes him and goes out of his way to greet him respectfully. Store-keepers and school children, the basement barber and the Italian coal-dealer all know who is meant when one incidentally mentions “the boss.” His progress, if one might so term his daily meanderings, is one of continual triumph. It is not coupled with huzzahs, it is true, but there is a far deeper and more vital sentiment aroused, a feeling of reverence due a master.
I have in mind a common tenement residence in a crowded and sometimes stifling street in this vicinity, where at evening the hand-organs play and the children run the thoroughfare by thousands. Poor, compact; rich only in those quickly withering flowers of flesh and45 blood, the boys and girls of the city. It is a section from which most men would flee when in search of rest and quiet. The carts and wagons are numerous, the people are hard-working and poor. Stale odors emanate from many hallways and open windows.
Yet here, winter and summer, when evening falls and the cares of his contracting business are over for the day, this individual may be seen perched upon the front stoop of his particular tenement building or making a slow, conversational progress to the clubhouse, a half-dozen doors to the west. So peculiar is the political life of the great metropolis that his path for this short distance is blockaded by dozens who seek the awesome confessional of his ear.
“Mr. Powers, if you don’t mind, when you’re through I would like a word with you.”
“Mr. Powers, if you’re not too busy, I want to ask you a question.”
“Mr. Powers—” how often is this simple form of request made into his ear. Three hours’ walking, less than three hundred feet—this tells the story of the endless number that seek to buttonhole him. “Rubbing something offen him,” is the way the politicians interpret these conversations.
Being a big man with a very “big” influence, he is inclined to be autocratic, an attitude of mind which endless whispered pleas are little calculated to modify. Always he carries himself with a reserved and secret air. There is something uncompromising about the wide mouth, with its long upper lip, the thin line of the lips set like the edge of an oyster shell, the square, heavily-weighted46 jaw beneath, which is cold and hard. Yet his mouth is continually wrinkling at the corners with the semblance of a smile, and those nearest as well as those farthest from him will tell you that he has a good heart. You may take that with a grain of salt, or not, as you choose.
I had not been in the district very long before I saw in the windows of nearly every kind of store a cheaply-printed placard announcing that the annual outing of the Michael J. Powers Association would take place on Tuesday, August 2d, at Wetzel’s Grove, College Point. The steamer Cygnus, leaving Pier 30, East River, would convey them. Games, luncheon and dinner were to be the entertainment. Tickets five dollars.
Any one who has ever taken even a casual glance at the East Side would be struck by the exorbitance of such a charge as five dollars. No one would believe for an instant that these saving Germans, Jews and other types of hard-working nationalities would willingly invest anything over fifty cents in any such outing. Times are always hard here, the size of a dollar exceedingly large. Yet there was considerable stir over the prospective pleasure of the day in this district.
“Toosday is a great day,” remarked my German barber banteringly, when I called on the Saturday previous to get shaved.
“What about Tuesday?”
“Mr. Powers holds his picnic. Der will be some beer drunk, you bet.”
“What do you know about it? Do you belong to the association?”
47 “Yes. I was now six years a member alretty. It is a fine association.”
“What makes them charge five dollars? There can’t be very many around here who can afford to pay that much.”
“Der will be t’ree t’ousand, anyway,” he answered, “maybe more. Efferybody goes. Mr. Powers say ‘Go,’ den dey go.”
“Oh, Mr. Powers makes you go, does he?”
“No,” he replied conservatively. “It is a nice picnic. We haf music, a cubble of bands. Der is racing, schwimming, all de beer you want for nodding, breakfast und dinner, a nice boat ride. Oh, we haf a good time.”
“Do you belong to Tammany?”
“No, sir.”
“Hold any office under Mr. Powers?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, why do you go, then? There must be some reason.”
“I haf de polling place in my back room,” he finally admitted.
“How much do you get for that?”
“Sixty-five dollars a year.”
“And you give five of that back for a ticket?”
He smiled, but made no reply.
It was on Monday that the German grocer signified his intention of going.
“Do all of you people have to attend?” I inquired.
“No,” he replied, “we don’t have to. There will be48 somebody there from most of the stores around here, though.”
“Why?”
“Ask Mr. Powers. There’ll be somebody there from every saloon, barbershop, restaurant and grocery in the district.”
“But why?”
“Ho,” he returned, “it’s a good picnic. Mr. Powers looks mighty fine marching at the head. They say he is next after Croker now.”
Among the petty dealers of the neighborhood generally could be found the same genial acceptance of the situation.
“Dat is a great parade,” said a milk dealer to me. “You will see somet’ing doing if you are in de distric’ dat night. Senators walk around just de same as street cleaners; police captains, too.”
I thought of the condescension of these high-and-mighties deigning to walk with the common street cleaners, coerced into line.
“Are you going?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Want to go?”
“Oh, it’s good enough.”
“What do you think of Powers?”
“He is a great man. Stands next to Croker. Wait till you see de procession dat goes by here.”