Authors: Elizabeth Adler
He stood behind his counter and waited confidently for those tip-top people to patronize the store he had created
especially for their needs. He did not have to wait long. The cooks he had spoken to at the big houses on the Hill were the first in. They noted the cents shaved off the prices here and there, and the bigger reductions on the “Opening Specials,” and they nodded sagely as they prodded plump-breasted chickens and succulent pears, testing the quality. They inspected the big brown speckled eggs with bits of straw still adhering to them, which had been laid that morning at a country farm, and the pristine vegetables and fresh herbs. And they bought. Daniel’s little claret-colored carriage with the dapple-gray pony and young O’Dwyer driving it were kept busy trotting up and down the smart streets, delivering the orders.
At the end of the first day, when he counted his takings, Dan had over a hundred dollars in the till, more than he would have taken in in a week at Corrigan’s. And by the end of that first week he had taken in a total of four hundred and fifteen dollars and thirty-five cents, and he thought, satisfied, he had made the right move. His customers were the cooks and chefs from the city’s mansions; they had the purchasing power of very wealthy households who demanded “the best” and they liked the big, polite redheaded young Irishman who was always ready with a joke and always had a moment to pass the time of day with them.
Dan calculated that in one year he would have recouped his investment and would be able to pay Keany back the loan for the delivery carriage and the pony. His profit margin was twenty percent and he knew if he worked hard and was careful with his prices his store would make him a comfortable living, way better than at Corrigan’s. But it wasn’t enough. It would not make him a rich man.
At the end of a year he went to Keany, paid back his loan, and handed him a gold pocket watch. “It’s inscribed, just the way I promised,” he told him proudly.
“To Thomas Keany. With Thanks. Daniel O’Keeffe,”
Keany read. “That’s a very fine gift, Dan, and I appreciate
it, though there was no need for thanks. You’ve worked hard for what you’ve got.”
“That’s why I’m here, Mr. Keany,” Dan cried, thumping his big fist enthusiastically on Keany’s desk. “Once a man gets a full belly, Mr. Keany, he gets a hunger for something else.
Success. Power. Wealth.
I said at the beginning I wanted more than one store, and now that I’ve got the formula I want to expand. I want another store in Back Bay. And then a third one, in New York. I’ll put my assistant, O’Dwyer, in charge of this one, and I’ll open the new one in Back Bay myself to get it going. Then, when it’s operating perfectly, I’ll find another couple of young Irish clerks to run it for me. Then I’ll go to New York and do the same thing….”
“Let’s start with Back Bay,” Keany said practically. “But remember, two shops is twice as much work as one, Dan O’Keeffe.”
“Sure and don’t I have the energy and strength of a dozen,” Dan exclaimed truthfully.
The Back Bay shop opened with a flourish and soon two claret-and-gold delivery carriages were to be seen trotting through the smarter streets of the city, and Dan’s receipts for the week averaged over a thousand dollars instead of four hundred. Those dollar signs jingled like the cash register in his head again and he knew his theory was right. But he bided his time. When he had repaid all his debts and had money in the bank, then he would go to New York and speak to Finn, because he had a few other ideas brewing in his head.
Meanwhile, he was walking out on Sundays with a very nice young girl, a maid at a big house on Mount Vernon Street he had met at St. Stephen’s Church. She was dark-haired and pretty with rosy cheeks and gray eyes and she came from County Wexford. He saw her once a week on her day off, and he looked forward to it almost as much as he did to counting up the week’s receipts on Saturday night. Every other spare moment he got after work, he
spent down at the Ward Six office, helping Keany with his complex political organization.
When the Irish immigrants had first begun arriving in America, they had started a system of local government specifically their own, intended at first simply to help the immigrants with their problems in the new country. Over the years the system had developed to where the Irish in the big cities like Boston and New York, Pittsburgh and Chicago, dominated the Democratic Party on the local level. The immigrant areas of the cities were divided into wards, and each ward had a boss. In Ward Six’s case it was Thomas Keany, but there were other powerful men in Boston: namely George McGahy, who ran Ward Seven, and Martin Lomasney, the all-powerful boss of Ward Eight. All were strong-minded fellows who worked hard for their poor constituents and in return they all expected “loyalty,” meaning
votes,
when the time came to elect the men they had personally chosen to run for the local council and for the state legislature and for Congress.
At first Dan worked for Keany as a “heeler.” It was his job to go around to the saloons rounding up voters when the delegates for the nominating conventions were to be chosen. It was also the heeler’s job to keep those who would vote against his boss’s choices out of these meetings. Few chose to argue the point with big brawny Dan O’Keeffe and those that did felt the power of his fists.
But Keany soon realized Dan was too good for the job. “A man like you, with his own business, who looks the way you do: big, solid, reassuring, that’s exactly the kind of man who can get votes,” he told him. “A man with your gift of the gab and the knack of saying the right thing at the right time to the right folks—oh, don’t think I haven’t noticed,” he added with a twinkle. “What I’m saying is, a man like you, Dan, is a natural politician. I’m moving you up in the world. You can start by making speeches in support of my nominees for the local elections.”
After that Dan was often to be seen on street corners, urging the folks to vote for the Ward Six nominee. All his
old verbal prowess gained selling watches and suspenders returned and he gave the best speeches in the area; everybody said so. “We would vote for you, young fella, any time,” one woman called to him, and that remark was not lost on the ward boss.
Over the next couple of years Dan learned all the advantages as well as all the tricks of politics. He worked for Keany for the love of it, expanding his contacts into the many Irish societies and organizations as well as the church. He was a young man not easily forgotten, and with his towering height and massive physique, he gave the impression of a strong man who could be relied on. A man who always kept his word. And the people liked and trusted him.
He became a well-known figure in the North End, greeted on every street and welcomed in every bar, not as a heavy drinker though he could down a jar or two with the best of ’em, as any Irishman could, but as a shaker of hands and a man who brought a smile to their faces and a ray of hope to the heart of everyone he met. And he never considered himself too grand for any job; he was as willing to sweep the floor of the meeting room and help run the Catholic Orphan Society picnic or attend a local man’s funeral and make sure his widow was helped as he was to attend the fancy fund-raising dinners and march in the parade on St. Patrick’s Day.
“Your two shops make you a nice living,” Keany said to him late one night, long after most people were in bed, when they were still in his office. “Yet you seem to spend most of your time here at the ward headquarters. I said it when I met you, Dan, and I’ll say it again. You’re a natural politician, and I’m proposing you run for office.”
“Run for office?” Dan’s expression went rapidly from surprise to interest. It was true that politics were gradually taking over more and more of his life, and he loved it: he liked working with the people, changing their lives, even if only in small ways, for the better. And he certainly wanted to see his fellow countrymen gain an equal place in America,
the country of immigrants. But run for office … well, that was a different matter.
“I wasn’t just thinking of the local council,” Keany said, lighting up a cigar and watching Dan carefully through the smoke for his reaction. “It’s the Massachusetts State Senate I’m thinking of.”
Senator Dan O’Keeffe.
A buzz of excitement ran through Dan as he thought about it, but he said cautiously, “I’ve my businesses to think of running. I can’t just walk away and leave my shops. Besides, I’m too young. I’m only twenty-eight.”
“You have already learned how to delegate responsibility. You’ve got good men running the shops and you can still expand, just the way you planned. And in this era, youth is an advantage. Don’t forgo this opportunity, Dan. You are exactly the kind of young man we need.”
Dan went away to think it over. He paced the floor of his small sitting room over his shop, wishing Finn were there to talk to. Only Finn could advise him what to do. The next morning he told Keany he was going to New York to speak to his brother and he would let him know his decision in a couple of days’ time.
“D
O IT,”
F
INN, SMARTLY DRESSED,
urged over a lavish dinner at Sherry’s. “I envy you the opportunity.”
“But what about my stores? I’d planned to open more, right here in New York.”
“You’re the brains behind the enterprise,” Finn reminded him. “Like my boss says, let your money make money for you. Invest in more stores with the same formula, put a good manager in each one and it’ll run itself. You can as easily have a dozen as two, now you know how it’s done.”
Dan went back to Boston and told Keany he was willing to become his nominee for state senator. On Keany’s advice he stepped up his street-corner speechmaking, only this time on his own behalf, drawing bigger crowds than had ever been seen before. He marched at the head of
parades, with brass bands blaring Irish tunes and fireworks blasting. He gave ’em razzmatazz like they had never seen before and the people loved it and showed up in droves to see him.
“I know I’m young,” he cried, his thumbs hooked through his signature red suspenders, his black derby hat pushed to the back of his head and his feet planted firmly apart on the soapbox that was his platform. “But I’ve been through everything you have yourselves. Every insult, every degradation. The poverty and the hunger. I
know
how it feels. And I know how to help you. I’ll not see you swept under the senate rug with the rest of the rubbish, nor dumped in the garbage can to rot. I will work
for you.
I will work for
all
of us. I’ll put every ounce of energy I’ve got to fight for a minimum wage for every man. And for you women working all hours God sends, slaving for your rich employers, I’ll fight to set a limit on those weary hours so you will no longer be exploited. And I’ll do my damnedest to stamp out sweated labor. All you have to do is put your trust in Dan O’Keeffe and give me your vote.”
But it wasn’t only the neighborhood votes he needed, he also needed the other powerful ward politicians. With Keany at his side, he made the rounds asking for their support, and Keany finally managed to persuade the powerful Lomasney over to his side.
Finn returned to Boston to spend the crucial final days leading up to the election with his brother, and he was there when the results were announced. Lomasney’s support had swung the extra votes his way and Dan was elected the youngest senator in the state of Massachusetts. Finn marched proudly beside his brother, sharing his triumph as they strode through the very same North End slum streets that had offered them miserable shelter in a freezing, windowless hovel when they arrived in Boston only eight years before.
“Eight years. Who would ever have believed, Finn?” Dan said, tears of gratitude shining in his eyes as he remembered. “You, the stablelad at Ardnavarna, now a rich
businessman. And me, the gillie, owning two shops and with money in the bank; a senator, representing my own people. Only in a great country like America could a man’s dreams come true.”
F
IVE YEARS WORKING
for Cornelius James in New York had made a dandy out of Finn O’Keeffe, if not quite a gentleman. Corinne Marquand lay propped on one elbow in his bed, watching him dress for an evening out that did not include her, even though they had just made love. His evening clothes were the finest New York could provide, as were his shirt, his shoes, his velvet-collared black overcoat, and his white silk scarf. The pearl studs in his dress shirt were real and so were the solid gold and diamond cuff links, bought from Tiffany with the generous Christmas bonus that Finn told himself he had damned well earned, working twelve to fourteen hours a day.
He stayed on at Eileen Malone’s because it would have been a waste of money to rent an apartment for ten times the amount she charged him, and besides, he only used it to sleep; he was at the office at six-thirty every morning and out all night, and there was always some pretty actress with her own apartment who was happy to take him into her bed and look after him. Corinne was just an ongoing habit both of them enjoyed occasionally. Nothing serious.
He wasn’t vain about his appearance, but he had learned his lesson the hard way that first week in New York when everyone had laughed at his cheap suit and his celluloid collar. Now he always dressed in the best and he found it an instant badge of respect; doormen whose job he would have once coveted rushed to open doors for him; head-waiters bowed and scraped, and pretty women glanced admiringly his way. And most importantly Cornelius James’s friends treated him, if not quite like an equal—after all he had two demerits in the Wall Street establishment, he was Irish and Catholic—then at least with grudging respect. Cornelius had proven to his wife and to his friends that it was possible to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, and
the ignorant greenhorn Irishman was now an astute businessman whose quick brain had pulled off several neat coups.
Finn had proven a master at the technique of “selling short,” borrowing stocks and selling them, to be delivered at some future date, taking a chance that the price would fall before that delivery date. When it did he was able to repurchase the stock at a lower price, return it to the lender, and pocket the profit.