S 
 
 GINAL "MWH" McKENNA 
 
 -:'r> 
 
 '"
 
 UN 
 
 I 
 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 STORIES 
 
 BY THE 
 
 ORIGINAL "JAWN" McKENNA 
 
 From "Archy Road" 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SUN WORSHIPERS CLUB 
 
 Off McKinley Park 
 
 IN THEIR 
 
 Political Tales and Reminiscences 
 
 CHICAGO 
 1918
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1918, 
 BY JOHN J. M'KENNA 
 
 JOHN /'. HIGCINS. 
 
 Printer. 
 
 376-380 West Monroe Street 
 80
 
 JOHN J. MCKENNA 
 
 John J. McKenna was born at Grassy Point on the west bank of 
 the Hudson River, New York State. Been active in politics in Chi- 
 cago for forty years. Been a member of the County and State 
 Central Committees. Was personally acquainted and socially friend- 
 ly with almost every person that has taken an active part in poli- 
 tics, both the Republicans and Democrats, during the years 1876 
 to 1916.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Fourth of July Oration by Barney O'Flynn Before 
 the Sun Worshipers Club in McKinley Park 11-16 
 
 A "Grave" Mistake 17-19 
 
 A Tribute to McKenna 20-21 
 
 Mrs Jim Kennedy Attends a Meeting at Baker's Hall 
 and Tells McKenna What She Thinks of Their 
 Goings on 22-24 
 
 Nicholas Ryan, the Club's Statistician, Induces Mrs. 
 Jim Kennedy to Address a Meeting of the Affiliated 
 (Republican Clubs of the Fifth Ward at Baker's 
 Hall, and She Tells Them Something 25-28 
 
 Dennis Dwyer on the Necessity of Preparedness, 
 Practically Demonstrated 29-30 
 
 Conditions Created by the War Cloud Plays Havoc 
 With Pat Price's 35th Precinct Club 31-32 
 
 Denny McManus of the 41st Precinct on the Re- 
 moval of the Hyphen 33-36 
 
 A War Reflection 37 
 
 Old "Turrence" Dougherty's Oration Before the Sun 
 
 Worshipers Club at McKinley Park 39-44 
 
 Continuance of Old Dougherty's Oration 45-50 
 
 Conclusion of Old Dougherty's Discourse 51-56 
 
 The War Is a Bad Omen for Pat English and His 
 
 Affiliated Club 57-58 
 
 The Diplomacy of Tom Sheehan, the Buffet Keeper 
 
 of Archer Road 59-61 
 
 Jerry Duggan, President of the 40th Precinct Re- 
 publican Club, in Confab with McKenna 62-64 
 
 Speech Delivered by Old Man Anthony Devlin After 
 
 Taking Two Sups of Sheehan's Whiskey 65-68 
 
 Little Johnnie's Inquiry 69 
 
 Thoughts of the Hour 70 
 
 Young Dougherty, the Lawyer, on Practical Govern- 
 ment and Nicholas Ryan's Views on a few other 
 
 Things 71-75 
 
 More Truth Than Poetry. 76 
 
 Ryan on Loyalty to the Flag 77-80
 
 CONTENTS Continued. 
 
 Pat Price Before the Sun Worshipers Club at the 
 McKinley Park on his Return from Vacation. His 
 
 Fish Story is Good 81-86 
 
 Ryan, the Statistician, and McKcnna in Conversa- 
 tion 87-92 
 
 Barney Mulligan, the Far-Down Linen Peddler, on 
 
 the Money Question 93-98 
 
 Ryan Induces Mulligan to Continue His Discourse on 
 
 the Money Question 99-105 
 
 Lamentations of the Pessimist Members of the Fifth 
 
 Ward Republican Club 106 
 
 The Eagle Society's Picnic Has its Effect on Mac's 
 
 Orators. He Tells His Own Story 107-114 
 
 Ryan on Press and Politics 1115-121 
 
 Lamentations of the Old Friends' Club 122 
 
 Pat Price and Barney O'Flynn on the Good Old Days 
 
 in Politics 123-127 
 
 The Days of Real Sport 128 
 
 Ryan and McKenna in Conversation 129-134 
 
 A Few Stories by Members of the Sun Worshipers 
 
 Club on Old Days in Politics 135-141 
 
 Toast to Our Flag 142 
 
 McKenna in Reminiscences of the Chicago Fire of 
 
 1871 143-159 
 
 One of the Sun Worshipers Gone to Meet His Re- 
 ward 160-161 
 
 Chicago as it Looked in Other Days 163-171 
 
 Nicholas Ryan in a Patriotic Mood 173-179 
 
 Mind Pictures 180 
 
 Anthony Devlin on The Old Days in Politics. . . 181-186 
 
 McKenna's Candidacy for Chaplain 187-191 
 
 "Times Are Changed'' Dwyer to Mac 193-195 
 
 Members of the Sun Worshipers Club in Confab. 197-201 
 A Christmas Wake Story from the Brighton 203 
 
 They Have Got Ryan Guessing 209-212 
 
 Old Anthony Devlin Airs His Views 213-216 
 
 The Old Days in Halsted Street 217-230 
 
 Jerry Duggan Airing His Views 231-235 
 
 Con O'Brien, the 41st Precinct Philosopher. . .236-238 
 
 Dougherty's St. Patrick's Day 239-241 
 
 Old Anthony Devlin in a Reminiscent Mood, . , .242-246
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 I wrote these stories so that the old fellows 
 may enjoy reading them. It's reminiscent of 
 things that they all passed through in their 
 day, and the young of the rising generation 
 have many times heard the old folks telling of. 
 
 There is more truth than poetry in most all 
 of it, and if it don't make you laugh there is 
 nothing said that will offend you. 
 
 The Old Fellows here mentioned all enjoyed 
 a long life and their knowledge has come from 
 the school of experience. There is none of them 
 but what can tell Bunk a mile away. The young 
 generation may think they're handing them 
 something new, but their new tricks are but a re- 
 polish, put on to the same old tricks, that the 
 old fellows have seen and heard and went up 
 against manys and manys the time. So there 
 ye have it. 
 
 JOHN J. McKENNA.
 
 FOURTH OF JULY ORATION BY BARNEY 
 O'FLYNN BEFORE THE SUN WORSHIP- 
 ERS' CLUB IN M'KINLEY PARK. 
 
 "Well," said Nicholas Ryan of the Thirty- 
 first Precinct, "we induced Barney O'Flynn to 
 give us a Fourth of July oration below at the 
 McKinley monument at the McKinley Park. 
 Barney is one of the sun worshipers that hold 
 their confabs at the McKinley monument every 
 day in the week. They have the Daily News 
 Almanac, the Bible, Shakespeares works, 
 and the divil only knows what else hid away in 
 the crevices of the monument waiting for some 
 of their cronies to make a careless remark. 
 Then like a lot of buzzards they jump upon him 
 with what they call ' their documentary ivi- 
 dence' to prove his assertion was false; and 
 from ten to four every day that's their job, ar- 
 guing on all the momentuous questions of the 
 day, pro and con, mostly con. 
 
 "Barney has had a shovel in where the dig- 
 ging was aisey and the pay good in every public
 
 12 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 department since the second day he left Castle 
 Garden Park. 
 
 " 'Well/ says Barney, beginning his dis- 
 course, 'ye say ye like to hear the truth, but I 
 know ne'er a one of you mean it. What ye 
 want and what ye injoy is the soft soap talk 
 and to hear yer neighbors and your public offi- 
 cials denounced. The worse ye hear of thim, the 
 better ye like it. But ne'er a one of ye like to 
 hear the truth about yerself. This is the Fourth 
 of July,' said Barney, 'the day we celebrate 
 or did celebrate before Andrew Carnegie took 
 the noise out of the firecrackers, and now the 
 kids balk to celebrate on squibs. At any rate 
 ye know what we used to celebrate for, but 
 that's a long time ago and since thin Congress 
 has passed resolutions, and so while the resolu- 
 tions last let us not be casting up, old sores. 
 That would be like McGlinn and Ryan's truce. 
 Every one thought the battle was over. Mc- 
 Glinn in his kindness said to Eyan, "Now, that 
 I am thinking as you are," thinking that Ryan 
 had the same kind of thoughts as himself, when 
 up jumped Ryan saying, "f you are, com^ out- 
 side and try it over again, and there it is for 
 ye." Well, it's the Fourth anyhow. We may 
 not feel as enthusiastic as we did whin we held 
 our picnics and shot giant firecrackers and used 
 the Milwaukee steins. But it is allright for us 
 old chaps. 
 
 " 'But,' said he, pointing to the five thousand 
 young men and women that ye see there below 
 in the park fields. Said he, "They have worked
 
 Ball Game, McKinlej Park. 
 
 Lawn Tennis Court,
 
 14 MCKENNA'S STOMES 
 
 hard all week, and they are now engaged in 
 their baseball, basket ball, croquet, and tennis, 
 and every game of fun that you can mention. 
 Their shouts and cries of joy and laughter make 
 the world what the Lord intinded it should b*, 
 a place of contintment and happiness. There,* 
 said he, pointing, ' is the controlling influence of 
 the world. Look at that crowd. Then look at 
 the few we have here. That's the world's way,' 
 said he. 'When ye are out of that class the divil 
 a one pays any serious attention to ye but the 
 preacher, the doctor, and the undertaker; that 
 is, if you are well insured. If not, I know of no 
 one but God that has any time or room for ye.' 
 
 *' 'The older ye are, the more it costs to 
 watch ye. In your primary election the cost to 
 watch ye have the tax payers robbed and the 
 county treasurer busted, and what the divil good 
 have ye done. Ye are changing and rechanging 
 the laws and whin it is all over and the money 
 spint ye look up and see what ye have done and 
 as Ryan said, whin I showed him the members 
 of the Supreme Court as they were standing in 
 front of their building in Springfield: "Be- 
 gorra," said Ryan, "they are only min after 
 all." 
 
 " 'In the old days,' said he, 'the judges and 
 clerks of primary election volunteered thei* 
 services. Ye might get a "Democratic black eyft 
 or a Republican black eye, but it costs the tax 
 payers nothing and under that system we nomi- 
 nated such min as Samuel J, Tilden, ROSCOQ
 
 OKATION 15 
 
 Conklin, Lincoln, Palmer, Douglas, Oglesby, 
 and the old man Carter H. Harrison, old maw 
 McAllister, and old man Gary as judges and b 
 cost the taxpayers nothing to nominate them. 
 Ye haven't money enough today to pay for 
 watching ye to nominate min like them min- 
 tioned. Ye became so dishonest as Democrats 
 and Republicans ye couldn't trust yourselves to 
 manage your party affairs. Ye had to have 
 laws made and min appointed to watch your- 
 ? fives, and it's busted the tax payers to pay for 
 the job. In the old days party min walked ten 
 miles to hear his party candidate denounce the 
 opposite side. Under yer new expensive plan it 
 would take a cabaret and minstrel show with 
 free lunch combined to induce ye to walk a 
 block to hear any one and ye are still nomi- 
 nating men and plan to make them honest. Ye 
 are wasting money; your undertaking is too 
 great; for we read in the good book when the 
 Creator himself turned his back to look at some 
 of his other creations ye stripped the tree of 
 every apple, and now,' said Barney, 'ye are try- 
 ing to do what the Creator himself could not do 
 for ye. 
 
 " 'Now,' said Barney, 'if the politician had 
 the same opportunity to make his promise good 
 as has the preacher, the world would always be 
 like what it is to the young. The preacher's 
 promise is fulfilled after you reach the grave 
 if you keep the commandments, and ne'er a one 
 ever returns to confront him as to broken prom- 
 ises. But with the politician, whin the election
 
 16 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 is over then his promises are staring him in the 
 face with not one meal ticket to go round for 
 the one hundred hungry applicants. It's the 
 divil's job to face ye for yer votes, but when ye 
 come for the expected meal ticket it takes all 
 the joy out of life. That's why most of ye en- 
 joy hearing yer officials denounced, for that's 
 the only pleasure most of ye get out of the game. 
 But yonder in the field ye see yer answer in the 
 youne' folks. A divil a care has any one of thim 
 on thir mind but for a good time. Now, that's 
 the world 's way. All the preachers in the world 
 couldn't change thim. That numerous crowd 
 you see there enjoying thimselves on the park 
 fields, if they live long enough, they will be here 
 as we are, but we will not be here and there will 
 be others in their place on the ball fields and 
 when they stand here as we are they will be in 
 the small minority as we are, for that's the way 
 with the world, for boys will be boys, and when 
 old Toney Pastor sang the song, "Go It While 
 You Are Young, My Boys, for When Ye Get 
 Old You Can't," he had the gang with him, ani 
 so it will go on until Gabriel blows his horn.' ''
 
 THE "GRAVE" MISTAKE. THE MISHAP IN 
 THE BURIAL OF DINNY QUILLIGAN OF 
 THE 36TH PRECINCT REPUBLICAN CLUB. 
 
 In the 36th Precinct Republican Club of the 
 Fifth Ward a great mishap took place last week. 
 Jimmie Duggan made the following report of 
 the occurrence : 
 
 "Begorra, McKenna, we had an exciting time 
 of it this week. We were appointed to conduct 
 the funeral arrangements of one of our mem- 
 bers, one Dinny Quilligan, a little Kerry man 
 that come over to us as a mimber in the Blaine 
 election. 
 
 Dinny was a good Catholic and always boast- 
 ed that he gave character to the Republican 
 ticket by putting the cross in the circle at the 
 head of the ticket on each election day. Well, 
 to be short in me story, we took the remains of 
 Dinny to the Grand Trunk depot at 49th and 
 Ashland avenue to meet the funeral train for 
 Mt. Olivet. When we got there, we found that 
 a Nagro funeral was taking place at the same 
 time. 
 
 "We put Dinny 's coffin in the car set apart 
 for that purpose, whin along came the Blacka- 
 mores and they did the same, Begorra, Me-
 
 18 MCKENNA'S STOKIES 
 
 kenna, as true as I am tellin' ye, the Nigger's 
 coffin and Dinny's was as like as two cherries. 
 
 "The train started and the first stop was at 
 the Nagro graveyard. Bedad, the Nagroes in 
 takin' off as they supposed the coffin of the Na- 
 gro, they took away with thim the corpse of 
 Dinny Quilligan. When we reached Mt. Olivet, 
 we, as we supposed, took out the coffin of Dinny 
 and put it on a small iron car they have there 
 for the purpose, and away we started to Mt. 
 Olivet. 
 
 "Just as we were about to lower the coffin 
 into the grave, as is a good ould Irish custom, 
 Kelly, the undertaker, cried out, 'Thim that 
 wish to take the last look at the remains, will 
 step forward.' Kelly unscrewed the little lid 
 of the coffin. When Mary Ellen, Dinny's wife, 
 took a peep into the coffin, she let a yell out of 
 her that would raise the dead: 
 
 " 'What have they done with Dinny Quilli- 
 gan from Kerry?' she cried. 'They've taken him 
 from me and left me a man that's as black as 
 the ace of spades. ' 
 
 "Begobs, at that we all gave a jump forward; 
 thin I remembered the resimblance of the cof- 
 fins. Back we went with the Nagro on the little 
 car to the depot at Mt. Olivet only to find no 
 train would be due for two hours. Well, thin 
 we engaged a haywagon team that was standing 
 by, put the Nagro corpse on the wagon and 
 started for the Nagro cemetery a mile away. 
 When we got to the Nagro cemetery, the Na-
 
 THE "GRAVE" MISTAKE 19 
 
 groes were all coming out. We let a yell out of 
 us like a lot of wild dervishes 'Where is he,' 
 said we all together. ' Ye have buried the wrong 
 man/ said we. Well, sir, there was near four 
 funerals in a minute. Spades, pickaxes and 
 razors were in view. 
 
 * ' They had Dinny planted and the top of the 
 grave was as smooth as the palm of your hand, 
 with sunflowers scattered on the grave and a 
 sign erected saying 'Here lies Moseby Jackson 
 Johnson '. 
 
 "Well, it was but a short time till Dinny 's 
 remains was on top of the ground again and 
 back to Mt. Olivet. 'Well,' said Mary Ellen, 
 'God bless that ould Irish custom of takin' that 
 last look at the remains, else,' said she, 'I'd be 
 layin' alongside of a man as black as the ace of 
 spades until such times as Gabriel would blow 
 his horn on the day of resurrection.' 
 
 "Bedad, McKenna, that will be a day long to 
 be remembered by the members of the 36th Pre- 
 cinct Republican Club."
 
 20 McKENNA's STOEJES 
 
 A TRIBUTE TO McKENNA. 
 
 This week PUBLIC SAFETY is favored with a 
 few lilting lines by way of tribute to ' * The Poet 
 of Archey Road" John J. McKenna. It is by 
 way of a pean of triumph at the recognition re- 
 cently awarded Mac by Governor Lowden an 
 important state office. It purports to come from 
 a political follower of John J.'s, but is really 
 
 T. J. QUIGLEY. 
 
 To My Literary Friend, John J. McKenna, the Chief In- 
 spector of Private Employment Agencies! 
 
 penned by a South Side business man who has 
 been a lifelong friend. He is an old-time ball 
 player that some of the older boys will recall 
 when they see his name : Here it is :
 
 21 
 
 Oh, Mollie Dear an' did ye hear the only joyful news 
 I read in all th' papers since Wilson walloped Hughes; 
 Cheer up my Mollie Darlin,' no more you'll sigh at all, 
 My friend John J. McKenna has th' biggest job of all. 
 
 Tis true he is Republican, but he's always on the 
 
 square. 
 An' never ask ye how ye vote, if you need him he is 
 
 "there"; 
 
 He spent more coin in politics than any in the ward. 
 An' 'till today, 'tis safe to say, he got the least reward. 
 
 He makes no flights at orath'ry, but in primaries can't 
 
 be beat, 
 
 In every fight for twinty years, he's never known defeat; 
 He put the arch in "Archey road" where Dooley's fame 
 
 begun, 
 The avenue made famous by Finley Peter Dunne. 
 
 There's lots of "gifted gabbists" who are sociable to 
 
 meet, 
 But when it comes to favor you, they wouldn't cross 
 
 th' street; 
 So cheer up, Mollie Darlin', an' holler Lou (w) den 
 
 strong, 
 Till my good friend John J. lands me, and I hope it 
 
 won't be long. 
 
 He's just th' man to fill th' place, he had his share of 
 
 strife, 
 
 A reader of real character, in every walk of life; 
 From th' brick yard to th' State House he climbed th' 
 
 hill of fame, 
 An' T know I'll not be out of work while Johnnie's in 
 
 th' game.
 
 MRS. JIM KENNEDY ATTENDS A MEETING 
 AT BAKER'S HALL AND TELLS M'KENNA 
 WHAT SHE THINKS OF THEIR GO- 
 INGS ON. 
 
 1 ' Mr. McKenna, ' ' said Mrs. Kennedy, ' 1 1 was 
 down at your last Republican meeting at Bak- 
 er's Hall. My husband acts queer many's the 
 time after attending those meetings, and I 
 wanted to satisfy my curiosity as to what go- 
 ings on you do be having. I will never forget 
 that talker you had there. But, let me tell you, 
 McKenna, when the women folks get on to the 
 voting business, ye '11 not be able to pull the wool 
 over their eyes as ye do over the men voters, 
 with ye'r soft soap political talks. 
 
 "Years ago I attended a meeting where 
 George Francis Train was the speaker, and I 
 also heard Teddy Roosevelt talk. Train and 
 Teddy had the same accent, but Train always 
 wore a white suit and white gloves when he 
 spoke. Teddy is rougher, but they both were 
 sensational. It was like riding in a car where 
 one wheel was off the track, to hear them. You 
 were always expecting something serious to
 
 MRS. JIM KENNEDY ATTENDS 23 
 
 happen. But in their palmiest days, for real 
 fast talkin' and sensation, they were not in the 
 class with that Col. Wiley from Waco, Texas, 
 that you had address the meeting at Baker's 
 Hall. 
 
 "The colonel drew a picture of all the silver 
 in all the mines of the world, and all the silver 
 in the world now outside of the mines, and 
 turned it all into silver dollars, at the ratio, as 
 he said, of ' sixteen to one'. The pile was so 
 great that it made Mount Arion, the highest 
 mountain in the world, look like a mole hill. We 
 all had a crimp in our necks from looking up at 
 the mountain of silver dollars. I don't know 
 how he could hold all the statistics in his head 
 that he presented to prove his assertions. He 
 used his arms as though he was swimming, and 
 his hair stood up, and his coat tails waved, and 
 the two eyes in his head were like two coals of 
 fire with the enthusiasm that was in him. 
 
 "I'm told that Tom Sheehan, the saloon- 
 keeper, after listening to him for a while, got 
 so disgusted with silver as money that he start- 
 ed down stairs and ordered his bartenders to 
 take no more of it in exchange for his good ci- 
 gars and whisky. 
 
 "I am told that a man's life would be in dan- 
 ger that would offer a Canadian quarter in ex- 
 change for drinks in the neighborhood, after 
 Col. Wiley finished in the denunciation of silver, 
 as the medium of exchange, at the ratio, as he 
 said, of 'sixteen to one'. And when the Colonel
 
 24 MC]ENNA'S STORIES 
 
 finished on the silver question, he started in and 
 made every one of them foolish min believe, be- 
 cause of their bein' American citizens they were 
 the aiqual of the king. 
 
 "When Jim, my husband, gits that soft soap 
 talk and a few sips of Sheehan's whisky with 
 it, he begins to act like a king and say foolish 
 things. 
 
 "Said I to him after the meeting, when he 
 began acting strange, said I: 'Jim, have sinse, 
 and don 't believe all that ye hear, for tomorrow 
 morning, when you are wending your way over 
 to work in the cellar at Armour's packing plant 
 before it is yet daylight, that Col. Wiley from 
 Waco, Texas, and McKenna will be on the broad 
 of their backs in the bed.' 
 
 "Says I, 'Jim, ye 're no king; and as for that 
 Col. Wiley and his imaginary money pile, I'm 
 tould he borryed a quarter of Cassidy to pay his 
 way back to the city. They say he knows how 
 to run everybody else's business but his own, 
 and he's always broke himself.' 
 
 "Now, McKenna, let me say to you again 
 when the women folks get on to voting, that 
 kind of soft-soap talk won't go. Ye politicians 
 will have to think up something new, or get out 
 of the business."
 
 NICHOLAS RYAN, THE CLUB'S STATIST! 
 CIAN, INDUCES MRS. JIM KENNEDY TO 
 ADDRESS A MEETING OF THE AFFILI- 
 ATED REPUBLICAN CLUBS OF THE 5TH 
 WARD AT BAKER'S HALL, AND SHE 
 TELLS THEM SOMETHING. 
 
 * ' McKenna, ' ' said Nicholas Eyan of the Thir- 
 ty-first Precinct, "I gave the boys the treat of 
 their lives at the meeting of the Affiliated Clubs 
 of Brighton, held at Baker's Hall. I had Mrs. 
 Jim Kennedy address the meeting. She told 
 them something that they will long remember. 
 She said : ' Now that ye induced me to talk, it 's 
 not soft soap I'm going to hand ye, but the 
 plain, unvarnished truth. I know it's at home 
 women ought to be, instead of talkin' to ye,' 
 said she; 'we are never done for work there. 
 But ye men have so neglected your duty in yer 
 mad rush for the dollar, if we women don't do 
 something the greatest idea of government that 
 was ever left to a people will be lost to us for- 
 ever ; in the chase for the dollar you forgot your
 
 26 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 God, your country and mankind,' said she. 
 'And it's because of this condition,' said she, 
 'that the women of the country are asking for 
 the right of franchise on all questions pertain 
 ing to government; and we will take nothing 
 short of it. The mothers of the country will 
 have time to turn their minds to something tha; 
 vvdll be for the benefit of mankind, for yer 
 thoughts are only on the dollar. 
 
 " 'Ye say we are not prepared for the ballot, 
 ye make me laugh,' said she; 'two-thirds of ye 
 could not put the buttons in your shirts and 
 cuffs if it was not for the assistance of your 
 mothers r.nd wives. And if Dr. Bevan was to 
 dissect you, two-thirds of you would be found 
 with the dollar mark in the top of your head, 
 where your brains ought to be. And then ye 
 have the nerve to tell us women we are not 
 prepared. Your thoughts are only on the 
 money, and when ye get it, ye are not satisfied 
 till ye get the young wife. Then ye become skat 
 players, golf linkers, with rheumatics and dys- 
 pepsia and the divil only knows what else. 
 
 " 'Young Dougherty told ye the truth when 
 he said to ye marrym' is only a job for the 
 young. 
 
 ' "Pon me word,' said she, 'I never gave 
 much heed to the apple storv between Adam 
 and Eve ; but from all I read in the papers and 
 in the court proceedings of yer soulmates and 
 affinities, and in the way ye neglected your duty 
 in managing your government, T now believe
 
 MRS. J.M KENNEDY'S ADDRESS 27 
 
 some new Eve must have come among ye with 
 a new apple. 
 
 " 'Lincoln, said ye could trust the people. 
 Well, we are the people the mothers of the 
 country, just as much as ye are, and we want 
 the referendum and the right to vote on all 
 questions pertaining to our liberty, our lives 
 and our property. Then we'll be as well en- 
 trenched in the government as is the Supreme 
 Court on questions of law, and is the Pope on 
 questions of religion. We know what we want, 
 and not what others tell us we want. Put that 
 in yer pipe and smoke it,' said she. 
 
 " 'Ye made a grand job,' said she, 'in man- 
 aging the country. Ye have built up a condition 
 that has put all the women and children in har- 
 ness workin' for you. The back of me hand to 
 ye ! 'Tis the women that know ye. 
 
 " 'Ye see now the greatest thing to conserve 
 was the manhood and the womanhood of the 
 country, and 'twas the last of your thoughts. 
 But ye find now if it was not for the young 
 men and the young women of the country, what 
 good would all your possessions be to ye. When 
 ye were chasin' the dollar, the ould Kaiser- 
 bad cess to him and all the born kings he was 
 conservin' the young manhood and womanhood 
 of Germany, and he's got it today. And with- 
 out it, all the money and property in Germany 
 wouldn't be worth ten cents on the dollar. And 
 now that ye have learned that the greatest thing 
 to conserve is the youth of the country, quit 
 your religious bickerin'; ye see now that reli-
 
 28 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 gious difference is lost sight of when the flag is 
 unfurled. Let ye provide well for the fatherless 
 child of the future; have no signs above your 
 institutions readin' "The Home of the Friend- 
 less Child," etc. Have the youth learn that 
 next to the father and mother the state and na- 
 tion is its best friend. So that when they grow 
 up they will learn to love their country. For 
 a country or a religion without some paternal- 
 ism in it, there is no love for it. 
 
 " 'And now,' said she, 'in yer last mad rush 
 don't neglect the b'ys that's goin' across the 
 sea. See to it that when they come back to us 
 if ever they do that no thin' worse than the 
 bullets will be brought back with them from the 
 slums of London, Paris and elsewhere. Preach- 
 ing will do no good, for boys will be boys. But 
 this solemn duty you must forcefully perform ; 
 ye owe it to the mothers o the country and the 
 future generations to protect the morals of the 
 young men with all the powers ye have. I'm 
 glad,' said she in conclusion, 'if I've said any- 
 thing that might wake ye up. ' 
 
 "Begorra, McKenna," said Nicholas Kyan, 
 "ye can't down the women. And there it's 
 for ye."
 
 DENNIS DWYER ON THE NECESSITY OF 
 PREPAREDNESS, PRACTICALLY DEMON- 
 STRATED. 
 
 After a joint meeting of the six 
 clubs of the six precincts in that 
 part of the Fifth Ward known as 
 Brighton, John J. McKenna says that 
 he met Dennis Dwyer of the Thirty- 
 fifth Precinct the next morning. One 
 eye was black and swollen and one 
 arm was in a sling. 
 
 "What's the trouble?" said Mc- 
 Kenna. 
 
 "Well," said Dwyer, "the old 
 woman says I'm as big a fool as ever. 
 McKenna, that German druggist man you have 
 as secretary of the Thirty-first Precinct Club 
 may be a good chemist ; but he knows nothin' at 
 all about politics. He it was that sent out the 
 postal cards for the meeting; the card said it 
 was for a 'harmony' meeting, and he under- 
 scored the word 'harmony'. Well, after supper 
 I washed up," said Dwyer, "and went down to 
 the meetin', thinking something new was going 
 to take place, and I went unprepared. 
 
 "When I got into the meeting hall, looking 
 around me and seeing none of the lady members 
 present I became suspicious. 'I see no signs of 
 harmony here', said I to myself. 
 
 ' ' There they were, gathered from all parts of 
 Brighton all the different nationalities. The 
 Zimbroffs, the Feins, Mintz, the Rubins, the
 
 30 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 Cohns, the Berndts, the Reisers, the Hilbs, the 
 Hilks and Kortings. The McKennas, the Kel- 
 leys, the Cassidys, the Noonans, the Sheehans, 
 the Founders, the Courvilles, the La Marshas 
 and Pitons, the Arthurs, the Rankins, the 
 McKays, Boxley, Porter, John Rolston, the five 
 Mathlesens, the Hellyers,, old man Swanson, 
 Peter Cranzalis, Tony Vichollo, Paul Pineski, 
 Antoin Marek, Ben Zintak all officers in their 
 respective precincts ; and with them were their 
 friends. The hall was packed. George Rodg- 
 ers, a Welshman, was chosen as the harmony 
 president. McKenna, I saw you there, but 
 after the third motion was made and seconded 
 I remembered no more of what was going on. 
 But I learned more of the necessity of prepar- 
 edness in that five minutes than I did from read- 
 ing the newspapers for six months. 
 
 * ' McKenna, you made the mistake of not hav- 
 ing badges on us, so that we might know each 
 other. For in not being so prepared, we licked 
 as many of ourselves as we did of the enemy. 
 We're all for preparedness from this forward. 
 And, when the next 'harmony' meeting is called 
 for I'll not be one of the ones not prepared."
 
 CONDITIONS CREATED BY THE WAR 
 CLOUD PLAYS HAVOC WITH PAT 
 PRICE'S 36TH PRECINCT CLUB. 
 
 "Mr. McKenna," said Pat Price, the Presi- 
 dent of the Thirty-sixth Precinct Republican 
 Club, "as there is no important election to be 
 held for some time, we have concluded to ad- 
 journ for the summer months. And with the 
 hope in view that the war '11 be over at that 
 time. With all the mixed nationalities we have 
 in our club, it would be no job for a delicate man 
 to manage them. There's not a subject you can 
 speak of, unless you have the sergeant-at-arms 
 on guard. 
 
 "There's only one subject that will hold them, 
 and that is 'High Tariff.' Mention any other 
 subject, Captain Madden and Sergeant Eagan 
 and all the police in the Thirty-ninth Street 
 Police Station couldn't keep them apart. 
 There's some of them that likes their beer, and 
 when they drink it they can 't refrain from sing- 
 ing songs. Divil a song do they know but what 
 Claybaugh and Clyne, the government spycatch- 
 ers, has marked on their books as disloyal. But 
 it is as hard to keep them from singin' when 
 they're full of beer, as it is to make a Jew or a 
 Frenchman talk with their hands tied. Every 
 nationality seems to have a favorite song of 
 their own. I can't understand them, but they
 
 32 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 all get unaisy and restless if any song is sung 
 but the Irish songs, 
 
 "Divil the Irish song I can sing I never was 
 a singer, McKenna; but Kelly wherever he 
 learnt it sings 'God Save Ireland Says the 
 Hero' God Save Ireland Say We All'. Mc- 
 Kenna, I don't know where Kelly learnt that 
 song, but when you sing it I notice the both of 
 you have the same tune ye must have learned 
 it together somewhere. 
 
 "Kelly has the Jews and the French, and the 
 Bohemians and the Germans and them all sing- 
 ing this song until they're hoarse. They don't 
 like it, because I have my eye on them and see 
 that most of them have their fingers crossed. 
 But they can 't sing any of their own songs with- 
 out becoming angry at each other. This is the 
 reason that we're trying to adjourn the meet- 
 ings until fall. If that Clabaugh and Clyne 
 should discover an invention that could read 
 folks' minds, one-half of the club would be in- 
 terned until the close of the war. 
 
 "We call the meeting together when we meet, 
 and say, 'We are all here as friends for one 
 common cause, for one country and one flag,' 
 But, McKenna, I watch them as they repeat the 
 words, and it's like singing the Irish song with 
 them two-thirds of them have their fingers 
 crossed. This is why T am anxious to git away 
 for the summer. So I've come down to say Good 
 Bye to you I'm off on my vacation."
 
 v/',\ / . v - 
 
 DENNY M'MANUS OF THE 41ST PRECINCT 
 ON THE REMOVAL OF THE HYPHEN. 
 
 "McKenna," said Nicholas Ryan, "I was an 
 invited guest at the Thirty-fourth Precinct Club 
 meeting, where Edward Berndt, the German, is 
 President of the club. The speaker of the eve- 
 ning was little Denny McManus. He comes 
 from the Fortieth Precinct, that part of the 
 Twenty-ninth Ward that was annexed to the 
 Fifth Ward. It was the home of Tom Carey's 
 Indians. Denny is a South Boston boy, he's got 
 a name like an Irishman, and an accint like a 
 Boston Yankee; but from Denny's swagger, 
 you'd think his old man came over in the May- 
 flower and that it was their family that discov- 
 ered the Plymouth Rock. 
 
 "He started out by saying: 'I am working 
 hard to become a physician, and the first opera- 
 tion that I perform I would like it to be the re- 
 moval of the hyphen out of all of you. It's as
 
 34 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 firmly rooted in ye as is the sting in a rattle- 
 snake, and there's no exception in any of ye. 
 And that's what's got us into trouble and war, 
 and it's many of ye,' said he, 'that will have a 
 lump raised on your bean before we get out of 
 it. Ye can't help it,' said he. 'It's the first 
 thing ye learn as kids. The many battles your 
 forefathers had fought against one another, 
 both religiously and politically, and what they 
 did to one another. When ye come to this coun- 
 try,' says he, 'ye'r minds are on the easy cash 
 you expect to get. But your hearts are back in 
 the land from where ye came. And ye bring 
 the ould sting with ye. 
 
 " 'Ye'r either Dimocrats or Republicans, 
 when ye come here not from any principle ye 
 see in the parties. but ye find out in whichever 
 section of the country ye locate what party is 
 it that has the country men and religionists in 
 it that ye most hate. Then ye get in on the 
 other side. And ye vote the ticket as the old 
 maids play the horse races ; they play the jockey 
 the record of the horse cuts no ice with them. 
 And so with ye; ye get ye 're ballot on election 
 day and ye vote names and not for the qualifi- 
 cation of the min. The ould sting is in ye and 
 ye can't help it; and as long as that condition 
 exists, we'll have no good government, and
 
 THE " HYPHEN " 
 
 35 
 
 that's why I'd like to operate on ye. For as 
 long as there's a hyphen organization in this 
 
 country, it's an 
 indicator that 
 there is still a 
 sucker left to be 
 skinned. The 
 hyphen is liken- 
 ed to the sheep 
 at Armour's 
 packing house 
 the old decoy 
 hyphen leads 
 them to slaugh- 
 ter and then he 
 returns for a 
 new bunch. And 
 it will always be 
 profitable busi- 
 ness for some 
 one as long as 
 they can find hy- 
 phens. And as 
 the hyphens 
 drop from any nationality represented in this 
 country it's an indication that the people 
 of that race are 'on' and the old decoy with the 
 hyphen has lost his job. Now let us all get to- 
 gether, cut out the hyphen, make America our 
 country and it will be a better day for us all.' 
 
 "McKenna," said Ryan, "the five spot you 
 gave me I bought them a keg of beer with, for
 
 36 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 sociability's sake. The hall was well filled; no 
 songs were permitted except 'My Country, 'Tis 
 of Thee,' and 'God Save Ireland' that's 
 Kelly's song. I noticed a marked improvement 
 in their patriotism after McManus 's discourse ; 
 for at the conclusion of the meeting he asked 
 them all to stand up and hold up their hand, 
 and said he, let us sing the closing ode, 'My 
 Country, 'Tis of Thee.' 
 
 "Now, at some of the previous meetings, I 
 noticed one- half of them, as they sang patriotic 
 songs, they kept their fingers crossed. But at 
 this meeting not more than three of the radical 
 ones had their fingers crossed. Harmony pre- 
 vailed, and the meeting was adjourned without 
 the aid of the police. ' '
 
 A WAR REFLECTION 37 
 
 A WAR REFLECTION. 
 
 Oh, Power of Gold! You are Mammon's God! 
 You forced mankind to draw the sword! 
 You worldly God, without life or soul; 
 i There'll be no hope while you're the goal! 
 You'll be here when the strife is o'er! 
 The boss of kinds as you were before! 
 
 Those who live will restore the loss; 
 Those who live must pay the cost. 
 Our dearest friend's lie beneath the sod; 
 Their souls have gone to meet their God. 
 You'll be here when the strife is o'er, 
 To rule the world as you did before! 
 
 You are the Goal for which Mammon strive. 
 You are cthe world God and Mammon's pride! 
 You'll be here- when the strife is o'er, 
 The bo^s of kings as you were before 1 
 
 You worldly God! without life or soul; 
 
 There'll be no hope while you're ithe Goal! 
 
 We may think and talk but you'll still hold sway! 
 
 You'll be here when the strife is o'er, 
 
 To rule the world as you have before! 
 
 John J. McKenna.
 
 i
 
 OLD "TURRENCE" DOUGHERTY'S ORA- 
 TION BEFORE THE SUN WORSHIPERS' 
 CLUB AT THE M'KINLEY PARK. 
 
 Here is a speech delivered by Old Terrence 
 Dougherty, an Old Timer. A man that Barney 
 O'Flynn says spent his younger days as a gang- 
 foreman worked in every part of the country 
 for contractors of all kinds, at railroad building, 
 etc., and 'tis said of him he could bate any man 
 that crossed him. In the ould days that was 
 the first qualification a gang foreman had to 
 have. 
 
 "Well," said Terrence in beginning his ad- 
 dress, "I'm just back from the Benton Harbor 
 Springs afther enjoyin' my short vacation. I 
 find the war has increased the price of every- 
 thing, and it has shortened the vacations, so 
 here I am for lack of funds, among ye again. 
 
 "Fifty years ago this Fourth of July past I 
 attinded the races here in this spot. What's 
 the McKinley Park now was the ould Brighton
 
 40 McrvENNA's STORIES 
 
 race track in those days, and it was a fine race 
 track. 
 
 "It was a great day for the people in this 
 neighborhood, when Representative Shanahan 
 had the laws made at Springfield permittin' the 
 South Park Commissioners to buy this land for 
 a park. 
 
 "The land belonged to John Wentworth 
 'Long John' we called him when he was Mayor. 
 He was known all over the country for the 
 things he did and the size of the glass he took his 
 'sup' from. 
 
 "We enjoy this place with our arguments as 
 much as does the young folks with their many 
 games on the park fields. 
 
 "Anyhow, ye are always arguin' politics, and 
 ye know all about it to hear ye talk, and Mc- 
 Kenna's given us all a workout like Ned Cor- 
 rigan, the race man, gave his string of colts. 1 
 would not have spoken here today but that I 
 knew your statistician, Nicholas Ryan, would 
 not be here. I am hasty and quick-tempered; 
 and whin I start to talk, if I made a few mis- 
 dates, and Ryan was to wave that Daily News 
 Almanac under my nose in the way of contra- 
 diction, I would have to b'at him. Ryan is there 
 wid his documentary evidence and will give no 
 leeway at all. 
 
 ' ' I have reasons for not fallin ' out wit him at 
 present, but some day he'll get it. And whin 
 he does, I will take the advice of an ould Yankee 
 contractor that I worked for as foreman in New 
 Haven, Connecticut. He had a rule for all us
 
 OLD "TURRENCE" 41 
 
 foremen. 'Never,' said he 'hit an Irishman wit' 
 your fist. ' 
 
 "But there are many good at givin' advice 
 that will not stick to it themselves. Signs on 
 this man, he forgot himself one day I will 
 never forget it. I helped to lift him into the 
 commissary wagon that was takin' him to the 
 hospital. But I'll not forget it when I start in 
 some fine day on Ryan. 
 
 "Now, for politics, I say divil a thing is new 
 in politics or religion. 
 
 "In religion the same ould divil that my fa- 
 ther and your father and your grandfather 
 heard tell of is still on the job, and was there 
 as far back as the memory of man runs and 
 then some. An' he seems to thrive on abuse. 
 He is a handy adjunct for Billy Sunday to have 
 around to help him increase his bank account 
 with. The ould divil has been a greater money 
 maker to some than the Ford machine has been 
 to ould Ford. The divil is a certainty- he never 
 changes or goes out of fashion. 
 
 "The ould political machine is thira that is 
 in power, and they're the same all over the 
 world; and the outs are tryin' to get in to run 
 the ould machine. And as there is not enough 
 of the meal tickets to go the rounds, there's 
 where all the trouble comes from. Billy Sunday 
 can cry out 'there's room for all at the mourn- 
 ers' bench'. But it's not so wit' politics- 
 there 's not jobs or favors for them all. The 
 ould political machine is, in some way, like the
 
 42 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 ould divil you may change the driver, but it's 
 the same old machine. 
 
 "In the airly days after the war the boss of 
 the Republican machine in the North had a soft 
 job. All he had to do was to put one of the ould 
 boys in blue at the polling place, have him cry 
 out at the top of his voice like a praying Der- 
 vish 'here comes the copperhead.' That's what 
 they called the dimocrats in those days. The 
 divil a dimocrat got an important office for 
 years. That was soft go in' for the Eepublican 
 machine boss. 
 
 ' ' And whin I went south in the winter, as gang 
 boss on the levee, I found the same conditions 
 there at Charleston, Mimphis, Savannah and 
 New Orl'ans. There was the ould boy in gray 
 at the polling place the same trick he set up 
 a murderin' cry, givin' out the ould rebel yell, 
 'here comes the Yankee', says he. Divil a Re- 
 publican ever come within forty rods of a poll- 
 ing place. There it's for ye now in a nut shell. 
 
 The great adjunct to the ould bosses of both 
 parties in the early days was the party news- 
 paper. Anything a Democrat done was well 
 spoken of by his party paper, and the same was 
 true of the Republican party paper. Anything 
 they did to one another or to the public, was 
 shown to be all for the best, but as the old 
 sayin' goes, 'Things have changed since Han- 
 nah died.' The press in the big cities has be- 
 come bigger than the party. With them, the for- 
 mer single meal ticket don't go any more. They 
 either run the machine themselves, or, as Bar-
 
 OLD "TURRENCE" 43 
 
 ney O'Flynn says, the Chauffeurs Manual tells 
 him that the little Ford machine will not run 
 with water in the Carburetor, and so with the 
 ould political machine tryin' to run it without 
 the aid of the press is like Barney's Ford with 
 water in the carburetor. It's a hard job. 
 
 "Government and society politics are just 
 run on the same plan. I had to demonstrate this 
 to Barney 'Flynn to convince him. So, said I 
 to Barney, 'keep your eye open and ye '11 see 
 for yourself.' 
 
 "We belonged to a society that was bavin' 
 doin's goin' on; mimbers from all over comin' 
 to visit our city, and we had officers to elect at 
 the time. The officers we had were good officers, 
 but I had to show Barney the game. We had 
 Swedes, Germans and Irish as members, and 
 some others. 
 
 "Well, we whispered to the Swedes, the Ger- 
 mans and the Irish that the opposite candidates 
 said, that now that we were havin' visitors, it 
 would not look good to have Swedes, Germans 
 and Irish elected to be in the chair when the 
 visitors come. 
 
 "Well, sir, the Swedes, the Germans and the 
 Irish began whisperin' to each other that the 
 officers were gettin' very high toned. Said the 
 Swedes, 'we're as good as they are.' 'Yes, and 
 better,' said the Irish. 'Sure thing, says the 
 Germans. Say nothin', says I to them, but keep 
 your eyes open. Our ticket was then made up 
 of all Swedes, Irish and German. 
 
 "Well, sir, the result was, divil a man was
 
 44 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 elected but a Swede, a German, and an Irishman, 
 and I says, 'Now, Barney, are you convinced?' 
 
 "It's sayin' the right thing at the right time 
 that carries public opinion. It's not drinkin' 
 and talkin' loud in the bar room that wins the 
 election. 
 
 "For when ould Malone of New York said 
 'God bless Wilson for keepin' us out of war,' 
 the job was done, the election was won then and 
 there. And as Mrs. Jim Kennedy says of ould 
 Hughes, 'the foolish man to quit his good life 
 job on the bench to go up against Wilson after 
 that was said,' was like, said she, 'the ould man 
 that married the young wife more to be pitied 
 than laughed at.' 
 
 "I think I have said enough, and I am glad 
 that Ryan has not put in his appearance. And 
 if ye keep him away next Thursday, I will con- 
 tinue the subject."
 
 CONTINUANCE OF OLD DOUGHERTY'S 
 ORATION. 
 
 "Well, I see you kept your word; and now I 
 will continue my political discussion. Nicholas 
 Ryan, your statistician, will not be here. Bar- 
 ney 'Flynn informs me that he sent him a de- 
 coy postal card informin' him that one of his 
 brother members of the Ancient Order of Unit- 
 ed Workmen wanted to see him immediately at 
 the hospital it makes me laugh ; I have known 
 Ryan for more than thirty years, and that 's the 
 nearest he ever came to work, was when he 
 joined a society that had a workin' name to it. 
 Don't mention to him that I said this, but 'tis 
 true. 
 
 ' ; Well, I showed you in my last discourse how 
 the ould Dimocratic and Republican machine 
 was kept in runnin' order from the early 60 's 
 to '75 or thereabouts. 
 
 "Our Government is built on the plan that we 
 agree to abide by whatever a majority of our 
 Congress does whin it's signed by the President 
 or what two-thirds of thim do if not signed 
 by the President. The Supreme Court at times
 
 46 McKENNA's STORIES 
 
 may say such and such is not constitutional. 
 But until such time, it 's the law. Now, whin ye 
 don't agree on that, it's then back and bring on 
 Mr. Force, the original governor of us all. 
 There's your answer. 
 
 "Well^ in the airly 60 's there was some dis- 
 pute as to State Rights, and for the time bein' 
 they put the Constitution in the safe and 
 brought out 'Mr. Force.' He did the job as ye 
 all know, but it took time, min, and money. 
 
 "Well, after the ould regime died out, the 
 risin' gineration took hould of the machines of 
 both parties ; they had very little to come in on, 
 except high tariff and tariff for revenue only, 
 and free trade for the ould Dimocratic machine 
 of the South. Wit' this and the Committee on 
 Credentials, they continued the running of the 
 ould political machines. The high tariff and 
 the Committee on Credentials did many a good 
 turn for the ould Republican machine of the 
 North. Free Trade and the Committee on Cre- 
 dentials did the same for the Dimocratic ma- 
 ciiine of the South. 
 
 'The ould Dimocratic machine of the North 
 was run on the text they read from some reli- 
 gious book, for their battle cry was * First gel 
 ye the meal tickets and the job and all things 
 else will follow. ' Tammany won many a battle 
 on that text. 
 
 "Ould Samuel J. Tilden in '76 was the first 
 to come near puncturin' the Republican machine
 
 DOUGHERTY CONTINUES 47 
 
 tire; but the investigatin ' committee appointed 
 by the United States Congress eight to seven 
 lost the spark plug somewhere in their investi- 
 gating of the returns from New Orl'ans. This 
 left the ould Dimocratic machine and Samuel 
 Tilden stuck up on one of the hills on the Hud- 
 son an' there ye are! 
 
 "It was smooth goin' again for a long time 
 for the Republican machine; thin come along 
 ould Grover Cleveland he surely did puncture 
 the ould Republican machine tire. Some one 
 set up a loud cry about Grover at the time, but 
 Barney O'Flynn says some one offset it with the 
 cry Met all of us kind o' fellows stick together,' 
 and the result was Cleveland won in a walk. 
 
 "The ould Republican machine controlled 
 both houses of Congress during Cleveland's first 
 term, and you'd scarcely notice much in the 
 change, and many the one came to the conclu- 
 sion that the Dimocrats were not one-half as bad 
 as depicted. It was a bad omen for the Repub- 
 lican machine; many said at the time if you 
 covered Cleveland's chair, you couldn't tell 
 whether it was a Dimocrat or a Republican who 
 was in the White House. And it made it hard 
 goin' for the ould Republican machine. " 
 
 "But a few of the ould boys in blue that was 
 left, got together, brought out the ould flag 
 again, and with Senator Foraker of Ohio, they 
 put up one of the 'Quid Guard', Benjamin Har- 
 rison, of Indiana, back in the chair. And again
 
 48 MC!CENNA'S STORIES 
 
 the ould Republican machine jogged away for 
 a time. 
 
 "But ould Cleveland again caused a blow out 
 with his 'Tariff for revenue only' cry. Well, 
 we got it, and all that was in the satchel with it. 
 Thin Coxie's army distributed broken glass all 
 along the road for the Dimocratic machine an' 
 there you are. 
 
 "An' thin come ould Mark Hanna with the 
 long green, and McKinley wit' the cry of the 
 full dinner pail, and submarine Bryan and the 
 ould Dimocratic machine. Bryan wit' his 'six- 
 teen to one' in silver got what every one else 
 gets when they go up against the power of gold. 
 They finish like Bryan and the ould Dimocratic 
 machine did thin stuck in the road with a car 
 overloaded with crosses of thorns. 
 
 "Again the ould Republican machine goes 
 smoothly until Teddy took big Bill Taft into the 
 machine with him; the load was too heavy 
 Teddy tried to have Taft 1 'ave the machine, but 
 he refused. Thin Teddy hooked on the ould 
 Bull Moose to the Republican machine, an' be- 
 tween their draggin' and scrapin' the result was 
 that Wilson run the ould Dimocratic machine 
 into the White House. 
 
 "Thin ould Malone of New York, as Mrs. 
 Jim Kennedy says, when he said 'God bless Wil 
 son for keepin' us out of war' that word filled 
 the ould Republican machine carbureter full of 
 tears, and it is now in the garage bein' greased 
 up, waiting for the new catchword that will get
 
 DOUGHERTY CONTINUES 49 
 
 the tide of public opinon to carry it again to the 
 White House. 
 
 "The old Committee on Credentials at the 
 last .Republican Convention saved Teddy from 
 himself. Thanks to his friends, The Enemy. 
 What a ducking the carbureter would have got 
 if Teddy had met the fate of Hughes. 
 
 "The ould Dimocratic machine of the South 
 has soft go in' they may fight in the primary 
 election but there the machine boss has one 
 sayin' that never fails, and that is 'No gintle- 
 man ever votes the Eepublican ticket.' And the 
 ould boss knows well that no Southerner will 
 admit that he's not a gintleman. So, no matter 
 what the ould Committee on Credentials does to 
 him, he r ll never bolt over to the Eepublican side. 
 
 "Politics is like any other business ye can't 
 run it sittin' on the wood pile. There are some 
 that we know that started in the business on 
 corned beef and cabbage, and have quit on cham- 
 pagne and birds, but they are few and far be- 
 tween. But there are many that we know that 
 have started in on wine and birds, that have 
 finished on corned beef and cabbage an' there 
 ye are. 
 
 "Now, if ye don't know the trick, as ould 
 Keller, the Macrician, says, 'take it home and do 
 it over several times till you are familiar with 
 it, and maybe after tin or twinty years ye may 
 be able to do it yourself. 
 
 "Well, here's the finish of things as they 
 stand today: Wilson and the Kaiser like the
 
 50 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 kids in the game of tag the Kaiser touched 
 Wilson and said to him, 'you're it.' Now it's 
 up to Wilson to tag him back. An' what the 
 next catch word will be to win the next election 
 for the machines' bosses no one can tell, as it 
 ain't coined yet. Now that I see Kyan comin' 
 in the distance, I will say good afternoon to ye, 
 and finish next week."
 
 CONCLUSION OF OLD DOUGHERTY'S 
 DISCOURSE. 
 
 "Well I,m here again and will finish my dis- 
 course. But before I start, let me tell you this 
 story: Joe Sheehan just told it to me he is 
 just back from the Willow Springs. Joe's as 
 big a trickster as ever put two feet in shoe 
 leather. He said, 'You can now talk your head 
 off, Dougherty, for Ryan, the Statistician, will 
 not be here to confront you. For Barney 
 O'Flynn and myself shanghaied him in 
 Barney's little Ford out to the Willow Springs, 
 where he is now stranded on the roadside.' 
 
 "Barney is lyin' under a shady tree, readin' 
 from the little red book 'what to look for when 
 the car won't start.' Barney is pretindin' he's 
 sick from the sun and h'at, and Ryan's doin' 
 all the work tryin' to get the car started. Bar- 
 ney says he'll hold him there all day, and if 
 all else fails him he will have Ryan crank the 
 car wit' the spark lever so advanced that it will 
 cause a kick back and maim Ryan, to prevent 
 his return.' 
 
 " 'What will I look for,' says Ryan again
 
 52 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 when the car don't start.' 'Here it is,' says 
 Barney, readin ' aloud from the Bed book, as he 
 sits in a shady spot under the big tree: 'First 
 see if there's gasoline in the tank. Is the cock 
 at the tank shut off! Is there spark inside the 
 cylinder? Is the throttle closed? Is the gas 
 pipe clogged ? Is the carbureter valve clogged ? 
 Have ye clogged air inlet ? Have ye leaky mani- 
 fold inlet pipe, Clogged spray ? Dirty valves ? 
 Heavy float? Cold engine? Water in the gas- 
 oline system, etc.? Ye 're now learning some- 
 thing about the ould auto machine as well as the 
 ould political machine.' 'Well,' says Ryan, 
 'it's not water that's in the gasoline system. 
 Sheehan may have spilled some cold beer in the 
 carbureter, but we've seen no water since we 
 left the Brighton.' 
 
 " 'An' you, Barney,' says By an, 'have too 
 much cold beer in your carbureter, an' that's 
 what ails ye more than the h'at of the day.' 
 
 " 'Well, I promised to confront Dougherty 
 this afternoon; I see my plans have failed me,' 
 says Byan. 
 
 " Barney,' says Byan, 'from the way you 
 read from the little Bed book about the ailments 
 of the auto, it sounds like an extract from the 
 pamphlet of Lydia Pinkham on Pink Pills. The 
 ould machine seems to have as 'many ailments 
 as Lydia enumerated in her pamphlet in de- 
 pictin' the troubles of the human body.' 
 
 "As bad as the ould political machine is, it 
 has not all of thim ailments to contind with. 
 Now, if the ould political machine hesitates, you
 
 DOUGHERTY STILL, AT IT 53 
 
 might ask, 'are the ould party papers barkin' 
 loud enough in their praises of the officials; or 
 are the m'al tickets and the favors bein' dis- 
 tributed ginerously; or are the committeemen 
 workin' in unison and distributin' the m'al tick- 
 ets where they will do the most good, etc. But 
 the ould political machine has not got one-twen- 
 tieth of the ailments that your ould auto- 
 machine has if what you read from the little 
 Red book is true. 
 
 "Anny how ye will have a great government 
 when ye advance to the idea of Mrs. James Ken- 
 nedy, the suffragette. Whin ye have the right 
 of referendum on all questions pertaining to 
 yer life, liberty and property. But if things 
 were to keep on as before the war, it would take 
 many a day to accomplish that. Yer big inter- 
 ests had drummers in every seaport town of the 
 worrld, inducin' greenhorns to come, an' all the 
 qualifications necessary was like the rule of the 
 ould Yankee contractor that I was boss for in 
 New Haven, Connecticut. His rule was for la- 
 borin' min; never hire one that's either weak or 
 wise. That's the principle on which y'er immi- 
 gration drummers worked get them that's 
 neither weak nor wise. For it's the work that's 
 in thim that we want thim for, an' there you 
 are. 
 
 "Ye have a great plan of government; it has 
 been and from all appearance it will continue 
 for a long time to come that either the ould 
 Dimocrat or Republican machine will run it for 
 ye. When they have everything prepared and
 
 54 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 the bill of fare selected, they send out their in- 
 vitations for the great banquet. Every one is 
 invited to participate. But divil a thing ye 
 have to say with what's go in' to be served. Ye 
 can rail and find fault an' if ye don't like the 
 Dimocratic feed, ye can go over to the Repub- 
 lican feed. But it's like the hotels in Pine 
 Bluff, Arkansaw, where there are but two ; whin 
 ye go to one, ye wish ye had gone to the other 
 an' there it is for ye in a nutshell. 
 
 "About two hundred artistic machine experts 
 plan out what the one hundred million of ye 
 need for their best interests, an' yer best wel- 
 fare; an' from the looks of things we will be 
 layin' down below the clover with the top well 
 smoothed over before any different plan will 
 be brought into play. 
 
 ' ' In the South there 's a little of the ould sting 
 of '61 left. Here is a sample of it : When I was 
 boss at Biloxi, Mississippi, I met an ould man 
 named Sullivan that was gardener for Jeff 
 Davis at the time of the war. One day I said, 
 'Sullivan, how are ye?' 'All right, Dougherty,' 
 said he, 'but for a little rheumatism in the right 
 leg ; a Yankee shot me in the leg there, ' pointin ' 
 out to the Mississippi Sound ferninst the town 
 of Biloxi. 
 
 " 'Well,' said I, 'Sullivan, maybe it was an 
 Irishman that shot you.' 'Oh,' he says, 'we 
 called them all Yankees in those days.' 
 
 "Well, ould Sullivan married a Mississippi 
 girl and they have the house full of Sullivans, 
 an' ivery one of thim has learned that a Yankee
 
 DOUGHERTY STILL AT IT 55 
 
 shot the father in the leg, an from there comes 
 the ould sting. An', as ould Sullivan said, all 
 the ould ladies in the South, when the kids were 
 small an' wouldn't go to sleep when tould, the 
 ould ladies would say, 'here comes the Yankees.' 
 So ye see it takes a long time for the ould sting 
 to die out. In the South they raised their pop- 
 ulation it was slow comin'. But in the North 
 we imported most of our population. In the 
 South the young generation of today talk of the 
 war of '61 as if it was yesterday. Now, in the 
 North, for instance in twinty of the wards of 
 Chicago, if ye were to speak of the war of '61, 
 it would be paid as little heed to as if you were 
 talkin' of the battle of Clontarf, where Bryen 
 Boiroimhe drove the Danes from Ireland and 
 there it is for ye. 
 
 "Our country may be compared with Lake 
 Michigan, it's the greatest body of drinkin' wa- 
 ter in the worrld, but if ye turned all of the sew- 
 erage of Chicago into it, it would soon be de- 
 stroyed. So with our Government, it is the 
 greatest plan of government ever left to man; 
 but if you fill the country with all kinds of isms 
 and ignorance, you soon destroy your plan of 
 governmint. 
 
 "This war was not born from an American 
 sentiment, but from a spirit of hatred, that the 
 races of the ould worrld have had against one 
 another generated and kept alive from one gen- 
 eration to the other, from stories they learned
 
 56 McKENNA's STORIES 
 
 from their fathers and grandfathers. And it 
 came with too many of ye to this country. 
 
 "I hope it will be the good mothers of the 
 country that will save us from greed. Intelli- 
 gence, knowledge, and love of country is not cul- 
 tivated in a fortnight. When our boys are go- 
 ing to fight, let them know that the flag is still 
 in the care of their fathers and mothers, and 
 that their places are not being supplanted with 
 ignorance for the profit of the few. And that 
 wherever Old Glory is seen floating that it still 
 represents a country, run on the sentiments of 
 Washington, Jefferson, and the signers of the 
 Declaration of Independence. Now, let ye put 
 that in your pipe and smoke it."
 
 THE WAR IS A BAD OMEN FOR PAT ENG- 
 LISH AND HIS AFFILIATED CLUB. 
 
 "McKenna," said Pat English, "I called 
 down to see you on the same mission. that Pat 
 Price came last week, namely the advisability 
 of the adjourning of the club meetings for the 
 summer months. Pat Price told you the trouble 
 he had to manage his club, on account of the 
 new condition created by the war. Well, sir, 
 if he had the trouble with his one precinct club, 
 you can guess what mine is when they call one 
 of them affiliated club meetings whatever that 
 means. No man but a college educated man like 
 Mike Dwyer could think of a word like that. 
 
 ''At our last week's meeting of the affiliated 
 clubs, we had all the war factions of Europe, 
 made up of min that represent all races and re- 
 ligions of Europe ; min that have been fighting 
 one another for the past thousand years, as 
 races and religionists. It's no job for a sick 
 man to manage thim. One slip of a word, and 
 they're at it. 
 
 "For instance, John Pouillot, the French- 
 man, said to Ed Berndt, the German, that 
 Teddy was goin' over to conquer Germany and 
 be elected the Kaiser himself. 'Well,' said 
 Berndt, 'there's a saying in my country, 
 "There's many a man that got a clean shave 
 that never got to be Pope." Johnny Murphy 
 had to separate thim. 
 
 "We had an old lady suffragette address the 
 meetin'. She said: 'Min, why, but you assimi- 
 late the American idea and the American spirit.'
 
 58 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 Sure them laddy-bucks know nothing of the 
 American idea; the only thing they know is 
 that they were skinned by every one they come 
 in contact with the first five or six years they 
 were in the country. 
 
 "Johnny Murphy says that when they get out 
 of the skin class and become 'skinners' them- 
 selves, they'll be as patriotic as the balance 
 of ye. 
 
 ' ' The good lady also spoke on the timperance 
 question. Henry Korting, the German, said, in- 
 terruptin' her: 'Ye can talk as much as you 
 may, but there is more friendship in a pint of 
 Cassidy's or Eolston's or Sheehan's or Hell- 
 yer's whisky than there is in a barrel of but- 
 termilk. If the question was to be decided on 
 the noise, Korting won the debate. 
 
 "We always had a social keg o' beer at our 
 meetin's before the war cloud came, but it's 
 hard enough now to keep them apart on oatmeal 
 water. 
 
 "I see so many of thim, McKenna, with their 
 fingers crossed when we sing our patriotic clos- 
 ing ode, that I am like Pat Price, afraid that 
 Clabaugh and Clyne will come in upon thim 
 with their mind-reading apparatus and interne 
 thim until the war is over. So you see why I 
 am anxious to get away for the summer. As 
 Kelly says, 'Whin an Irishman learns enough 
 to get away from the shovel, anybody that gets 
 anything out of him without value received, is 
 welcome to it.' So I'm off for my vacation. 
 Good bye, McKenna."
 
 THE DIPLOMACY OF TOM SHEEHAN, THE 
 BUFFET KEEPER OF ARCHER ROAD. 
 
 "McKenna," said Nicholas Ryan, "you 
 missed the time of your life that you were not 
 at our last week's affiliated clubs' meeting at 
 Baker's Hall. We had Tommy Sheehan, the 
 saloonkeeper, to act as chairman. Tommy is 
 very diplomatic. He says in order to insure 
 harmony and good will, we'll dispose of the 
 reading of the minutes of the last meeting. 
 'And now for new business,' said he. 'What 
 is your pleasure?' 
 
 "Tommy told me privately, at first thought 
 he was going to send for Sergeant Egan and 
 Captain Madden of the Brighton station to fur- 
 nish protection. But when he saw come in as 
 visitors Patrick English, Hennessy, Gear, 
 Johnny Murphy and Norton, from ' The Pocket ' 
 precincts, and with them Rudolph Klank, the 
 wrestler, and then our own talent looking 
 them over, said he, 'This will be an orderly 
 meeting, for any one now wantin' to fight can
 
 60 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 get all he wants of it just for the asking.' And 
 that's the best guarantee against fighting. 
 
 "Mike Dwyer set the ball to rolling by say- 
 ing, 'We are now at war for the freedom of the 
 seas and for the freedom of small nations ; and 
 I have a resolution prepared so as to guard 
 against mishaps. It's asking for the freedom 
 of Ireland first.' 
 
 "The motion, to our surprise, was seconded 
 by Dan Pool, an old salt sailor, an Englishman. 
 He said he sailed around the world eleven 
 times. He's been in every port and principal 
 city in the world, from Liverpool to Bombay; 
 and it gave him the pleasure of his life to have 
 the privilege of seconding the motion. 'For,' 
 said he, 'he worked with the Irish sailor, and 
 that the English sailor and the English nawie 
 and the Irish sailor and the Irish nawie were 
 the two greatest friends,' from his experience, 
 that's in all His Majesty's possessions. 
 
 "Said he, 'Their likes and dislikes are alike. 
 They like the girls and they like their drink, 
 and they dislike a tightwad, and they believe in 
 the same principle that money was made to 
 keep circulating.' And said he, 'As John L. 
 Sullivan says, they're the only men of two na- 
 tions that will take off their shirts and make a 
 square stand-up fight with the weapons that na- 
 ture gave them. And for union principle,' said 
 he, 'either one of them will starve to death, 
 rather than to violate its command. And as 
 far as I've ever heard, where the English and 
 the Irish don't agree and get along is in the
 
 TOM SHEEHAN 's DIPLOMACY 61 
 
 House of Parliament,' so said he, 'I hope the 
 motion will prevail.' 
 
 "You could hear the noise of the answer 'yea' 
 in the neighborhood for two days after the mo- 
 tion was put. 
 
 "Herman Klank near caused a commotion 
 when he stood up to favor the motion. He said 
 he wished that when Ireland was getting her 
 freedom, that the English government would be 
 in the same predicament that Russia was in 
 when they had to give up Poland. 
 
 "Now, Tommy Sheehan was very diplomatic; 
 he saw what was coming immediately, and said 
 he, 'Fellows, I have a friendly tip for ye. One 
 of the government officers with Sergeant Eagan 
 and Captain Madden, and a few bulls are at the 
 front door as you go out. Some one has in- 
 formed them that some of the persons present 
 have concealed weapons with them.' 
 
 " 'Now,' says he, 'let me tell you something; 
 be quiet and quick; slip down the back way 
 and out through my place.' It worked like a 
 charm and saved a battle royal. The hall was 
 emptied in two minutes without a cross word 
 and without the aid of the police."
 
 62 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 JERRY DUGGAN, PRESIDENT OF THE 40TH 
 PRECINCT REPUBLICAN CLUB IN CON- 
 FAB WITH M'KENNA. 
 
 "McKenna," said Jerry Duggan, president 
 of the Fortieth Precinct Republican Club, 
 "there's always more or less discord in our 
 meetings. It's a new precinct, made up of for- 
 eigners from all parts of the world. Savin' a 
 few Irish there, you might say they're all for- 
 eigners." 
 
 ' ' Duggan, ' ' says Jim Doyle, ' ' sure them that 
 you call foreigners are no more foreigners than 
 the Irish. Sure, they have their papers as well 
 as you have." 
 
 "Well, sir," says I, "it's not papers that 
 change you from bein' a foreigner. You might 
 have papers the size of a bale of hay and still be 
 a foreigner. Anny man with half an eye in his 
 head, if he looks around him, can see that, in 
 anny part of the country you turn into, today. 
 As Bobby Burns says, 'You can place your 
 minted mark on copper, brass and a' that, but 
 the lie is gross, the cheat is plain, it will no pass 
 for a' that,' An' I am tellin' you it's just the 
 same with the papers. They're only the certi- 
 ficate ; ' the man 's the gold for a ' that ', and pa- 
 pers don't change him if his heart is not right. 
 And this does not apply to any particular na- 
 tionality, but we see it in them all." 
 
 "Begorra," says Duggan, "it's wastin' labor 
 and paper, McKenna, to be furnishin' certifi- 
 cates for the Irish. For as sure as I'm tellin'
 
 DUGGAN SAYIN' THINGS 63 
 
 ye, there's scarcely an ould Irish mother in Ire- 
 land but has one or more sons or daughters in 
 America, livin' or dead; and where the missin' 
 ones are, there's where the heart and love is. 
 Not only of the mother, but the whole family. 
 And that's why I say it's wastin' time and pa- 
 per to be furnishin' certificates to the Irish. 
 They're none of them foreigners when they 
 come here, for their hearts and love were in 
 America long before they thought of sailin' for 
 America. Now you can see that in every place 
 you go to today; it's not the paper that changes 
 you from bein' a foreigner all the papers in 
 the world wouldn't do the job. It' something 
 that's in you and not the papers. It's not the 
 grassy field or the running brook, because 
 they're everywhere. It's the remembrance of 
 the livin' sintiments of George Washington 
 that's in our hearts that changes us from bein' 
 1 f urreigners '. For, with those sintiments dead, 
 all countries would look alike to us. And I hope 
 we'll never live to see that day. 
 
 "And it's not the Constitution, for there are 
 min that could ate the Constitution. But it's 
 that unwritten law, the sentimints of Washing- 
 ton, that has so firmly rooted itself in our sys- 
 tem that it cannot be changed or destroyed 
 without takin' with it the life of the Nation. 
 This is the sintiment and not paper certificates 
 that changes us from bein' ' f urreigners '. 
 
 "At our last meetin' we had the divil's time; 
 they induced Mike Dwyer, the tay man, to act as 
 chairman of the meeting'. Mike speaks sivin
 
 64 
 
 different languages and uses them all to advan- 
 tage in sellin' tay to the women folks of the 
 ward. He started up the meetin' by sayin' that 
 from writings and from evidence we find in the 
 excavations in Egypt, that as far back as nine 
 thousand years ago, somewhere in the Valley of 
 the Nile, min assembled as we are tonight to 
 better their' condition. 
 
 "Ryan says overreading is like overeating 
 if you are consuming stuff you cannot di- 
 gest. 
 
 "At Dwyer's remarks the fun commenced. 
 Little Nicholas Ryan jumped to his feet, sayin', 
 'I challenge your assertion, Dwyer. You have 
 been reading profane history and takin' your 
 excavation report from un-Christian scientists 
 who are doin' the divil's work in tryin' to de- 
 stroy the Bible. You've got us back now more 
 than two thousand years before the Good Book 
 tells that God made man at all. We can stand 
 for political heresy; but we'll not stand for any 
 of that kind of falsifying profane history doc- 
 trine that you started out with. And I demand 
 that you retire from the chair and discontinue 
 your talk.' " 
 
 The timely arrival of Sergeant Eagan an- 
 nouncin' that Mintz' Clothes Pressing Parlor 
 next door was on fire, and advising, them for 
 safety to lav^e the hall as quick as possible saved 
 the day, as both sides were equally divided.
 
 
 SPEECH DELIVERED BY OLD MAN AN- 
 THONY DEVLIN AFTER TAKING TWO 
 SUPS OF SHEEHAN'S WHISKEY. 
 
 "McKenna," says Con O'Brien, "the Forty- 
 first Precinct Club had one grand time at our 
 last meeting; we had everything that goes to 
 make up sociability, with song and talk galore. 
 
 "McKenna, whatever is in that whisky of 
 Sheehans, I don't know, but they say it will 
 make a dummy talk. 
 
 "When old man Anthony Devlin got in two 
 glasses of it you could not stop him, and without 
 it you couldn't get a word out of him any more 
 than you could out of a stone. 
 
 "Well, sir, we got him to make a speech. He 
 started in by saying he didn 't know what the ris- 
 ing generation was coming to at all. 'Ye 're a 
 race of chance-takers,' said he. 'And, boys, let 
 me tell ye ; I was in the employ of the Brooklyn 
 Department of Public Works the summer that 
 Henry Ward Beecher took hell out of religion. 
 T knew Henry well, and one day, says I to him, 
 'Your Riverince, when you get hell out of re-
 
 66 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 ligion, then you've lost control of the rising gen 
 eration.' And the longer I live the more con- 
 vinced I am of the same. And now it's the same 
 thing with politics. When the politicians put 
 civil service into politics, ye lost control of the 
 precinct workers. 
 
 "In the ould days they sent out their call. If 
 every one did not respond with every relation 
 they had, there would be something doing before 
 the week was over. Now, when they send out a 
 call, all the gang begins to stall. 
 
 "I know it; I've worked in the West Parks 
 mowing the grass when William J. Cooke was 
 the superintendent, and at the time Yates was 
 Governor. We had one of them severe Swede 
 foremen over us, and this was a primary day. 
 Said he : 'The General meaning William Cooke 
 will be around tomorrow to inspect, and the 
 grass must be attended to primary or no pri- 
 mary. ' 
 
 "Well, sir, I said to the boys, 'look out ye 
 for the primary; God will care for the grass. 
 But if ye lose the primary, there'll be new grass 
 mowers here in a short time.' And I whis- 
 pered, 'A new boss, too.' 
 
 "Well, the boss insisted that the grass must 
 be first attinded to, and the result was our fel- 
 lows lost the primary by six votes. 
 
 "And as true as I'm tellin' ye, there were 
 very soon new grass mowers and new bosses on 
 the job. And with the new min came civil serv- 
 ice. One of the questions, in order to get a job
 
 WHAT MADE DEVLIN TALK 67 
 
 mowing grass, was to describe hydrogen and 
 oxygen. 
 
 ''Said I in me answer, 'Divil a gin I know of 
 but Holland gin and it's all right for thim 
 wooden-shoe fellows, but it's very sickenin' for 
 the Irish if you take too much of it at one feed. ' 
 
 "I passed the examination. 
 
 "Now, I see by the papers, that a society of 
 old men and women are about to take the exe- 
 cution out of the law. You may laugh, but 
 stranger things have been done. Little Dinny 
 McManus' bill will then come into play, and it 
 will regulate everything. You have now the 
 honor of bein' tried before a jury of your fel- 
 low citizens. But Dinny 's bill changes it to 
 read, 'You will be tried in all cases by men in 
 your own line of business.' This, says Dinny, 
 'will clean the court calendar, will empty the 
 jails, will reduce the number of judges and 
 court bailiffs and juries and all that, and will 
 save the tax payers money.' Dinny says there's 
 tricks in all trades but the carpenters, and at 
 times they drive a screw with the hammer. And 
 so it will be in all things. What to an outsider 
 now seems an offinse, whin you're tried by min 
 in your own line of business, they will see that 
 the offense that you're charged with is but a 
 trick in the trade and no harm or great wrong 
 attached to it especially no crime. 
 
 "It's horse traders will act as the jurymen in 
 all cases where cheating goes on in regard to 
 horse trading. Preachers will be tried by
 
 68 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 preachers, bankers by bankers, gamblers by 
 gamblers, trusts by the trust officials, commis- 
 sion men by commission men. So you can see 
 by this bill of Dinny's, with hell out of religion, 
 civil service in politics, the execution out of the 
 law and Dinnys bill in operation, there's a 
 brighter and happier day for us all in store." 
 
 After these remarks Anthony fainted, and he 
 was revived by another glass of the same kind 
 of whiskey that started him to talkin'. and the 
 meetin' adjourned for the summer months.
 
 LITTLE JOHNNIES INQUIRY. 
 
 Grandpa, you must tell to me, 
 
 What's all this war about? 
 My teacher- she don't seem to know 
 
 Makes Mamma cry to tell, 
 And Murphy's boy. he swore today! 
 
 He said that war was hell! 
 
 Now, Grandpa, you must tell to me, 
 
 'Cause then I'll know just why 
 When Mamma gets Pa's letters, 
 She always starts to cry. 
 
 Mamma's not the only one, 
 'Cause I know other boys 
 That have Pa's, too, that's gone to war 
 And Mamma's, too, that cry. 
 
 Say, Grandpa, do just tell to me! 
 
 'Cause then I'll know just why 
 When Mammas get those letters 
 
 They always start to cry. 
 
 Grandpa will not tell to you 
 
 What's all this war about, 
 'Cause if it was that easy 
 
 Then there'd be no reason why 
 That Papa's, too, must go to war 
 
 And Mamma's have to cry. 
 
 John J. McKenna.
 
 70 MCKENNA'S STOEIES 
 
 THOUGHTS OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Here's to the thoughts expressed in words, 
 
 By men in days gone by; 
 Whose object was to raise mankind, 
 
 Or in the struggle die. 
 
 Here's to tJhe thought mankind 
 Before the law shall on an equal stand; 
 
 And here's to the men who expressed in words 
 These sentiments so grand. 
 
 Here's to the conditions brought about 
 To prove those thoughts were true; 
 
 And here's to the men w*ho sacrificed 
 To better I and you. 
 
 Herd's to the unmarked graves 
 
 Where lie those heroes true, 
 Whose lives were but a sacrifice 
 
 To better I and you. 
 
 Here's to the grand old flag! 
 
 And the Constitution, too; 
 And here's to the thoughts expressed in words, 
 
 That have proven staunch and true; 
 And here's to the men whose thoughts and words 
 
 Have bettered I and you. 
 
 Here's to George Washington 
 
 And Abraham Lincoln, too. 
 And to all brave men who did the things 
 
 To better I and you. 
 
 Here's again to our Constitution, 
 
 And to those heroes of the days gone by, 
 
 Who left that Constitution 
 To protect both you and T. 
 
 Let our Congress not now desert us, 
 
 But as free men, staunch and true, 
 With all t'heir might, stand for the right, 
 
 As Washington taught them to. 
 
 John J.
 
 YOUNG DOUGHERTY THE LAWYER ON 
 PRACTICAL GOVERNMENT AND NICHO- 
 LAS RYAN'S VIEWS ON A FEW OTHER 
 THINGS. 
 
 "McKenna," says Dan Flynn of the 33rd 
 Precinct, ' * last Tuesday night was a great night 
 for oratory in our precinct. Big Tom Dough- 
 erty's son, the young lawyer, made the princi- 
 pal talk of the evening. 
 
 "Begorra, McKenna, it takes Sheehan or 
 Cassidy's whisky to make some of thim talk; 
 but this laddie Buck could talk all day on ice 
 water. The risin' generation is a wonder. It 
 makes me laugh when I think back. I knew 
 most of their grandfathers. They were good 
 handy min with the shovel, and artists at erect- 
 ing straight lumber piles and the like o' that. 
 But the risin' gineration's away from the shovel 
 and the lumber pile. It's nothin' now but 'Dr. 
 Schultz, Lawyer Dougherty, Banker and Broker 
 McNear and Fault, etc., etc. 
 
 " 'Why is the cause of this?' said I to little 
 Nicholas Ryan of the 31st precinct. 'Well, sir,'
 
 7:2 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 said he, 'let me tell ye ye can't raise good 
 shovelers and lumber pilers on one of thim bot- 
 tles with the rubber nipple. Now that's the 
 whole thing in a nut shell,' said he. 
 
 ' * Sure, the first thing a young couple thinks of 
 now when they're gettin' married is the bird 
 cage and the silver collar for the dog; and if 
 any mishaps does occur, thin for the bottle and 
 the bogus malted milk. There's yer answer for 
 ye, now. No good shovelers or lumber pilers 
 will come from that stuff. 
 
 ''Well, sir, young Dougherty gave us a talk 
 on practical government. Said he. 'The ould 
 days of the min with the broad-brimmed hat 
 and homespun suit, and with the glad hand is a 
 thing o' the past. The man,' said he, 'that has 
 control of the feed box and the meal ticket is 
 the man we take our hat off to today. There's 
 tickets,' said he, 'for the water pipe extension 
 department employees. The trust meal ticket,' 
 said he, 'is the right to go on and clean up 
 things without bein' investigated, and the 
 gambler's meal ticket is a like one. The race- 
 track man's ticket is the privilege of running 
 races with the assistance of the Sheriff. The 
 show man's ticket is the right to crowd the aisle 
 and scalp the tickets without the interference 
 of the police force. The every day business 
 man's ticket is a privilege to block the sidewalks 
 with his goods and wares as though he was the 
 only one on earth. The real estate man's ticket 
 is the privilege of violatin' city ordinances, sub- 
 dividing and building imitation homes to sell the
 
 LAWYER DOUGHERTY 73 
 
 public. The stock exchange man's ticket is the 
 right to buy and sell the earth and all things 
 therein five times per day on margins without 
 it's being classified as gambling. And so it goes 
 along down the line,' said he. 'Railroads, gas, 
 electric and telephone tickets is the privilege 
 that ye 're all acquainted with. Everybody is 
 after a meal ticket and hence the power of the 
 new political king.' 
 
 " 'Think,' said he, 'of the assortment of meal 
 tickets our President has on hand, and the 
 mayors of the big cities. It makes one of thim 
 kings on the other side of the pool look like 
 thirty cents compared with what our bosses 
 have. And, said he, 'if Napoleon Bonaparte had 
 had the meal tickets at his disposal when he was 
 on the island of St. Helena, that those I have 
 mentioned have, he would have had the holders 
 of them put to work and bail out the ocean so 
 that he could drive home with his coach and 
 four. 
 
 " 'A job holders' meal ticket,' said he, 'is but 
 a lead one compared with the new conditions. 
 It's not Ould Brown, the merchant, any more,' 
 said he, 'but it's the Brown Company, a crea- 
 ture of the political powers that be. And it 
 needs a meal ticket to keep it from slipping a 
 cog, ' said he. 
 
 " 'There 're all kinds of meal tickets; one 
 legalizing certain business that certain folks are 
 radical enough to term gamblin'. The ticket 
 holders of tariff reduction and reduction of rev- 
 enues on certain goods controlled by certain in-
 
 74 McKENNA's STORIES 
 
 terests; conservative banking law tickets; con- 
 servative insurance tickets; life is too short to 
 mintion thim all, ' said he. 
 
 " 'But,' said he, 'the same ould meal ticket 
 when out workin' produced the same effect on 
 the grand common people of America that it 
 does on the aristocrats of Europe. It keeps 
 thim bowin' and scrapin' to their respective 
 made and born bosses. It cements a bond of 
 friendship between them that keeps the existing 
 condition of things together. 
 
 " 'And you notice,' said he, 'when any one 
 does anything to disturb the ould boss of the 
 meal ticket, all the ticket boulders begin to 
 chirrup; and when you start to do up the ould 
 boss, ye find,' said he, 'ye have to do up all the 
 ticket boulders. For we are a very conserva- 
 tive people,' said he, 'when things are in our 
 favor. 
 
 " 'But,' said he, 'we can see power and vir- 
 tue is alike it's aisy destroyed. And when ye 
 lose the job as boss of the feed box and distribu- 
 tor of the meal ticket, you're like,' said he, 'the 
 Czar of all the Russias that small that you 
 could not be seen by one of thim powerful 
 glasses used by the street corner astronomer 
 that shows you the moon.' 
 
 "McKenna, young Dougherty is a fine looker 
 I wish him success. But they say in my part 
 of the ould country, "the bigger the rogue, the 
 more grinteel.' 
 
 "At this juncture of the meeting Cassidy 
 stepped in and rose up his hand. Must a mo-
 
 LAWYER DOUGHERTY 75 
 
 ment,' said he; 'when ye adjourn, come over to 
 my place. I've just tapped a fresh keg of 
 lemonade and want to have the privilege of 
 givin' a treat to the success of young Dough- 
 erty, our neighbor.' 
 
 "And we did. The meeting was a grand suc- 
 cess."
 
 76 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 MORE TRUTH THAN POETRY. 
 
 There is a fountain and a great one, 
 Widespread in our land; 
 
 Thousands of God's people it has in command. 
 It's a fountain of all evil, an ocean of tears. 
 From its fountain head into this world flows 
 Directly or indirectly all our miseries and woes. 
 
 From this monster fountain many streams doth flow, 
 
 And to near all of God's people, in high rank and low, 
 
 It has left its mark. And lo! Mark its woe! 
 
 In its sparkling stream as it gracefully glides 
 
 From our beautiful cities to our far mountain sides, 
 
 Where'er it has rested it has there left its trace, 
 
 It's killing by thousands the men of our race. 
 
 It's a fountain of enterprise, not one of God's make, 
 It's established for us in this land of the free, 
 Our asylums and prisons yes, far worse I see 
 In its terrible flow, in its terrible strife 
 It has caused separation of husband and w r ife. 
 It has caused little children the streets to roam 
 Without father or mother, shelter or home. 
 In hunger and rags doMi it cause them to go 
 To the prison door with its stream do they flow. 
 
 All of our hopes doth its stream flood away, 
 In it our lives and our prospects decay; 
 Our God, our Lord, our family, our friends, 
 Our virtue, our morals to its bottom descend, 
 Oh, it's that cursed fountain for which many crave 
 And with its stream flow to the poor pauper's grave. 
 
 John J. McKenna.
 
 RYAN ON LOYALTY TO THE FLAG. 
 
 "Begorra," says Nicholas Ryan, in beginning 
 his address, "McKenna" will have us talkin' 
 until some fine day Sergeant Egan and Captain 
 Madden of the Brighton Station will come along 
 and jug us all. 
 
 "Well, we can do notMn' else to enjiy our- 
 selves but talk. What was fun to us once is 
 now labor, and we are past that. The park fields 
 we now give over to the young folks. 
 
 "But here in the memory of the late beloved 
 McKinley, unless we forget ourselves for the 
 moment, we could nayther say nor think any- 
 thing that would intintionally harm anyone. 
 
 "Everybody is trying to say and do things 
 that would regulate the things of the worrld to 
 their liking. 
 
 "But it's the divil's job to do the convincin'. 
 There have been many good talkers in the field 
 since the ould world first began to bob around, 
 and a never a one of 'em as yet has been able 
 to get away with his argument without finding 
 a disputer. The same is true with ye the divil 
 an argument can a man present to ye, but y'er
 
 78 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 there with your documentary evidence and sta- 
 tistics to prove he is wrong or mistaken in his 
 conception of the subject presinted. 
 
 "So a man may just as well be sayin' non- 
 sensical things to ye as presentin' solid matter, 
 for ye dispute it no matter what is presinted. 
 
 "As Barney O'Flynn tells of his experience 
 he had in a week 's stay on the jury. Says Bar- 
 ney, "The divil such eleven stubborn men did T 
 ever meet in my life as I did on that jury. I 
 near talked myself to death trying to convince 
 them that the way they ought to decide the case 
 was as I thought. It was a useless job. I said 
 to Barney, ' May be ye were wrong. ' ' No, ' says 
 Barney 'how could I be wrong!' 
 
 "An' that's the way with a lot of ye. I be- 
 lieve in free speech to any one. I think it is a 
 good thing to let any one shout out that what 
 is in thim ; the gallery will soon decide whether 
 he's in the right or wrong, and if wrong they'll 
 be there wit' their answers, 'back to the high 
 timbers with you.' But I don't believe in a fel- 
 low, that when the gallery decides that he is 
 wrong, that he is then in for b'atin you or pullin' 
 the gun out to make you believe as he does. 
 
 "Now Teddy says we'll have to do something 
 to stop this disloyalty that is goin' on. Well, 
 sor, Teddy with all his good faults is the sub- 
 marine of startin' things. When he thinks a 
 thing is wrong no matter what others may 
 think he's there with the sledge hammer im- 
 mediately. He tore up the red tape in the army 
 with one rip whin he went out wit* the b'ys to
 
 "OuLD NICK" AT IT 79 
 
 Santiago. He dropped the pile driver hammer 
 weight on ould Bill Taft and the Republican 
 machine at the Coliseum ; and if he had his way 
 he would have had us over to beat the Kaiser 
 without givin ' us time to put on our clothes. 
 
 "Teddy's like Barney 'Flynn hasty but 
 well meanin'. Barney was workin' on the sewer 
 wit' Tom Byrnes, when one day an Italian said 
 something to Barney. He up wit' the shovel an' 
 let it fly at the Italian. And as it was makin' 
 its way for the Italian's head Barney cried out 
 'Tony, dodge it', said he. That's the doings and 
 sayin's of things without considering the dam- 
 age ye may be doin'. 
 
 "Well surely every body can't say what 
 Teddy says without being jugged. But he sets 
 the example, and the lesser lights follow him. 
 An' that's the cause of all this turmoil that's 
 now going on in the country. 
 
 "Sure there's no American that's disloyal to 
 the principle as laid down by Washington, Jef- 
 ferson and the signers of the Declaration of In- 
 dependence. Now that's the country it's not 
 the grassy fields, or the hills or the water it's 
 those sentiments that's America. That's what 
 the Flag stands for. There's no one disl'yal to 
 that. It's slingin' the shovel without thinkin' 
 of what might be the consequence. That is the 
 cause of our turmoil but there is no disl'yalty. 
 
 "But there are things that people are inquir- 
 ing about; we see all the min, children and 
 women in harness workin'. We know that capi- 
 tal is plentiful and money cheap. New invin-
 
 80 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 tions labor savin' machines of all kinds; great 
 educational institutions everywhere, but we 
 can't find why, with all that we have, that the 
 masses of the people are payin' higher prices 
 for every article today than they did whin 
 things were made by hand. Who is doin' the 
 trick? That's what we would like to know, and 
 how is it done? Or would the knowin' take all 
 the fun out of the trick? 
 
 ' ' These are some of the things we would like 
 to be hearin' about. But after all, what's the 
 difference to us ould fellows, and the divil the 
 care have the young on their minds but fun and 
 pleasure, and they have it, with all our kicks and 
 f aultfindin ' ; and as Barney and I took our 
 jaunt with our little Ford through the classic 
 suburban towns of the North Shore, we see our 
 finish in what we see in others if we live too 
 long. We find, whether we're high financiers, 
 or high grade shovelers, we'll all meet that 
 finish which we see in our jaunt. There they 
 were the high financiers of the past, the few 
 of them that have lived to the ripe ould age, as 
 I say, a few years too long there they were 
 pushin' the go cart for the son or daughter-in- 
 law if there was anything to push. If not, then 
 exercising the poodle or out on the shady side 
 of the lawn wit' the parrot, learnin' it to swear. 
 
 ''Now, let ye go home and think it over until 
 next Thursday afternoon when Pat Price will 
 be back from his vacation with a good fish story. 
 An' as they say a good fisherman and a good 
 liar generally make the trip together."
 
 PAT PRICE BEFORE THE SUN WORSHIP- 
 ERS' CLUB AT THE M'KINLEY PARK ON 
 HIS RETURN FROM VACATION. HIS 
 FISH STORY IS GOOD. 
 
 Pat Price, President of the Thirty-sixth Pre- 
 cinct Republican Club addresses the Sun Wor- 
 shipers Club at McKinley Park on his return 
 from his vacation. 
 
 "Well, I'm glad to see this number of ye here 
 this afternoon. I would have forgot all about 
 the meetin ' but for John Noonan 's kid. Said he 
 to me 'Mr. Price, are you goin' to the Sun Wor- 
 shiper's Club this afternoon!' 
 
 "What the divil do ye in 'an wid yer Sun 
 Worshipers Club?" 
 
 " 'Well,' said he 'we kids call you fellows Sun
 
 82 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 Worshipers because ye'r always on the sunny 
 side of the McKinley monument on cold days.' 
 
 * ' Chase yourself, ' ' said I to him, and he made 
 a noise at me like a billy goat. 
 
 ' ' Well, sir, that Dutchman, George Abhau and 
 John Noonan have that many kids running 
 loose in the park they ought to be payin' a spe- 
 cial tax for them. 
 
 "Well, sir, anyhow, fishin' is a pleasure. As 
 Barney O'Flynn says 'charity covers a multi- 
 tude of sins.' So say I fishin' covers a mul- 
 titude of secrets from the ould woman, for as 
 Barney says, at times he likes a drop, and the 
 ould woman is on to him. She wouldn't give in 
 that she knew he was takin' it, for if she did, 
 she knows he'd finish the job. But she hacked 
 and sighed and says 'Barney.' Do you smell 
 what I smell, would the house be on fire, or 
 what is it do ye think?' Very well does she know 
 what it is, and she hints very strong, but still 
 won't give in. So to make a long story short 
 the Lake Front is a good place there is lots of 
 room there an' ye'r in the company of thim that 
 the smell of the bottle is not offensive to. 
 
 " Barney O'Flynn said to me today 'did ye 
 ever notice the wimmin? The first question your 
 wife will ask mine when they meet is 'How is 
 Barney?' and the next is 'Is he workinT That's 
 all they care is he workin. ' For then they 
 know the pay envelope will be comin'. Begorra, 
 they're on to PS' says Barney. But I say wid 
 all their faults we couldn't get along without 
 thim. They may rummage yer pockets to see
 
 PAT PRICE'S FISH STORY 83 
 
 that there's no holes in thim that you might lose 
 your change, and sometimes fight with you. 
 But ever since they j'ined partners with us in 
 strippin the tree of the apples in the Garden of 
 Aiden, it seems the divil couldn't keep us apart. 
 "This is a very appropriate place to meet- 
 here at the monument erected in the memory of 
 William McKinley. Historians may write that 
 there were greater men than McKinley, but his 
 death came at a time whin our beloved country 
 was at peace and harmony, with prosperity 
 smilin' on the face of every man, woman and 
 child, rich and poor, throughout the lingth and 
 breadth of the land. 
 
 ' ' Whin other great min died, there was some 
 ould sting from some cause that with some 
 people could not be forgotten at the time. 
 
 ' ' But when the clock stopped and the hum of 
 industry died for the moment in respect to 
 McKinley 's memory, there was not a sting left 
 in the h'arts or the minds of the American peo- 
 ple. An' the spirit of good will that was shown 
 to his memory on that day was sincere and came 
 from the hearts, as pure as the smile that comes 
 to the face of a loving child, and may the Lord 
 be always good to him. 
 
 "Well, Barney O'Flynn and myself are good 
 fishermen if we have to say it ourselves. An' I 
 am now going to tell ye of one of our fishin' 
 trips below at the Lake Front some years back. 
 After what we see, heard, and drank, we thought 
 thin, as ye do now, that we had the solution of
 
 84 McKENNA's STORIES 
 
 the very questions that keep ye here arguin' 
 about day afther day. The story is this : 
 
 " 'As we set out on the lake pier, along came 
 an ould Game and Fish Warden that said he 
 was from somewhere down in Egypt, Illinois. 
 It was at the time the late 'Private John' Tan- 
 ner was the Governor of Illinois. 'Well', said 
 the Game Warden, when he took a look at what 
 he see goin' on, said he, lookin' at Barney and 
 myself 'There's something wrong in Den- 
 mark,' said he. There to his view was the 
 Swedes, the Danes and the Norwegians, fishin' 
 wit nets and seines, and the balance of us had 
 only the line and hook. There, said he, * they are 
 like the high financiers. They fish for fish and 
 the dollars, while ye fish for fish and the sport 
 that's in it. They have carts to carry away 
 their catch, while ye could aisly carry away yer 
 catch, on a small shtring. 
 
 " 'That's not fair,' said he; 'things are not 
 equalized right.' 
 
 ''Just then come along an Irishman by the 
 name of McDermott. I will never forget him. 
 The Irish are ginerally religiously inclined. But 
 whin ye get one of thim that is not, the divil 
 only knows what he may do. They say it was 
 wan of thim that invinted the submarine, but 
 I'm not thinkin' that bad of thim. 
 
 "But anyway, this McDermott came along 
 wit' what we afterwards found out to be a stick 
 of dynamite a wire wit' a battery attached to 
 it. Whin the Swedes, and the Danes and the
 
 PAT PRICE'S FISH STORY 85 
 
 Norwegians see him, they stopped their work to 
 watch him. The Game Warden never see the 
 like of that below in Egypt, and was not heedin' 
 McDermott until he touched the button. Well, 
 sir, up come a splash and up come ten thousand 
 fish. It took all the carts in the First Ward to 
 carry all the fish away. 
 
 " 'Well, sir,' said the ould Game Warden, 'I 
 will put a stop to all this. Things must be 
 aiqualized,' said he. And back to Springfield 
 with him. He had a bill passed aiqualizing 
 things in the fish line, compelling them all to go 
 back to the hook and line, so that all would get 
 an equal chance at the fish. 
 
 " 'Well, sir,' said Barney O'Flynn to me, af- 
 ter takin' another sup from the bottle; 'here, 
 you take a drop, too.' Said he, 'We have now 
 solved the whole question that's uppermost in 
 the minds of the people over the question of 
 regulatin' things on the river of commerce, said 
 he. 
 
 "What do we find, said I. At the head of the 
 stream there was ould Jay Gould, ould Morgan, 
 ould Vanderbilt, wit' their nets. Thin come 
 along young Forgan, young Vanderbilt, Carne- 
 gie and Schwab, with their seines, and spread 
 them clear across the river of Commerce, wit 
 the fish swimming low, and the swiftness of the 
 tide, divil a catch at all could the great mass of 
 fishermen, wit' the hook and line get; lucky if 
 they srot a nibble. 
 
 "When alone: came ould man Harriman, wit' 
 the Irishman McDermott 's tactics of dynamite.
 
 86 McKfiNNA's STORIES 
 
 With his plan he caused a splash in the river of 
 Commerce that so wet or watered the stocks of 
 all the concerns that he was interested in, that 
 their price was thirty fold increased to him af- 
 ter the duckin ' he gave them. Well, he near took 
 all the money in sight with him. When we see 
 that, Barney cried out: 
 
 " 'Now for the solution, Patrick! We will 
 have our Congressman present a bill similar to 
 the Fish Warden's bill compellin' them all to go 
 back to the hook and line.' 
 
 "Well, sir, to our surprise the Invisible Gov- 
 ernment, as Root called it when he was a candi- 
 date for office it did to our bill what the dog 
 pound master does to the vicious dogs when 
 they come to the dog pound chloroform them. 
 Our Congressman said 'that's the fate your bill 
 met chloroformed in the committee', said he. 
 And there you are. The divil a sign or tidin' 
 has ever been heard of it since. 
 
 " 'Well,' said Barney, when he heard the 
 news, 'our bait was too small to go regulatin' 
 things wit' anyway. But may be it's all for the 
 best,' said Barney. 'For many's the hole would 
 be left undug if some of us was not broke.' 
 
 "With this I'm goin' to quit ye, but will be 
 here next Thursday to hear from some of the 
 other boys that will have returned from their 
 vacation for lack of funds."
 
 RYAN, THE STATISTICIAN, AND M'KENNA 
 IN CONVERSATION. 
 
 "McKenna," said Nicholas Ryan, the statis- 
 tician of the Sun Worshipers Club, "you will 
 have to do me a favor. It's like this, when- 
 ever there's a lot of talkin' going on, or letter 
 writin' there's always explanations to follow. 
 For instance, whin the Pope, or Wilson, or the 
 Kaiser sind out letters or make speeches, you'll 
 see following their letter or addresses, explana- 
 tions by the cabinet members and secretaries 
 sayin' what was said didn't mean what ye 
 fought; but it meant this and that, and sir, it 
 seems as if it takes months before that what 
 was said is explained so that we can under- 
 stand what was meant by the words that were 
 said ; and now the same is true in what I 'm go- 
 ing to explain to you. It's all concerning some 
 remarks that Pat Price of the 31st Precinct 
 made at the meeting at McKinley Park. Price 
 is a friend of mine, and he 's all right ; but mis- 
 statements will occur. He wants me to apolo- 
 gize for him. Now, I'm up on statistics, but am 
 no good on apologizing especially where women
 
 88 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 are concerned an' that's the rub. An' that's 
 why I'm askin' ye to do the apologizin' for nie. 
 
 "Now, it's like this: When Pat Price was 
 comin' down 38th street on the day of the 
 meetin', he was met by, a kid askin' him if 
 he was goin' to the Sun " Worshipers Club 
 meetin', and some words took place between 
 them. Well, sir, John Ralston, the saloon 
 keeper, was standin' in front of his buffet just 
 whin the conversation took place. Ralston is 
 full of tricks. After the conversation, Price 
 stepped into Ralston 's buffet to have a 'sup' to 
 kind o' brace him up for the speech he was goin' 
 to deliver at the park, and Price said to Rals- 
 ton: 'Whose kid was that?' 
 
 "Now, Ralston with his tricks said: 'That's 
 John Noonan's kid.' And further said he 'John 
 Noonan and the German contractor, George 
 Abhaue, have that many kids runnin' loose in 
 the park that they ought to be payin' a special 
 tax for thim. ' Well, you see this deceived 
 Price and in his remarks at the park he min- 
 tioned that report. Price was angry at the kid 
 for some remark that he made that vexed him. 
 "Well, it now turns out that Mrs. John 
 Noonan is your sister, McKenna ; and she stop- 
 ped Price on the street askin' him to explain. 
 Said she to Price, 'I have no children at all; 
 and if my husband, John Noonan, has that many 
 of thim that they're crowdin' the park, I want 
 to learn about it.' Well, she and Mrs. George 
 Abhaue are two personal friends, and it's the
 
 RYAN IN TROUBLE 89 
 
 same case with Mrs. Abhaue, and she's after 
 Price for an explanation. An' her husband, 
 George, is very vexed and can't explain the 
 circumstances to her. And there it is for you. 
 An' it's Ralston, the trickster, that's the cause 
 of it all; but he's under cover and says he re- 
 members nothin ' of the evint. 
 
 ' ' So you see how aisy a man can be deceived. 
 Now Price says it was aisy to deceive him, as it 
 would not be anything strange if min wid such 
 names as Noonan and Abhaue would have a 
 flock of children. But that's where Ralston got 
 his joke in on Price. Now I want you to get 
 Price out of his trouble. Price says that's the 
 first speech he ever made an' says he 'it will 
 be the last one.' So, McKenna, you'll do the 
 job for me an' him and have things explained. 
 "When you do, I will promise you that I will 
 have an ould f rind and mimber of the Club de- 
 liver us a talk at one of our meetings on the 
 money question. His name is Barney Mulligan. 
 He is a far-down north of Ireland linen peddler. 
 So was his father and grandfather before him. 
 They're the closest bargain makers in the 
 world. He an' they traveled all over Ireland, 
 England, Scotland, and Wales with the pack; 
 they beat the world on thrift. The Cyrene ped- 
 dler, the peddler from Cairo or India, or the 
 Hebrew from Palestine is as much in dread of 
 one of thim as is a rat of a ferret. Whiniver 
 one of these other peddlers mentioned finds one 
 of the far down linen peddlers in a townland,
 
 90 MCKJENNA'S STORIES 
 
 they quit the town immediately. Well, this 
 Barney Mulligan that 1 am going to have talk 
 to you on the money question knows all about 
 the money, an' how to get it an' how to keep it. 
 They say that in his young days he'd dive in 
 the ocean for a sovereign, an' he's got part of 
 the first pound he ever earned. Well, sir, after 
 his travels he finally wound up in Glasgow, 
 Scotland, where he married a Scotch lassie ; and 
 as Barney O'Flynn says 'it was thrift joining 
 thrift. ' A far-down married to a Scotch lassie, ' 
 says ould Dougherty; 'an' the country is gone 
 to the dogs.' (No, Mulligan is not left handed 
 he's one of us.) 
 
 "W^ell, sir, he started a bank in Glasgow, one 
 of thim banks that never fails one with the 
 three ball sign, where you would have to give 
 up your right eye to get a loan of any sum over 
 the dollar. He did all the business, until a 
 Scotch syndicate had to buy him out to get rid 
 of him. Then he landed in the Bowery, New 
 York, where he began the same business an' 
 did all the business, when again a syndicate of 
 the 'chosen people' bought him out. Signs on 
 him, he has got the money. Now he spends his 
 time clipping coupons and lookin' for cool spots 
 on hot days, and warm spots on cold days. 
 
 " 'Tis said of him that the ould father left an 
 injunction upon him before his death, com- 
 manded Barney to keep the Mulligans away 
 from the shovel, an' he's kept the injunction. 
 You would have as hard a task to put the shovel
 
 RYAN IN TROUBLE 91 
 
 in the hands of a Mulligan as you would to put 
 a breech cloth over the limbs of a Semolian 
 Indian. Every one of the Mulligans has an 
 M. D. or a B. A. before or after their name- 
 but there are no shovels where the Mulligans 
 are an' they have the house full of the Mulli- 
 gans. 
 
 "When ould Mulligan brags an' that's sel- 
 domhe says that if there are Scotch-Irish in 
 Donegal, thin they're Irish-Scotch in Glasgow 
 and plenty of thim, and there it is for you. 
 
 "Ye know what is meant by the Scotch-Irish 
 and the Irish-Scotch. It's the same as the risin' 
 gineration here. For instance, the German- 
 American; the Irish- American, etc. Their par- 
 ents are what they are, but just because the 
 youngsters were born in a different climate, 
 they put the handle before the race. But that's 
 all in your eye. They all got the hyphen (I 
 think I have one myself, for when anyone says 
 anything against Ireland, it jumps here on my 
 right side. Ye 're laughin', but I tell ye they 
 have thim. Some slightly, but mention any- 
 thing against the country they or their parents 
 came from, an ' you will soon see the hyphen be- 
 gin to move, and as Dinny McManus, the South 
 Boston boy doctor of the 41st Precinct said, he'd 
 like to have the job of operating for the hyphen, 
 for it's as big in some of thim as is the thrunk 
 of a circus elephant. 
 
 "Now, McKenna, I will finish with this; I 
 overheard a conversation between three
 
 92 McKENNA's STOBIES 
 
 scrawny dudes last election day in one of the 
 hotels down town; an' this was the drift of the 
 conversation : One asked the other as to whether 
 he voted. 'Well,' said he in his reply, 'whin I 
 went to the polling place and looked at the bal- 
 lot with all the foreign names on it, said he, 
 'whin they put them kind of cattle on the ticket 
 I'll stop votin'. ' I have been thinkin' it over 
 ever since, but today in lookin' over the names 
 of the draft list, my eyes were opened I saw 
 the light. I wish wherever those three scrawny 
 dudes are today they will look that list over 
 from anny where in Cook County, includin' Oak 
 Park, Evanston and Highland Park. If it were 
 not for thim foreign names tell me where you'd 
 get your min from. Thim boys, as they go off 
 with their gun, will still retain thim good ould 
 names they have. An ' the gineration after thim 
 will still have thim. So I hope thim three 
 scrawny dudes the next time they go to the poll- 
 in' place to vote will look for qualification in- 
 stead of names.
 
 BARNEY MULLIGAN THE FAR-DOWN 
 LINEN PEDDLER ON THE MONEY 
 QUESTION. 
 
 ' ' Troth and indeed I would not be talkin ' here 
 today if it were not for my ould friend, Nicho- 
 las Ryan, your statistician. Nick said he pledg- 
 ed his word. 
 
 "Well, I always have said there are a few 
 things a man should not carelessly part with 
 one of them is his word and the other his 
 money ; and the next is the friendship of the 
 ould woman and the mother. An' I'm tellin' 
 ye, they are the best frinds a man has on this 
 earth, and that goes whether you're in jail or 
 out of it. 
 
 "Now, I am not much given to talk, for I be- 
 lieve as ould Dean Swift did, that there is no 
 teacher but Time that will convince. An' from 
 lookin' over some of ye, the Lord has given ye 
 time enough to be convinced of everything con- 
 cerning the things here below. 
 
 "There's a lot of ye, that I see here before 
 me, that are somewhat religiously inclined, but
 
 94 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 from the way ye so aisly separate yourselves 
 from yer money, ye'd think it was a plague sint 
 to you instead of a blessing. 
 
 "Now, I always had this thought in mind, 
 that if your Government would change the 
 stamp they have on the dollar or the bill to 
 read, 'When ye 're carelessly partin' with me, 
 you are separatin yourselves from your best 
 f rind ; it might have a tindincy to make ye stop 
 and think before you let it go. But Barney 
 O'Flynn says ye can't take it with ye to the 
 grave; but, 'Barney,' says I, 'nayther can ye 
 tell how long ye have to stop here. ' That kind 
 of talk is all right if you were to be sure of dy- 
 ing young. But that's the rub! 
 
 "For whin you live a few years beyond the 
 usual time, and ye 're without the money, ye '11 
 find ye 're always talkin' to strangers. 
 
 "Yes, says Barney, answerin', 'but they say 
 it is as hard for a rich man to go to heaven as 
 it is for the camel to go through the eye of the 
 needle. ' ' That, Barney, is figuratively speakin', 
 says I, for it's just as aisy for some min to be 
 rich as it is for others to be broke, and we know 
 min that are broke, and from the way they 
 carried on and so carelessly separated thim- 
 selves from their money, they surely should 
 have no credit mark for it. 
 
 "That needle and camel story is good enough 
 to tell at a wake. 
 
 "Now, I don't see why Ryan was set on my 
 talkin' to ye on the money question, for there's
 
 95 
 
 many of ye that say that I am a tight wad. But 
 I say ye 're mistaken, for I believe that in 
 wantin' for anything that will be to your good, 
 when ye have the price, is as foolhardy as care- 
 lessly partin' with your dollar for the things 
 that you are not in need of. 
 
 "Now, there's lots of fun about the money, 
 as well as there is trouble. Ould Martin Devlin 
 came to me one day to buy a lot. 'Well,' said I, 
 'Devlin, come in. Have you anyone with you?' 
 said I. 'Well, sir,' says Devlin in his jokin' 
 way, ' I have, ' says he, ' two of the best friends T 
 ever had, and I 'm between them both. ' Devlin, ' 
 says I, 'you're dreamin' or your drunk.' 
 
 ' ' ' No, ' says he, ' I am nayther. ' And says he, 
 'Here they are.' Thrusting his right hand into 
 the pouch of the trousers and pullin' up a roll 
 of one thousand dollars, and thin down in the 
 left pouch with the left, and comin' up with an- 
 other roll of a thousand ; ' there they are, ' says 
 he ; 'the best f rinds a man ever had,' an' I want 
 the lot I was talkin ' to ye about and there 'tis 
 til ye. 
 
 "Now, there's no isms in me and I know most 
 of ye have lived as long as I have, and the divil 
 a thing have we ever seen comin' that would be 
 worth the takin' that was brought about by idle 
 dreamy talk or blarney. Under such a plan of 
 Government as ye have got, if ye managed it so 
 there would be just plain justice for every one 
 alike; divil a thing more could any honest man 
 ask for. And all the soft talk ye hear from per- 
 sons that have day dreams as to how a condition
 
 96 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 could be brought about through resolutions or 
 laws so that the people could get something of 
 value for nothing, is but another one of thim 
 kind of stories that ye hear at a wake. An' if 
 ye noticed the fellow that can picture one of 
 thim kind of tales, so's to make thim look as 
 though they might be cashed, you'll find that 
 fellow is always broke. Thim kind of fellows 
 are gifted; they can regulate an' tell how to 
 manage other persons' business, and as to how 
 the government should be conducted; but they 
 are so busy lookin' after other persons' busi- 
 ness they can find no time to make a success of 
 their own. 
 
 I don't know what kind of isms thim kind of 
 fellows belong to; but when we can look back 
 over that long road of cinturies that the world 
 has passed, and when they can't show a spot 
 or place on the road where a tale like they ad- 
 vocate was ever cashed, I may well say that 
 kind of talk is all good enough to entertain the 
 young folks with, but us ould fellows pay little 
 heed to it. 
 
 "Now, before I go anny further, let me tell 
 ye a story Barney O'Flynn tells of what a man 
 gets for nothing. There's a chap that Barney 
 knows, that's very shiftless never works while 
 he can borrow a dollar. And how to invint a 
 story to get the dollar without the work, he 
 has his brains as racked as the president of a
 
 MULLIGAN "Ox THE MONEY" 97 
 
 bank, figuring on how to keep his depositors 
 from overborrowing. 
 
 "One day this fellow met a man that he 
 thought looked as aisy as a clergyman, and he 
 begun to unfold his tale of woe to this man. 
 The tale was, that he'd worked for a contractor 
 at Hegewisch, and that he was coming to the 
 city to get his week's pay. The contractor, 
 said he, was just after being run down by an 
 auto and taken home. 'Now, says he, I have 
 no money to pay my way back to Hegewisch to 
 my family.' 
 
 " 'Well, well, well,' said this aisy lookin' 
 gintleman, 'that's too bad. Come up,' says he, 
 'to the office with me, and repeat that story.' 
 He walked him up seven flights of stairs to the 
 office, then after repeatin' the story, the aisy 
 lookin' man said to him again, 'That's too bad, 
 too bad! But I wish you all the good luck in 
 the world, and I'm sorry for you. An' my 
 blessing go with ye ; but my blessing is all that 
 I can give ye.' 
 
 " 'My God,' says Barney's shiftless frind. 
 'Why in the divil didn't ye give me that blessing 
 below on the sidewalk?' And there 'tis til ye, 
 and that's about what any one gets for nothin'. 
 
 "Now, thin, for another story of Barney's on 
 the Friendship question. Barney got stuck on 
 a horse trade. What vexed Barney, was, that 
 there was standing by an ould acquaintance of 
 his. Barney, in tellin' his troubles to Casey, 
 the blacksmith, related the transaction, and, 
 said he, 'what makes me sore is that ould Fitz
 
 98 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 the tailor, a friend of mine, was standin' by, 
 and never as much as give me the hint.' 'You 
 say ould Fitz was a friend of yours 1' says 
 Casey, the blacksmith. 'Well, Barney, I sup- 
 pose if I was standin' there at the time, you'd 
 say that I was a frind of yours, too. Now, let 
 me tell ye something, Barney. The Dutchman, 
 your neighbor, sinds his horse to me to be shod. 
 You and I are ould townies. Divil a think you 'd 
 do of sindin' your horse to my shop. Now, Bar- 
 ney,' says he, 'let me tell you something. Whin- 
 iver you say a man is a friend of yours, just 
 ask yourself what did you ever do for him that 
 makes you think he is a friend of yours and 
 there ye have it.' 
 
 "So ye can see ye get neither money, nor 
 friendship without value received. 
 
 "Now, thin, to finish on the money question, 
 and, as Nicholas Ryan says, it's a mean thing 
 that you can't find a kind word for, if you don't 
 care what you're sayin'. Now, ye might be 
 that scrawny that even the dogs would not 
 think it worth their while to bark at ye. But, 
 if ye have the money, thim that wouldn't spit 
 on ye while you are alive ye can hire thim to 
 pluck roses and thrim the grass on your grave 
 and say kind words of ye when you're gone. 
 And if you were to be in as bad a predicament 
 as they tell of ould Lazarus of ould, where 
 none but the dogs would attind him, if ye have 
 the money, ye can git the highest scientific at- 
 tindance, with the compliments of the season 
 from every one. Ye can scowl at this, but there 
 'tis til ye.'"
 
 ' j*3 ,'s\^*- i ' w - ~". * " 
 
 RYAN INDUCES MULLIGAN TO CONTINUE 
 HIS DISCOURSE ON THE MONEY QUES- 
 TION. 
 
 Ryan has induced Barney Mulligan to con- 
 tinue his money discourse before the Sun Wor- 
 shipers' Club of McKinley Park. 
 
 " 'Well,' said Mulligan, 'the next time Ryan 
 pledges his word, I hope it will be for some- 
 thing better than to hear me talk to ye on the 
 money question.' 
 
 ' ' Now, money is all right, but if ye give it to 
 a fool he will make thistles grow where roses 
 only ought to bloom. This ould McKinley Park 
 is a fine sample of what money well spent will 
 do. Dougherty says he remembers it when it 
 was a race track. Well, if it was, when I first 
 see it, it was an ould eighty acre lot of a cab- 
 bage garden; and in the fall when the cabbage 
 stumps were decaying, it was no geranium. 
 Now look at it it's like the story of the Gar- 
 den of Allah. One of the blessin's of your plan 
 of government for public ownership of places
 
 100 McKENNA's STORIES 
 
 of amusement for the young and ould. Things 
 done for the people like this is what makes 
 1'yal citizens and love for your plan of govern- 
 ment. 
 
 "Ould Carnagy and Rockyfeller spent a lot 
 of money in the way of education; some of it 
 may be good and some of it may be not only 
 time will tell. I was thinkin' of this in my trav- 
 els up through the Eastern and New England 
 states. In lookin' over the farms there, I no- 
 ticed a great change in the population. Once 
 there lived on thim farms as great an ould 
 race of people as ever lived. They worked 
 hard and managed well. It was their influence 
 that helped to perfect this plan of government, 
 and as good people ought to, they tried to pro- 
 vide for the future welfare of their children. 
 Their descindents' influence is much needed to 
 keep the sentimint for which this plan of gov- 
 ernment was intended. 
 
 But with all the money spent by ould Rocky- 
 fellr and Carnagy, and others, on the higher 
 education, as they call it, they have educated 
 all the young min and women away from the 
 farms. The b'ys learned more how to manage 
 and care for the farms than any other boys in 
 the world, and are doin' less of it than any 
 other boys in the world. And so it is true of 
 the girls; they have learned more how to care 
 for the children and manage them than any 
 other girls in the world, and have less of them 
 and there you have it. The higher education
 
 MULLIGAN STILL, TALKING 101 
 
 and one night on the Great White Way takes all 
 your taste away from the farm. 
 
 "But, as Lena Schultz says, as she view the 
 goin's on in the cabarets on the Great White 
 Way, 'I may never get to where they are,' said 
 she; 'but there's a lot of thim that I see will be 
 back where I am on the farm.' 
 
 "Well, with the great size of your country, 
 and the spread of the population and its devel- 
 opment, what do we find? Every one headin' 
 for the big cities ; there 's where the greatgrand- 
 sons and daughters of the descendants of the 
 ould New England farms are to be found, some 
 engaged as separaters, promoters, and mana- 
 gers of the big financial institutions and stock 
 markets. Very few of their names are above 
 the doors of the smaller business ; but sorry it 
 is to say the greater number of them are in 
 harness, both min and women in the offices of 
 the big concerns, adding up figures, chasing the 
 adding machine and tickling the type machine, 
 with the time clock starin' thim in the face 
 always. And the pay that they get and the 
 high cost of rint, the smallness of the flat rooms 
 and the flat restrictions, all go to help Ryan 
 prove with his statistics that the race is on the 
 decline. And in your travels around the city 
 flat buildings, you will hear more of the songs 
 of the canary, the squeak of the parrot and the 
 bark of the poodle than you will of the sweet 
 cry of the baby boys or girls, and there 'tis till 
 ye. And if that thing keeps up, an' it's goin'
 
 102 McKENNA's STORIES 
 
 fast, some of the races that first settled in this 
 country and helped to make it, and are now 
 most needed to help continue it, will be as 
 scarce as is the American Buffalo or Indian; 
 Ryan with his statistics proves this. 
 
 "They tell a story that things were going 
 along on these lines once in Ireland well, Dan- 
 iel 'Connell did so many wonderful things, he 
 was like our Teddy when he said things, he 
 made them look up whether they liked it or not. 
 I often thought Teddy and 'Connell was of the 
 same mind on some things, for if you remim- 
 ber when Teddy was President, he didn't over- 
 look this important fact, and the man with the 
 long family was always welcome where Teddy 
 was; and especially one with a good ould Yan- 
 kee name. Well, as I say, at the time, the Irish 
 would not be surprised to learn of anything 
 'Connell might do. Signs on it, some laddie 
 buck composed a ballad showin' where 'Con- 
 nell had invinted a machine that would make 
 children by steam, an' it began to be sung about 
 the country places. Well, an ould Irish woman 
 that heard it, became very vexed, an ' she added 
 to the verses : 
 
 " 'I am an ould woman of three score and 
 
 twenty ; 
 Not a tooth in my head is there to be seen. ' 
 
 "Well, ye Irish know the balance of it. Divil 
 the further word was necessary ; the population 
 of Ireland so increased in the next ten years 
 that they had to emigrate all over the world to
 
 MULLIGAN STILL TALKING 103 
 
 find room for them. Now, if some one could 
 compose a ballad that would go with Teddy's 
 advice, why couldn't the same thing be done 
 here? "We can't afford to let this race die out; 
 and I might add some of the young risin' gen- 
 eration of the Irish here might begin rehearsin' 
 that ould ballad, for they're slippin' fast. 
 
 "Education is all right. Ryan is as full of 
 it as is a pumpkin full of seeds. But he is so 
 busy after it that he lets the money get by him. 
 Old Martin Killroy, a towney of Ryan's came 
 to this country about the same time Ryan did. 
 Ould Killroy started in peddling and buying 
 potatoes and cow jobbin'. He can tell the 
 weight of a cow and the amount of milk that 
 she'll give a block away. He's got all kinds of 
 money and flat buildings, and divil the further 
 he ever went with his pen than to make his 
 cross. An' he can do that as scientifically as 
 Michael Angelo could paint a picture; but the 
 cross is as far as he ever got in penmanship. 
 
 "Now, Ryan, with all his education, when he 
 was buying a cow or storin' up his potatoes for 
 the winter, had to go to ould Killroy for advice. 
 There 'tis till ye, statistics against the bucksaw 
 cross. Education is something that you learn 
 that is worth while and that you can make a 
 success of. Billy Sunday makes Religion pay 
 now that's education for him! Any vocation 
 that you're at that you are doing well that's 
 your job. So be continted, for the kind of a 
 person that is doin' well in any work, trade or 
 business, and is always discontinted with things
 
 104 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 and talks of doing something else he's always 
 a failure. 
 
 "Now, I will say a word to ye on the Irish 
 question there is so much being said about it. 
 Now, there are some deeds that have been done 
 that you can't recall, and the same is true with 
 words expressed. When Christ said, 'Ye that 
 are not guilty cast the first stone.' These 
 words have kept many a stone in its place on 
 the stone pile. When Robert Emmet said, 'Let 
 not my epitaph be written until my country 
 takes her place among the nations of the earth, ' 
 there's the monkey wrench in the machinery 
 that keeps the Irish question alive. The Irish 
 people are not mechanically made, they don't 
 all think alike, any more than any other intelli- 
 gent race. But whatever way they do think, 
 they ain't afraid to tell it. And it don't make 
 any difference what way they view the religious 
 question, whether they're with the Pope or 
 against him; whenever they stand up to fight 
 for any cause they think is right, whether in 
 parliament or on the battle field, you don't 
 have to put signs on them to let the passers by 
 know what race of men they are their actions 
 speak louder than words or sisrns. But I'm 
 tellin' ye, and I have traveled all over England, 
 Ireland, Scotland and Wales and most of the 
 United States, that 65 per cent of the Irish men. 
 women and children, not only in Ireland, but 
 everywhere I find them have that sentiment of 
 Emmett livin' inside of them. All yer talk and 
 all yer resolutions and conventions in the world
 
 MULLIGAN STILL TALKING 105 
 
 wouldn't change that sentiment, or settle the 
 Irish question until whatever time Emmett's 
 epitaph will be written. 
 
 "It's not a relligious question it's not a 
 Catholic question, for them sentiments of Em- 
 mett was spoken by a Protestant; and ye know 
 how hard it would be to change the Catholic of 
 Ireland on the religious views. Well, sir, all 
 the Catholic priests in the world couldn't 
 change that 65 per cent of the Irish from Em- 
 mett's sentiments; and there's twenty per cent 
 more of them, if you vex them, are just of the 
 same frame of mind. 
 
 "And my experience is of lay people that 
 have idle time enough to waste on religious sub- 
 jects, generally know as much about it as my 
 ould friend Killroy does about penmanship. 
 It's not hatred against the English people, but 
 those of the Irish that have these sintiments in 
 them would sooner live and die in want than 
 forsake these sentiments of Emmett's; and the 
 people of the Irish race all over the world that 
 have these sentiments will never rebel against 
 England, to become the dependents of any other 
 nation, and England knows that well. But 
 wherever a chance presents itself where there 
 is a hope to write Emmett's epitaph they'll be 
 there. There's the question there for ye now, 
 as good as if you read ten volumes of Ryan's 
 statistics tryin' to explain it. There is but one 
 way, and the Government knows it well', and it's 
 a waste of time to try any other solution.
 
 106 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 LAMENTATIONS OF THE PESSIMIST MEMBERS OF 
 THE FIFTH WARD REPUBLICAN CLUB. 
 
 We've heard preachers preaching, 
 
 We've heard teachers teaching, 
 
 Politicians we've heard screeching 
 
 Tears seemed to drop with every word they said. 
 
 Of our ills they seem to worry, 
 
 And pretended in a hurry 
 
 To bring about conditions, as they said, 
 
 That would keep the rich and poor 
 From all future troubles sure; 
 But when the day would come 
 They never said. 
 
 To us that sounds like bunk, 
 
 So just 'hand us down a chunk 
 
 Of something while we're living, as 'tis said; 
 
 For when we're down below the clover 
 
 All our wants will then be over. 
 
 Give us something while we're living. 
 
 We'll be a long time dead. 
 
 John J. McKenna.
 
 THE EAGLE SOCIETY'S PICNIC HAS IT'S 
 EFFECT ON MC'S ORATORS. HE TELLS 
 HIS OWN STORY. 
 
 I am stalled. The Eagle Society of Brighton 
 gave a picnic this week; they appointed a com- 
 mittee on entertainment, consisting of all the 
 leading buffet owners of Brighton to do the job. 
 Now, whether they did it intentionally or not, 
 I don't know, but there will be no meeting of 
 the Sun Worshipers' Club this week; and my 
 Barneys, old Dougherty, Devlin, McManus, Pat 
 Price, and all the others were taken away with 
 the Eagles in their flight to some picnic ground, 
 somewhere between the Willow Springs and the 
 town of Lemont. 
 
 Whether the country air or something else 
 disturbed their digestion, I don't know; but 
 none of them has shown up since they left the 
 Brighton on the auto truck for the Eagles' 
 picnic. 
 
 Nicholas Ryan, the statistician, is the only 
 total abstainer I have in the bunch. Ryan says 
 he is not a prohibitionist, but he is so busy on 
 statistics that he has no time for the drink- 
 Ryan is here now and he tells me that he saw 
 them off; "they were all in high glee," said he, 
 as they left. But when I looked at that enter-
 
 108 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 tainment committee and saw the auto truck, 
 with its commissary department, and the load 
 that was on it, I pointed to it and said to the 
 two Barneys, "I see your finish there." 
 
 11 They 're gone off in high glee," says Ryan, 
 "but they'll come back holding up their con- 
 science, and it will take the ould woman two 
 weeks feeding them on beef tea and sedlitz 
 powders to revive them. ' ' I am no prohibition- 
 ist, and don 't care if a man takes a drink, if he 
 knows how to take it. But there are many of 
 thim that whin they do take a drink, they take 
 a camel's feed. Then they're sick from it and 
 while they're sick, if they had a chance to vote 
 on the question they'd stop the manufacture 
 and sale of liquor and privint every other per- 
 son that could enjoy a sup from having it. And 
 thim same buckos, just as soon as they recover 
 from its effects, they would vote again for it 
 and cry out for personal liberty. There is a lot 
 of thim that I know that are always sick for it 
 or from it so there you are," says Ryan. 
 
 The stories that I have been telling you are 
 tales such as are told at wakes and are linked 
 together where they fit in to make a short story 
 to interest persons who have attended wakes, 
 and who know how many wonderful tales are 
 told concerning everything that has ever hap- 
 pened in any part of the world, either real or 
 imaginary; and this is especially so of a good 
 old-fashioned wake, where, as Ryan says, "a
 
 THE EAGLE PICNIC 109 
 
 little sup is supplied to keep the mourners and 
 friends awake while they attind the wake. ' ' 
 
 Now, then, for a little political tale or two. 
 Every one that is on to the political game knows 
 that it is a business as well managed as is any 
 other business, and it doesn't grow on bushes. 
 Its plans are well thought out by men visible 
 and invisible, who know how to do things and 
 manage all kinds of business. For you know 
 that in order for all kinds of business to suc- 
 ceed, the government part must first be safe, 
 and don't think that this is ever overlooked. 
 Political organizations, from top to bottom, 
 from the Chairman of the National Committee 
 or Managing Body, down to the precinct cap- 
 tain, is the highest efficient organization in the 
 country. This goes for both the principal or- 
 ganizations of the country. 
 
 They have more close at hand information 
 concerning everybody and everybody's busi- 
 ness, customs, habits, likes, dislikes and preju- 
 dices than any organization in the country. 
 That's their business. Police departments, de- 
 tective agencies, or any other source of organi- 
 zation have not nor can they get in so close 
 a touch with the people as a political organiza- 
 tion. 
 
 Talk about efficiency in organization ; the old- 
 fashioned precinct captain knew and watched 
 365 days of the year, every person in his pre- 
 cinct, knew with whom he banked; whether he 
 needed money; knew where he borrowed; and
 
 110 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 knew who held the mortgage; knew where he 
 was employed and by whom, and how he could 
 be reached if it became necessary. Not a point 
 was overlooked. He knew every one in his pre- 
 cinct that was a natural born Democrat or Re- 
 publican; he knew the one that did not need 
 watching or time to be spent working on. 
 
 But here's the joke; and the point I want to 
 explain : there is never a political meeting held 
 or called for in any place under the call of the 
 party organization but that everything of im- 
 portance to be done is well in hand, and the 
 most times the meetings are but matters of 
 form. At all such meetings 85 per cent of those 
 who attend are in perfect accord with orders 
 as they come down from headquarters (ex- 
 cept) and here is the great cause of fun The 
 fellow who reads the circular and never reads 
 between the lines, be it for a regular meeting 
 or a mass meeting, it is all the same ; the meet- 
 ing is to carry out some order in which they are 
 all interested. It's mechanical to the 85 per 
 cent, and they want to execute the order as 
 quickly as possible in order to get back to their 
 game of 66, penochle, or something else. But 
 the friend of the people and old Mr. Enquiry 
 come into the meeting. They think that the 
 others are there, like themselves, to find fault 
 and show their ability as parliamentarians, etc. 
 Well, the first thing they observe the meeting 
 goes on without much attention to Roberts' 
 Rules of Order; then come the questions from
 
 THE EAGLE PICNIC 111 
 
 Mr. Friend of the people and old Mr. Enquiry 
 on points of order, questions of information; 
 very high words concerning the Constitution of 
 the Country ; the rights of an American citizen, 
 and the cry of "gag rule," "machines," etc. 
 
 This all comes from the fact that old Mr. 
 Friend of the people and old Mr. Enquiry and 
 their parliamentarian friends are not on to the 
 political game; and it is as hard for them to 
 get in right, as Ryan says it is to get the privi- 
 lege of riding the goat at a Masonic lodge. But 
 this dear old Friend of the People and old Mr. 
 Enquiry never get on. In every community 
 they go to the same gag rule as they think 
 prevails, and they never get it through their 
 heads that it is a political organization where 
 everything is prearranged and planned. Politi- 
 cians are taking no chances ; but the Friend of 
 the People and old Mr. Enquiry never see the 
 point, and they are always making enemies, and 
 they don't know why and they never will. 
 
 On the North Side, where John Dougherty's 
 rules of order were substituted for Roberts' 
 rules, at a meeting called for on a very hot 
 night ; a meeting ordered from headquarters to 
 select delegates, the perspiration was just run- 
 ning down the foreheads of the people. * * Quick 
 job," said they all, "and let's get out." 
 
 Now this was one of them kind of meetings 
 where 97 per cent of the audience were regu- 
 lars ; about 3 per cent strangers, together with 
 the Friend of the People and old Mr. Enquiry.
 
 112 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 Well, Koberts' Rules were discarded; John 
 Dougherty 's Rules were working and to the sat- 
 isfaction of the organization. It was quick 
 work, but to the surprise of everybody the Old 
 Friend of the People, seconded by old Mr. En- 
 quiry, commenced on his point of order and 
 question of information. Well, the result was 
 that a few of the friends of the people were 
 bodily thrown through the back window, taking 
 with them sash and blinds down into the alley. 
 " There," said Dougherty, as he saw them go- 
 ing through the window, "your point is well 
 directed." 
 
 Don't stop them," said Tony Lynch; it's the 
 first thing I've seen going down since the war 
 began. ' ' 
 
 Here is another story of a meeting where a 
 well known West Side politician presided. He 
 was afraid of no one ; a good emergency chair- 
 man ; came from a sick bed to preside, to insure 
 harmony. Delegates were to be selected. He 
 had the reputation of discarding Roberts' Rules 
 of Order and using Murphy's Rules of Order. 
 As a gavel, he used a large beer mallet, and 
 never wasted time on but the one side of a ques- 
 tion. If he was in favor of it, he would put the 
 question: "All in favor, say Aye," and down 
 came the gavel fast and hard, at the same time 
 saying, "The ayes seem to have it." And so, 
 on subjects he did not favor, he always put the 
 question, "All opposed to this motion say
 
 THE EAGLE PICNIC 113 
 
 Aye." And down came the gavel quick and 
 hard with the same "the ayes seem to have it." 
 
 Now, this ruling was just right for the regu- 
 larsthere being no romance' in a political 
 meeting for them. Well, this meeting was about 
 97 per cent all one way, and it was a very hot 
 night, a small hall, and 'twas no picnic to be 
 in there any longer than necessary. 
 
 To the surprise of every one, a few of the 
 Friends of the People in the back of the hall be- 
 gan on points of order and points of informa- 
 tion, and "Mr. Chairman, I have a resolution 
 to present." This was annoying to the Chair 
 and every one else, except the few. But old Mr. 
 Enquiry kept continuously insisting upon pre- 
 senting his resolution. Well, when all the im- 
 portant business was completed, the Chair said, 
 "Will the gentleman with the resolution please 
 step up to the platform with his resolution?" 
 Then the Chair stepped forward and took the 
 resolution. He said to the Friend of the Peo- 
 ple, "I left a sick bed to preside at t^is meeting 1 . 
 You just worried every one to death with your 
 resolutions and points of information and 
 points of order, so just take this Hitting 
 him on the head with the beer mallet go now, 
 sit down, and content yourself. ' ' But he didn 't ; 
 the mallet had put him to sleep; he had to be 
 carried out to the corner saloon and given a sup 
 to revive him. But as he was going, Ryan said, 
 "Murphys Rules of Order are still working." 
 
 The moral of this whole thing is, that if you 
 are not a party to and interested in either of
 
 114 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 the political organizations, don't think that you 
 just dropped into a chance public meeting, for 
 you '11 find that every thing has been well prear- 
 ranged, and that abusing the Rules of Order 
 and the management is not going to get you 
 anything of value. For, as Ryan says, "it is 
 better and safer for you to be home with the 
 ould woman, enjoying a pint of beer, than it is 
 to be arguing with Murphy on a 'pint' of or- 
 der."
 
 RYAN ON PRESS AND POLITICS. 
 
 "Well, McKenna," said Ryan, "I am right 
 for once. I told you whin I saw your orators 
 off on that auto truck for the Eagles picnic, 
 with that load of wet goods they had in the com- 
 missary department. Whin I saw that and the 
 entertainment committee, said I to the two Bar- 
 neys, 'There's your finish' and so it was. If 
 you had got thim the night of the picnic, when 
 the angel's food as the committee called it 
 was working in thim, ye could have got speeches 
 galore from thim on any subject. But since the 
 'angel's food' died out, divil a whimper ye can 
 get from any of thim. And until such time as 
 they recover from the effect of the 'angel's 
 food' ye '11 not get their thoughts away from 
 ice water long enough to think of anything 
 worth the hearing. And, as Barney Mulligan 
 says, ' there 'tis til ye. ' 
 
 "Well McKenna, ye can talk as ye may about 
 political organization, but let me tell ye, if ye 
 haven't got the tide of public opinion comin' 
 your way, your greatest organization will avail 
 ye nothing, for I have seen and I have sta-
 
 116 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 tistics to show, that as great a political organi- 
 zation as ever existed, whin workin' against 
 public opinion, blew up over night. 
 
 "I have seen it when the tide of public opin- 
 ion was favorable at some of the elections, whin 
 we had to go to the police station to get the as- 
 sistance of the police to keep thim from over- 
 crowding the hall; and I have seen it whin we 
 were working against the tide of public opin- 
 ion with the greatest organization that could be 
 perfected, and with the funds to back it up. We 
 might shoot off all the fireworks in town and 
 have the bands playing, give them cabaret 
 shows and free drinks, and yet the divil the one 
 outside of a regular would come to the meeting. 
 
 "And, as Barney O'Flynn says, 'it's as hard 
 to carry on a political organization without the 
 aid of the press, as it is to run his old Ford 
 with water in the carbureter. The press has 
 become a wonderful institution. It is not that 
 which is really transpiring that makes it won- 
 derful, but it's the things that the press edu- 
 cates the people to believe, are going on. If the 
 press says your doin' well, everybody says so 
 and thinks so. But when the press doesn't men- 
 tion your good deeds at all, but shows up only 
 your mistakes an, as Barney says, 'with the 
 best of us, they're many thin, says he, 'what's 
 the use of your organization and the good work 
 it's doin', for, like the man with his religion in 
 his wife's name, the divil the wan outside of 
 himself and the wife knows anything about it.'
 
 PBESS AND POLITICS 117 
 
 And, as Barney says, 'to show you the wonder- 
 ful power of the press of today, it works,' says 
 he, 'like Mrs. Eddy's Christian Science plan,' 
 and I say it's not what things are, but what 
 your mind's educated up to believe they are. 
 For, as Barney O'Flynn says, 'if you are sick 
 and your mind is educated to believe you are 
 well, how do you know that you are sick ! ' And 
 now, here is an example for you : 
 
 "I met seven of the Sun Worshipers' Club 
 going down the street one fine day. They all 
 had up their umbrellas as they were passing 
 me by. When I at last stopped two of thim, 
 said I to thim, 'why all this umbrella business 
 today? "Tis nayther too warm, nor is it rain- 
 in',' says I. 
 
 " 'You are mistaken,' said the two, ' 'tis pour- 
 ing down rain!' 
 
 " 'You're crazy, man,' says I. 
 
 " 'We are not,' says they; 'we both read it in 
 the paper before we left the house.' 
 
 " 'Well,' said I, 'put your hand from be- 
 neath your umbrella and feel for yourself.' 
 
 " 'Begorra,' says one of thim to the other, 
 'he is right it's not raining a dhrop. 
 
 " 'Well, what do ye think of that? And we 
 read it in the paper before leaving the house 
 that it was pouring down, and that it would 
 continue to do so all day. Well, well, do ye 
 mind that.' 
 
 "But what was the good of all this? The 
 other five went ahead with their umbrellas up.
 
 118 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 and the divil a one could convince thim, after 
 what they read in the paper, but that it was 
 raining, and that it would continue that way all 
 day. And, ye see, there was the tide of public 
 opinon, and that's just thrue with the work of 
 your organization; ye reach about two out of 
 sivin, an' ye work overtime doin' it. Where, 
 if ye had the co-operation of the press, ye might 
 sleep in bed until 10 A. M. and git results. With- 
 out the press you're doin' overtime, and nine 
 times out of tin, your work is all in vain. Ye 
 may beat it once in a while, as there are excep- 
 tions to every rule. But with my statistics," 
 said Ryan, "I can show you your finish you 
 and your organization, without the assistance 
 of the press. 
 
 "Now, thin, for a story, and I will finish," 
 says Ryan. And this is the story that is fa- 
 miliar to all politicians, and it has happened 
 and will happen again in most any community. 
 
 Now, here it is : 
 
 ' ' This man I am going to tell you of is Charlie 
 Whiteside. He is developing a bee in his bon- 
 net to become a member of the Legislature. So 
 for the year he and the wife are seen at all the 
 tay parties, church affairs, and social functions 
 in the community. Well, the end of it all, he 
 and the wife have whispered to all his friends 
 of his intention, and have asked thim for their 
 support. 
 
 "But no matter how hard you labor, and all 
 the things else you do, you are likely to have
 
 PRESS AND POLITICS 119 
 
 opposition, and in this case it's no exception. 
 Now, thin, for a public meeting to launch his 
 candidacy. Well, this the practical politician 
 in his immediate neighborhood agrees to man- 
 age for him. The night comes; bills are dis- 
 tributed, calling for the mass meeting. Now, 
 everything is prearranged and planned as 
 they think. Now for a quick job, says the poli- 
 tician. The meeting is well attended about 
 200 prisint. It is safe to say, with Charlie's 
 wife's relations and f rinds, 98 per cint of all 
 prisint are personally invited frinds the other 
 2 per cint being just a few strangers who read 
 the dodgers announcing the meetin', and which 
 read, ' all are invited. ' 
 
 "But as few as they are, some of thim are of 
 an inquisitive turn of the mind, and there's al- 
 ways some laddybuck prisint from the opposite 
 side in all political meetings, rubbering and 
 waiting, wishing and looking for some bad news. 
 Now, one of Charlie 's friends, who is appointed 
 for the purpose, arises and moves that Sam 
 Snow be the temporary chairman of the meet- 
 ing. The motion prevails. Sam calls the meet- 
 ing to order and calls for a secretary; another 
 prearranged person is selected as Secretary; 
 without much ado for any of Roberts ' Rules of 
 Order; when suddenly, from somewhere in the 
 back of the hall is heard the cry, 'Mr. Chair- 
 man.' 
 
 ''Then says the Enquirer, 'Are you not con- 
 ducting this meeting under a somewhat kind of
 
 120 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 gag rule?' Now every one is excited; every- 
 body is supposed to be Charlie's friend and 
 such a question to be asked ! 
 
 " 'Well,' said another one of the strangers, 
 'are there not other persons that might be can- 
 didates if they had an opportunity ? What kind 
 of a one man's meeting is this, anyhow?' Now 
 the women folks are excited. Well, Charlie is 
 hurriedly brought forth, and commences his ad- 
 dress. 
 
 "During his remarks the laddybuck from the 
 opposition jumps up and asks Charlie 'How 
 about the Widow Brown's children?' Charlie 
 is stung, but replies, 'well, what about them?' 
 
 " 'Well, that's what we want to know,' says 
 the laddybuck. This is more than Charlie's en- 
 thusiastic friends can stand. And, with a 
 punch, down goes the laddybuck that made the 
 inquiry. Out and down the front stairs he 
 goes, with several of Charlie 's friends punching 
 and kicking him. 
 
 "Now, it's all excitement; the job is finished. 
 The meeting adjourns, with everybody's mind 
 on the Widow Brown's children; nobody seems 
 to know them. The next day the papers report 
 a disorderly meeting, where Charlie Whiteside 
 was proposed as a candidate for the Legisla- 
 ture, and that questions were asked at the meet- 
 ing concerning the Widow Brown's children, 
 which caused a fight. 
 
 "Well, you see, the Widow Brown's children 
 was the word that caught the tide of public
 
 PRESS AND POLITICS 121 
 
 opinion, and the press report did the balance. 
 Now, Charlie had 98 per cent of his personal 
 friends at the meeting ; but if he did, there were 
 several thousand persons in his district who 
 had never heard of Charlie. But now they all 
 heard of the fight at the meeting, and of the 
 Widow Bown's children. At the primary elec- 
 tion Charlie is snowed under. And on this 
 night everybody is inquiring about 'the Widow 
 Brown's children'; they'll never be found, but 
 Charlie is defeated. For the balance of his 
 days Charlie will be kept busy explaining away 
 the story of the Widow Brown and her children. 
 He can never do this, for the reason there is no 
 such widow or children in his district. ' ' 
 
 The moral: "The right word at the right 
 time to get the tide of public opinion, then the 
 aid of the press." This makes it aisy sailing 
 for the organization and the politician. ' And 
 without this, as Barney Mulligan says, "you 
 had better stick to some other business."
 
 122 MCKENNA'S STOKIES 
 
 All the world is after money, 
 
 What's the use! 
 The way the Lord had made us 
 
 What's the use! 
 
 One poor stomach and one poor brain 
 To go against tlie money game, 
 
 So what's the use! 
 
 Think of money stacked mountains high, 
 And then to think how soon we die, 
 
 So what's the use! 
 
 Think with money what you could buy, 
 
 So what's the use! 
 
 Think of Solomon of old, if the story's true 
 And Brigham Young and what they had to do, 
 
 Then what's the use! 
 
 Man was made for pleasures few, 
 Laws have been made to stop them too, 
 
 So what's the use! 
 
 We think that we will quit the chase; 
 Let some other sucker set the pace 
 For in the end we all reach the same old place. 
 
 So what's the use! 
 
 John J. McKenna.
 
 PAT PRICE AND BARNEY O'FLYNN ON 
 THE GOOD OLD DAYS IN POLITICS. 
 
 "Well, Price," says Barney O'Flynn, "I am 
 glad the park season is over. My old friend 
 Nicholas Ryan is as full of statistics as a bal- 
 loon is full of gas. If statistics were conclusive 
 proof, then Ryan would shut off all arguments. 
 For he is there with his documentary evidence, 
 as he calls it, on every subject, but still he does 
 not convince. We don't all see through the 
 same glass, and there is the rub. 
 
 "Now, for instance, for /the one-half of thim 
 that vote the Democratic Ticket and the one- 
 half of thim that vote the Republican Ticket, 
 all the statistics and all the speech-making in 
 the world wouldn 't change their way of thinkin ' 
 and votin'. It's born in thim and they're proud 
 of it and are contented. And to present argu- 
 ment or statistics to them, only makes them 
 the more steadfast in what they are. Men may 
 go wrong, say they, but our party never. They 
 are the kind you call the black Republicans and 
 Copperhead Democrats. Now, I told Ryan, if 
 he wants to know when those fellows are going
 
 124 McKENNA's STORIES 
 
 to quit votin' their party ticket, he will have 
 to go to the graveyard for his statistics. And 
 there ye have it. 
 
 "Says Ryan, 'is this not ignorance?' No, 
 says I. It's a gift just the same as singing is. 
 And you with your pessimistic, two and two 
 make four statistics, who is never satisfied, and 
 who has never a certainty in anything, don't 
 know anything of this gift. Says I to him, your 
 old brain is on a swivel, like the weather cock, 
 and you have no fixed opinon on anything. He 
 lays awake nights wishing for the bad to come, 
 that might change his mind tomorrow from 
 what it is today. 
 
 "Well, sir, Price, there's not much life in 
 the Primaries of today as compared with thim 
 of the past. 
 
 I am reminded of one of thim old-fashioned 
 Primary Elections whin there were no saloon 
 restrictions. The Polls open from 1 P. M. to 
 7 P. M. and every minute was one of excitement. 
 Those were the good old days. It was worth 
 while having a vote in thim days. From the 
 time you left your home until you reached the 
 Polling Place, every political worker you met 
 shook your hand and invited you to have a smile 
 with him. Well, sir, if you had a heart in you 
 at all, by the time you reached the Polling Place 
 your heart would be in the right place. Nowa- 
 days in goin' to vote, the divil the politician 
 pays any heed to ye, and with all the saloons 
 closed as tight as Barney Mulligan's purse,
 
 GOOD OULD DAYS IN POLITICS 125 
 
 everything looks more like a funeral than a 
 Primary Election. And, whin you get to the 
 Polls you have to declare aloud as you take the 
 ballot publicly into your hands, the party you 
 are goin' 'to affiliate with', as the Dutch Barber 
 calls it. In the ould days you took your sup 
 and the ticket from each Faction as you passed 
 them by, and you had your own little ballot, 
 that you were goin' to vote, tucked away in your 
 vest pocket, ready to slip it in whin you got to 
 the Polling Place. You kept thim all guessing 
 as to how you voted, but that's a thing of the 
 past. Now, the politician knows you a block 
 away. You are on the books, tabbed, either as 
 a Democrat or a Republican, or whatever else 
 ye are, and the divil the much time or friend- 
 ship are they wastin' on ye. ' Politics has gone 
 to the divil,' says Dwyer. 
 
 "Well, at this ould-fashioned Primary I am 
 tellin' you about, everything went, as the ould 
 sayin' is, 'When Greeks meet Greeks, then 
 comes the tug of war.' At this Primary, war 
 started at 1 P. M. and ended at 7 P. M. and then 
 some. The Polling Place was located at 38th 
 street and Archer avenue. The patrol wagon 
 was kept on the go all the time ; the voting area 
 being Bloomington on the west, for the conven- 
 ience of the Chicago & Alton railroad workmen ; 
 State street on the east, 47th street on the south 
 and the black road on the north. More Repub- 
 lican votes were polled that day, in that one 
 Primary Election district, than lived in the then
 
 126 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 28th Ward altogether. Everybody got whipped 
 that day, including the police force. To help 
 the good cause along, about 200 of what they 
 called Tom Carry's Indians paid us a visit from 
 the Reservation over on 47th street. They not 
 only voted, but whipped every one that they 
 thought did not look just right to them. They 
 came to help; their intentions were good, but, 
 as they said, 'they were not mind readers', and 
 hence many a right guy got a black eye, through 
 being misjudged. The end of it all, one of the 
 workers at the polls assaulted the sergeant of 
 police. He was immediately arrested, but soon 
 bailed out. It looked like a sure case of a heavy 
 fine. McKenna remembered the fact that the 
 primary worker had a cork leg. He advised 
 the worker to leave the cork leg at home and 
 come to court on crutches. McKenna went to 
 his friend Judge Edw. Glennon, who was the 
 judge at the Thirty-fifth Street Police Station, 
 and told him the true story. Said McKenna to 
 the judge, 'We are broke after the expense of 
 the Primary Election and cannot stand for a 
 fine, and I've come to ask you to help us.' Well 
 Sir, Price, the judge did a good job. The judge 
 looked solemn as the case was called. 'WTiat's 
 the charge in this case?' asked the judge. 'As- 
 sault,' answered the sergeant of police, as he 
 pointed to his black eye as evidence. The judge 
 again looked solemn. 'Did the prisoner strike 
 you with his crutch?' 'No,' answered the of- 
 ficer, 'he struck me with his fist.' The judge:
 
 GOOD OULD DAYS IN POLITICS 127 
 
 'Do you mean to say that this cripple struck 
 you with his fist!' Then the officer became 
 frustrated. He knew the Primary worker as 
 a spry, supple fellow, but never knew he was 
 short of a leg. In surprise, the officer said, 
 ' This man had two legs yesterday. ' The judge 
 smilingly asked the prisoner, 'Did you have 
 two legs yesterday!' The prisoner modestly 
 answered, 'No, your honor.' The judge then 
 said, 'There is some mistake here, and I must 
 discharge the prisoner,' and so the judge won 
 the case. 
 
 "Anyhow, those were the days of real sport 
 for the politician. There was as much enjoy- 
 ment in one of the old-fashioned Primary Elec- 
 tions for the party workers as there is nowa- 
 days for the Comiskey fans in seeing the White 
 Sox win the world's championship. This en- 
 thusiasm will always continue as long as you 
 keep the party the ideal instead of the indi- 
 vidual. For when the individual dies or goes 
 wrong, then down comes your house, but your 
 party never, and there you have it," says Den- 
 nis Dwyer.
 
 128 
 
 STORIES 
 
 THE DAYS OF (REAL SPORT. 
 
 Here's to the old ball field grounds, 
 Where shouts reached to the sky. 
 
 When every kid was happy, 
 And he knew the reason why. 
 
 Here's to the old slippery ice pond, 
 
 And hills both steep and long: 
 With skates, and sleds, and snowy beds, 
 
 To glide our sleds upon. 
 
 Here's to our old school picnic day, 
 
 When every kid was there. 
 Boys! if that was not heaven; 
 
 Then, you've got to show me where! 
 
 JOHN J. MCKENNA.
 
 RYAN, M'KENNA IN CONVERSATION. 
 
 "Begorra, McKenna," says Ryan, ''this Oc- 
 tober weather dampens the ardor of the sun 
 \Vorshipers, as the kids nicked us. Devlin says 
 the divil would not be a match for the risin 1 
 gineration of kids. Anyhow, the members have 
 all returned and are recovered from the effect 
 of the Eagles' picnic. Mulligan says the mem- 
 bers of the Eagle Society are great circulators 
 of the money, and that no new bills are found 
 where they are. The way they keep it circulat- 
 ing, they soon make it look like the palm of a 
 coal shoveler's hand. 
 
 Barney O'Flynn says they are all good sports 
 anyway and doing good; and are as free with 
 their deeds as they are with their money. 
 
 "Now, we have adjourned our meetings until 
 next spring, and have said goodbye to ould Sol, 
 our Sun God. O'Flynn says we remind him of 
 a laddybuck that lived in his part of Ireland. 
 It was at the time of the failure of the potato 
 crop, and it was hard going for everybody, but 
 like the ould saying, it's a bad wind that don't 
 blow favorable to somebody. Well, in this case,
 
 130 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 the laddybuck friend of O'Flynn saw a chance 
 of getting potatoes if he would attend the 
 church of the opposite side. 'Well/ said he, 
 'I'm in for some of them potatoes,' but on the 
 road to get them he had to pass his own church. 
 This kind of stung him, but as a consoler, when 
 passing his church, he would look up, tip his 
 cap, and say, Goodbye, God, I'll be back to you 
 again when the potatoes are good, ' and so, says 
 O'Flynn, 'we now say goodbye to ould Sol, but 
 we'll be back to him again in the spring, when 
 the sun worshiping is good.' 
 
 "Now, then, McKenna, I will finish my talk 
 to you on the political question," says Ryan, 
 "and what I'm sayin' to you I've statistics to 
 prove. One of them is the ould sayin', 'no 
 man's bigger than his party organization.' For 
 just as soon as he thinks so, I have statistics 
 that prove that kind of a man is only fooling 
 one man. You have seen the movie pictures of 
 how the wild men trap the lion and the tiger 
 well, it's not a marker for the trap set by the 
 politician to drop the man in that thinks and 
 acts as though he were bigger than his party 
 organization. 
 
 "The war price of paper is too expensive to 
 waste writing the names of all of the men of the 
 past that tried that game. 
 
 "Again, I have statistics to prove it don't 
 make any difference whether you are a good 
 shoveler in the Wafer Pipe Extension Depart- 
 ment or a good judge on the bench, if you're
 
 RYAN AND MAC CONVERSE 131 
 
 party organization doesn't succeed, your meal 
 ticket is about punched out. For the great ques- 
 tions that come up for the consideration of the 
 voters, as a general rule, and especially so in 
 large cities, are so forcefully decided that the 
 individual and his good work is overlooked. 
 So my statistics show, while you may get by 
 once in a while, if you don 't keep in the friend- 
 ship of the organization you will soon find you 
 are doing a one-night stand business. 
 
 t ' For we are now living in a new age of sys- 
 tem and organization. The individual is but a 
 small factor today in the world, and with the 
 quick communication concerning everything in 
 the world, there's no more mystic in the indi- 
 vidual. Familiarity, as O'Flynn says, breeds 
 contempt. And from the looks of things ahead, 
 and with the close information concerning every 
 one in high places, as reported by the press 
 news into every home, there will be fewer hero 
 worshipers in the days to come than there were 
 in the days gone by. There you have it. 
 
 ' ' Again, I have statistics to show that in poli- 
 tics as in playing poker, you have got to have 
 something besides wind and talk to come in on. 
 And here is a story to illustrate it. 
 
 "Dennis Dwyer tells the story that new in- 
 ventions bring new troubles. Says Dwyer: 
 'When I got home to supper last night, Mary 
 Ann, my wife, nearly ate the head off me.' 
 'Come,' says she, 'Dennis, come, before you ate 
 or before I scold you. Who is the lassy I am
 
 132 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 told you were drinking beer with down at Tear- 
 ney's hall? Explain! before I forget myself.' 
 'Don't be excited, Mary Ann,' said I. 'Don't 
 you know of the new condition. The woman suf- 
 fragette. That lady I was taking a social glass 
 of beer with, was no less a person than the Lady 
 President of the Personal Liberty League of my 
 precinct.' She says, "Lady or no lady, Dennis, 
 if you want peace in this house, don't you come 
 home to me with as lame an excuse as that 
 again. Divil take you and your lady personal 
 liberty heresy,' says. she. 'Up to this now, 
 Mary Ann, ' says I, ' there was harmony between 
 us. Listen, now, if I am to hold my job in the 
 Water Pipe Extension Department, I will have 
 to do some electioneering. You know I had to 
 set up the drinks manys the time with the min 
 voters, and was kept out late at nights, and 
 now that the women have the vote, it will be 
 just as hard a job to please the women.' 'Well, 
 Den'nis,' she says, 'if that's what's goin' on 
 there's enough of my mother's people in the 
 ward to form a club of my own, and I'll be in 
 the game, too, and I'll show you more for my 
 efforts than the Water Pipe Extension Depart- 
 ment. ' ' Oh, ye can 't conquer them, we might as 
 well give in,' said Dwyer. And this is just as 
 true with politics, as Mary Ann said. That 
 kind of talk don't go, and when you come into 
 politics, with nothing but a lame story, you're 
 not goin' to go far, and you're not goin' to so 
 frighten people that they will lay awake nights
 
 RYAN AND MAC CONVEKSE 133 
 
 in dread of you. Wind, and talk without the 
 money, cut about as much figure in politics as 
 it would in Barney Mulligans bank, or before 
 the Stock Exchange in Wall street, or the Board 
 of Trade in Chicago. And there you have it, and 
 here are the statistics to prove it," says Ryan. 
 
 "Now, in the small cities, towns or counties, 
 when a man presents himself for any important 
 office, ninety-nine per cent of the people know 
 of him. If he has not the qualification and the 
 goods, divil a one is payin' any attention to 
 him, except the constable or sheriff. 
 
 "But in the big cities, with your expensive 
 direct primary system, where ninety-nine per 
 cent of the people who vote don't know one per 
 cent of the candidates presented; and with all 
 the nationalities on earth havin' a vote, names 
 are what attract them more than qualifications. 
 As O'Flynn says, 'it's manys a rogue that has 
 a name that looks good, and it's manys the 
 time that that name secures for the holder a 
 high place on the party ticket. Whin, if the 
 party organization had the doing of it that 
 name would not be on the party ticket for con- 
 stable. ' 
 
 "Laws regulating political organization are 
 a waste of money, and if the min that invented 
 the scheme to do the regulating were to pay the 
 expense of the experiment instead of the tax 
 payers, there would be fewer of them, for sta- 
 tistics prove that politics is a business in itself, 
 just like the banking business, the medical pro-
 
 134 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 fession, or any other business or profession. 
 And it will, and has always been, run and man- 
 aged by the men in that line. Opposition at 
 times of course will develop, and factions will 
 come out of opposition, but these are one-night- 
 stand affairs. The leaders of such will either 
 come back into the fold or else drop out of the 
 business. New leaders will come and go, but 
 the rank and file, and the system, will be doin' 
 business from the same ould headquarters. 
 And, as Barney Mulligan says, 'There 'tis till 
 ye.' "
 
 A FEW STORIES BY MEMBERS OF THE 
 SUN WORSHIPERS' CLUB ON OLD DAYS 
 IN POLITICS. 
 
 "Well, well," says Ryan, the statistician, 
 "we had a great season of it below at the old 
 McKinley Park, with the members of the Sun 
 Worshipers' Club, as the kids called us. 
 
 "And any one that followed our discourses 
 and is not a full-fledged politician, it's safe to 
 say of him he was never cut out for the job. 
 We gave them pointers enough to be masters of 
 the game." 
 
 "Yes," says Barney O'Flynn, "but there's 
 not the fun in politics that there was twenty- 
 five years ago. In those days we had as much 
 fun at the political meetings as you would now- 
 adays at the circus, and one of as funny a meet- 
 ing as I ever attended was a Democratic meet- 
 ing in the old Eighth Ward, where ould Michael 
 Fitzgerald, the tailor, was the presiding officer. 
 He was there with his usual full-dress suit, his 
 high hat, and the shillaleh that he always had
 
 136 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 with him; it was the size of a small cord wood 
 stick. 
 
 " 'What's your pleasure,' says he, hitting the 
 table a wallop that caused a shiver to come over 
 us all. 
 
 ' ' Then up jumped a little classical man in the 
 back of the room, calling 'Mr. Chairman, Mr. 
 Chairman.' Again Fitz. struck down hard on 
 the table with his shillaleh, and, said he, 'I heard 
 you the first time. What is it!' 
 
 " 'I arise to place in nomination, as Demo- 
 cratic candidate of the Eighth Ward, our true, 
 tried, and esteemed friend, Tim Ryan.' 
 
 "Well, sir, the noise in favor was so great I 
 thought they'd drive holes through the floor. 
 When quiet was restored a little Italian that 
 was within easy reach of Fitz. stood up. He 
 was excited and for a few minutes could say 
 nothing, but all the time trying, and making a 
 noise like a steam peanut roasting machine. 
 Finally he mentioned some Italian as a candi- 
 date for alderman. He was about to sit down, 
 when Fitz. up with his shillaleh and hit him on 
 the head a sound wallop, saying to the Italian, 
 'You sit down, you said enough.' 
 
 "Then said Fitz. quickly, 'Are there any 
 further nominations? If not, I declare the nom- 
 inations closed ,and Tim Ryan is now the regu- 
 lar Democratic nominee for alderman of the 
 Eighth Ward and the meeting do now stand ad- 
 journed.' 
 
 "Well, sir, it was the liveliest adjourned 
 meeting any man ever set eyes upon, but it was
 
 FlTZ AND THE GAVEL 137 
 
 fun if you were prepared to handle yourself." 
 
 "That's a good one, Flynn," said Pat Price, 
 "but for real sport let me tell you of a primary 
 election I attended over in the old Tenth Ward. 
 This was in the old days. Well, sir, opposition 
 put in its appearance unexpectedly and the cap- 
 tain gave orders to get busy. Says he, 'Vote 
 early and often and for all the absentees. ' Any- 
 how, Jerry Duffy, one of the Water Pipe Ex- 
 tension Gang, was there. He was always the 
 first to vote at every primary election. Signs 
 on him, he was always on the pay roll and was 
 working where the pay was good and the shov- 
 eling easy. 
 
 "There was a precinct captain by the name 
 of Charley Smith there, who stood below at the 
 corner with the printed poll list, furnishing the 
 names of the absentees to the boys who were to 
 vote them. 
 
 "Anyhow, with every trip Jerry Duffy made 
 to the polls to vote an absentee, he would take 
 a drink of German rye to brace him for the oc- 
 casion. He voted for about eight absentees, un- 
 der the name of every nationality in the neigh- 
 borhood. Finally, when he came to vote the 
 ninth time, with the name of Herman Schultz, 
 he was so full he had to hold up his head for 
 fear that it would spill out, and all the while 
 trying to look very dignified. 
 
 " 'Herman Schultz,' said Duffy. 
 
 "This was more than little Officer McCarthy 
 could stand. He had had his eye on Duffy all
 
 138 McKENNA's STORIES 
 
 the afternoon. 'Come, come, Duffy,' says he. 
 'Come away from there. You're a disgrace. 
 You're on your ninth trip now, and you have 
 voted under the name of every nationality in 
 America. I'll jug you if you don't get out of 
 here." 
 
 " 'McCarthy,' says Duffy, 'I know who I am.' 
 
 11 'You think you do,' answered Officer Mc- 
 Carthy, 'but that German rye you have been 
 supping has you twisted. You are a disgrace, 
 I'm telling ye. You get out of here, or I will 
 have the patrol take you. ' 
 
 " 'I know who I am, McCarthy,' said Duffy, 
 'and it's not your business to interfere with the 
 voters. Hegewisch for you tomorrow. ' 
 
 " 'You're not Schultz,' said Officer McCar- 
 thy. ' You are Jerry Duffy. ' 
 
 " 'I know who I am, McCarthy,' says Duffy. 
 
 "Just at this time Mrsfl Duffy was coming up 
 the street, when McCarthy says, 'Here comes 
 one now that will know you. Here,' says Mc- 
 Carthy to Mrs. Duffy, ' take this man away with 
 you; he is disgracing himself.' 
 
 "Just then the judge cried aloud, 'What did 
 you say the name was?' 
 
 " 'Herman Schultz,' answered Duffy, 'are 
 you deaf?' 
 
 " 'Well, well, well, do you hear that?' said 
 Mrs. Duffy, 'and I have lived with that man for 
 twenty-nine years under the consumed name of 
 Duffy! Well, well, well, and his name is Her- 
 man Schultz.'
 
 FlTZ AND THE GAVEL 139 
 
 " 'Woman, says Duffy, 'I don't know you.' 
 
 " 'My God,' she wailed, 'he's gone mad en- 
 tirely. ' 
 
 " 'No,' said Officer McCarthy, 'he's not mad; 
 he's drunk on German rye. Come out of here, 
 Duffy, or I'll jug you,' says McCarthy. 
 
 "With one last dignified straightening up of 
 his head, he voted again as Herman Schultz. 
 Then proudly he walked away, holding up his 
 head so as not to spill it, and as he did he kept 
 saying, ' Hegewisch for you in the morning, Mc- 
 Carthy, for interfering with the voters.' 
 
 "At a short distance from the polls the old 
 woman got Duffy again. He then tried to bfe 
 funny, and said to the wife, ' Can 't you take a 
 joke, I was just helping out some of the boys 
 that are away on their vacation. That Officer 
 McCarthy, I will have him in Hegewisch to- 
 morrow, traveling beat among the grasshop- 
 pers. ' 
 
 "In the meantime a fight started at the poll- 
 ing place. One of the boys struck one of the 
 opposition. The opposition was down. Our 
 fellow was on top of him. Any one by this time 
 knew the opposition was beaten at the primary 
 election. Officer McCarthy, with the thought of 
 Hegewisch and the grasshopper on his mind, 
 now became diplomatic. He rolled the man off 
 from the assaulted man, then took the assaulted 
 man to the station with him, charging him with 
 starting a fight at the polling place. The pre- 
 cinct captain was on. McCarthy didn't go to 
 Hegewisch, and so we won the day, ' ' said Price.
 
 140 McKENNA's STORIES 
 
 But those were the days of real sport in poli- 
 tics. 
 
 "Anyhow," says Barney O'Flynn, "the ris- 
 ing generation will never quit with their tricks 
 until they're behind the bars. Barney Mulligan 
 and myself arranged to go on a fishing trip out 
 to Pickerel Point. We started about five thirty 
 A. M. on the trip, not thinking it was Primary 
 Election Day. Well, sir, the early bird politi- 
 cians saw us as we drove by the polling place in 
 our little Ford. And they learned where we 
 were bound for, and thinking we would not re- 
 turn during the day, what the divil did they do, 
 but in the dark of the morning they got two of 
 the laddybucks that were hanging around the 
 polling place to go and give the names of my- 
 self and Barney Mulligan and voted the both of 
 us as Democrats, and this under the new expen- 
 sive primary laws. We are now barred, they 
 tell us, for two years to come from voting again 
 in the primary unless we vote it Democratic. 
 Now, what do you think of that for a trick? 
 Sure, when we came back, late in the day, and 
 tried to vote, we were told by the judges to go 
 and chase ourselves and not to try anything 
 like that on them or they'd have us jugged. 
 Says they, 'Ye were here early and voted. 
 Don't think,' said they, 'ye are back in the ould 
 days. ' 
 
 ' i * Ould days or not, ' says we, ' we see there 's 
 tricks in all trades, and we'll find out who did 
 this trick, and when we do it's not complaining
 
 FlTZ AND THE GAVEL, 14i 
 
 we'll be to our friend Judge Scully, but we'll 
 wait until the day before the next primary elec- 
 tion, and then we'll trim the two Democrats 
 that voted us so bad that they'll not be able to 
 go to vote. Then we'll call it a pair off, like 
 they do in Congress. They'll find they'll gain 
 nothing by them kind of tricks with us. Any- 
 how, the divil couldn't make laws that would 
 prevent the rising generations from twisting. 
 And there ye have it."
 
 142 
 
 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 
 A TOAST TO THE FLAG. 
 
 Here's to the American Flag, 
 
 The symbol of Freedom and Justice; 
 
 Whether lying in the mud 
 
 Or on a mound of flowers, 
 
 It stands for the same. 
 
 No act of man can lower or elevate it 
 It's symbolic of Freedom and Justice; 
 The meaning for which it stands 
 Can never change. 
 
 It's the ever-living reminder 
 
 Pointing to intolerance against Freedom and Justice. 
 
 It's hypocrisy and sacrilege to use it 
 
 Except in that for which it stands.
 
 The O'Lary Home. 
 
 M'KENNA IN REMINISCENCE OF THE CHI- 
 CAGO FIRE OF 1871. 
 
 This is the 46th anniversary of the big Chi- 
 cago fire of October 9, 1871. 
 
 It seems that persons who lived in Chicago 
 at that time, when they arrive at a certain age, 
 they try to tell the story of the Chicago fire as 
 it appeared to them on that night. So I am 
 going to try and tell my story. 
 
 I don't know whether it was O'Leary's cow 
 that kicked the lamp over, which set the barn
 
 144 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 on fire, but I do know that the barn which stood 
 on the rear of the lot where Mrs. O'Leary lived 
 was the first place to take fire that night. 
 
 The O'Leary home was situated on the north 
 side of Dekoven street, about six lots west of 
 Clinton street, and on the night of the fire at 
 about 9 P. M., myself and four young men from 
 the same neighborhood where I lived, were tak- 
 ing a walk along Halsted street toward Dekoven 
 street. James Sheridan, who resides at 919 
 West 38th street, is the only one of the four 
 pals of that night who is still in the land of the 
 living. Just as we got to Dekoven street we 
 heard the old Court House bell ring out, and 
 along came a fire engine. We followed the en- 
 gine down Dekoven street until we came to 
 where the fire was. It was the O'Leary barn 
 and the top of it was going full blast with flames 
 of fire. It was a small barn, at that. 
 
 It did not look like we were going to get our 
 worth of fun and excitement for the hot chase 
 we made to get to the fire. We thought it would 
 be but a short job for the firemen to put it out, 
 but the fire and sparks were rolling out. It was 
 just getting to our liking when we got a call 
 from some one on the south side of the street, 
 just a little east from the O'Leary home, asking 
 for help. We rushed over, and, as ordered, car- 
 ried out a corpse that was laid out upon a 
 stretcher. By this time the crowd had become 
 very numerous, and we had a difficult job to 
 make our way east on Dekoven street to Canal
 
 145 
 
 street. We let down the corpse on the sidewalk, 
 on the west side of Canal street, about 100 feet 
 south of Dekoven street. This was thought a 
 safe place, and the members of the family 
 thanked us. 
 
 State and Madison Streets 
 
 Back we went to the fire. It now looked ex- 
 citing enough, for within the half hour there 
 were ten different fires. And here, let me say, 
 the story of the cow and the lamp is as old as 
 the fire, for within that hour the kids around 
 Clinton and Dekoven streets were relating
 
 146 McKENNA's STORIES 
 
 about the cow kickin' 'over the lamp' and caus- 
 ing the fire. 
 
 That neighborhood was built almost of frame 
 buildings. It was the old residence district, 
 with small stores and dwellings from Dekoven 
 street north to Adams, and from Jefferson 
 street east to where the Chicago & Alton tracks 
 are now. In those days from Dekoven street to 
 Harrison street on the east side of Canal up to 
 the Alton tracks, was a thickly settled resident 
 district. 
 
 There had been no rain for thirty days pre- 
 vious to the fire. Everything was bone dry, and 
 fire prevention conditions bad. There were old 
 planing mills along this district, where shavings 
 were piled up outside on the streets as high as 
 small houses. Everything was in good condi- 
 tion for a fire. 
 
 The weather was exceptionally warm; the 
 wind was coming southwest, and it seemed that 
 as the fire grew bigger, the stronger the wind 
 did blow. In thirty minutes after the fire was 
 well started, there were in that territory one or 
 two blocks apart at least fifteen fires. 
 
 The old Court House bell was ringing out 
 wild. This was the means in those days to call 
 the attention of the Fire Department to where 
 the fires were located. 
 
 Within another half hour there were so many 
 fires that everything was lost control of. The 
 fire did not get any farther west than Jefferson 
 street, but it did clean up the west side from
 
 THE BIG CHICAGO FIRE 
 
 147 
 
 Dekoven street to Adams street and from about 
 the east side of Jefferson street to the Chicago 
 River on the east. 
 
 It now got over onto the east side of the river 
 
 Clark and Randolph Streets Liooking East. 
 
 between Jackson and Adams streets. The 
 bridges then crossing the river on the west side 
 were at Polk, Van Buren, Adams, Madison,
 
 148 MCKENNA'S STOEIES 
 
 Randolph and Lake streets. The east bank of 
 the river from Harrison street to Polk street 
 was occupied by stone yards. 
 
 On the east side of the river, between Adams 
 and Monroe streets the old gas house stood, 
 with very large gas tanks, and here, surround- 
 ing the old gas plant, was what was called the 
 Connolly patch ; all frame and bad fire preven- 
 tive conditions. As the fire increased every- 
 body was satisfied it would reach those tanks. 
 The information going the rounds was that the 
 gas was being allowed to escape. If this was 
 so, of course it helped the fire along; but it 
 would have been worse if it had been left to ex- 
 plode. Anyhow, as the fire spread, all gas con- 
 nections were opened from the different burn- 
 ing buildings. 
 
 After the fire got across the river at Adams 
 street it went down along Market street to 
 South Water street. I saw the old Garden City 
 Hotel burning, at Market and Madison streets, 
 where the Examiner Building now stands. It 
 was quite a picturesque old hotel, and it made 
 a great fire display. 
 
 In the loop there were fires bursting out 
 everywhere, in a hundred different places; and 
 to show how quickly it spread, this was all going 
 on within two hours after the fire had started 
 away up on Dekoven street, at O'Leary's. 
 
 The four young men that I was with on that 
 night saw a lot of the fire and just kept on 
 a-going in the excitement. From the time we
 
 THE BIG CHICAGO FIRE 
 
 149 
 
 left O'Leary's place at about 9:30 P. M., and 
 walked down Canal street, we kept ahead of the 
 fire. We crossed Van Buren street bridge, went 
 
 Clark and Randolph, Looking North From Court House. 
 
 down Market street to Madison street, then 
 back on Franklin street to Adams street, then 
 over to the Court House. We saw all the pris-
 
 150 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 oners being released. When things got so hot 
 at the Court House that everybody knew it was 
 going to burn up, the prisoners were let free. 
 excepting those that were held for serious of- 
 fenses, and who had to be taken elsewhere. We 
 saw the guards standing with revolvers in hand 
 in front of the Chambers Jewelry Store, which 
 was just opposite the jail at the southeast cor- 
 ner of Clark and Randolph streets; the jail 
 then being in the basement of the old Court 
 House. When the prisoners were released they 
 probably had in mind the jewelry store, but for 
 any kind of loot, it was not a good night, it be- 
 ing Sunday night. All things of value had been 
 locked up in the safes and as for articles other 
 than money or jewelry, looting was not worth 
 while. From what we saw, persons so inclined 
 could take away with them anything they 
 wanted in the line of clothing or clothes and 
 various other valuable things, but of what value 
 would it be to them? All they could take away 
 would be what they could carry and then they 
 would have to go miles with it to a place of 
 safety, so there was but very little looting go- 
 ing on. 
 
 The principal street in the city for dry goods 
 and merchandise was Lake street, from Market 
 street to State street; Randolph street was a 
 good business street; old South Water street 
 was in worse condition than it is today. 
 
 The substantial part of Chicago was within 
 the district bounded by Market street, the lake,
 
 THE BIG CHICAGO FIBE 
 
 151 
 
 Monroe street and South Water street. The 
 Board of Trade Building stood where the 
 Chamber of Commerce Building now stands. 
 
 Adams Street Bridge, After the Fire. 
 
 The old Court House stood in the square where 
 the City Hall and County Buildings now stand. 
 There is very little comparison to be made be- 
 tween old Chicago and the loop as it is today
 
 152 MC!CENNA'S STORIES 
 
 regarding valuable buildings. Of course there 
 were a lot of substantial buildings of the old 
 type within the loop district north of Monroe 
 street. 
 
 All the other territory through which the fire 
 extended, as far north as Lincoln Park, was 
 what might be called the old homemade Chi- 
 cago. Seventy-five per cent of the people who 
 lived in Chicago in those days lived within that 
 territory. South of Monroe street were two, 
 three, and four story buildings, brick and frame 
 adjoining each other; used as residences and 
 stores, and the people lived where they kept 
 their business. 
 
 The difference in Chicago then as compared 
 with today is in the territory that was destroyed 
 by fire. Today it would not contain ten per cent 
 of the residences of Chicago, while in those days 
 it contained seventy-five per cent of all the peo- 
 ple who lived in Chicago. 
 
 What is now called Racine avenue is about 
 as far west as there were any homes in those 
 days. North avenue was the limit on the north 
 and there were very few homes beyond that. 
 Thirty-ninth street was the limit on the south ; 
 very few houses beyond that line. 
 
 The most pitiful sight to see was this sev- 
 enty-five per cent of the people turned out with- 
 out time to take away any of their belongings 
 and with no place to go for shelter, as there was 
 not room enough in the homes left to hold them. 
 On the north side of the city, Horace Gree-
 
 ^Bi^^H
 
 154 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 ley's advice was working. They were all going 
 west as fast as they could to get away from the 
 fire. Goose Island, that night, looked like 
 Heaven to people, as it was a place of safety. 
 The old Washington street tunnel was crowded 
 with people going over to the West Side. 
 
 During the first few hours many fires broke 
 out, but everybody was given a warning ; a kind 
 of a Paul Eevere cry, was going over the city. 
 
 Taking everything into consideration, very 
 few lives were reported lost, though conditions 
 were bad. Whisky and beer were as free as 
 water. I never saw so many drunks in all my 
 life as I saw that night, and I have seen many 
 big nights in Chicago. 
 
 We saw one man whom we all thought must 
 have lost his life in the fire. This was on the 
 west side of Franklin street, between Monroe 
 and Madison streets. There were small stores 
 here then. This man seemed to have forgotten 
 something and returned for it. The crowd all 
 called for him to come out and not go back, but 
 he went back. We all stood anxious to see him 
 return. He apparently left the store with what 
 he went back for, but before he got to a place of 
 safety, and as the crowd was yelling, "Come! 
 Come, quick ! " a gust of fire burst out between 
 the buildings and he seemed to have been en- 
 gulfed in the flame. We watched for a time, 
 but did not see him again. 
 
 I was standing by and saw the Court House 
 on fire ; the Board of Trade Building ; the Grand
 
 THE BIG CHICAGO FIRE 155 
 
 Pacific Hotel, just being completed, and only 
 roofed over. It seemed a shame to think it must 
 go down. It stood so high, and from the reflec- 
 tions of the fire striking it, it looked like it was 
 on fire a long time before it actually took fire. 
 I saw the Sherman House on fire, the Palmer 
 House, and McVicker's Theater; the Eock 
 Island and Illinois Central Depots. Near the 
 Illinois Central Depot on the north side of 
 Randolph street east of Michigan avenue, about 
 3 A. M. Monday morning, was the hottest spot 
 in town. This locality was well built up, and 
 many hotels along the street fronted the depot. 
 There were great hopes that the Rock Island 
 Depot would escape it, but that old wind was 
 going full blast, southwest. Once in a while 
 there would be a lull; then a kick back which 
 would set buildings on fire a block south of 
 where the fire actually was. This happened in 
 the neighborhood of the Rock Island Depot. 
 
 Where the Board of Trade Building now 
 stands, was then the part of the city known as 
 the "Red Light District." It covered a space 
 Van Buren street to Adams street, and from 
 just west of Clark street to Wells street about 
 one-quarter of a mile square. Old frame, one, 
 two, and three story buildings; looked like an 
 old border town; wild west. Here was the 
 worst part and the worst condition for fire pre- 
 vention and everything else that was in and
 
 156 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 around Chicago. It went up like a matchbox 
 when the fire hit it. 
 
 One of the many sad sights to look upon in 
 the days after the fire was that part within the 
 loop district where all the savings of the people 
 were. Those who were lucky enough to live in 
 the territory where the fire did not reach had 
 their money here, the same as those who were 
 burned out. As they looked over that burning 
 mass they must have had many a sad think, but 
 "what's the use of borrowing trouble," as Bar- 
 ney O'Flynn says, and so it was in this in- 
 stance ; for in the end the bankers all made good 
 and the depositors lost nothing. 
 
 All seemed to have lost their heads that night. 
 They worked themselves and everybody else 
 near to death helping to carry their goods to 
 the street, thinking that something might conic 
 to their relief; but all this work was wasted 
 time and labor and added to the fire. Just about 
 the time they finished carrying out their goods 
 along would come the fire and burn them up. 
 And this kept up all night working, helping, 
 but all in vain. They might just as well have 
 locked the door and let it go. 
 
 I walked from Van Buren street to Randolph 
 street along the Lake Front about 4 A. M. Mon- 
 day morning. Thousands of people were over 
 there. The heat was intense and the excitement 
 great. People began to fear that they would 
 burn up. There were many people lying as 
 close to the lake as they could get, and at that
 
 THE BIG CHICAGO FIRE 157 
 
 time the lake came up to within one or two hun- 
 dred feet of the east side of Michigan avenue. 
 
 The fire crossed over the river to the North 
 Side late at night. We were over on the North 
 Side as far as Chicago avenue, but the South 
 Side was where the excitement was and we did 
 not stay but a short time on the North Side. 
 The excitement just kept us on the go all night. 
 We came out of the loop district and crossed 
 the Randolph street bridge Monday morning 
 about 9 A. M. With all my work that night I 
 had lost my coat and hat, and now, with others. 
 I was returning home without a coat. I had a 
 plug hat and an old banjo and was black enough 
 from the smoke and soot of the night to go on 
 for a minstrel turn. Right here something 
 funny took place. Some one had knocked a 
 head out of a barrel of whisky. There were 
 several barrels on the walk at the southwest 
 corner of the bridge, but there was no water to 
 be had as a chaser. They were informed at 
 this time that the Water Works had burned 
 down, and soon the police came along and 
 chased that crowd away from the whisky bar- 
 rels. 
 
 That old fire was so quick and picturesque, 
 people acted as though they were mesmerized 
 from looking at it ; a lot of people never got on 
 to the serious part of it until it was all over. 
 Now, from 9 P. M. Sunday until 9:30 A. M. 
 Monday morning every hope was gone. We 
 met several* people then coming down town as
 
 158 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 we were going home. I remember we said, 
 "The show is all over, everything is gone." 
 
 What a sight it was to look up toward the 
 sky that night ! It looked like a moving sea of 
 fire; millions of sparkling lighted coals were 
 moving along swiftly above Chicago ; hundreds 
 of burning boards, old mattresses, old paper 
 roofs; all soaring on high and all afire. It 
 made the night so bright you could pick up a 
 pin on the street. Everybody we met late that 
 morning looked as though they were in a trance. 
 What a crowd they were, and just running from 
 one place to another! In the center of the loop 
 that night, as we looked up, it seemed that the 
 world was on fire. 
 
 Soon after the city authorities recovered 
 from the shock, and as the kindness of the whole 
 world showered in upon all the people, small 
 homes were erected for the very poor, that are 
 always with us. The fine weather that we had 
 to a way late in the fall, helped the people to 
 carry their troubles. 
 
 Takiiig everything into consideration, with 
 the gr"eat losses, you can see from the pic- 
 tures taken after the fire and here presented, 
 that it left the district on which Chicago was 
 built about as bare as was the original prairie. 
 In six months after the fire everybody seemed 
 to be happy and prosperous. Every one that 
 had property could borrow money, and did, and 
 started in to rebuild Chicago at a speed near as 
 rapid as it was burned down. All worked over-
 
 THE BIG CHICAGO FIRE 159 
 
 time and seemed to have money, even if they 
 had to borrow it. 
 
 From what the people learned from their 
 fire experience and the new building restric- 
 tions, Chicago began to look like what Chicago 
 was intended to be. Every one was talking as 
 though it were a blessing that the fire had come, 
 and, as Barney 'Flyhn says, ' i There are many 
 things worse that might have happened to us." 
 And this was one of the great consolations in 
 those days. When neighbors met and talked 
 over their losses, one found his loss so small 
 compared with his neighbor that it helped him 
 to forget his trouble. And there ye have it.
 
 160 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 ONE OF THE SUN WORSHIPERS GONE TO 
 MEET HIS REWARD. 
 
 "Well, sir, McKenna," says Morris O'Brien, 
 '/last week was a sad evint ; we lost another ould 
 member of the Sun Worshipers' Club and he 
 was an active member of the Executive Com- 
 mittee of the Thirty-first Precinct Republican 
 Club, one Mike McGee. 
 
 1 < We gave him a funeral and a wake that any 
 man, dead or alive, should be proud of. And, 
 as ould Devlin said: 'While Mike was alive he 
 many's the time had the divil's job to have the 
 street car stop long enough to (let him get 
 aboard, but signs on it, when Mike died he got 
 even with the street car company and the motor- 
 men. For while his funeral was wending its 
 way from 39th street across the entire West 
 Side of the city on its way to Cavalry, he 
 blocked every street car line he passed for fully 
 three-quarters of an hour.' 
 
 " 'Too bad,' said Devlin, 'that Mike don't see 
 this sight, for I know he 'd enjoy it. ' 
 
 "Anyhow, as ould Devlin was takin' the last 
 look at Mike, said he to the ould woman: 'Did 
 you put ever a dollar in his pocket?' 'No,' says 
 she, 'I don't think I did.' 
 
 " 'Well,' says Devlin, 'I am going to put a 
 dollar in Mike's pocket now, for I never see him 
 alive without it and I'm not goin' to have it said 
 that any one met Mike dead without it. ' 
 
 " 'Well,' said an ould woman who was pres-
 
 MET His REWARD 161 
 
 ent, 'is it not a foolish thing to be puttin' money 
 in a dead man's clothes?' 
 
 11 'Never mind,' says Devlin, 'money is a 
 handy thing to have dead or alive, in jail or out 
 of it, and it may be consoling to Mike to know 
 that on the day of resurrection, when he arises 
 again and maybe among strangers, that he still 
 has the price.' And there it's for ye."
 
 Old Lake Michigan. 
 
 CHICAGO AS IT LOOKED IN OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Chicago, with its many parks, swimming 
 pools and playgrounds for the accommodation 
 of the youth of today, brings up the question, 
 where did the young folks of old Chicago find 
 places of amusement ? 
 
 In telling this story I will only describe it as 
 I remember it, dating from the year 1862 to the 
 year 1870. Chicago in those days, what there 
 was of it, was compact. The people that lived on 
 the North Side lived between Halsted street, 
 Lake Michigan, Kinzie street and Division 
 street. North avenue was the extreme limit on 
 the north, and very few homes extended up that 
 far. 
 
 We had old Lake Michigan as our swimming 
 pool from North avenue on the north to what
 
 164 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 is now called Grand avenue on the south. They 
 talk now about the Sand Dunes of Indiana, but 
 these never could be compared with what the 
 banks of old Lake Michigan looked like in those 
 days, and there were no censors or regulators 
 on the beaches. 
 
 It looked as wild then as it does now along 
 the Dunes of Indiana. The lake was not 
 dredged out and the boys could wade out as far 
 as what we called the third sand bar, without 
 going over their heads, and this distance was at 
 least one-half mile out from the shore. Thou- 
 sands were there every day in the summer, and 
 say, all our beautiful swimming pools and cen- 
 sored bathing beaches of today looked, as the 
 kids say, like a deuce spot when compared. 
 There were no life guards needed, and we never 
 heard tell of the under tow. Nature took its 
 time in making this old swimming pond, and the 
 water then was as clear and blue as it is now 
 two miles out from the shore, and any kind of 
 stockings went in those days. 
 
 For a skating park, that old lake before it 
 was deepened by dredging, froze over in the 
 winter time and for one mile out from the shore 
 it was as smooth as glass. For a skating park 
 there is nothing like it today. Now, this was on 
 the east side of North Chicago, while on the 
 west we had the original river running around 
 the west side of what is now called Goose Island. 
 It extended north, up through Clybourn Woods,
 
 166 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 beyond North avenue. Its waters came in from 
 the territory of the northwest, and was clear as 
 spring water. It was an ideal old-fashioned 
 country creek, and swimming and boating was 
 always good during vacation time and some- 
 times when it was not vacation time. I have 
 tried the fancy made park swimming pool and 
 the good old creek water, and I say, give me 
 the old creek as the old north branch was in 
 those days for good fun. In the winter 
 navigation was closed, and the north branch 
 river to North avenue was one long skating 
 pond and always crowded with boys and girls. 
 Every one of them was his or her own boss, no 
 regulators on the job real fun and freedom 
 going together. This was God's skating park, 
 and there were no Commissioners' rules to reg- 
 ulate things. 
 
 So much about the North Side, and now about 
 the South Side. Twenty-sixth street was the 
 extreme limit on the South Side wherein any 
 great number of people lived. Here we had the 
 same old Lake Michigan, with the same condi- 
 tions as existed on the North Side for swim- 
 ming in the summer time and skating in the 
 winter. To the west, we had the old South 
 Branch River, coming down from the Des- 
 plaines River together with the waters coming 
 through the old Illinois and Michigan Canal 
 from the Illinois River. The waters in those 
 days flowed in toward the lake and were clean 
 and clear as crystal. The old south branch of
 
 Halsted Street I.ii l-I5ri.Ii;,-.
 
 168 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 the Chicago River was the swimming place used 
 by the boys of the South and West Sides of 
 the city, and in the winter it was used for skat- 
 ing. In those days navigation closed in Novem- 
 ber, so that when the rivers got frozen over 
 they remained that way until spring, and any 
 day there could be seen thousands of skaters 
 along the old South Brunch Eiver from Madi- 
 son street out southwest to the old Mud Lake 
 at Ashland avenue. 
 
 The scenery along the river was beautiful. 
 The 'Neill Woods, a forty-acre tract of heavy 
 timber land, fronted the north bank of the Chi- 
 cago River, west from Halsted street. Piper's 
 Woods was along the north bank east from 
 Ashland avenue, and this was about a sixty-acre 
 tract of heavy timber land. All along the Mud 
 Lake from Ashland avenue, west to Kedzie ave- 
 nue, was equally as rich in scenery, with splen- 
 did farms, orchards, and homes built along its 
 banks. So that in the good old early days of 
 Chicago we had our parks and skating pools as 
 God made them, while all the money spent today 
 in producing them makes but poor imitations. 
 
 For fishing and hunting the boys did not 
 have to go far out from the city. In the old Cly- 
 bourn Woods, O'Neill's Woods and the Piper's 
 Woods, in the fall of the year, the wild pigeon 
 came in so thick and fast you could shoot hun- 
 dreds of them in an hour. You don't see any 
 of these nowadays while hunting, but in those 
 days they were so plentiful in the fall of the
 
 Urine of the White Snx. 
 
 The "Two Finger Times".
 
 170 
 
 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 year you could knock them with sticks in those 
 woods. And on the prairie, where the City 
 Bridewell now stands, could be seen any day 
 in the fall thousands of wild ducks and geese in 
 the marshes there. And along the banks of the 
 old river, on the North Side, north of North 
 avenue, and on the South Side, west of Ashland 
 avenue, known as Mud Lake, and up the south- 
 
 Chicagro River Scene. 
 
 west branch of the river that is now called Bub- 
 bly Creek, the banks of these rivers were lined 
 with hazel brush, crab apple trees, and wild 
 strawberries. 
 
 In looking this over today, a person would 
 think this a fairy story, but nevertheless it is 
 true. Many the melon patch and orchard was 
 tapped in those days by the boys without the
 
 CHICAGO IN OTHER DAYS 171 
 
 permission of the owners. If it were possible 
 to bring back a true picture of the old lake front 
 from North avenue to Twenty-sixth street, and 
 the original Chicago Eiver from Ashland ave- 
 nue on the North Side to Kedzie avenue on the 
 Southwest Side, what a battle the people would 
 put up to retain it ! But in the march of enter- 
 prise, Chicago as nature made her was fast dis- 
 appearing as far back as 1870, but don't ever 
 think that the boys of the early days of Chicago 
 did not find as many places to amuse them- 
 selves in out-of-door sports as you can point to 
 today. And there you have it.
 
 Ryan's Inspiration
 
 NICHOLAS RYAN IN A PATRIOTIC MOOD. 
 
 "McKenna," said Nicholas Ryan, the stati- 
 stician of the Sun Worshipers' Club, "I just 
 want to say a few words to you on our plan of 
 government, then I will take the advice of old 
 Fitz. the Tailor, when he hit the Italian on the 
 head with his shillaleh, "Sit down, you,' said 
 Fitz., 'you said enough.' 
 
 "This is the proper time to say it. It's our 
 plan of government, and that's all that makes 
 America the best land on earth to live in, and 
 we ought to appreciate it more than we do. 
 
 "When the founders of this government saw 
 fit to withdraw from England, it was the plan 
 of government they had in mind. They knew 
 well the withdrawal from the Mother Country 
 would not change the severe climate of New 
 England, nor would it make plowing and till- 
 ing of stony hills any the easier, but it would 
 give contentment to their hearts and minds if 
 they could perfect a plan of government that 
 would give to them the right to elect the men 
 that would make the laws under which they
 
 174 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 would have to live. The right to worship their 
 God as they saw fit, the equality of man before 
 the law, and the protection of their property 
 rights, that's what our plan of government has 
 accomplished, and we have enjoyed its privi- 
 leges for the past one hundred and forty-one 
 years, and it's the best plan of government that 
 ever was handed down to mankind; and there 
 it's for you. 
 
 ' ' Tho men that signed that Declaration of In- 
 dependence and adopted the Star-Spangled 
 Banner as the emblem to represent their plan 
 of government, they knew full well if they failed 
 in their undertaking it meant the sacrifice of 
 their lives and property. 
 
 "Now, in this, our day, in this land of Amer- 
 ica, when men so forget themselves as to raise 
 any other sign or emblem in a political way but 
 that adopted flag, they should be shown that 
 that which they are doing is not freedom but 
 an insult to the memory of those men that gave 
 to us our plan of government. 
 
 "There are some of them that speak so fool- 
 ishly that they try to convince you that all you 
 would have to do is to get the majority of our 
 Congress and a President to your way of think- 
 ing, and that you could change the flag and the 
 plan of government. That's all in your eye; 
 that's theory, Mac. The divil the change will 
 any person or ism do to that flag or our plan of 
 government by any chance voting or upheaval 
 until every one that loves that old flag and our
 
 RYAN IN PATRIOTIC MOOD 175 
 
 plan of government is down and their tongues 
 sticking out a yard. 
 
 "And as Barney O'Flynn says, 'May the last 
 thing that the Angel Gabriel goes lookin' for on 
 the day of the destruction of the world be our 
 old flag and our plan of government, ' and I say 
 'Amen' to Barney's wish. 
 
 "And as sure as I am tellin' you, any one that 
 advocates that kind of doings or isms, that's 
 not freedom; that's insult to the memory of 
 them that have won a place in our hearts that 
 will never die. 
 
 "Our old flag; when the seamen of old saw 
 it wave to the breeze they said: 'That's the 
 emblem of the plan of government of the young 
 republic beyond the sea and for the great 
 masses of the petople' I have statistics to show 
 it was looked upon as one of the then wonders 
 of the world. It was the hope that was burning 
 in the hearts of all the lovers of freedom in 
 every land. And its invisible sign seemed to 
 beckon to them all and say, 'Ye that love free- 
 dom, come unto me and your expectation will 
 be more than satisfied,' and so for a hundred 
 and forty-one years that old flag has so beck- 
 oned to all the oppressed of the world, and they 
 that have come have had their greatest hopes 
 realized. And this old plan of government of 
 ours has brought more contentment and more 
 happiness into the world than any other one 
 thing that has been originated by mankind. 
 
 "Freedom has been so free under our plan of 
 government that to some it has lost its sacred-
 
 176 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 ness ; but, like all our best friends, we only ap- 
 preciate their true worth when they have gone 
 from us. May this never be so with our plan of 
 government or the flag that represents it. 
 
 ' ' The men that gave to us our plan of govern- 
 ment started with very little of this world's 
 goods, and from the bleak cold shores of the 
 states along the New England coast worked 
 their way across the continent, and today we 
 have over one hundred millions of people that 
 are more prosperous and have more freedom 
 than any people living anywhere on this earth. 
 
 "And those that represent us in every depart- 
 ment of our plan of government, we put them 
 there, with our own free will, by our ballot, and, 
 if we don't approve of their way of doing, then 
 we have the same privilege with our own free 
 will, through our ballot, to replace them with 
 others. And in this sacred right we are their 
 peers. The rich and poor alike enjoy the same 
 privilege, the one vote, man for man ; and still 
 we are kicking. And there you have it. 
 
 "A new generation could live and arrive at 
 the same junction of freedom and prosperity as 
 we have today if all we now possess were to be 
 destroyed if only they were left to continue to 
 live under our plan of government. But there's 
 the rub ; them that would have the power to de- 
 stroy our property would know that that would 
 be but a secondary consideration. The next 
 thing they would do would be to destroy our 
 plan of government. That's the thing that
 
 EYAN IN PATRIOTIC MOOD 177 
 
 would do the job. For in destroying this they 
 would kill contentment and pride and the 
 equality of man before the law and the right to 
 worship God as you see fit. And with such a 
 people as we are, raised in the atmosphere of 
 freedom, this would dim our hopes, and hope is 
 our very existence. 
 
 ' ' That was why, in that great mind of Francis 
 Scott Key, when he gave vent to the thought in 
 that patriotic song, 'The Star-Spangled Ban- 
 ner': 
 
 " 'The rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in 
 
 air, 
 Gave proof through the night that our flag was 
 
 still there. 
 
 say, does that star-spangled banner still wave 
 O'er the land of the free and the home of the 
 
 brave?' 
 
 ' ' The great fear was not the loss of the flag, 
 but the plan of government which that flag rep- 
 resented. It would be very easy to replace a 
 flag, but on that solemn occasion if that flag 
 went down so went down with it our plan of 
 government, and that is why today we want to 
 see that old flag on high, for the men that would 
 cause that to fall would destroy the plan of gov- 
 ernment that it represents. And there you 
 have it. 
 
 "If there is any wrong existing under our 
 plan of government, who brought it about, and 
 who is to blame for its continuance 1 ? We, the
 
 178 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 people, are. For with our own free will, under 
 our plan of government, a majority of the free 
 citizens must give their consent, through the 
 ballot, the privilege to their representatives to 
 create the laws under which we live. Where 
 on earth is there any other such a plan of gov- 
 ernment given to a people? 
 
 * ' There will never come a time while this old 
 world bobs around where any plan of govern- 
 ment will meet with the approval of everybody. 
 We don't all see through the same glasses. 
 What to some looks to be the only way, to 
 others that same viewpoint, the more argu- 
 ments and statistics you present in its favor 
 the farther they would be away from it. And 
 so it will be until Gabriel blows his horn. And 
 there it's for you. 
 
 "There is not a man in America today, no 
 matter what country gave him birth, whether 
 he be a scholar or a poor laborer, if he just re- 
 flects in this our hour of anxiety, give way to 
 his mind and heart, and let come back to him 
 the thought that first entered his mind and 
 heart the day that his eyes first met the star- 
 spangled banner, the emblem of Free America, 
 then that person will find the answer comes 
 bounding back to him, 'I am with America 
 against the world'. 
 
 "And with all of us, we have the hyphen that 
 is born in us and seemingly over which we have 
 no control. You may laugh at this, but it is 
 true. Its both of a foreign and domestic made
 
 RYAN IN PATRIOTIC MOOD 179 
 
 type. For instance, where is there an Indianaii 
 that has not a friendly hyphen working in him 
 for a fellow Indianan? And where is the man 
 from Dixie Land that has not a hyphen in him 
 for one from Dixie? And the eastern and New 
 England hyphen is as active as any of them 
 for their fellow townsmen. And so it is with 
 the foreign hyphen. A blind man could see the 
 hyphen working in them all the day the White 
 Sox won the championship. 
 
 "Well, with us all, we occasionally find fault 
 with things in our own homes and say things 
 that we would not like outsiders to say, and to- 
 day we find many a stone being cast that it 
 would be better for us all if they were let re- 
 main, on the stone pile. But, with all that 
 every one knows our plan of government has 
 been that free, like a good mothers love, its 
 greatest loss and appreciation would come if 
 we were to lose it. So this is the time for our 
 every act and deed to be in keeping with the 
 sentiment represented by our flag. That's the 
 kind of a hyphen we all want now, and keep it 
 working overtime. And as Barney Mulligan 
 says, 'There 'tis till ye.' "
 
 180 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 MIND PICTURES. 
 
 Where Power and Oppression 
 
 Ride side by side, 
 Laws have gone and Love has died, 
 
 Discontent and disunion 
 
 On every hand, 
 Hope is dead in such a land. 
 
 Dependents are the seed 
 
 That powers sow 
 Then create conditions to make them grow. 
 
 Where dependents flourish 
 
 There is no pride 
 Lackeys seen on every side, 
 Independence too weak to raise its head 
 
 With Liberty gone and Justice dead. 
 
 When Wealth and Power ride side by side 
 
 When Wealth has gone 
 
 Power has died. 
 
 Whe're Power brings Justice 
 
 That's a happy land! 
 Contented people on every side 
 
 With love of Country 
 
 Their joy and pride. 
 
 In a land like ours if we only knew 
 Its Constitution through and through 
 Then did our duty as we ought to do 
 
 As Freedom's sons we'd always see 
 
 Independence strong and Justice free. 
 
 Conditions fhat would make dependents grow 
 
 In this free land would have no show. 
 
 John J, McKenna,
 
 ANTHONY DEVLIN ON "THE OLD DAYS 
 OF POLITICS." 
 
 "Begorra, McKenna," says old Anthony 
 Devlin, "I was glad to read in the last week's 
 issue of PUBLIC SAFETY, that your statistician, 
 Nicholas Ryan, gave out his announcement that 
 he was going to take timely advice and stop his 
 talking, for surely he has said enough. He, 
 with his statistics, the Daily News Almanac and 
 the Bible, has kept the Sun Worshipers' Club 
 on edge all summer below at the park. Any- 
 how in my rummaging among some ould papers 
 at home, I run across this ballot ; I now show it 
 to you. It's a ballot that was cast in one of the 
 old-fashioned primary elections, at the time 
 when the late Geo. B. Swift was Mayor of Chi- 
 cago. It's a reminder of a battle royal that 
 took place between the Swift machine, with 
 Perry H. Hull as the Swift campaign manager, 
 against the Lorimer-Hertz organization; it 
 was war from the time the polls opened at 1 
 P. M. until they closed at 7 P. M. Now this was 
 in the good old days before civil service was in
 
 182 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 working order. The Mayor in those days was a 
 power, everything in town was wide open, the 
 word reform was not invented, and this Mayor 
 was an apt scholar in the game of politics. But 
 so were Lorimer and Hertz; everything of in- 
 fluence and every meal ticket holder was or- 
 dered to be on duty. The order from headquar- 
 ters was: 'You deliver the goods or report at 
 headquarters tonight and return your meal 
 ticket, with all the privilege that it commands.' 
 That meant something, there were no slackers, 
 they all knew what the order meant, 'and that 
 goes', said the order from the Chief of Police, 
 clear through to the last man holding a privi- 
 lege under the city administration. Perry H. 
 Hull was no small leader, both sides were ex- 
 pert in the game and there was no limit to their 
 bank roll; hence strategy as well as physical 
 force had to be used in order to win. If you 
 beat the other fellow in that day, you had to 
 have the goods, and if you cheated, you had to 
 be able to lick the other fellow in order to get 
 away with it. The power of the city authorities, 
 with what they had at command in that day, 
 would be no job for a sick man to go up against, 
 but the 'Lo rimer-Hertz organization', with its 
 following won the day. And here is the ticket 
 that won the day, in one of the primary dis- 
 tricts. 
 
 There were seen fellows riding around in car- 
 riages that day that you could tell were never 
 in a carriage before, except when they were at- 
 tending a funeral. At this polling place about
 
 ALTERNATES' DAY 183 
 
 ten minutes to 1 P. M. there drove up, six car- 
 riages loaded with old-time gamblers from the 
 First Ward. Some one said to them: 'Ain't 
 you lost"? 'No', said a lot of them, 'we came 
 out to show you fellows something. ' Then they 
 began bossing around, and telling the judges of 
 election where to get off at. Some one said: 
 ' You fellows are taking your lives in your hands 
 in coming out here; do you know where you 
 are 1 ?' Then they became very bossy. 'Well,' 
 said one that knew them, 'You got advice, but 
 if you don't take it now, we won't be able to 
 save you in a few minutes ! ' Just at the tap of 
 1 P. M. about two hundred healthy looking 
 alternates and their followers, led by John Cu- 
 sick, business manager of the Brickmakers' 
 Union, came on the scene. 'What's all this 
 about?' said he, looking at the carriages. Some 
 one said something; then every window in the 
 carriages, with their loads, received a shower of 
 whole and half bricks. Oh ! what a sight. The 
 imported First Ward fighters began to try and 
 explain and say they made a mistake in the 
 neighborhood, but it was too late. This was 
 'Alternates' Day', and they won in a walk. All 
 the money in Chicago couldn't induce that old 
 First Ward bunch to come back to Archer Road. 
 The old hack drivers were glad to get the privi- 
 lege of taking away with them what was left of 
 the old carriages. 
 
 The alternates were well organized and had 
 been holding meetings every night for two 
 weeks checking up the poll list. Our pledge
 
 184 McKENNA's STORIES 
 
 was : ' One for all, and all for one ; no scratch- 
 ing of the ticket to be done ; we will win or lose 
 together.' This alternate business may look to 
 be a joke, but there were eighty substantial 
 old citizens and property holders ; ninety per 
 cent of them had lived in the country from 
 twenty to fifty years and never were honored 
 before in a political way as a candidate for any 
 office, and the word 'Alternate' looked just as 
 good to them as the word "Delegate'. 
 
 The ticket here presented was voted upon this 
 day; it is number twenty, or the twentieth bal- 
 lot that was cast on that day. It was about 
 twenty years ago, and, strange to say, in look- 
 ing over the list of names printed on the ticket, 
 fifty-five of them have passed into the world 
 beyond : ' ' 
 
 REGULAR REPUBLICAN DELEGATE 
 
 TICKET 
 Twenty-eighth Ward 
 
 FOURTH PRIMARY DISTRICT 
 
 Precincts 4th, 5th and 8th. 
 
 Polling Place 2037 Thirty-eighth Street Polls 
 
 Open Wednesday, October 2nd, from 1 
 
 to 7 P. M. 
 
 Delegate 
 JOHN J. McKENNA. 
 
 Alternates 
 
 Thos. Rankin, M. K. Deal, 
 
 Edward Brandt, John McKay,
 
 ALTERNATES' DAY 
 
 185 
 
 John Shellbamer, 
 John Cusick, 
 David Burnham, 
 Joseph Boufford, 
 Joseph Emond, 
 J. F. Rhodes, 
 John L. Baker, 
 Michael Donley, 
 James Shatkey, 
 Octave Boufford, 
 Joseph Butler, 
 Charles Armstrong, 
 Isadore Leabeau, 
 Chester Buffington, 
 Ed. Francis, 
 Frank Irwin, 
 T. Moran, 
 
 Joseph Cunningham, 
 John R. Lauery, 
 John Fox, 
 John McGrath, 
 R. Travis, 
 James Burnhill, 
 George Irwin, 
 A. Lynch, 
 James Leggate, 
 D. F. O'Neill, 
 Richard Shaw, 
 William Lenze, 
 Frank O'Neill, 
 Ed. Stone, 
 Daniel H. Crane, 
 
 Henry Volk, 
 J. R. Wiggins, 
 David A. Baker, 
 Alfred Boufford, 
 Robert Brandt, 
 William Boxley, 
 James Lynch, 
 Jacobs Frank, 
 Thos. Younghusband, 
 William Daniels, 
 John Pauliott, 
 William Goodfriend, 
 William Boxley, 
 Louis Williams, 
 Chas. Conrodice, 
 Frank Kupsheiver, 
 James MacLaughlin, 
 D. E. Mullen, 
 M. Beichold, 
 Ed. Neary, 
 Jos. Caulombe, 
 Gustave Endler, 
 John Dooner, 
 Joseph Couerville, 
 John Noonan, 
 Wm. J. McKenna, 
 Michael Foley, 
 Henry Doerr, 
 William Burns, 
 Christ Heise, 
 William Wibberley, 
 Robert McKay,
 
 186 McKENNA's STORIES 
 
 P. Cassidy, Frank McGuire, 
 
 William McKenna, S. Englender, 
 
 P. Hilb, D. Saporia, 
 
 Charles Snider, C. Chadow, 
 
 R. S. Hellyer, Lewis Mattson. 
 
 A. T. Irwin, W. A. Chadow, 
 
 But that day their enthusiasm was so 
 great, and they worked so hard, they brought 
 to the polls and voted more persons as Repub- 
 licans, in those three precincts mentioned than 
 there lived in the entire Twenty-eighth Ward. 
 As they received their blue tickets for the gal- 
 lery of the convention to be held on the follow- 
 ing day, Napoleon's old guard was never as 
 happy after victory as were those alternates 
 after their victory. 
 
 "Their battle cry was: 'Did we win? Well, 
 well, well, I should say we did!' When Judge 
 Carter looked at the ticket he shook his head 
 and said: 'Too much alternate' and he had the 
 law changed to read 'One alternate for one 
 delegate'. 
 
 "But with all that, McKenna, those were the 
 days of real sport in politics, when everybody 
 in the neighborhood took a part and thought 
 they had something to say in the management 
 of their party affairs. And there ye have it. ' '
 
 M'KENNA'S CANDIDACY FOR CHAPLAIN. 
 
 "Begorra, Devlin," says Barney O'Flynn, 
 "McKenna is all right while he sticks to his 
 alternates arid the primary elections, but on the 
 occasion I have in mind he met his Waterloo. 
 It was in Springfield, Illinois, at the session of 
 the Forty-third General Assembly. I will never 
 forget the time. John C. Righeimer and Al 
 Houseman, two of the leading buffet owners of 
 Chicago, had cards printed announcing Mac's 
 candidacy for Chaplain of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives. The campaign became that warm 
 during the first three nights of the canvass that 
 the lights in the saloons in Springfield were 
 kept going in full blast during the whole of 
 three nights. It made my job as air inlet in- 
 spector of the Forty-third General Assembly a 
 very unpleasant task. The duty of an air inlet 
 inspector was to see that sufficient air was per- 
 mitted to circulate throughout the assembly 
 room for the comfort of the members. It was 
 the divil of a task to satisfy them. There were 
 the wet members, and they would be so warmed
 
 188 McKENNA's STORIES 
 
 up after their night's canvass that you could 
 not furnish air enough to cool them off, while 
 the drys kept up the cry : * Shut off the air you 
 have us perished with the cold.' 
 
 ''Well, sir, it was hard to please them. No 
 matter what you did you were in danger of 
 offending some one of them. It was like the 
 job my friend Ned Hayes had below in the tun- 
 nel. Says Ned, 'I have what they call a po- 
 litical job inspecting below in the tunnel 
 where there is but very little room. They have 
 there at pulling the little car a Jack that kicks 
 at one end and bites at the other, and, begorra', 
 says Ned, 'no matter which way I turn my life 
 is in danger'. And so it was with me, for no 
 matter what move I made to supply them with 
 fresh air, my job was in jeopardy. 
 
 "Anyhow, I was as well pleased as any one 
 of them when the announcement came of Mc- 
 Kenna's withdrawal as candidate for chaplain, 
 for if his campaign managers were to keep the 
 members out a few nights more I would have 
 lost my job as air inlet inspector. My job, in 
 real plain language, was raising and lowering 
 the windows, but the title air inlet inspector 
 gave tone to the job; like corn doctors and nail 
 trimmers they call themselves chiropodists 
 and manicurists. 
 
 "Well, sir, politics is very deceiving. From 
 all appearance at the time, everything was in 
 McKenna's favor. All the Chicago newspapers 
 had headlines announcing his canvass. His
 
 SHAKE HANDS MAKE No PROMISES 189 
 
 campaign managers and all the horse racing 
 men that were in town were trying to outdo 
 each other in the buying of drinks for his suc- 
 cess. This campaign was the talk of the town. 
 There never was as much money spent or as 
 many drinks bought before on the occasion of 
 a chaplain being selected. Every saloon keeper 
 in town was with him, for, as they said, 'he was 
 the only candidate for chaplain that was around 
 to see them '. He had the veterans of the Span- 
 ish-American war with him. The card announc- 
 ing his candidacy won for him the approval of 
 all the labor organizations, as it had the union 
 label on it as big as a horseshoe. Some of the 
 opposition at the time said, for a person that 
 did as little work in his day as he did, he made 
 a great display of his generosity in the use of 
 the union label. Anyhow, his campaign man- 
 agers, Righeimer and Houseman, with the as- 
 sistance of William J. Cooke, the then superin- 
 tendent of the West Park system, left nothing 
 undone to bring about success for him. At the 
 head of the Democratic members they marched 
 up the street from the St. Nicholas to the Le- 
 land Hotel, there to join hands with the Repub- 
 lican members in making his selection a non- 
 partisan affair. 
 
 1 ' To the strangers and visitors in town things 
 were looking very strange, as there was a lot of 
 stage money being passed around very care- 
 lessly in the corridors of the hotels. To some of 
 the new members and visitors in town who were
 
 190 McKENNA's STORIES 
 
 not on, it was very suspicious looking. And, as 
 it went the rounds from one to the other, the 
 promoters would say: 'Use all of it you can, but 
 use it judiciously'. 
 
 "The Eev. Mr. Turner, the Methodist Church 
 candidate, had his card announcing that he was 
 a Methodist and a Eepublican for the past for- 
 ty-six years, but he had forgot to have the union 
 label put on his card. When he saw the stage 
 money passing hands, he said with sarcasm: 
 'I would like to hear that gentleman recite the 
 prayer that makes him so popular'. 
 
 "The Eev. Mr. Bradford of the Presbyterian 
 Church, who had been chaplain for years and 
 who knew what little pay there was in it for the 
 service rendered, looked with contempt on the 
 men that were distributing money for a position 
 with so little pay attached to it. 
 
 "Anyhow, there must be an end to every- 
 thing, and so it was with this. The canvass be- 
 came so warm and the managers so enthusiastic 
 and careless in the use of the stage money, that 
 the question of 'denomination' came up for dis- 
 cussion and consideration; and here is where 
 Mac met his Waterloo. His only record was a 
 camp meeting record, and when he answered 
 the inquiry as to the kind of a prayer he would 
 recite if he was selected, his answer was his 
 downfall. He said that when he would hear a. 
 bill read, and seeing from where it came, he 
 could tell if prayer alone could save it. This 
 offended one of the celebrated members from
 
 SHAKE HANDS MAKE No PROMISES 191 
 
 Chicago, Gus Nohe. He immediately jumped 
 up and cried out: 'Mr. Speaker, I demand the 
 withdrawal of that candidate's name, or I will 
 move that a committee be appointed to investi- 
 gate his camp meeting record. That man,' said 
 Nohe, 'is like Billy Sunday, for he is trying to 
 make religion pay, and should not be encour- 
 aged.' 
 
 "I saw right off the reel that the jig was up. 
 I didn't blame McKenna for his sudden with- 
 drawal, as Nohe would have had the committee 
 appointed for investigation. Not that I mean 
 to say that anything wrong would be found in 
 Mac's camp meeting record, but, as Barney 
 Mulligan says, ' Safety first always '. 
 
 "And the saddest part of this tale is that 
 neither of the candidates in the contest for 
 chaplain succeeded, as John H. Miller of Ham- 
 ilton county was elected Speaker of the House 
 and brought with him the Rev. M. N. Powers to 
 do the job."
 
 "TIMES ARE CHANGED" DWYER TO MAC. 
 
 "Begorra, McKenna," said Dennis Dwyer, 
 president of the Thirty-fifth Precinct Bepub- 
 lican Club, "there's a great change come over 
 the population of Chicago. It's the divil to 
 think of it. There was a time when a man 
 walking or riding through the streets of Chi- 
 cago, with every face you'd meet looking so fa- 
 miliar, you'd think you were acquainted, and, 
 as you passed by, it would be a 'How dy', or a 
 nod at least. But now, in your travels, your 
 eyes are strained and your neck crimped look- 
 ing to see if there are any of them who pass you 
 by that remind you of any person you ever saw, 
 but divil the one in ten thousand of them did 
 you ever see signs or tidin 's of before. "With all 
 the war talk and killing that we read about you 
 would wonder where the divil they all come 
 from, but they're here, however they get here. 
 And they've their votin' papers and are asking
 
 194 McKENNA's STORIES 
 
 questions of information and raisin' points of 
 orders at our meetings. 
 
 "But it's a bad wind that's not favorable to 
 some one. Anyhow, I find that in the Thirty- 
 fifth Precinct Club, with the exception of about 
 six of us Irishmen, the club has a majority of 
 foreigners. And it's the divil to keep them in 
 the minority. 
 
 "This war has brought a change over them 
 all. Before the war we could hold the Bohe- 
 mians and the Germans on the personal liberty 
 question, but since the war began they are at 
 swords' points. 
 
 "The Jews and the regular Russians, we 
 could always depend on keepin' them on oppo- 
 site sides through natural prejudices, but since 
 the Eussian revolution they are huggin' one 
 another, and it's the divil to manage them now. 
 
 Foreigners are all right, Mac, when you have 
 them educated to know they are in the minority, 
 but when they learn they are in the majority 
 you have to be buying them drinks all the time 
 to keep harmony in the club. 
 
 "We near ended in a row at our last meeting. 
 There came up the question as to whether Pat- 
 rick Price or one of the foreigners should be 
 endorsed by the club for an appointment in the 
 Water Pipe Extension Department. They had 
 us beat by one vote, so all that was left for me 
 to do was to declare the motion out of order. 
 Then the row commenced. Up jumped little 
 Jimmy Dugan with the flag in his hand, wav-
 
 TIMES ABE CHANGED 195 
 
 ing it, and said he, 'This is no time for disloy- 
 alty or disunion. ' And with that up jumped one 
 of the foreigners to object, seconded by another, 
 saying, 'Ye are using the flag for "advanta- 
 geous purposes",' whatever that means. 
 
 "This was our chance. Dugan said, 'Men 
 usin' that language against the flag at this time 
 are disloyal and not fit for membership in the 
 Thirty-fifth Precinct Club.' And without fur- 
 ther debate I put the motion and Dugan sec- 
 onded it. We suspended both of the objectors 
 from membership in the club. This gave us a 
 majority of one vote and saved the day for Pat 
 Price. Anyhow, everything is fair in love and 
 war. ' '
 
 MEMBERS OF SUN WORSHIPERS' CLUB 
 IN CONFAB. 
 
 "By dad," says Mulligan to Ryan, "we are 
 the lucky men that got away with our summer 
 discourses below at the park, without some of 
 the chaps being interned." 
 
 "Well," says Dougherty, "if it was not for 
 me, you would not have that story to tell now. 
 I see it comin' many's the time, in the argu- 
 ments, especially when the strange debaters put 
 in appearance. I could see them egging on for 
 an argument that no good would come out of. 
 But I soon shut them up; no religious or war 
 talk here, says I ; and that in a way which they 
 knew was in earnest. That's what saved them 
 many's the time." 
 
 "Anyhow, did you ever notice," says ould 
 Anthony Devlin, "the amount of good and bad 
 that can be said about the women without bring- 
 in' up a cross word. You can go in a crowd of 
 min and praise the ould women up to the ninety- 
 nines, and then end in a 'but '; then go as far 
 as you like the other way; and in both ways
 
 198 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 every man present seems to enjoy and assent 
 by the nod of the head to every word that is 
 said. 
 
 "Divil any other subject do I know of that 
 will stand for that kind of argument. If you 
 would try it out on religion, or war, you would 
 see the coats comin' off before the subject 
 would be rightly started. Will some of ye tell 
 me the reason of this ? ' ' 
 
 ''Well, sor," says Barney O'Flynn, "there's 
 nothing strange in that, for a divil another sub- 
 ject on earth but the women can so much good 
 and bad be said of them and still be tellin' the 
 thruth all the time so there's your answer." 
 
 "Anny way," says Pat Price, "Ryan, with 
 his statistics, his Daily News Almanac, Shake- 
 speare's works and his Bible, could furnish ar- 
 gument enough to keep the whole townland ar- 
 guin' until Doomsday. 
 
 "Ryan," says Price, "is like all the other 
 remedy substituters they name all the ills 
 mankind is subjected to. It sounds well while 
 you're listenin' to it; but whin it's over you will 
 find divil a thing you were told of but what you 
 knew all about; and then they always finish be- 
 fore telling of the cure, or when, where, and 
 how it's going to take place and there it is for 
 you ! ' ' 
 
 "At any rate," says ould Dougherty, "wit' 
 politics you must first have the money or you 
 are making no display. And, as Con O'Brien 
 says, 'first seek ye the money, then the commit-
 
 THEY ALL HAVE THEIR SAY 199 
 
 teeman and all things else in politics will fol- 
 low.' But you might have all the good inten- 
 tions in the world, and if ye didn't have the 
 committeemen, y're talkin' to strangers, for 
 this is the thrick in the trade. The county com- 
 mitteeman, the state committeeman, and the 
 national committeeman they select the po- 
 litical feed that's presented to y.e at the pri- 
 maries an' elections, when they have everything 
 well prepared. Then ye are invited to partici- 
 pate. If ye don't like the feed in one party, ye 
 can go to the other; but ye '11 find whichever 
 feed you sit down to, the selection of the feed 
 was made by the committeeman long before ye 
 were invited to participate. And anny man 
 now with half an eye in his head can see that 
 for many years to come, aither the Kepublican 
 party or the Democratic party will continue to 
 make the laws. And, as Mrs. Jim Kennedy, the 
 suffragette, says: 'We know what we want 
 not what ye tell us we want.' And annyhow, 
 our government is but a reflection of the people, 
 and in many parts of the country the reflections 
 are very funny an' there ye have it!" 
 
 "Well," says Ryan, "that's all right, but our 
 plan of government is big enough and broad 
 enough to regulate and control every condition 
 that will be for the good of any honest man. 
 An', begorra, statistics show that it cost an 
 army of lives to get what we have got. And 
 every man, or set of men, that have the nerve 
 to organize anny ism of any kind that would
 
 200 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 advocate the substitution of army plan of gov- 
 ernment, or anny flag but our flag, should be in- 
 terned for instructions; and laws should be 
 made to make it a crime to do so. That kind of 
 goin's on is not freedom, and it should be put 
 a stop to. For anny condition permitted to 
 grow unrestricted once it has grown up it's 
 hard work to destroy it, whether it's for good or 
 evil. 
 
 "You don't have to change your religion, or 
 your nationality to become a citizen and partici- 
 pator in our plan of government. Some are 
 born into it, and others voluntary, with their 
 hands raised up to their God, promise to for- 
 sake all other kinds of political government, 
 and support and defend our plan ; and many of 
 them no sooner have had their papers givin' 
 them the right to participate in our govern- 
 ment, than they start organizing ' isms ' that aim 
 at the destruction of the plan of government 
 that they had sworn to defend. 
 
 "Now's the time to put a stop to all this. Let 
 Congress get busy. This is our plan of govern- 
 ment, the stars and stripes represent it. 
 
 ' ' And, as Anthony Devlin says, in some parts 
 of Ireland when a man dies they have singin' 
 and all kinds of merriment goin' on; and, in 
 some other parts of Ireland, when a man dies 
 they have great lamentations and crying goin' 
 on. Well, sir, a towney of Devlin's got into a 
 wake-house out at the town of Lemont, Illinois. 
 He set up his singin' and merry-makin' the
 
 THEY ALL HAVE THEIR SAY 201 
 
 same as they did in his part of Ireland when 
 wakin' the corpse of a friend. 
 
 ''The result was, in come big Dan Kelly, and, 
 when he heard Devlin's friend singin' and mak- 
 in' merry he gave him a fierce look he knew 
 he was in wrong. The wake-house was one of 
 thim little frame buildin's built by the owner 
 of a stone quarry at Lemont, 111. Well, sir, big 
 Dan took hold of Devlin's friend by the coat 
 collar and the seat of the trousers and threw 
 him out through the window. 'There,' said he, 
 'wait until some one of your own kind dies be- 
 fore startin' up thim kind of didos.' And that's 
 what this government ought to do immediately 
 with all kinds of political 'isms' whose aims are 
 to supplant our plan of government and its 
 flag. An' there ye have it!"
 
 A CHRISTMAS WAKE STORY FROM THE 
 BRIGHTON. 
 
 "Well, sir, McKenna," says Pat Price, 
 "your friend, Willum McCarthy, the former 
 mimbir of the Legislature from the West Side, 
 was payin' a visit out to Brighton to an ould ac- 
 quaintance of his and mine. 
 
 "I nivir knew it before, but that McCarthy is 
 a regular play actor, and with his goings on he 
 near broke up a wake out here at Brighton last 
 week. I was tellin' him of the death of an ould 
 acquaintance of his from the West Side. Says 
 I to him, ' take a walk with me over to the wake 
 house; you know the folks well and they'll be 
 glad to see you. ' Well, sir, we wint over to the 
 wake house and after offering our condolence 
 to the family and sayin' a patterin' aavee for 
 the soul of the deceased we went into an adjoin- 
 ing room. 
 
 There was a large gatherin' of people there 
 and over to wan side, where we took seats, was 
 five or six Fardowns section men from the 
 Chicago & Alton Railroad, seated there. One
 
 204 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 of thim was relatin' one of thim ghost stories 
 that are so familiar to their part of Ireland. 
 Well, sir, the man that was tellin' the story was 
 so wrought up with entoosyism and earnestness 
 of the tale, that he had the others in a spell 
 listenin' to him relatin' the tale. It was con- 
 sarnin' some murdhering evint that occurred 
 in some place in the north of Ireland, with 
 which they all seemed acquainted. Anyhow, 
 from what I heard of it, the murdhering deed 
 was done with a large pavin' bowlder and a 
 sivin-pound sledge hammer. 
 
 "It took place on the road side, betchune two 
 town lands, and it was a very lonely spot. On 
 wan side of the road was a lough or slough ov 
 pond, as you'd call it, and on the other side of 
 the road was a woodland, makin' it a very dark 
 and lonely spot. 
 
 "Well, sir, when the corpse of the murdhered 
 man was found by a farmer's hired man on the 
 followin' mornin', a great hue and cry wint up 
 among the people. They gathered there from 
 all parts. Anyhow, the first thought that came 
 into their minds was to try and learn the cause, 
 and as to with what the deed was done. Every 
 spot and place was rummaged to find some evi- 
 dince. 
 
 There was the dead man lyin' with his head 
 batthered in and a large scar on the side of his 
 face. After ramsackin' iviry thing and place 
 for several hours, they were about to give up, 
 whin along comes his riverince, the parish
 
 MCCARTHY IN DOUBT 205 
 
 priest ; they tould him av all the work they had 
 done in tryin' to find what caused the man's 
 death and how they were about to give it up and 
 go home. ' First and foremost', says his river- 
 ince, 'let ye kneel down and say a prayer for 
 the repose of the poor man's soul.' Well, sir, 
 after the third patterin' aavee a little town cob- 
 bler by the name of Owen Bree, that was on his 
 knees on the side of the road furninst the lough, 
 or pond, jumped to his feet and let a cry out of 
 him: ' What's that, man!' says he, 'what's 
 that 1 ?' pointin' out in the lough, or pond. There 
 it was for you to see as plain as the nose on 
 your face, the large paving bowlder and the 
 sledge hammer, floatin' around and around on 
 the top of the wather. Well, they all see it and 
 then they all said: 'Amen' and stood up, with 
 their eyes fixed on the sight! There was the 
 large bowlder and the sivin-pound iron sledge 
 hammer floatin' around and around on the top 
 of the wather! 
 
 "When it came over furninst thim, the good 
 priest stepped forward and then callin' to the 
 little cobbler, said his riverince: 'When it 
 comes furninst you, do you bring them to 
 shore.' Well, sir, lo and behold you, he did. 
 There was the blood on the rock and also on the 
 hammer! 'There now', says the good priest, 
 'there's your answer*. 
 
 "Now, thin, for the ones that committed the 
 dastardly deed. Well( McKenna, here's where 
 your friend McCarthy near broke up the wake.
 
 206 MCKENNA'S STOKIES 
 
 As these min that were listenin' to the story 
 were in the back room and did not see McCar- 
 thy come into the presence of the corpse, they 
 had no knowledge as to whether McCarthy was 
 left handed or not. Thin, whin in the most ex- 
 citin' and interestin' point of the tale, McCar- 
 thy, interrupts the story and here's where he 
 becomes the play actor. McCarthy puts his 
 hand into his vest pocket, takes from it a case, 
 and from the case he takes the single eyeglass, 
 puts it over the one eye, and said he, interrupt- 
 in' the story teller and looking up straight into 
 his face said McCarthy: "I beg your pardon, 
 old top, did I understand you to say that this 
 was a large bowlder stone!' 'That's what you 
 did,' said the story teller. 'By jove, I beg your 
 pardon again, old chap, did I understand you 
 to say that this large stone was floatin' around 
 and around on the top of the pool 1 ?' 'That's 
 what I'm tellin' you again,' was the answer of 
 the story teller. McCarthy now begins puttin' 
 it on a little stronger, and again said: 'By 
 jove, old top, did I understand you to say that 
 this was a seven-pound hammer and that it kept 
 floating around and around on the top of the 
 water?' 'That's what I'm tellin' you, sir,' was 
 the answer. Then said McCarthy: 'I say, old 
 top, impossible! impossible! You know that 
 that is a scientific impossibility, old chap. ' Just 
 then McCarthy see the son of the deceased ap- 
 proaching and McCarthy stepped forward to 
 condole with him and left the story teller. The
 
 MCCARTHY IN DOUBT 207 
 
 Fardown who was tellin' the story was dum- 
 founded. Said he, very sarcastically: 'Who 
 the h is that fellow, anyhow? Lord, be good 
 to Larry anyway, but I never knew he had any 
 acquaintance like that.' 'No,' said one of the 
 others, 'he is an acquaintance of the son.' 
 'There it is for you,' said the story teller, 'the 
 risin' gineration, the divil the thing do they 
 believe or have they on their mind but the wom- 
 en and the baseball.' 'True for you,' said an- 
 other, 'for I heard Larry's son tell that chap 
 as how some Eddie Collins, a ball player, hit the 
 ball so hard that it went so fast that it set the 
 grass on fire. He believed that, for he replied : 
 "Very clever, very clever; a good hit". And 
 there you have it, but divil a bit of religion is 
 in them. Let's all go out and take a punch at 
 him for spoiling the story,' but McCarthy was 
 gone. ' '
 
 THEY HAVE GOT RYAN GUESSING. 
 
 "Well, well, McKenna," says Nicholas Ryan, 
 ' now that young Garfield has arranged it so for 
 the next six Mondays, that I will have nothing 
 to do but talk, I'm going to tell you something. 
 
 "I have been livin' in and around Chicago for 
 more than the past fifty years, and with all the 
 goings on they do be liavin' it's got me thinkin', 
 but, I 'm like Barney 'Flynn was, when he was 
 attending tjie political meeting where the can- 
 didate for Alderman was relating all the things 
 he would do, if the people in their wisdom 
 should select him to represent them in the City 
 Council. 
 
 " 'Well, well', says Barney, talking to him- 
 self while smokin' the pipe, and noddin' the 
 head up and down, 'well, well,' says he again. 
 'I've heard the likes of that manys and manys 
 the time before,' and so 'tis with all the goings 
 on they do be havin' and the sayings they do be 
 havin' about one another" it has me guessin' as 
 to what is true and what is not true, and it's got 
 to this now, that you can hardly believe any- 
 thing you hear as a certainty, until you hear 
 from the other fellow. 
 
 'Well, sir, whin I was a kid about the city, 
 manys the year ago, you could take a walk about 
 on a Sunday, and visit the numerous small 
 churches we then had in those days, and where 
 tlio competition was great to get members. 
 Well, sir, to listen to the preachers of the dif-
 
 210 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 ferent denominations tell what they thought of 
 persons that belonged to denominations differ- 
 ent from theirs and to where they would go to 
 when the undertakers called for them, was 
 amusin'. This was before Henry Ward Beecher 
 took hell out of religion. At any rate there was 
 a warm reception predicted. Well, sir if what 
 they all said of one another was true, to an out- 
 sider, after listenin' to all sides, you would 
 come to the conclusion and say to yourself, 'now 
 there 's a bunch ; if what they say of one another 
 is all true, the divil is going to be a busy man'. 
 But this was in the ould days before immigra- 
 tion and population was as extensive as it is to- 
 day. There's women enough now-a-days to fill 
 all the seats in the churches, and most men of 
 today have got whatever religious views they 
 have in their wives' names. And there it's for 
 you. 
 
 "But this is not what I started out to talk to 
 you about, but it is along the same lines. I have 
 been reading the newspapers and listenin' to 
 political orators and reformers, progressive and 
 digressive, if you wish, for the rrtanys and 
 manys the year and what I want to say is this : 
 if one-thousandth part of what has been said 
 and published and promised was ever done, 
 what a trial balance it would make. 
 
 "If, all of what they tell, was plundered from 
 the tax payers is really true, what I'm thinkin' 
 of, what a really tough animal he is to be able 
 to bear up with it all, and if all the promises of
 
 GOT RYAN GUESSING 211 
 
 reductions and benefits that the same tax pay- 
 ers have been promised by opposing parties 
 and reforming associations for their support in 
 adoptin' their policies, was delivered to them as 
 promised, they would now be receiving prem- 
 iums on their holdings, instead of paying a tax. 
 'But there you are again', as O'Flynn says, 
 'we've heard the likes of that manys and manys 
 the time before.' 
 
 "But with all this, we are still here and 
 seemingly thriving. After making our selec- 
 tions of men to represent us, such as the oppos- 
 ing parties tell us they are, nevertheless, here 
 is where I am always satisfied and never disap- 
 pointed in the men I vote for. You know, while 
 I am only a tax payer, I am a consistent Repub- 
 lican, but I still make it a point to get my in- 
 formation concerning the reputation and char- 
 acter of the candidates of my party from the 
 opposing sides, never from my own side, and 
 here is where I get my contintment ; for no mat- 
 ter how big a rogue my party candidate turns 
 out to be ? he is never one-tenth as bad as I had 
 been informed he was, when he was the candi- 
 date ; so you see I am never disappointed. When 
 I want information concerning the candidate of 
 the opposing parties I have my friend O'Flynn 
 attend the meeting of my own party, and then 
 get O'Flynn to relate to me what was said of 
 the men that are candidates on the opposing 
 side. Then I laugh and laugh and when elec-* 
 tion day comes I put my cross in the circle at
 
 212 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 the head of my own ticket and say to myself, 
 as between two evils, the divil I know is better 
 than the divil I don't know. And there it's for 
 you. 
 
 "It seems as though at election times it is 
 permissible to tell the truth about one another 
 and that, too, without any one takin' it as a 
 very grave offense. For, by golly, McKenna, it 
 would be a grave yard offinse to mention some 
 of the things they say about each other except 
 at election time, but as I am tellin' you, a good 
 safe bet is to always get the reputation and 
 character of your party candidate from the op- 
 posing side. He may turn out to be a wrong 
 one, but from what you have heard of him be- 
 forehand, your only surprise will be that he 
 wasn't worse. 
 
 "And there vou have it."
 
 OLD ANTHONY DEVLIN AIRS HIS VIEWS. 
 
 "Well, sir, McKenna," says old Devlin, "we 
 now have the wheatless day, the meatless day, 
 and the porkless day; then the loafin' Mondays. 
 Well, sir, we ought to be able to win this war 
 aisy with all these auxiliaries. 
 
 "But I was thinkin' if they only put hell back 
 into religion until the war is over, an' let the 
 preachers set in on some of their old-fashioned 
 sermons on 'Hell,' they could make it so warm 
 for their hearers of a Sunday that they might 
 dispense with the use of coal altogether in the 
 .churches; for in some of them good old-fash- 
 ioned talks on the 'Intensity of the Heat of 
 Hell's Fire,' they could start the perspiration 
 flowing down the brow of the chilliest old lady 
 in the parish at a temperature of seven de- 
 grees below zero. 
 
 "This would be another great adjunct in 
 helping win the war. 
 
 "Mr. Baker, the man that is doin' the trick, 
 would approve of this, for he knows 'tis like the 
 sayin' in the Good Book on the winning of sal- 
 vation, 'you may have,' says the Good Book, 
 'faith that would move mountains, but if you 
 have not charity it will avail you nothing.' 
 And so it is, you might refrain from the use 
 of pork, an' you might mix your wheat with 
 chaff, an' ye might heat your body on the 
 thoughts of hell fire; but if you'll not hold your 
 tongue, all of this will avail you naught. Now,
 
 214 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 there it is for you ! The talkless day is what we 
 want, to insure the winnin' of the war. 
 
 1 'It was too much talk that brought the war 
 on, and when they stopped shootin' and went to 
 talkin', the Czar of all the Russias lost his good 
 job; and' it's too much talkin' now that is keep- 
 in' them from getting a substitute for the Czar. 
 
 "What we want now is to be in the position 
 of the old sea captain and the sailors; there 
 came up a big storm. Well, things looked bad. 
 Some old ladies that were on the boat asked the 
 captain, * Would it not be a good thing to say 
 some prayers now!' 'Oh,' says the captain, 
 'order the men aloft; we have done our pray- 
 ing before this storm took place. What we 
 want now is to take care of the rigging.' And 
 so it is with us. We have had plenty of time 
 for talks, and sure enough we did talk and 
 plenty of it. 
 
 "But the kind of talk that some of them are 
 giving nowdays, you could borrow very little 
 money on it at Barney Mulligan's bank. 
 
 "So, I say, you might fast until all the trusts 
 would go broke; but if you don't hold your 
 tongue, all things else that you do will count for 
 naught. 
 
 "The men that are in the places where they 
 see and know, from the best authority, and 
 guided by men of experience as to what is 
 needed, let them act and be guided by their say- 
 so else all your other work will be in vain; for 
 men who will stop to argue with their general
 
 DEVLIN AIRS His VIEWS 215 
 
 as to the best way they think things ought to 
 be done, will never win a fight. 
 
 "Now, the men that have got this war in 
 hand, guiding the interests of America, we must 
 take it for granted that they knew what they 
 were at when they went to it. It's their job now 
 to make a success of it. There's no brakes on 
 them. The money, the resources, the lives, and 
 the good-will of the nation is at their command ; 
 their part is but to order. And our part is to 
 act the part of Alderman Duffy's constituents. 
 When he would say, 'Am I right, boys?' they 
 would unanimously answer, 'You are right, 
 Duffy.' And he would reply, 'You know right 
 well I am right.' That's the only kind of spirit 
 and talk that will win the war. For it's not 
 your stomachs that you're going to win this war 
 with, but your brains. 
 
 "We will have lots of time to discuss this war 
 when it's over; the die is cast now. The men 
 that have the job now in hand must finish it. 
 Success or failure will be the answer. We have 
 done our part through our representatives. We 
 have offered all we have got our property and 
 lives are at their command. We have done our 
 part; we could have done no more. It's gone 
 past the prayin' time now. And so I'm tellin' 
 ye: one talkless day will count as much as ten 
 eatless days in winning this war and there it is 
 for you ! 
 
 "We now are in the fight; and as Barney 
 'Flynn said when he had a fight with a Dutch-
 
 216 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 man, the agreement was, when the one that was 
 licked would say aloud * Sufficiency', that was to 
 end it. Well, sir, the Dutchman had Barney 
 down and was b'ating him until he tired himself 
 out, but O'Flynn forgot the word 'Sufficiency' 
 and finally, when O'Flynn again came to and 
 was pounding away at the Dutchman, to his sur- 
 prise the Dutchman cried aloud, 'Sufficiency.' 
 Begorra, says O'Flynn, that's good! If I could 
 have thought of that word hours ago, you would 
 have had me b'at. So that's all the talk we 
 want now to say nothing, but fight on until 
 someone says 'Sufficiency' good and loud; and 
 there you have it."
 
 THE OLD DAYS IN HALSTED STREET. 
 
 ''Well, sir, McKenna," says Jerry Duggan, 
 "I enjoyed your Christmas wake story concern- 
 ing your friend 'Willum' McCarthy, the former 
 member of the legislature from the West Side, 
 and the far-down section men from the Chicago 
 & Alton Railroad. Anyhow, that McCarthy, 
 when he puts the one eyeglass on, he can take 
 oft' an Englishman better than anyone I ever 
 see. But if them far-downs knew that his name 
 was McCarthy when he questioned the possi- 
 bility of that sivin-pound iron hammer and the 
 large boulder stone that they said was seen 
 floating around and around on the top of the 
 waters, as they were describing it in the fairy 
 story they were telling of ancient Irish days, 
 McCarthy's life would have been in danger, 
 wake or no wake. 
 
 " 'Well sir, McKenna,' I could tell you av a 
 story av that same 'Willum' McCarthy with his 
 tricks; and every word I'm telling you is true. 
 When I first come to this country as a green- 
 horn, as them laddy-bucks nicked me, I was 
 stopping with a first cousin of mine, one Jim 
 Carey, that was keeping a tavern in Halsted 
 street south av Harrison street. Jim was some- 
 what av a sport, and his place was the resort of 
 the young men and of many av the old men in 
 those days. 
 
 "There was very few foreigners living in that 
 neighborhood in those days, with the exception 
 of a few Bohemians and Germans ; the popula-
 
 218 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 tion was made up mostly of all Irish people. 
 Anyhow, the young men that congregated at 
 Jim's place were always up to all kinds of 
 thricks, and out for all kinds av fun. 
 
 1 i Whatever they did in the daytime for a live- 
 lihood I don't know, but when you'd see them 
 av an evening, the way they were dressed up 
 and the careless way in which they separated 
 themselves from their money, they reminded me 
 av estated meus' sons in the ould country. 
 
 "Well sir, Carey had two special ould f rinds, 
 one av them was Rolff, the butcher. He kept a 
 shop in Halsted street, close to Jim Carey. The 
 other was Dan Kellilier, the groceryman, also a 
 neighbor. Anyhow, the story I'm going to tell 
 you is consarnin' McCarthy, Jim Carey, Rolff 
 the butcher, Dan Kellilier and some others. Mc- 
 Carthy always saluted Carey as the knight av 
 the spoon and strainer. Well, Jim was as full 
 av thricks as any av them. 
 
 "Well, sir, this part av the story that I'm go- 
 in' to tell you about happened one night, far 
 from the shank av the evening, or about closing 
 time, and it was in the fall av the year. 
 
 "There was a big County Mayo policeman 
 who traveled beat at that point: he just slipped 
 in the back way and into the bar-room ; no one 
 was present but Jim Carey, myself, and Dan 
 Kellilier. Well sir, the officer whispered to Jim 
 to be careful ; close up on time, said he. Av 
 course this meant a sup for the officer; then it 
 would be out the back way again with him. But
 
 OLD DAYS IN HALSTED STREET 219 
 
 no, not so this time for just as he had finished 
 his sup, open came the front door and in came 
 McCarthy. 
 
 ' ' Now, McCarthy, in a very dignified manner, 
 exclaimed, 'Good-evening, everybody!' Mr. 
 Carey, said McCarthy, just serve us a little 
 moisture, and give the officer here a little of the 
 wild cow's milk, for the night is cold and long; 
 and, Mr. Carey, serve this other gentleman with 
 his choice of your many and necessary bever- 
 ages, and do not forget yourself ! 
 
 11 'Now, then,' said McCarthy, 'now that we 
 are all set, we will proceed with the case before 
 the bar, and when disposed of, bring in the next 
 case.' 
 
 "Here, McCarthy, was interrupted by Jim 
 Carey. Carey now, is in for thricks. I want to 
 introduce to you gentlemen, Dr. McCarthy, who 
 is a young graduate from Rush Medical College 
 and who resides in our neighborhood. McCar- 
 thy was on in a minute. McCarthy now shakes 
 hands with Dan Kelliher, the groceryman, and 
 next with the big County Mayo policeman and 
 there is where McCarthy begins his thricks. As 
 he held the policeman's elapsed hand, he looked 
 up into the big policeman's face, and said he, 
 'Officer, do you know that you have a torpid 
 liver? I presume you do, said McCarthy.' 'T 
 do not and what is that, said the officer!' 'That 
 is now, said Dr. McCarthy, a liver that is coat- 
 ed with a foreign substance which does not be- 
 long there.' 
 
 "By this time, they all had seven or eight
 
 220 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 sups taken, and the officer took the wild cow's 
 milk each time. And going on with the subject, 
 McCarthy said: 'When in a healthy condition, 
 'twill not appear there; and a torpid liver is 
 caused by the excessive use of alcohol and may 
 become corrosive or enlarged, which may cause 
 the demise of the victim. By the way, ' said Mc- 
 Carthy to Jim Carey, 'be a good Samaritan and 
 hereafter don't serve the officer with that strong- 
 liquor just let him have the milder kind, such 
 as I take !' (It was all the same, but in a differ- 
 ent bottle.) 
 
 "By this time the wild cow's milk and the 
 free examination is making the officer and Mc- 
 Carthy very chummy. 'Mr. Carey,' said Mc- 
 Carthy, 'the officer's case is a most interesting 
 one and needs immediate attention!' 
 
 "The officer was big enough to pull a ton of 
 hay not a thing ailed him, except too much of 
 the wild cow's milk and all the free information 
 that he thought he was getting from the doctor. 
 
 "After another drink from the doctor's bot- 
 tle, he wanted more information concerning the 
 case. 'Well,' said McCarthy, 'if there is not 
 any objection to any of the few here present, 
 friend Carey can lock the doors, and, by the 
 way, you just strip to the waist; I will explain 
 to you as I go along in a careful examination.' 
 
 "Well, he did; and the examination went on, 
 and during the examination, McCarthy had the 
 officer drink three glasses of cold ice water while 
 he held his ear pressed to the big officer's breast. 
 Everything was explained as the examination
 
 OLD DAYS IN HALSTED STBEET 221 
 
 went on, and at the finish McCarthy very mod- 
 estly explained to the officer that he also dis- 
 covered that the officer was afflicted with a float- 
 ing kidney. 
 
 1 'Now, with all this information the cold ice 
 water, the long intermission between drinks, and 
 all this serious information as big and as 
 strong as the officer was, he loked faint and ex- 
 cited. 
 
 "As he was getting into his clothes he said, 
 where is your office, doctor! Here Carey replied 
 that the doctor is about to open an office in the 
 Reaper block, Clark and Washington streets, 
 and you ought to see him at your earliest con- 
 venience. 'Jim,' says the officer, 'I will if the 
 Lord spares me till next week.' "Doctor, have 
 you any patients in the neighborhood ?' said the 
 officer. Carey interrupts by saying yes, he has 
 several, and he is just back now from a case 
 where he sewed fourteen stitches in a man's 
 head over on Polk and Morgan street. At this 
 then, the officer's curiosity was aroused. 
 
 "He now takes Carey aside and asked Carey 
 what happened to the man? Carey whispered: 
 told him that the man was hit on the head with a 
 butcher's cleaver in the hands of Rolff, the 
 butcher. Now, Rolff, as I told you at the begin- 
 ning, was one of Carey's best cronies. 
 
 "Here, McCarthy ordered another round of 
 moisture, after which, the officer whispered to 
 Carey to let him out the back door. 'Don't for- 
 get the closing time,' said the officer it was
 
 222 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 then one hour past the time and, 'Good-night, 
 doctor' said he, 'I will see you next week if the 
 Lord spares me.' 
 
 "Then, what do you suppose the policeman 
 did? Well, he pulled the box and reported to 
 the station that a man was hit on the head with 
 an ax, by Rolff, the butcher, and may die before 
 morning and without further delay there be- 
 gun an investigation. Most all of the available 
 coppers donned citizens clothes and went in 
 search of Rolff, the butcher. After an hour's 
 search they found him at the Valwrwortz mas- 
 querade at Twelfth Street Turner Hall, and 
 they took him away from his friends in his mas- 
 querade outfit and locked him up. in the Twelfth 
 Street Station. 
 
 "His friends got busy and telephoned the 
 captain, who arose from his bed and then and 
 there began an investigation. They, of course, 
 could find no one that was injured at Polk and 
 Morgan streets, and they found that Rolff was 
 at the Turner Hall since 8 o'clock P. M., and 
 previous to this time was serving chops and 
 weiners at his butcher shop. 
 
 "When McCarthy heard of the developments 
 he enjoyed it hugely. Carey felt different, as he 
 did not think that the Mayo policeman would re- 
 port the matter as stated, and get his friend and 
 neighbor, Rolff, into trouble. 
 
 "But that was not all ; the captain next morn- 
 ing called to see Carey and asked him about 
 where he got his information about Rolff hit-
 
 OLD DAYS IN HALSTED STREET 223 
 
 ting a man with an ax, and he also wanted to 
 know where he could find the doctor that was 
 supposed to have sewed up the wound. Well, 
 any way there was not much hilarity around 
 Carey's for several days and nights Rolff and 
 Carey are now on the outs, and Dr. McCarthy 
 can't be found." 
 
 CONTINUATION OF OLD DAYS IN HALSTED STREET. 
 
 '' 'Well, McKenna,' said Jerry Duggan, 'I 
 will now finish my story consarnin' your friend 
 Willum McCarthy and Jim Carey and the gang 
 that held fort at Jim Carey 's in Halsted street ; 
 and before I'm forgettin' myself I must tell you 
 of Dan Kelliher, the groceryman. As I told you 
 in my last story, Dan was present the night Mc- 
 Carthy examined the big Mayo policeman ; and 
 you see, McCarthy made such an impression on 
 Dan by the Clever manner in which he examined 
 the big policeman that he called to see Carey a 
 few nights afterward, and in the conversation 
 he had with Carey he was saying what a fine 
 young doctor that McCarthy was, and, said he, 
 'If ever I am sick I will have McCarthy as my 
 doctor, you can bet your life on that.' And 
 while Kelliher was talking to Carey, in walked 
 McCarthy. Kelliher greeted Mm by sayin,' 
 Talk of the devil and he will always appear.' 
 McCarthy laughed and said, 'Mr. Kelliher, your 
 name has been mentioned as a member of the 
 C. G. R. A., and we will be glad to have you as 
 one of its members and, I might say, a leading
 
 224 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 member.' 'And what is the C. G. E. A.?' said 
 Kelliher. 'Why, said McCarthy, it is an organi- 
 zation for the improvement of mankind general- 
 ly.' 'All right,' says Kelliher, I am always in 
 for anything like that. What would be the cost 
 per year for joining it? Oh, said McCarthy, 
 just a trifle a ten-dollar bill will cover the cost 
 for a year. Well, I will join it ; and I might as 
 well hand you the ten dollars as we are here 
 and he handed over the ten-dollar bill to Mc- 
 Carthy. 
 
 "Well, said McCarthy, we meet Friday night 
 in the lodge hall in the rear. Well, to make a 
 long story short, Friday night the gang was all 
 there, with everything prepared to make Kelli- 
 her 's initiation a memorable one. Everything 
 was well prepared; McCarthy had borrowed a 
 large white apron from Rolff, the butcher, for 
 the occasion. He also purchased a large pig's 
 heart and some other necessary tools for the 
 event. Everything was in readiness, and Kelli- 
 her was there and so was all the gang. 
 
 "Before the meeting, McCarthy treated all 
 the gang twice with Kelliher 's initiation fee 
 money. Then they all marched into the hall and 
 McCarthy took the gavel and acted as the chair- 
 man. He had, posted on the wall behind his 
 chair, a large drawing of the full anatomy of a 
 man giving a Latin name after each organ. 
 
 "And here McCarthy took a billiard cue into 
 his hand and began pointing out each organ and 
 its relation to the others and their natural con- 
 nection. And as McCarthy was explaining, says
 
 OLD DAYS IN HALSTED STKEET 225 
 
 he : 4 If those organs are kept in a healthy con- 
 dition, a man can live for a hundred years or 
 more. ' 
 
 ' ' Just then, three loud raps were heard on the 
 side door. McCarthy is on, and gave the guards 
 the order to admit those that sought admission. 
 
 "The door was opened and two tall men en- 
 tered with a supposed body of a dead man on 
 their shoulders and brought it to a table pre- 
 pared for its reception up at the side of the 
 speaker's table. 
 
 "When Kelliher saw this, he slowly raised to 
 his feet and started for the door, but was inter- 
 cepted by the guards, and he sat down. 
 
 "You see, the supposed dead man was John 
 Noonan, and he was wrapped in a blanket and 
 you could not see any part of him but the top of 
 his head and his bare feet. 
 
 "No wonder poor Kelliher was nervous, he 
 thinking that the man on the table was dead. 
 
 "McCarthy here raps the table and said, 
 'Now, brothers, without further delay we will 
 proceed to dissect this splendid subject, which 
 has been taken from one of o<ur neighboring 
 cemeteries; but before we begin, a vote of 
 thanks is in order to Brothers Maloney, Doran, 
 Meagher, and Powell. After the vote, McCar- 
 thy takes off the coat, rolls up the sleeves, and 
 approaches the supposed corpse on the table, 
 and raises the blanket so as to give Noonan a 
 better chance to breathe. 
 
 "But poor Kelliher could not stand it any
 
 226 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 longer. He jumped to his feet and shouted out, 
 'Let me out of here, you grave robbers, or I will 
 have the police on ye' 
 
 "Kelliher was grabbed from behind by the 
 guards and forced into his chair. 
 
 ' ' Here one of the boys asked the chairman i f 
 this man was a member? And when McCarthy 
 said he was not, McCarthy was censored by sev- 
 eral members for his carelessness. But poor 
 Kelliher was forcibly brought to the chairman's 
 table and compelled to sign a paper that he 
 would not divulge anything that occurred at the 
 meeting that night and now, that he was a 
 member, he might resume his seat. 
 
 "Then McCarthy stated that members who 
 did not care to witness the dissecting of the 
 body could retire to the side room. 
 
 Kelliher was the first to retire, where he soon 
 finds a side door to the barroom. Here, Carey 
 tries to explain to poor Kelliher the workings 
 of the order, and in the meantime, Noonan arose 
 from the table, put on his shoes and stockings, 
 fixed up his hair, and in a few minutes was seat- 
 ed alongside of poor Dan, who had no idea that 
 his neighbor was formerly the dead one on the 
 table. 
 
 "Now, to complete the deed, McCarthy was 
 informed that Kelliher was now in conversation 
 with Carey at the bar. McCarthy takes the pig's 
 heart from the dinner pail that was hid under 
 the table for the event; he puts it on a plate and 
 partly covers it over with a newspaper; he
 
 OLD DAYS IN HALSTED STREET 227 
 
 walks out to the bar with the white apron on, 
 the sleeves rolled up, carrying the plate, and 
 never pretending that he was paying any heed 
 to Kelliher. He said to Carey, 'Jim, will you 
 please put this in the ice box?' And here he 
 whispered to Jim so that Kelliher might hear 
 it, 'it's the biggest heart I ever see in a man.' 
 Then he went right back to the hall, and Jim put 
 the heart in the ice box. 
 
 "Now, it was but a short time until the gang 
 adjourned and came out into the barroom, 
 where McCarthy ordered several drinks with 
 Kelliher 's initiation fee money. Not one word 
 was said of anything that was done at the meet- 
 ing. Sociability and song was the further pro- 
 gram of the evening, everyone pretending to 
 show great friendship to poor Dan Kelliher. 
 Dan had no idea that it was his money they 
 were celebrating on, but he seemed to enjoy the 
 fun as much as any of them. 
 
 "Now, here comes the saddest blow to poor 
 Dan. Several nights after the meeting the boys 
 were seated around Carey's big stove, Kelliher, 
 of course, among their number. 
 
 ' ' Suddenly the door was opened by a big fel- 
 low who entered, and approaching Carey, asked 
 him where he could find Dan Kelliher, the gro- 
 ceryman ? He said he was over to his store but 
 it was closed. 'I have important business with 
 him and would like very much to see him. 
 
 "Dan overheard the conevrsation, and step- 
 ping forward said, 'I'm Dan Kelliher, what's
 
 228 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 your business?' 'Well, in the first place, I'm 
 an officer of the law and I want to put to you a 
 few questions?' 
 
 "Then he pulled out a paper from his pocket. 
 ' The first is, is that your signature ? ' Dan looked 
 at the paper which was shown him and acknowl- 
 edged the signature. 
 
 "The paper was the same one that Dan signed 
 at the meeting which made him a member of 
 'The Chicago Grave Robbers' Association,' and 
 also the oath that he made not to divulge any- 
 thing that occurred at the meeting where the 
 body was brought in. 
 
 "The acting officer was 'Billy' Broderick, who 
 at that time was a detective for the Chicago & 
 Milwaukee Railroad. He explained that the 
 paper was found on the street and was turned 
 in at the station. I started to investigate and I 
 learned that old Pat Hennessey's grave was 
 robbed and his body was dissected in this neigh- 
 borhood; and with this paper I expect to locate 
 the ringleaders. 
 
 " 'What do you say,' says Kelliher, 'was ould 
 Hennessey's grave robbed?' Yes, says Brod- 
 erick. 'Glory be to the Lord! He was my own 
 first cousin,' said Dan, 'and there I was looking 
 at him on the table at the meeting ! ' 
 
 " 'Hush !' says Carey to Dan. 'Don't say no 
 more; you might incriminate yourself!' 'Oh!' 
 says Kelliher, 'that damn Dr. McCarthy is to 
 blame for all this.' 
 
 "Just then in walks McCarthy, who remarks:
 
 OLD DAYS IN HALSTED STREET 229 
 
 * God save all here ! ' l The divil save you ! ' said 
 Dan, and he sprang at McCarthy. 
 
 "'McCarthy stepped aside and said to Carey, 
 'Mr. Carey, give us a little of your best mois- 
 ture, but except Mr. Kelliher, as he seems to be 
 angry T 
 
 ' ' ' Anyway, ' says Dan, ' I should be. I 'm un- 
 der arrest for robbing the grave of my own first 
 cousin!' 
 
 " 'Is that so!' says McCarthy. 'I will soon 
 fix that,' and he went into the next room, called 
 Officer Broderick to the telephone, and when 
 they both returned McCarthy said that the cap- 
 tain instructed Officer Broderick to keep Kelli- 
 her in charge at Carey's until a $1,000 cash bond 
 was furnished. 
 
 "Here, McCarthy and Carey left them all in 
 the barroom drinking up the balance of Kelli- 
 her 's initiation fee money until they would go 
 and fix up the bond. 
 
 "They went down to Loun Freeman's restau- 
 rant, had dinner, and then returned in about an 
 hour and reported the bond was furnished to 
 insure Dan's appearance when the case was 
 called. The detective then went to the telephone 
 and pretended to call up the captain, and he re- 
 ported that all was 0. K. ; and turning to Dan 
 said, "Mr. Kelliher, you are( released on a 
 $1,000 bond furnished by your two friends here, 
 and when we are ready for trial you will be noti- 
 fied. 
 
 "Well, Dan was never notified, for McCarthy
 
 230 MOKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 and Carey told Dan they had his case settled out 
 of court; and poor Dan was tickled to death at 
 the way it ended, but he never got back his ini- 
 tiation fee money. 
 
 "Like murder, all these kind of thricks will 
 out. You never could get Dan Kelliher to join 
 any society after that without the consent of the 
 clergy ; but it cost him many a dollar in buying 
 drinks for the boys to keep the story away from 
 reaching the ould woman. 
 
 "And now for the Mayo policeman. Anyone 
 that would mention anything about a torpid 
 liver or a floating kidney in his presence would 
 be assaulted. And Rolff, the butcher, could 
 never be convinced but that his supposed friend 
 and neighbor, Carey, had him taken away from 
 the masquerade ball on the charge of murder, as 
 Rolff would say, and with malicious intent. And 
 this is but a few of the many thricks thim laddy- 
 bucks were pulling off night after night in the 
 old days at Carey's in Halsted street ; 'and there 
 you have it. ' "
 
 JERRY DUGGAN AIRING HIS VIEWS. 
 
 At the last regular indoor meeting of the Sun 
 Worshipers Club of the McKinley Park, we had 
 Jerry Duggan make a few remarks, and here 
 they are: "Begorra," says Jerry, "it's a 
 pretty how de ye do anyhow, when ye think of 
 the predicament we have the people of the world 
 into today. 
 
 "They're fighting, plottin', and complainin' 
 in every part of the world against anything and 
 everything. What I'm asking myself is, can 
 Eyan with all his statistics point out any other 
 period in the world's history where the people 
 were any more the bigger fools or more uncivi- 
 lized than what they are today? And with all 
 their goings on they do be havin', they all say 
 its the other fellow's fault and both sides, have 
 whatever preachers they have, prayin' to the 
 Lord for their success and that too, with such 
 fervor and enthusiasm, that from the exertion 
 they're makin', they're as sore in the neck as 
 is a chicken with the pip and they all think 
 they are right. Well, sir, whatever it is, some 
 wan has wished a hoodoo on us and it is workin' 
 fast. 
 
 "Some preachers say, that the sin of thought 
 is as bad as the sin of action when you give in 
 to it. Well, sir, if this be the case in these 
 murtherin' times in every part of the world 
 today with those av thim that are divided
 
 232 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 against wan another think, let ye, what a lot 
 of killin', and murderin' we are doin' in our 
 minds. It would be a safe bet, and a hundred 
 to one shot at that, that nine people out of every 
 ten you meet, have in the last year, deliberately 
 in their minds, killed the Kaiser and sunk doz- 
 ens of U-boats ; and killed every wan on board. 
 This would be the kind av a bet that Kelly calls 
 'a cinch bet'. 
 
 "Now, the other fellows are just of the same 
 frame of mind. What a pleasant world we are 
 makin' of it ! If we could believe in Ella Wheel- 
 er Wilcox's theory of the influence of mind 
 waves, but be dad, I have no faith in the mind 
 wave theiry, for if there was anything in that 
 kind of theiry with all the wicked mind waves 
 that are surging though space today all over 
 the world against wan another sure, if they 
 had any effect, we would be all dead in a week. 
 "So, says I to myself, says I, it's like makin' 
 mind bets at the race track it don't get ye 
 nothin'. Now, I was askin' Ryan if he hadn't 
 some statistics somewhere in his books that 
 could show that at some time in the history of 
 the world that the people were livin' in peace. 
 Ryan says he has naught except for a few in- 
 tervals, whin they were waitin' for certain peo- 
 ple to save up and accumulate something, so's 
 they could take it away from them. That's the 
 only statistics he has on periods of peace and 
 harmony in the world. 
 
 "Why is it, says I to Ryan, that the people
 
 DUGGAN AIRING His VIEWS 233 
 
 are so much more fussier and fightin ' than they 
 have been in the past? Ryan's answer is that 
 they are not. It's like the actor's joke, of 'why 
 does a married man live longer than a single 
 man? And the answer is, he does not it only 
 seems longer. So it is now with the people, they 
 are just the same as they ever were, but we are 
 scattered more about and it seems different 
 that's all. 
 
 And with all this to add to our troubles, here 
 comes Billy Sunday into our peaceable, orderly, 
 God-fearing, and God-loving city, to open up a 
 new war against the Prince of Divils, Ould 
 Beezlebub himself the one that was chased out 
 of Heaven for being conceited and a kicker. 
 Well, sir, Ryan says he has statistics to show 
 that Ould Beezlebub was not the only one that 
 lost a gODd thing for being conceited and making 
 the kick at the wrong time, and again Ryan says 
 he has statistics to show that he could name a 
 lot of them if he was inclined, that will be there 
 in line as they believe, to battle against the Divil, 
 'Ould Beezlebub,' as they call him. But, if they 
 had been called for their 'first offense' as the 
 story tells, Ould Beezlebub was, there would be 
 but a small meeting and the ushers would re- 
 quire no rehearsing or drilling to care for the 
 crowd. And, as Ryan says, "some of thim 
 would have no trouble in having them use less 
 coal, for heat would be the least of their wants 
 ice would be what most of thim would need. 
 But this is like most of Ryan's statistics they
 
 234 McKENNVs STORIES 
 
 are not a certainty, for the reason, as my friend 
 Judge Hopkins would say, you have not the 
 1 Corpus Delicti ' to prove your case. 
 
 Anyhow, the Ould Divil is not as bad as the 
 Kaiser to go up against, for he don't fight back 
 the divil seems to have the gift of the candi- 
 date for alderman you can abuse him, say all 
 you have a mind to against him, and they say 
 he never loses the smile. This is making me to 
 change my mind as to all the power they say the 
 Divil has. He's blamed for everything from 
 sun-up to sun-down, and they're at him for ev- 
 erything that goes wrong they say it was his 
 work. 
 
 "Begorra, if he had the power to do the many 
 things he is charged with, Ryan says again, with 
 his statistics, he could show that there are a lot 
 of thim here below that the Divil would order to 
 report for duty forthwith. 
 
 "Again, Eyan says that he has statistics that 
 will show av the only record av where anyone 
 ever spoke a kind word for the Divil, and Ryan 
 says it was an Irishman that said it. The rec- 
 ord shows, that this Irishman was goin' up a 
 dark alley and with the fear that was in him, 
 he kept up for the first part av his journey, say- 
 ing aloud to himself, * God is good. God is good 
 but when he got far up into the alley, and 
 things began looking worse, says he, 'God is 
 good, and the Divil is not so very bad after all. ' 
 Well, after this he felt more at ease, and made
 
 DUGGAN AIRING His VIEWS 235 
 
 his journey in safety that's what Ryan calls 
 'diplomacy'. 
 
 "Anyhow, Ryan's statistics show that we 
 have been at war, fighting and killing wan an- 
 other, from that far back well, says he, there 
 may be some more excavations made, now that 
 we have captured Jerusalem again and maybe 
 some new statistics, but they never discovered 
 any statistics yet to show there wasn't fighting 
 goin' on, killin' and robbin' wan another, and 
 blamin' the Devil for it all and there it's 
 for ye. 
 
 "And with all this, we're no worse today 
 than at any other period of the world's history 
 and the only improvement we have made 
 we have become more efficient in the means av 
 destruction, both physically and spiritually. 
 For the physical destruction we have the gas, 
 the submarine, the flyin' machine, and the big 
 guns, and for the spiritual end of it, we have 
 the highest efficiency in the world's history, in 
 what we call 'Camouflage' that hides a multi- 
 tude of sins. But, as Ryan says, were the same 
 ould two and six pence after all and there you 
 have it.
 
 CON O'BRIEN THE 41ST PRECINCT PHI- 
 LOSOPHER. 
 
 "Be Gorra," says Con O'Brien of the Forty- 
 first Precinct Eepublican Club, "It's spring 
 again sure. I heard the first chirp of the robin 
 this mornin', and tonight, as I was walkin' up 
 the Archy' road, I heard the loud cackle of the 
 candidates for alderman. These are sure signs 
 that spring is here. 
 
 "And, I want to say, it's comfortin' after a 
 hard winter like we've had, with a shortage av 
 everything and all the world at swords' point 
 with each other, to hear the consolin' talks of 
 the candidates for alderman tellin' of what 
 they will do for the comfort of the community 
 if we but elect thim to represent us in the City 
 Council. 
 
 "It helps to allay our present trouble and 
 removes the gloomy mist that has been 
 hooverin' over us all this long, cold winter, 
 and, as I was sayin' to Pat Price, if what they 
 say nivir comes true in the future, it 's as sooth- 
 ing for the present as is the dose of paregoric 
 to a restless child. 
 
 "Wherever these candidates for alderman 
 get their selection of promises from, I don't 
 know but they're comfortin' anyhow. 
 
 "Whin we come to think of how the people 
 of the world have been actin' against one an- 
 other, and to think that even with all this there 
 is still left in the world, men gifted as are the
 
 CON O'BRIEN, THE PHILOSOPHER 237 
 
 candidates for alderman, so that their every 
 word is a promise that if such as they say is 
 ever accomplished, nothing but pleasure and 
 harmony will prevail all over the world, and 
 that our every want will be satisfied. 
 
 "The joy of riding in the kind of a street car 
 such as they predict even if it nivir comes 
 true is a lasting joy in the listening of thim 
 tell of it. 
 
 "Taxes will be the least of our many 
 troubles, for, as they show us and explain it 
 with statistics, that if we will but elect thim, 
 there is a new way, whereby these little trouble- 
 some things can be avoided- but they nivir say 
 whin or how anyhow, it sounds well and does 
 us good while we're listenin' to it. 
 
 "As to work the hours of work and the 
 pay, 'leave that to me,' say the candidates. 'We 
 know what ye want. We know all that is re- 
 quired for the happiness and prosperity of you 
 all, namely, good health, good wages, good ap- 
 petites, and plenty of money. Now that's what 
 all of ye ought to have,' say the candidates, 
 and 0' how soothing they say it! They're just 
 that gifted, that they can lead us up to where 
 we think we have our hands on the very things 
 we've been wantin', when, suddenly they 
 change the subject, and as Barney O'Flynn 
 says, they have only told us that which we all 
 knew but they forget in their enthusiasm and 
 excitement to tell us whin, where, and how we 
 will get all the good things they've mentioned.
 
 238 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 But, anyhow, it's a pleasure to listen to thim. 
 'Now thin, Mac, I want to tell you that for 
 forty years past there never was a spring elec- 
 tion came but I've had the heels of my shoes 
 worn off chasing around singin' the praises of 
 some candidate for alderman, and, be gorra, 
 I've heard enough of promises made durin' 
 that time by candidates for alderman that if 
 they were ever executed and put into practice, 
 every preacher in the city would lose his job; 
 for the pictures that the preachers draw of the 
 heavenly world of which they promise and tell 
 about would be but a poor second to offer as 
 to the world that would have been made out of 
 aldermanic candidates' promises. Anyhow, I 
 find that it does not make much difference to 
 the candidates if those who have been disap- 
 pointed on previous promises fail to respond 
 with their support; for, as each year rolls by, a 
 new crop comes upon the scene, and the same 
 stories that enchanted and deceived the ould 
 bunch, works on the new crop of recruits with 
 the same effect as it had on the ould, and so it 
 will be until the end of our troubles. 'You can 
 fool all the people all the time,' Ould Kellar, 
 the Magician, would say, but, says he, 'you have 
 to have a new trick to do it with,' and, wherever 
 the candidates for alderman get them, they 
 have them, and there it's for ye."
 
 DOUGHERTY'S ST. PATRICK'S DAY. 
 
 "Well, sir, McKenna," says Dougherty, 'St. 
 Patrick's day is a great day after all. I spent 
 tins St. Patrick's day below at West Baden 
 Springs, in Indiana. Anyhow, it was a great 
 day as fine a day as ever I see in onld Ireland. 
 The sun was shining, the birds singin', and the 
 flowers on the lilac bushes were in full bloom. 
 The golf links was crowded with the Irish and 
 the Chosen People they were all decorated 
 with the green ribbons and the green neckties, 
 in honor of St. Patrick. Well, sir, you'd think 
 you were back home in the ould sod, for the 
 trees, the grass, and the hill-sides were all ar- 
 rayed in green, and anyhow, as Barney 
 O'Flynn said, 'it was a great day for the Irish.' 
 It was roast young duck for every meal, and 
 the hotel band worked thimselves tired at 
 playin' 'The Star Spangled Banner,' 'The 
 Wearin' of the Green', 'God Save Ireland, Says 
 the Hero', 'Come Back to Erin, Mavourneen', 
 and Moore's melody 'The Last Rose of Sum- 
 mer. ' 
 
 "Well, sir, it kept up from 8 A. M. until mid- 
 night, and the divil the thing stronger than 
 Pluto and No. 7 spring water did any of thim 
 have aboard. 
 
 "Whin Barney O'Flynn see all the chosen 
 people with the green badges on, says he to me, 
 'Dougherty, it's a safe bet to follow thim chaps, 
 for if there are any good things to be had any-
 
 240 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 where, they'll be there.' At any rate, from all 
 I've seen, I've come to the conclusion that it's 
 an aisier job to become a successful saint than 
 it is to become a successful politician and for 
 to be remembered and honored longer after- 
 wards as a saint, than you'd be as a politician, 
 no matter how much good you may have done ; 
 and the reason is this, as Billy Sunday says, 
 'There is room enough for all at the mourner's 
 bench,' but, be dad, at the political bench, there 
 is only room for the chosen few. Anyhow, you 
 see, for the lack av funds, as they put it, your 
 City Council failed to provide the usual holiday 
 for the best av thim all, our dear, beloved Wash- 
 ington. Well, with the saints, all they have to 
 do is to do the right thing, and whin they've 
 done that, every one admits that what they did 
 was right, and in doing right, they have no 
 chance to take that some person or party may 
 loose their meal ticket as a result of their good 
 deeds; but this is not so in politics, as there can 
 come no good to the opposition, from the ad- 
 mitting of the good deeds of the ruling power, 
 and there it's for ye. 
 
 "Now thin, with the politicians, they're all 
 patriotic and they all believe in our institu- 
 tions, but there is not enough meal tickets to go 
 the rounds hence we have opposition; and we 
 all want to be the ones that will conduct the af- 
 fairs of the government, and it's long since been 
 discovered by the politician that there will be 
 no meal tickets coming from singin' the praises
 
 DOUGHERTY'S ST. PATRICK'S DAY 241 
 
 or celebratin' the memory of anyone that's on 
 the opposite side of the political fence, no mat- 
 ter how good he is or has been. For instance, 
 it's many's the rogue has held his meal ticket 
 for a long time on the good deeds that our be- 
 loved Lincoln had done, and many's the bum act 
 and the bum actor that've won a glad hand whin 
 all else failed thim, by just wavin' Old Glory.' 
 
 "So you can see that the politician, can't as 
 a safety first proposition, admit of any good in 
 the opponent, without making a sacrifice, and 
 accordin' to the new political etiquette, it's not 
 permissible ; so you can see how hard a job it is 
 to make a political saint that will be honored or 
 remimbered for any great lingth of time. 
 
 "For, whin the opponent is in power, to ad- 
 mit of any good that could come from thim, 
 would only be prolongin' the day whin we, of 
 the opposition could be distributin' the loaves 
 and the fishes and conductin' the affairs of the 
 country for the interests of ourselves and the 
 dear people. 
 
 "It's not the good deede av the powers that 
 be that we're looking for, but the bad ones; for 
 the political good deeds of the ruling power has 
 no soothin' effects on the opposition. 
 
 "So, McKenna, I'm tell in' ye, it's harder to 
 become a successful politician, to be long re- 
 membered and kindly spoken of, than it is to 
 become a successful, kindly spoken of, and ever 
 remembered saint, and there ye have it."
 
 OULD ANTHONY DEVLIN IN A REMINI- 
 SCENT MOOD. 
 
 "Well, sir, McKenna," says old Anthony 
 Devlin, "the Spring election, like the cold 
 weather we've had, is now gone, but like the 
 aldermanic candidates' promises, the cold win- 
 ter and all the auxiliaries that came and wint 
 with it, includin' young Garfield and ould 
 Hoover, with their orders, and the ould divil av 
 a kaiser with his gas bombs and sub-marines, 
 are things that'll be long remembered. 
 
 "Well, sir, there's one thing that the election 
 does settle, and that is, it reduces the surplus 
 of many a foolish man's savings account, and 
 it puts thim wise to the fact that they're not 
 near so popular as they thought thimselves to 
 be but all this is but transitory, for as the ould 
 sayin' is, 'there's a new sucker born iviry 
 minute. ' 
 
 "Ryan, the statistician of the Sun Worship- 
 ers Club, asks, and says he, 'judging from my 
 statistics, why is it that so many min spind so 
 much of their time, money, and energy in seek- 
 ing political office or jobs!' whin, says he, 
 'there's nine hundred and ninety min engaged 
 in other vocations, where less anxiety, less 
 money, and less energy is required, and who 
 are marked 'XXXX' in Dunne and Bradstreets' 
 reports, to the one out of a thousand that's en- 
 gaged in the political game that even gets a
 
 OULD DEVLIN REMINISCENT 243 
 
 mintion of 'blank-blank' in the Dunne and 
 Bradstreets reports? 
 
 "Well, says I to Eyan, politics is like love, 
 whin you git into it, the divil the thing ye can 
 see but the one thing, and that's the thing that's 
 got ye. For I've seen many's the ould poor 
 fellow that the wife and himself worked for 
 years from daylight until dark conductin' some 
 business, stinting thimselves on everything to 
 save up the pennies, and, who, after all, fell for 
 a 'Charmer', in the person of a scheming poli- 
 tician that had some kind of an ax to grind. 
 Well, the charmer saw that he'd the money, and 
 knew that if he'd become a candidate, 'twould 
 help the charmer to grind his ax. 
 
 "Well, sir, the charmer leads his subject to 
 believe he is so popular, and that he has that 
 talent that he'd be useful to mankind, if he'd 
 only permit himself to become the candidate for 
 some important office, where his valuable ser- 
 vices and knowledge might benefit his fellow- 
 man and neighbors. 
 
 "Anyhow, from the day he falls for that kind 
 of blarney, he is like the man in love : he is mes- 
 merized, and in a trance as it were, and nothing 
 but the decision of the people at the election 
 can revive him. 
 
 "But, 'Me 0, My!' says Devlin, 'whin he do 
 come too, he can see four ways, but he can't see 
 any of his saved up hard earnings, (in the way 
 of money) for the 'charmer that he fell for, has 
 used it all in propaganding his cause, tryin' to
 
 244 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 make the voters believe that he possessed the 
 gifts that the charmer had convinced him he 
 had beforehand.' 
 
 " 'I remember,' says Devlin, 'an instance 
 where the charmer, the politician, had spent 
 near all the money of his candidate in tryin' to 
 advertise himself, and at the same time, con- 
 vince the community that his candidate's cause 
 was just and right, and that he'd ought to be 
 elected. Barney O'Flynn happened along, and 
 says Barney to the Charmer, ' the man that has 
 the right word in him that would make your 
 candidate popular and his cause to appear just 
 and right, has not spilt the word out of him as 
 yet else, says Barney, how would you have all 
 the opposition you're havin"? Now, here it is 
 for ye, says Barney, 'find some one that can say 
 the right word or your work is in vain, other- 
 wise, leave off with your righteousness argu- 
 ment and depend on your money, and maybe 
 that'll do the thrick.' And, there it's for you. 
 
 "Anyhow, it's as Doherty says, 'There's very 
 few of thim that start into the political game 
 on corn beef and cabbage that ivir ind up on 
 birds an' wine, but, says he, it's many the one 
 that started in on birds an' wine, that've fin- 
 ished on corn beef and cabbage.' And, there 
 ye are. 
 
 "Anyhow, whin a man has made a success 
 out of some business, big or small, afthir he an ' 
 the ould woman have been for years, rakin' an' 
 scrapin', stintin' thimselves to save up the
 
 OULD DEVLIN REMINISCENT 245 
 
 pennies, whin, a man like that falls for the 
 political charmer, the only remedy for him, is 
 for the ould woman to take him to the Deten- 
 tion, Hospital and have his head felt. And 
 there it's for ye. 
 
 "Now, if a lot of tliim would only stop to 
 think that bein ' elected to office will not enhance 
 their reputation for honesty, nor will it change 
 their complection or height and even after 
 they get elected, if by chance they do, if they 
 are short of brains or qualifications, fitting 
 thim for the position they'll find that the cer- 
 tificate of election will add nothing to thim, and 
 that office or no office, they are the same ould 
 two and six-pence as they were a 'fore the elec- 
 tion. And, there ye are. 
 
 "Now thin, in Chicago, with all the mixed 
 nationalities we have, and where, in a great 
 number of cases, the only qualifications of the 
 candidate is his name or nationality, with these 
 conditions, Ryan says, that his statistics show, 
 that thousands of min have ruined their future 
 prospects on account of having been taken tim- 
 porarily away from the shovel, the lumber pile, 
 and the factory, where they'd been useful citi- 
 zens, and placed in a temporary political job, 
 upon the chance election of one of their townies 
 or countrymen. After the short term of the of- 
 fice is over, and after they've been spoiled, it's 
 'back to the shovel, the lumber pile, or the fac- 
 tory with thim.' This has put more min on the 
 blink than Billy Sunday's statistics can prove,
 
 246 MCKENNA'S STORIES 
 
 whiskey has. You may scowl at this, says Ryan, 
 but 'tis true. 
 
 " Anyhow, if you've any means at all, 'tis far 
 better for you to keep out of politics, as it 
 naither improves your reputation, your health, 
 nor your bank account, and Ryan, with his sta- 
 tistics, can show you, that it's only one out of a 
 hundred thousand that was ever cut out for the 
 job. 
 
 "Of course, there 're exceptions to iviry rule, 
 and so in some cases we find the men with 
 nayther money nor good reputation who are 
 doing better in politics, considerin' what they 
 had to come in on, than they could do in any 
 other vocation. And, there ye have it. 
 
 "But, anyhow, politics is but a rich man's 
 game, for, 'tis like keep in' the automobile. Jerry 
 Dugan had a little Ford, and with his pay from 
 the water pipe extension department, he could 
 manage to keep the little Ford in gasoline, but, 
 whin his first cousin Jerry Kelliher, the con- 
 tractor, gave him a big ould Packard for a 
 present, Jerry wint into bankruptcy in tryin' to 
 keep it up with supplies, and 'tis just so with 
 the political office. If a poor man ever gets an 
 office for nothin', it'll bust him, or have him in 
 jail from tryin' to keep up a front. And, there 
 'tis till ye, as Barney Mulligan says.
 
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