"I ain't no good sayin' Grace," he explained, "so I always reads a Psalm when I eat," .... "Say, young man," he went on, "I got a word to say to you. The screws ain't got you quite sized up yet—but most of 'em agrees you ain't nobody's damn fool. Now I just want to tell you something. You take this here Tombs all together—warden, screws, cops and lawyers, district attorneys and jedges—you can't never be friends wid all of 'em. They's too many what's hatin' each other. So you got to pick. You say you're going to stay by this job. Well, you just better figure out who's goin' to stick wid you. The jedges stay and the screws stay. But the district attorneys don't never stay more'n two years. Figure it out. That's what the good book means by 'Be ye wise as sarpents.'"
Jerry's advice was good. I had already "figured out" that the favor of the judges was more important for me than that of the district attorney. I had to choose whom I would serve, and it was very evident that it was expedient—if I wished to accomplish anything—to make friends with the mammon of political unrighteousness. The reformers were not only pitifully weak, few of them commanded confidence. They had not been in office six weeks before it was evident that their reëlection was impossible. The best of them were rank amateurs in the business of politics and government. Much of their disaster was due no doubt to well intentioned ignorance. But very few of them stuck to the ship when it began to sink. It would furnish some sombre amusement to publish the figure about how many loud-mouthed reformers went into office again two years later—under the machine banner.
Brace, my chief, as soon as he discovered that the walls of Tammany would not fall down at the sound of newspaper trumpets, lost heart. He had no further interest except to keep himself in the lime-light. Just like all his predecessors, he neglected the routine work of his office and gave all his attention to sensational trials which added to his newspaper notoriety.
One of the big scandals of the preceding administration, which as much as anything else had stirred public indignation against ring politics, had centered about a man named Bateson. He called himself a "contractor" and got most of the work in grading the city streets. There was conclusive evidence to show that almost all the work he did was along the routes of the street car lines. The scandal had been discovered and worked up by one of the newspapers in a most exhaustive manner. The facts were clear. The engineer of the street car company would report to his superiors that such and such a street was too steep for the profitable operation of their cars. One of the directors would call in Bateson. Bateson would take up the matter with the mysterious powers on Fourteenth Street, the aldermen would vote an appropriation to grade the street; Bateson would get the contract and after being well paid by the city would get a tangible expression of appreciation from the street car company. The newspapers had already collected the evidence. The fraud was patent. Everyone expected Brace to call Bateson to trial at once. And it seemed inevitable that from the evidence given in this case, indictments could be drawn against both the "Old Man" on Fourteenth Street and the bribe giving directors of the street car company.
Brace began on this case with a great flourish of trumpets. But one adjournment after another was granted by the Tammany judges. It trailed along for months. And when at last it was called, the bottom had, in some mysterious manner, dropped out of the prosecution. Bateson was acquitted. A few months later Brace resigned and became counsel for the notorious traction reorganization. Some recent magazine articles have exposed the kind of reform he stood for.
"Politics" has always seemed to me a very sorry sort of business. I found plenty of non-partisan misery to occupy all my time. Gradually I fitted myself into the life of the Tombs and became a fixture. When the new elections brought Tammany back to power, "civil service" protected me from the grafters, just as it had protected them from their enemies. And so—in that ill-smelling place—I have passed my life.
To one who is unfamiliar with our juggernaut of justice it is surprising to find how much work there is which a person in my position can do, how many victims can be pulled from under the merciless wheels. First of all there are the poor, who have no money to employ an able lawyer, no means to secure the evidence of their innocence. Then there are the "greenhorn" immigrants who do not know the language and laws of this new country, who do not know enough to notify their consuls. Saddest of all—and most easily helped—are the youngsters. We did not have a children's court in those days. But most of my time, I think, has gone in trying to ease the lot of the innocent wives and children of the prisoners. Whether the man is guilty or not it is always the family which suffers most. And if there had been none of these things, I would have had my hands more than full with trying to help the men who were acquitted. Look over the report of the criminal court in your county and see what the average length of imprisonment while waiting trial is. It varies from place to place. It is seldom less than three weeks. And three weeks is a serious matter to the ordinary mechanic. About a third of all the people arrested are acquitted. They get no compensation for their footless imprisonment. Besides the loss of wages, it generally means a lost job.
Two stories, which have been told elsewhere, are worth retelling, as examples of the varied work I found to do.
It was in the summer of my first year in the Tombs that I got interested in the case of a redhaired Italian boy named Pietro Sippio. He was only fourteen years old and he had been indicted for premeditated murder.
The prosecution fell to the lot of the most brilliant young lawyer on the district attorney's staff. The Sippio family was too poor to employ counsel and Judge Ryan, before whom the case was tried, had assigned to the defense a famous criminal lawyer. The trial became at once a tourney of wit between these two men. Little Pietro and his fate was a small matter in the duel for newspaper advertising.