James Michael Curley

Born November 20, 1874.

The second son of Michael Curley and Sarah Clancy, both Irish immigrants from County Galway, James Curley was born in the neighborhood of Roxbury, an impoverished Irish section of the city adjoining the docks, from which squalor the Curleys were not spared. A hard life killed Michael Curley when James was only ten years old, forcing Sarah into backbreaking work and struggle to support her family.

Curley would find work at a local drugstore, adding what little income he could generate to alleviate the family’s expenses, working long hours around his schooling. His elder brother, John, also worked to support the family. At 15, James left school and found work in a piano factory, quickly moving on to a grocery delivery job, where he worked until he was 24, meeting the people and seeing the sights of his home city. The money from this work, as well as John’s earnings, allowed Sarah to leave her own brutal work and trust the family would finally, 14 years after Michael Curley’s death, be ok. During this time, he obtained his high school diploma, worked extensively at St. Patrick’s for Father Phillip J.G. O’Donnell, and donated much time and energy to the philanthropic activities of the Hamden Street division of the Ancient Order of Hibernia. In all these functions, and still others, Curley began to develop a political following and a taste for the work.

At the urging of friends and coworkers, and perhaps at their funding, Curley ran for the Common Council in 1897, a citywide electoral board that oversaw relatively trivial aspects of the management of the city and did not pay much. But it was the forum wherein the powerless citizens of the city aired their grievances and served as an excellent training ground for his later political work. However, he lost two consecutive elections, in 1897-8, each time just short of the votes needed. He studied oration and language at the local library in his spare time, honing his natural vocal talent, and tried again in 1899, this time winning a seat on the Council.

Curley pursued progressive legislation, continued to build constituent relations and forged political connections. He also established, with John, an office for the New York Life Insurance Company, of which he and John were agents. This is where he began to build his fortune, and quickly was able to secure his family a new, larger apartment on Albany Street. Established financially and politically, Curley ran for a seat in the lower house of the state legislature in 1901, winning handily. Soon after, he mounted a bid to take control the ward committee, which failed, resulting in his leaving the organization and establishing a rival democratic ward organization – the Tammany Club, named directly after the notoriously corrupt New York City democratic, largely Irish, organization, with Curley voted president of his new club. He immediately made it into a powerhouse organization, attracting followers through his dynamic personality, rhetorical skills, use of celebrity, and frequent fairs, banquets, and “powwows” featuring greased pig-catching, Punch and Judy shows, opportunities to pay for the pleasure of axing a piano, and myriad other entertainments. Perhaps most importantly, Curley put his organization to tireless effort seeking work for those unemployed, as well as opening his Hall doors for shelter to the homeless, and his pocketbook for money and food to the destitute.

Curley found himself arrested in 1903, while in the midst of a campaign for alderman, for attempting to “defraud the United States.” He and a confederate had been approached by two young Irish immigrants who were seeking jobs as letter carriers, and possessed the skills necessary for the job, except they were unable to pass the written Post Office examination, a requirement established by the Brahmins, presumably to stem the flow of patronage jobs, but, it was largely felt, to keep the Irish in low paying jobs. Curley went down to the Post Office with his friend and took the exam for them. Unfortunately, they were recognized by the men of a rival political organization and soon arrested.

Most politicians, found for whatever reason to be guilty of defrauding the government, slink off to obscurity and there die, but a few fight the allegations to the end, holding their pride and power against the injustice of the world. And then the last few completely admit to violating the law and play it up as their chief virtue. Though at first Curley felt the sting, he quickly recovered, making a circus of his trial, still campaigning actively for alderman even after the verdict had been passed, using the little time he had before going to prison. He characterized his act as a blow against the bigoted Yankee establishment, his way of fighting back against decades of abuse and disenfranchisement. His “fight” for their rights, even at the cost of his own safety, brought voters to the polls in droves, and Curley won by a landslide, his Tammany organization sweeping every position they ran for, even as his trial proceeded. Eventually, a year into his first term as alderman, Curley was finally forced to serve his two months in jail - whereupon he established it as a base of operations, living comfortably in the largest cell, catching up on his reading, seeing constituents and conducting his political business as he would from his Club. Upon release, he was cheered as a conquering hero, come home to serve his people once again.

His terms as alderman, however, were marked largely by graft and political infighting. Accused publicly of taking a bribe in 1906, he was off the hook when a grand jury looking into the accusation, also of several other aldermen, refused to indict. It stained his reputation, however. Additionally, his former ally, and former jail-mate, Tom Curley (no relation), turned on him, claiming that Curley had not supported him enough in his bid for State Senator after he was kicked out of the House. Relations turned violent, with Curley kicking Tom out of the Tammany Club and instigating an all out brawl to physically do so, which pattern continued, regular battles occurring on the streets between the two and other candidates throughout Roxbuy and occasionally larger Boston. He did, however, continue to pursue his progressive policies and work for the poor, even as his reputation grew more turbulent. In 1907, the ''Boston American ran front page news announcing the indictment by grand jury of one state Senator and two aldermen, including Curley, accused of receiving substantial bribes from the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company through a “phantom worker” scheme. Daniel Coakley, a former pressman and now noted lawyer and politician, was hired by the three as their defense, and quickly quashed it, rumor saying by blackmail. The District Attorney decided not to prosecute, but the news left Curley in a bad position politically – indebted to Coakley and unmoored from the larger city-wide Democratic party.

During this time, however, Curley also found love, with Mary Herlihy, a local girl he’d been courting for about half a year, marrying her in June 1906. She would be his support through a difficult political career before her and would bring six children into the world. Mary always saw her role as creating the perfect home for Curley, a place of rest for him to come home to. They would build a family together over the years, and she remained supportive, occasionally putting him in his place, as their family grew.

In response to John Fitzgerald’s notoriously corrupt mayoralty, Republican reformers reshaped Boston local government, replacing the Common Council, with its scores of members representing each ward of the city, with the City Council, made up of nine members, serving two terms and voted for throughout the city, the top nine being the elected representatives, and expanding the powers of the mayoralty, extending the term to four years and centralizing the city government in anticipation of holding onto the office. Curley made the leap to the City Council easily, only increasing his power, and Fitzgerald upset his enemies by winning the mayoralty again, now a plump position with much greater power and patronage opportunities. Levying off his Council position, Curley announced in 1910 his intention to run for U.S. Congress, and, following a campaign as dirty and difficult as any, won the seat. He performed ably as a Congressman, making himself a key part of the Democratic majority, establishing political contacts and friendships, all while still keeping both his Council seat and his eye on Boston and the ebb and flow of its local politics.

Honey Fitz, then barely 50 years old, determined to move on to greener pastures instead of running for another term as mayor, looked to further his political career. 1914 looked to be a boring year in city politics, with neither party offering much of a candidate. Which is exactly why James Michael Curley bypassed both and nominated himself, against the wishes of just about every politician in Boston. Martin Lomasney was furious, Fitzgerald stunned, and the GGA scrambling to prevent any such disgrace as an Irish Democrat criminal from taking the mayoralty. Curley attacked them all, referring to the highly influential Democratic City Committee as a pack of “empty eggshells,” publicly attacking the ward bosses as parasites and hypocrites, a “collection of chowderheads,” swung hard at the business leaders of the community by painting them as the “State Street wrecking crew” and saved his most colorful and toxic invective for the Brahmin aristocracy, whom he snidely characterized as “clubs of female faddists, old gentlemen with disordered livers, or pessimists croaking over imaginary good old days and ignoring the sunlit present.”  His aim was clear - he would take the mayoralty without any concern for the old guard, the influential political establishment that had, up until then, maintained something of an accommodation, however small, between the Yankee and the Irishman. Curley dispensed with all of them and claimed the people of Boston as his only source of power and legitimacy.

Facing such a crisis, candidates came out of the woodwork to defeat Curley. But none surprised as much as old Honey Fitz, who decided to run again for mayor. But, campaigning in full swing, Fitzgerald collapsed on December 5, 1913, exhaustion and stress overwhelming him. Given his state, an unofficial agreement was reached among all the candidates that campaigning would cease until after Christmas, giving Fitzgerald enough time to get back on his feet. Curley completely rejected the agreement, claiming that Fitzgerald was faking. Simultaneously, he sent a letter to the Fitzgerald household exposing Fitzgerald’s affair with a 23 year old cigarette girl named “Toodles” Ryan. He then announced that Fitzgerald was faking because he was scared of a series of lectures Curley was planning to give, the first being entitled “Graft in Ancient Times and Modern,” a clear reference to the rampant nepotism in Fitzgerald’s administration, and the second announced as “Great Lovers, from Cleopatra to Toodles.”  On December 18, Fitzgerald withdrew from the race, effectively ending his political career, and was followed by a mass exodus of other candidates specifically brought in to combat Curley. In the end, it was between Curley and the Fitzgerald and GGA endorsed Thomas J. Kenny. Using especially the endorsement of the GGA, Curley crushed Kenny come January.

Curley instantly marked his administration with one of his most iconic actions. Calling the scrubwomen of City Hall into his office, he shook the hands of each personally, speaking words of encouragement and sincere affection, remembering the hard work of his mother, a scrubwoman in that very building. Curley ordered long handled mops for the scrubwomen in City Hall and announced that the only time a woman would go down on her knees in his administration would be when she was “praying to Almighty God.”  The people of Boston loved him.

As a mayor, Curley was more than everyone asked for and worse than anyone feared. He infuriated the Brahmins by suggesting the city sell the Public Garden for a million dollars, proposing that a water pumping station be installed on the sacred grounds of the Boston Common, as well as public comfort stations for the convenience of visitors from elsewhere in the city. None of this actually happened, but the message was clear - Curley was drawing battle lines and thumbing his nose at the Yankee power brokers. This was his administration, and anybody who thought otherwise could go straight to hell. As he said, “The day of the Puritan has passed; the Anglo-Saxon is a joke; a new and better America is here.”  He cleaned house immediately, disposing of Fitzgerald’s appointees and contractors, slashing overgrown salaries. But this was no reform. Curley was recentralizing power in the city, declaring that his doors would be open always to all people in the city. Immediately, City Hall was teeming with every class and ethnicity of Boston, each looking to meet with Curley and press their case for a job, a contract, a favor, a loan, anything. Curley brilliantly stripped the ward bosses of their power, long based in patronage, by establishing himself as the sole dispenser of patronage in the city, the only man to go to when you needed something. In terms of political power, Boston was his city and there was no denying it.

And, as Fitzgerald and the ward bosses before him, when Curley granted a favor, a small favor was asked in return. Though Curley greatly expanded the amount of city works taking place in Boston, creating new jobs for him to dispense, he clearly grew wealthy off those contracts. And, always Curley, he didn’t hide his wealth either - he immediately began construction of a massive, elegant, beautiful home in Jamaica Plains, one of Boston’s richest neighborhoods. Even with the kind of support Curley had, this ostentatious display of ill-gotten gains began to wear.

So, as 1918 approached, Republicans and Democrats alike promoted powerful, wealthy and popular candidates to contrast against Curley and his house on the Jamaicaway. In the end, Andrew J. Peters, a man who would horribly mishandle the Boston Police Strike in 1919, taking advantage of a split in the Irish field, took the mayoralty from Curley. Further attempting to shut down Curley’s growing Democratic machine, Peters himself submitted a bill to the Massachusetts State Legislature barring Boston mayors, and only Boston mayors, from succeeding themselves. The law passed the Republican State Legislature easily. But Peters’ administration was just as corrupt as Curley’s, with golf-playing Peters unaware of the problems in his administration, or uncaring, distracted by a strange relationship with his ward, Starr Faithful, and pursuing the typical Republican job slashing that all incumbent mayors engage in. Meanwhile, Curley accepted a position as president of Hibernia Savings Bank, a vocation he was said to not be particularly skilled in or happy with.

Following the disaster of Peters’ administration, Curley again ran for mayor in 1921. He faced stiff opposition from Joseph Pelletier, a former District Attorney recently facing criminal charges for blackmail, extortion and fraud conducted while in and performing the services of, his office, and the GGA backed Charles Murphy, both of whom, especially Pelletier, threatened to split Curley’s always reliable Irish block. The competition reached a climax with a meeting between Curley and Pelletier, wherein their selected delegates argued their case as the best chance for a democratic mayor to a third party. One man would be selected, the other would withdraw. Curley was selected, Pelletier withdrew, and Curley went on to crush Murphy.

His second administration would be more of the same – more jobs, more spending, more corruption. Curley spent more and made more on municipal improvements and greatly expanded the number of government jobs in the city. He attempted to leverage his support into a successful bid for Governor, campaigning across Massachusetts and particularly focusing on the issues of the KKK and economic discrepancies. However, though Boston turned out for him in massive numbers, the rest of Massachusetts rejected him equally overwhelmingly, and he lost to Republican Alvan T. Fuller. His mayoralty winding down, and the law against succession still on the books, Curley looks to other ways to expand his power in the face of a steep loss of patronage and political office.