Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times And Corruption of Atlantic City (17 page)

Johnson had a passion for Atlantic City’s poor people, especially the children. There wasn’t a shoeshine boy, flower girl, or paperboy whom Nucky didn’t pat on the head and give a dollar or two. If there was a sporting event or another affair at Convention Hall that Nucky thought might excite the children, he saw to it they were permitted in without charge. One lesson Nucky learned well from the Commodore was that the poor have votes just as well as the rich, and if you took care of the poor, you could count on their votes.

Upon completing his daily rounds, Louie then drove the boss in his Rolls Royce to a nightclub, dinner party, an indoor hotel pool—Nucky stayed fit by swimming—a political meeting, and a gambling room or whorehouse, depending on his agenda for the evening. It was common for Nucky to have one of the local call girls accompany him as he made his rounds in the evening, permitting lustful interludes in the back seat of his Rolls.

The Czar of the Ritz was every bit the celebrity on New York’s Broadway as he was on the Boardwalk. Despite the fact that there was “never any snow on the Boardwalk,” Atlantic City’s winter months were longer than Nucky could handle. To cope with the winter doldrums, Nucky rented a large apartment in an exclusive section of Manhattan overlooking Central Park. The rent for his apartment alone nearly equaled his annual salary as treasurer. Evidence of his reputation as a “man about town” is an article by a New York gossip columnist who wrote admiringly that Nucky and oil millionaire Guy Loomis were “among the most liberal and careless spenders of the present day.” The reporter noted that when in New York, Nucky was always accompanied by a group of hangers-on, mostly female, whom he took from one nightclub to another, picking up the tabs. On numerous occasions, he’d give a waiter a $20 bill for handing him an extra napkin; tips of $100 were common. Nucky was so popular with restaurant and nightclub help everywhere he went that the waiters’ union made him an honorary member—Union card #508— Atlantic City Local.

In addition to fancy nightspots, Nucky loved to be part of major events. He could always be found ringside during a championship boxing match accompanied by a group of friends, and bought whole blocks of tickets for the World Series, inviting dozens of guests. On several occasions, he enjoyed a Broadway play so much that he brought the entire cast to Atlantic City for a weekend at his expense. As an old-time local lawyer recalled, “I went to my first World Series with Nucky. The game was just the beginning of the evening. He sure knew how to have a good time.”

Nucky’s audacious generosity had no limits. He deliberately made himself a mark for charity solicitors, and when approached by one with a book of tickets to sell, he’d take his silk hat and fill it with tickets; however many it held was what he bought. He was also obliging with the use of his several automobiles. In addition to his Rolls Royce, Nucky owned two 16-cylinder Cadillacs, a Lincoln, and a Ford. This fleet was always available to visiting notables, whether politicians, entertainers, or mobsters. Nucky’s lifestyle was the personification of his town’s golden years. He was the most colorful player in the World’s Playground and was idolized by Atlantic City residents.

The closing years of the Roaring ’20s saw Atlantic City’s boss attain prestige and power in two different worlds. And as his stature rose, so did his town’s. In his own inimitable way, Nucky worked himself into a position in which he was at once the kingmaker in New Jersey Republican politics and a major player in the national family of organized crime.

By the mid-1920s everyone on the public payroll in both Atlantic City and the County owed his job to Nucky. He personally interviewed and okayed every person hired. There wasn’t a single employee who wasn’t beholden to the boss. He established a practice that was continued by his successor for 30 years more after Nucky was gone. Every successful applicant, regardless of the job’s importance and whether the decision to hire had already been made, was required to first meet with the boss to pledge their loyalty and receive instructions on their political duties.

The selection of police officers was most important to Nucky, and he personally screened every applicant to ensure that the police department cooperated in the smooth operation of the vice industry. The elite corps of the department was the vice squad; it was Nucky’s right arm for protecting Atlantic City’s rackets and collecting the payoffs from bars, gambling rooms, and brothels. A retired detective talked about his hiring. “I was told I had the job but had to go see Nucky before starting work. Nucky was very friendly. He asked me about my folks and said the ward leader liked my family. He told me to just follow my superiors’ orders and I’d enjoy being a policeman.”

There was no civil service or any type of job security other than to be in the good graces of the organization. In order to keep their jobs, city and county workers had to kick back from one to seven percent of their salary to the local Republican Party, depending on the amount of their wages. This “macing” was done on each of the 26 paydays throughout the year. Every department supervisor was required to keep records of these payments on mimeographed forms that Nucky had distributed. The form listed the scale of payments to be made and provided space for checking them off. Kicking back wasn’t an employee’s only duty to Nucky. They were also responsible for seeing to it that an assigned number of voters got to the polls on Election Day. Some of those voters were dead, others were out-of-town summer help who weren’t in town in November—no matter, they voted, even if it meant a city employee had to vote two or three times in different districts.

In addition to the revenue from macing, Nucky held a tight grip on every contract for public construction jobs and for supplying public institutions with coal, vegetables, milk, and so on. He saw to it that everything had its price and he and his organization profited handsomely. Nucky’s organization had become a finely tuned instrument; every part had a function and purpose. There was no one in city or county government or among the contractors, retailers, or professionals who did business with local government—along with the vice industry—who did not have a role to play in keeping the Republican machine running smoothly.

Nucky went beyond what the Commodore had achieved in terms of constructing a formal organization. Kuehnle relied upon his personal popularity and the ability to dispense handouts to the poor, financed through graft and extortion. Unlike the Commodore, Nucky was an organizer. His flamboyant lifestyle camouflaged a calculating mind, figuring angles and planning his moves constantly. Nucky was always talking politics and strategy. He understood human nature and what motivated people, especially the residents of Atlantic City. Under his direction a rigid political spoils system was established. Its hierarchy was based on the four voting wards of Atlantic City. This ward system was the basis for his machine’s election victories and cranked out votes, year after year.

Machine politics was the inevitable product of Atlantic City’s development. The predominance of a single political party for several generations after the Civil War and Atlantic City’s uniquely singular purpose produced a mentality that discouraged pluralistic politics. Atlantic City depended totally on the visitor for its survival. The illicit thrills enjoyed by tourists were a cornerstone of the local economy. Reformers or critics of the status quo couldn’t be tolerated. They were bad for business. The resort’s singular purpose demanded a single mentality to manage its affairs, a mentality unburdened by political ideologies. The philosophies of the national political parties were irrelevant in resort politics. Success of the local tourist economy was the only ideology.

Nucky seized the opportunity created by such a mentality. He was a professional politician who took his business seriously and understood that the only test he’d ever have to pass was to keep the local economy profitable. One means to that end, the protected violation of vice laws, became the accepted way of doing business. He was able to identify himself with the success of the resort’s economy and by doing so elevated himself and the political ward system to the status of a sacred institution.

Nucky’s ward politicians were social workers required to keep an eye out for the personal needs of their neighbors; not just at campaign time, but every day of the year. The four wards of Atlantic City were divided into precincts, blocks, and streets with every constituent accounted for. When someone hit upon hard times, Nucky learned about it from one of his lieutenants. More often than not, assistance was offered before it was requested. Whatever the problem, Nucky’s organization worked to find a solution. When necessary, Nucky’s machine was an employment office, providing a government job of some type or exerting personal influence with private employers.

At Thanksgiving and Christmas everyone in need received a turkey and a basket of vegetables from the Republican Party. During the winter months truck loads of coal were dumped in vacant lots in various neighborhoods and the people in the area were free to take what they needed to keep their homes warm. Should there be a death in the family, the wake was always attended by the block leader and precinct captain, usually by the ward leader, and very often Nucky himself. Nucky was a master at holding the hand of a widow and whispering gently what a fine man her husband was. Always, one of Nucky’s several Cadillacs, complete with an obliging uniformed driver, was available to the grieving family should transportation be needed on the day of the funeral. “Remember, there aren’t any cemeteries in Atlantic City—it’s an island. A ride in a fancy car to the mainland for the funeral made poor people mighty grateful.” Funerals were part of the business of politics and Nucky and all who worked with him dedicated themselves to this business every day of the year. By satisfying the personal needs of his constituents, Nucky was able to perpetuate his machine. He had won the hearts of Atlantic City’s voters, and they were loyal to him.

Nucky’s political clout reached its zenith in the election of 1928. In that year, he supported Morgan Larson for governor and Hamilton Kean for U.S. Senator, both of whom were elected. After the election, a U.S. Senate Committee conducted a formal investigation into a charge that before the primary, Kean had given Nucky a signed blank check, which was cashed for $200,000, with the money used as a slush fund to buy votes. The check was never found but the primary was noteworthy because it was another in which the Democrats in Hudson County crossed over into the Republican primary. The orders went out from Frank Hague and thousands of Democrats invaded the Republican primary to vote for Larson and Kean. Even Democratic election officials themselves voted in the Republican primary. The investigating committee estimated that nearly 22,000 Hudson County Democrats had crossed over. This would never have occurred but for Nucky’s relationship with Hague. Kean discounted such talk and attributed his victory to Nucky’s magnetism, describing campaign rallies he had attended by saying, “Every speaker began his talk by declaring that he was devoted to God and Enoch Johnson.” The following year Larson and Kean offered Nucky the state chairmanship of the Republican Party, but he turned it down. His power was beyond positions and titles.

A vivid illustration of Nucky’s power and the manner in which he flaunted it was his encounter with a reformist group known as “the Committee of One Hundred.” The committee was an idealistic group of crusaders trying to dismantle the resort’s vice industry. Nucky made fools of them.

The Committee of One Hundred was chaired by Samuel Comly, a local attorney. Comly had tried for years to clean up the resort by applying pressure to Atlantic County’s criminal justice system. He was frustrated at every turn. Comly and Walter Thompson worked their way through the entire system without making a dent in Nucky’s empire. They began by hiring their own private investigators who secured sworn statements of eye witnesses to prostitution, gambling, and the sale of liquor. These affidavits were then submitted to Atlantic County Prosecutor Louis Repetto. This was the same prosecutor who had indicted the Coast Guard officers. Repetto found the committee’s proofs lacking and rejected them.

Comly then went to Common Pleas Court Judge William Smathers and asked him to order the closing of a well-known gambling casino, the Golden Inn, on Missouri Avenue. Judge Smathers told Comly, “I’m no reformer. I earn my salary as a judge.” Handpicked by Nucky, the judge wasn’t about to interfere with the resort’s major attractions. Comly then approached State Attorney General E. L. Katzenbach, who refused to get involved. He said, “I’m not going down to Atlantic City unless summoned there by the Supreme Court.” Comly made that stop, too, and got the same reception, being advised by Justice Luther Campbell, “I think you’re all right legally, but I don’t think the community wants anything done.” Nucky had influence with all these people, but it was more than his power that accounted for the reception they gave Comly; the people of Atlantic City were happy with the way their town was being run. Vice as an adjunct to tourism had grown into the resort’s major industry and no one was about to tamper with success.

The final humiliation for Comly and the Committee of One Hundred came on January 31, 1930. That night there were two gatherings held in Atlantic City. Comly, Thompson, and several clergymen had organized a rally at the Odd Fellows Hall on New York Avenue. It was the largest meeting of reformers ever held in the resort. There were nearly 600 persons in attendance—mostly religious leaders from out of town—and Nucky and his lieutenants were denounced royally. The resort was likened to Sodom and Gomorrah and the blame for laxity in law enforcement was laid at Nucky’s feet. Nucky was unperturbed. He was busy hosting an affair of his own. This was the evening for the gala known as “Nucky’s Nocturne.”

While the crusaders were condemning the Czar, he was at the Ritz Carlton entertaining the governor, his cabinet, and the entire state legislature, Republican and Democrat alike. Nucky’s Nocturne was Johnson’s way of once a year showing his appreciation to all his friends in Trenton. Governor Larson had been invited to the Committee of One Hundred’s rally and the meeting was rescheduled several times for his convenience, with phony scheduling problems arising each time. A good party was more to Larson’s liking than speeches by Prohibitionists and muckrakers, and Nucky’s Nocturne was a party no guest could turn down. It was a 12-course meal, beginning around midnight. Nucky served up the best in food, drink, and women the resort had to offer. The state’s political leaders were Nucky’s playthings and his critics could expect no help from them. But Nucky’s political influence was merely a means to an end.