Ponzi's Scheme by Mitchell Zuckoff Page A

diminutive stature and acquisitive nature earned him another sobriquet, “the Little Napoleon.”
    By 1913, Curley was eager to become mayor—the job paid better than being a congressman, and there were more opportunities for pocket lining. But he loathed the idea of having to face a sitting incumbent Democrat with a similar following. Once again the lawyer Dan Coakley proved useful. Coakley shared with Curley a scandalous piece of information about Fitzgerald: The mayor had made a spectacle of himself with a buxom roadhouse gal named Elizabeth “Toodles” Ryan. Curley had just what he needed to squeeze the family man Fitzgerald from the race. A letter soon arrived at Fitzgerald’s house threatening exposure of his public flirtation with Toodles. Fearing for his reputation, Fitzgerald ended his candidacy, giving Curley the opening he needed to take control of Boston City Hall. The episode was eventually memorialized in a classic bit of Boston doggerel: “A whisky glass and Toodles’ ass made a horse’s ass out of Honey Fitz.” Fitzgerald’s only consolation was the wedding soon after of his beloved eldest daughter, Rose, to Joseph P. Kennedy, the son of an Irish politico-cum-saloon-keeper-cum-rumrunner. Rose would pay special tribute to her father by naming her second son after him: John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
    Curley claimed the mayor’s office in the name of honest government, ironically suggesting that he was just the man to clean up the mess of graft, patronage, and incompetence that Fitzgerald had left behind. At first, he seemed true to his word, but soon he returned to form: ethnic warfare, intimidation, and a level of graft unparalleled in Boston history. The nadir was the palace he was building on the parkway.
    The big question was how he could possibly afford such a mansion. Curley had no declared savings, yet he had also recently purchased a seaside summer home in Hull. His mayoral salary of ten thousand dollars was not enough to pay for the land, much less the building and its sumptuous furnishings.
    An investigation by the city Finance Commission led to a recommendation that Curley face prosecution for an array of criminal charges. But action depended on the local district attorney, Joseph C. Pelletier, a political ally of Curley’s who, years earlier, had rejected calls to prosecute him for the New England Telephone and Telegraph bribe allegations. Beyond their political ties, Curley shared with Pelletier a link to Dan Coakley: Coakley had served as Pelletier’s campaign manager, and Pelletier and Coakley were in league on a sexual blackmail game. At Coakley’s urging, Pelletier rejected the call for prosecution. That was how it worked. Once again Curley had caught a break.
    Still, Curley had to answer to voters if he wanted to win a second term in 1917. When graft was doled out in small doses or tucked in secret bank accounts, it could be hidden, denied, or downplayed. It surprised no one in Boston when a man with a hand on the tiller of government had his other hand in the government till. But the mansion was too much, a ten-thousand-square-foot gorilla climbing to the roof of Curley’s City Hall with his future in its grasp.
    The newspapers had a field day. Edwin Grozier’s
Post
was especially disgusted with Curley, despite the paper’s Democratic leanings and the fact that Grozier actually agreed with the mayor on a number of key issues. In his race for reelection, Curley ran not only against his opponents but against the
Post,
at one point holding a rally on Washington Street across from the offices of “that foul sheet.” Pretending to be a David among Goliaths, he shouted, “With every corrupt boss and rotten newspaper against me, with all of these powers of rottenness and corruption against me, they can’t beat Jim Curley.”
    Awash in scandal and distrust, and with old enemies like Honey Fitz working behind the scenes