Word: curleyism
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Climbing a flight of stairs and entering a barren room with dirty green walls, we found that things weren't so dead after all. A switchboard operator was busy directing the heavy traffic of telephone calls, and rough-looking men were pushing bales of "Curley, Courageous, Capable" posters from one back room to another. We asked one of the poster-pushers where we could find Curley's publicity director. After looking us over thoroughly, he pointed to a diminutive man in shirtsleeves and shouted "Callahan! These two guys want to see Smith." Callahan said Smith was on the telephone...
...Smith was an unassuming man with horn-rimmed glasses and a shifty voice. When asked if Curley was moving out of the building, he took us down a back corridor, opening door after door, and saying, "Look, look in there, there are eighteen rooms and they're all empty. The only reason we're here is to take care of Mr. Curley's mail, see? But look at these rooms, empty, all empty...
...voters, chanting out names, addresses, and party affiliations. Four of them resembled washerwomen but the fifth was nattily dressed in a tweedy jacket, orange scarf, and a chic red hat. Three typists had appeared during our short absence and were peeking out news releases. Smith explained "Of course Mr. Curley's regular political life keeps him busy. That's the only reason these people are working...
...except for the one facing Copley Square and the Boston Public Library. There a large number of men were smoking cigars and listening to the Giants beat the Yankees, 5 to 1. We approached a tubby man with his feet propped up on a desk and asked, "Who is Curley's real campaign manager...
Tommy Kelly went back to his telephone, leaving us with AL Smith. "I've been with Curley forty years," Smith lamented when asked about Curley's withdrawal, "and I've never seen anything like this." Then he turned red and said angrily "Some people forget favors you've done for them the very next day." He recounted some of the favors Curley had done for the poor, from Christmas baskets to labor legislation, and told us, "That man has got a bigger heart than head...