Word: curleys
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Like his political history, Jim Curley's Harvard History begins before the turn of the century in the day when a few of the boys at Pete Whalen's cigar store talked him into running for Boston's Common Council. Old Ward 17, an immigrant district which included City Hospital and the Mud Flats, had been devotedly tended by tight-fisted Pea-Jacket Maguire who had only recently been hoodwinked into giving up his patronage for the honorific and powerless post of Democratic City Commission Chairmen by John F. Dever, the Uncle of the late Governor. Dever's position...
...left Roxbury that day, and made his way over to Harvard Square and Max Keezer's used clothing store. The next time he was seen at Whalen's Place, Curley sported full evening dress--cutaway and striped pants. Shabby though it may have been in a few places, his Harvard cutaway helped Curley make a name for himself. He wore it in campaigns for thirteen years until he was elected to Congress in 1911. Then Curley gave the suit away to a cousin who, in due time, he saw waked...
...Harvard an unparalled source of humor and self-advancement in Ward 17. He had long admired the well-oiled machine of New York's Tammany Hall, which, in a modest way, his own Roxbury Tammany Club recreated. Partly because many of his constituents could not yet read a ballot, Curley made a more educational enterprise of his club. He invited speakers from outside the ward. Whatever the topic, he assured them all of an intelligent and sympathetic audience. Thus their dual function was to provide the ward with entertainment as well as enlightenment. Such was the speaker, an opponent...
...spite of numerous political reverses, the hey-day of Curley's Harvard career came in the 'thirties. The depression gave numerous opportunities to sport with President A. Lawrence Lowell. Distressed to note that the 1931 Harvard-Army football game was to be played at the Cadets' small field, Mayor Curley pressed President Lowell to move the game to Yankee Stadium, with the extra proceeds going to the City of Boston for its unemployed. When Lowell protested that a Harvard team could play only on a college field, Curley arranged for Boston College to play Holy Cross at Harvard Stadium...
...Curley did not always emerge so jauntily from his encounters with the faculty however. In 1931 at a luncheon given by Colonel House, he had astonished the guests, embarrassed Roosevelt, and enraged the Boston Irish by declaring himself for Roosevelt--and not Smith--for President. When the primary came around the next May, Curley convinced Roosevelt to enter. Since Smith's entries were all veteran politicians, Curley hit upon the idea of outdrawing them by appealing to all minority groups. So the Curley-Roosevelt slate included a Frenchman, an Italian, a Pole, a Negro, the President of the Massachusetts State...