The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 27, 1898, Page 23

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, MARCH 27, 1898. rict all several of the d Democracy 1en I heard amid the pictur- “south’ of d ge*wooing the days preceding e A block away from the old Arcade ket, that was a market a genera- ago, 1 discovered that the of that old and spreading ruin w g in new -aked and striped with bright cally st chrome yellow, and I knew that all splendor proclaimed the glorious birth of the abode of the new district L As I entered a wide door of the place rved, respectfully, the sole warn- >aint’’ on pieces of writing pa- per and sensed again the newness of Stocked in view somethi from the stree lustrous oak bar- ;¢ b 3 “Bour- | Rum, ete, and it not in fancy that 1 saw them judi- cious fortifi the mustering and the storming of the fall campaign. 1 Government, the brainy s is always prepared for war. And t the bar, behind a big screening case with bottled stuffs that may j “cops” to Sixth stri and r sizzed and frothed and nd, already spluttering its city’s fate. y ordinary opening of a 11 that was giving paint, > to a corner of stablishment of a to be the izefighter and poli- n active politics in he was big i at a primary. At Freeholders he es- ticket which led the Demo- of District the Fire De hustling in th k eventful ds When the ballots were * counted the ticket he worked for was found to have received a majority in that district and Greggains claims the credit. r t. Dougherty and north | white paint, fantasti- | Shipley | iquarters by a dis-| | the s opposed the ticket | There was hot | ond on that| ‘With the pr glory A factional lead nd in the di ded a he; quarter: bu couldn’t v : in his boots en an offic : Greggains, Dem. What wa at such a juncture than t a saloon. rell, wa g who Al ., wa wanted a T he prevailed on the 2 Farrell to stay and fill v Mr. Alexander Greggains, member of the commitgee of fifteen in charge of Congressman Ma- y gubernatorial campaign, rising the district where he was ghter and hero of many an ele n scrap, came to be found at the end of his own bar, providing an ex- ample of the birth and rise of a dis- trict bo: Aleck was cut out for a boss in more ways than one, for when I entered the newly painted abode of political and social power I heagd him roar: ‘“Here, put on that coat, you — fool!™ “‘All right, Aleck; les’ have ’'nother drink—everybody have drink,” said the | honest son of toil, with a lunge at the bar, as he slapped down another hard- earned dollar. “‘Steam,” “'steam,” “steam,” chorused the line fn unison, and Aleck poured out a teaspoonful of whisky on invita- tion, spat it out after the ‘“Here's luc! and took out the 10 cents for it from the payment. The b always asked to drink at such civil government bars. He is not expected to make a hog of himself, and he is not, of course, suppc beer, in all of which custom he reaps the regular percentage in dollars and ((’n; “Pes, we're just opening up,” said Aleck in a pause after the rush. “I needed a place like this for the cam- paign,” and waved both hands proudly about the freshly bedecked room, shining with newly painted kegs and unused glasse was a smart- n of appearan: apted to the or- dinary beer business of the neighbor- hood as well as to the higher class patronage that politics might bring. he: a | The beer came from somewhere, just as it does uptown, to faucets—two for eam and one for the lager. was a back room for all loungers and card-players; and there was a little room behind the bar, with an outside door of its own, that privacy might | cloak consultations if needful. “You haven't seen. the club, have you?” and I saw the club, entered quite naturally by a door from the bar- room. All the social and political and business life of the headquarters passes quite naturally through the barroom. The large barnlike club quarters were strewn with some old athletic outfits and with a ring in process of arrange- ment. The old San Francisco has exi d on Sixth vears. Greggains political bow. Athletic Club vears ago, he suddenly hood respect and rerown ilistic_career y Breslin, hat sectic s.and- down and its deficits ago = poor old quarters down by Brannan street. It was another opportunity for Aleck and he became president and on. instru the old club and promptly moved it, with a whoop, up the street into a big annex to his new saloon. Aleck elaborately displayed all the gaudy social paraphernalia of the club’s new headquarters for the Thirty- second, the boys piled over one another in the strus for member- ship, according to his story. “A boss has got to keep level head and know human nature, observed Aleck, startin a discussion of the art of bc sm with elementary wisdom. “Most people don’t believe it; but I never took a drink of even beer till I was 24 years old. Since then I take something when I must and spit it out if I get a chance. “The main rule is, always be ready | | to do a favor for anybody at any time, | | day or night. If one of the boys gets |on a ‘bat,” or in a scrap, and gets run in, get him out; and if he is a work- ing man save him from losing any time at his job. A woman’ll wake you up, crying that her boy is locked up. Go and look after him. Perhaps there's a | family got thrown out and you can to drink | There | | My guarantee their rent or pay a week’s or a month’s rent somewhere. I was always willing to help anybody out of trouble if I could, unless it was a petty larceny thief. “If a boss has been born and raised in the district he’s working and knows 'body, like I do around here, peo- 11 come to him with all sorts of business and family troubles. “If it's a family row get them to patch up their troubles and send them Y home. A fellow don’t have to tell all the favors he does. The women are al- ways gossipin’ around and everybody knows it. When you do a man a favor like that it don’t mean that he’ll vote with you just when you want him to, but he’s more apt to; and the more friends you make the better you're off. “To be a success in politics,” Aleck added, “a man ought to keep away from his relatives and take care of his workers. Don’t be tryin’ to get all the jobs for your relations.” This last bit of practical wisdom fur- nished an odd bit of contrast a moment later. “How did Dougherty and you first fall out?” he answered: “Dougherty and I were all right when I was East, fighting, along about ’91. ‘While T was away the foreman's place at the engine-house up here fell vacant. brother Mike was assistant fore- man. It was only right to give him the job, and then I thought Dougherty owed it to me. So I wrote to him, ask- ing him to put Mike in. Mike didn’t get the job, though. When I came b}:]-.vk”l asked Dougherty: ‘How about that?" ““Well, I'd_ a give him the place all right,’ says Dougherty, ‘but the Chief wouldn’t stand for it. He said he'd seen Mike driving around town in bug- This was simply another string to the | gies too much, and out in the park.’ In answer to my'curious inquiry, | 23 “Mike hadn’t been drlving around too | much. He owned a milk route and used to drive around collecting a little when he had a right to; that was all. “I thought I knew what Dougherty | was giving me, and I says to myself: | ‘I'll just go and ask the Chief about | that.’ ** ‘Dougherty’s a liar,” sald Chief Sal- n, when I spoke to him. ‘I never saw your brother to know him in my “That settled Dougherty with me and I've been against him ever since, and T'll always be against him.” Mike Greggains is “‘trun down” on a foremanship, and years later the Greg- gai forc will rally to battle a ticket for Freeholders in a close contest. | The summons, “O Aleck!” left me for a few minutes with Lieutenant Farrell, but the tap of political wisdom flowed on as freely from him as from Greg- gains. “Aleck and I was raised together here | and I'm glad to see him getting up in the world,” sald Farrell. “The Free- holders’ election shows how Dougherty 'nd the Fire Department has lost the grip. There’'s no use bucking public sentiment. A live boss must get in with | it the way it’s going. You see when these old tads around here, on those | back streets, get a bi~ water bill, they | don’t know anything about the water company; \they vell ‘Supervisors!’ | “And then the Fire Department's | been unpopular down here since Sulli- | van’s been saying it was out of poli- tics, though it ain’t, for you ought to have seen these engine-house men out | hustling election day; and when their | | ticket was beat right in Dougherty's district they transferred every man here. They haven’t been treating the district right, and that counts, too. The | people like to see boys they know at with the Conroy, Chute and .\!cCord] faction against Higgins. | “This was the old Forty-sixth then, | vou know. I was in two fights that primary, but we had the inside and | won out.’ With a few brief tales he rushed through the years into the more recent | and racy field of his Democratic his- tory. T} switched to the Democrats in the campaign when Cleveland was running the second time. Dougherty wanted to beat Mike McDonald in the old Forty- sixth and he wanted me to help him. So I resigned from the Republican County Committee and Dougherty put me in the Fire Department.” “We had so.ae hot times that pri- mary,” he continued. ‘“Dougherty sent me over to McDonald's own precinct, and I started in challenging there against McDonald himseif and Ed Riley. “McDonald started in flourishing a gun and bluffing me generally. I had an old gun and I gave it to one of our boys and says, ‘Now, you keep right close to me whatever happens give me that gun if I want it | “IWhen one of our fellows came up to vote the Inspector just dumped his | ballot on the floor. | “] puts my hands on the barricade | and swings half way over, and Mec-| Donald out with his gun. I knew he wouldn’t shoot; at least I didn’t think | he would, and I says to the inspector: | “ ‘Say, are you goin’ to let that man | vote? | “ ‘Get down or I'll blow thé top of | yer head off,” says McDonald. | “I, keepin’ my eye on the gun the while, says, ‘Look out, or that thing’ll | and go off, the way you’re foolin’ with it.”| “The way he took this I concluded I T ¥ A LATEST SOCIETY FAD: GET A FAMILY CREST EDIGREE hunting is the fad of the hour. The great question seems to be “Who were mv an- cestors?” 1 have it from the very highest authority—from a man who knows more about the lines of descent of prominent American families than probably any other per- son in the United States. I refer to Mr. Charles H. Browning, who has de- voted his entire life to the study of genealogy an@ heraldry and whose most recent achievements are embodied in the Order of Runnymede and the Order of the Crown. He is the organ- izer of the first and the only male mem- ber of the second. Mr. Browning occupies a sphere which is unique. He is not a profes- sional “pedigree hunter” in the sense that hundreds of men and women are who make a very comfortable living by catering to the vanities of those Ameri- cans who imagine themselves better than their neighbors and want to prove it. That is a profession in itself. Mr. Browning does not have to hunt for pedigrees. He is a walking encyclo- pedia of genealogy. He 1s an expert. His services are called upon in organ- izing various genealogical societies. His | advice is courted in matters. pertaining He knows all about to such things. everybody’'s family everybody and the engine-house, and when there's a |didn’t need any gun, so over I jumped. | 5way back as far as they can be traced. vacancy they like to see some of the | boys down here get a show. But, no, | when there’s a vacancy some fellow from North Beach bobs up here. So, | when a fireman asks 2 man in the | neighborhood to vote this way the fel- | apt to say, ‘To the divil with | | | | ve always stayed right down here in the district and that counts,” observed Mr. Farrell, in viewing the hopeful outlook. “We don’t go up town more than an evening or two a week. These up-town politicians that spend all their time up around the corners and hotels and headquarters up town can’t keep their influence.” “I was just raised in politics and pu- | gilism,” went on Greggains, rumina- | tively, as he resumed his seat and his | train of cheerful thoughts. “Us kids | were always dubbin’ around where | there was anything goin’ on. We al- | ways had our fun around primaries and meetin’s, and when I was 18 I | joined the Black Eagle Club down here. That was a Blaine and Logan club and I was a Republican then. Us boys just joined for the fun of the uniforms | and marching. | | “I learned a lot more about politics, | but I didn’t really go into the business | till the next campaign, when some of | the boys put me up for member of the Republican County Committee. Two | years before my brother and some | others put Mitch Phillips up for Super- | visor, but he wouldn’t be tied to no | boss and so naturally couldn’t get any support. Out of that mess came a fight | against Jack Hoey, and the next time | the boys put me up agen him I was “The inspector grabbed. the ballot box to hang on to it and I just made a feint at his ear. He threw up his hands quick and I grabbed the box and flipped it over to our gang, and the books followed after it. Just then Mc- Donald jumped inside the barricade and I knocked him into a corner before he could strike and swung among 'em right and left.” Aleck’s face was aglow with anima- tion like that of a war veteran who tells how his corps made the tri- umphant charge, and he paused to in. gT"oux- gang was ready, but the other fellows had enough. Before I could get to the box a policeman had it and was starting to carry it up to the committee rooms. “ That's right,’ I says, ‘but let me carry the box.’ “'I don’t care what yez do with the box,” he says, ‘so long as I get it up- town.” “So I took the box, and as we went along I put in about 200 tickets I had ready. | ““Well, of course, there was a contest | at headquarters. The books were gone | d the committee asked how many tickets ought to be in the box. “The other side said about fifteen and I said I judged there was about 260. “We chewed the rag for a while, and then the committee decided to count the tickets just as they were in the®ox. “‘And that’s how we won out in that | precinct that time.” i And Alick joined again the social and political tide of Sixth street, on which he has plannel to ride in quest of po- litical power. JAMES ORR. ‘ | That's why the ladies who organized | the Order of the Crown honored him with a membership in their society. He | is the only man ever elc ‘ted to mem- | bership in that exclusive body or who ever will be. He is sui generis. Mr. Browning is a native of Cincin- | nati, Ohio, and is the son of a deceased | United States navy officer. He was ed- ucated at Kenyon College and entered upon newspaper and literary work. | Long before the prevalent fad for ped- |igrees and pedigree orders appeared | Mr. Browning developed a taste for | genealogical work by investigations lhuo his ow.. lineage. From experience thus derived he saw the necessity for and evolved a perfect system for the verification of pedigrees aiready com- piled and for the growth of the family tree. Although the Order of the Crown has not yet been fully organized, at least fifty designs have been submitted for insignia, which shows, in a measure, | to what extent the fad has grown. The | idea originated with Miss Farnsworth of Detroit, who immediately communi- cated with Mr. Browning for advice. | That gentleman naturally advocated the movement. I on the high road to success, is as yet | without a rival, and Mr. Browning has been commissioned to compile the Year Book. That means—well, it means a nice little lump sum, anyhow. Mr. Browning lives at Ardmore, Pa., just a short ride from that hotbed of | pedigrees, Philadeiphia. For several | years he edited the American Histori- | cal Register, which was the organ of the | American Heredity Society, and he Is As a result the order is | | also the author of that thrilling work, “Americans of Royal Descent.” | I found Mr. Browning, when I called | on him one day last week, to be a most | affable gentleman who seemed to re- | gard his w.rk with strangely mingled | enthusiasm and irony. He impressed | upon me the fact that while the im- | pression might prevail that these soci- | ties were all froth, they could not be | regarded as such purely from the standpoint of establishing authentic degrees. i “In some,” he said, “they accept what are known as collateral mem- bers. That is to say, a member of the Sons of the American Revolution may not necessarily be descended directly from a Revolutionary soldier. His great-grandfather may not have fought in the Revolution, but if his great-grandfather’s brother did he is eligible as a collateral member. That is the case with Chauncey M. Depew, who is preside t of the society in" New York.” “What is the origin of these socie- ties?” was asked. “The Society of the Cincinnati was the first,” replied Mr. Browning. “It was organized by Frederick Willlam von Steuben at the close of the Revo- lution, and was originally known as the Order of the Cincinnati. It died out, and when reorgahized many years later it was changed from an ‘order’ to a ‘soclety,’” as being more typically American.- Then followed the Society of 1812, the Society of thc Colonial Wars, Sons of the Revolution Daughters of the Rev- olution, Colonial Dames, Mayflower Society, Founders and Patriots, Daughters of Cincinnati, the Aztec Club (composed of officers who served in the Mexican war), the Society of { Foreign Wars, Daughters of the Con- | federacy, Order of Washington, Colo- nial Society of Massachusetts, De- scendants of the Pioneers of America, Sons of Veterans, United States Navy Veteran Association, and—that’s about all I can thik of at present.” “You must have many experiences in your work which are amusing,” I ven- tured. “Yes, indeed,” replied Mr. Browning. “Take the women who claim to be line- al descendants of Benjamin Franklin. The fact that Frankiin was never mar- ried doesn’t seem to worry them in the | least. They don’t seem to mind a little | thing like a marriage ceremony where | their ancestors are concerned. “As a matter of fact, the sole idea of many persons seems to be to avail themselves of every opportnnity to | found a society to get a badge of some | sbrt.or other. To be alliterative, like the preacher of ‘rum, Romanism and rebellion’ fame, I should characterize the prevailing tendency as a case of badges, buttons and banquets. To put up a monumént, to erect an historic building, to look pretty on parade, to get one's name in the paper—those are the things to strive for, and then comes happiness. One chap thinks he's a huckleberry better than another chap, and there is also great happiness in that, you know.” e L St