Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times And Corruption of Atlantic City (2 page)

The first “boss” of Atlantic City politics was Louis “The Commodore” Kuehnle, who ruled from approximately 1890 to 1910. The Commodore recognized the potential of the local vice industry as a reliable source of income for his political organization. It was Kuehnle who established the procedure for assessing and collecting extortion payments from the racketeers who provided unlawful entertainment. Under the Commodore, gambling parlors, speak-easies, and brothels operated as if they were legal. The only time the local police clamped down on anyone was if they were late with their payment. Money from extortion, together with bribes and kickbacks paid by government contractors and vendors, formed the financial basis of Kuehnle’s machine. After banging heads with Woodrow Wilson in the gubernatorial election of 1910, Kuehnle went to jail for election fraud.

Kuehnle’s successor, Nucky Johnson, was the absolute master of Atlantic City politics for the next 30 years. Johnson understood people and power and knew how to handle both. There was not an elected official or city or county employee who did not owe his job to Nucky. He shared in the profits of every municipal contract and gambling operation in town. Prior to going to jail, Kuehnle tapped Johnson as his successor because he had the support of both the politicians and racketeers. By this time, the people of Atlantic City were conditioned to political bossism, and they accepted Nucky as the resort’s new boss. Atlantic City’s residents expected, and wanted, the type of government from Johnson they had known under the Commodore. They weren’t disappointed.

By means of guile, finesse, and the shrewd use of money obtained through various types of extortion, Nucky Johnson established himself as a force in two different worlds. He was both the most powerful Republican in New Jersey, who could influence the destinies of governors and senators, and a racketeer, respected and trusted by organized crime.

Nucky Johnson gave Atlantic City the brand of leadership it needed. The political and economic power structure that had evolved was thoroughly corrupt. If Johnson had refused to work with the racketeers he would have been replaced. However, Nucky took one giant step beyond what the Commodore had achieved in terms of his alliance with the vice industry. Johnson included the key racketeers as members of the Republican organization, making him head of both the political machine and the rackets. Under Nucky, the two rings of power became one.

The repeal of Prohibition in 1934 marked the beginning of the end for Atlantic City’s days of glory. Two years later, at the prompting of William Randolph Hearst, President Franklin Roosevelt sent the FBI to town and it didn’t leave until it had a conviction against Johnson for income tax evasion. It took five years, thousands of investigative man-hours, dozens of indictments of Johnson’s associates, scores of witnesses who perjured themselves, and several incidents of jury tampering, but Nucky was finally dethroned. In 1941 Johnson went to jail and served four years.

The power structure Nucky left behind was far more complex than the one he inherited from the Commodore. Atlantic City’s next boss had to be someone who could command the respect of the local politicians and racketeers alike. Johnson’s successor, Frank “Hap” Farley, was the Irish American lawyer/politician par excellence. His career and method of operation have striking similarities with the fictional character Frank Skeffington, created by Edwin O’Connor in
The Last Hurrah
. Prior to Johnson’s troubles with the FBI he hand-picked Farley to run for the state assembly in 1937. During the next several years Hap Farley ingratiated himself with two of Johnson’s most influential lieutenants—Jimmy Boyd, clerk of the board of freeholders and Johnson’s political right hand, and Herman “Stumpy” Orman, a streetwise real estate salesman who had done well for himself during Prohibition and was well-connected with the national crime syndicates.

Farley, Boyd, and Orman—it was the perfect relationship. Farley was the leader who went off to Trenton and dealt with the public at large. Boyd was the hatchet man, the political enforcer who kept the troops in line. Orman controlled the rackets and collected the protection money used to finance the organization. Boyd and Orman were Farley’s buffer and insulated him from anything that might send him to jail. Hap inherited Jimmy and Stumpy. He couldn’t have replaced them if he wanted to.

Farley’s relationship with Boyd and Orman gave him the opportunity to be a full-time legislator and public servant. Hap immersed himself in the problems of his town and never hesitated to use his power to promote Atlantic City’s interests. He was out in front on every issue affecting the resort’s economy. During the 30 years he served as state senator from Atlantic County, Hap Farley established a record of accomplishment that made him a legend in Trenton. His seniority, combined with his mastery of the legislative process, made him, for more than 25 years, an insurmountable reality with whom every governor had to contend when creating an agenda. Farley dominated the senate so thoroughly that it was political suicide to oppose him. The governors either dealt with Hap or saw their programs frustrated. To his disappointment, much of Farley’s effort as a legislator was directed at delaying the deterioration of his town. It was like trying to stop the tide. Atlantic City was a victim of post-war modernization and as its fortunes declined, so did Hap’s. Farley clung to power as long as he could and was ousted by a Democrat in 1971.

The several years following Farley’s departure were a desperate scramble to revive Atlantic City through casino gaming. The adoption of the Constitutional referendum in 1976 legalizing gambling in Atlantic City is a tribute to the resort’s long-time knack at promoting itself beyond its true worth. Gambling and the money it brought to the resort has breathed new life into a sorry town, and the climb back to national stature has begun. Regardless of how this experiment in urban renewal ultimately plays out, Atlantic City will remain a creature of the values that made it great the first time around.

Jonathan Pitney’s Beach Village

Medicine wasn’t enough. He needed to be something more than a country doctor. Jonathan Pitney had been caring for the sick and injured for more than 30 years, and he was growing weary. A medical practice in 19th-century America wasn’t yet a path to wealth and prestige, and Pitney hungered for both. He knew he’d find neither caring for his patients.

Jonathan Pitney looked like a character out of a Dickens novel. Tall and lean, nearly always draped in a long black cape, Pitney’s piercing blue eyes and long thin hands were the first thing others noticed. His pale craggy skin, together with his large hooknose and high forehead crowned by flowing gray locks, made him a striking figure. Jonathan, the son of Shubal and Jane Pitney, was born in Mendham, New Jersey, on October 29, 1797. The Pitney family had arrived in this country circa 1700. As told to a biographer, Pitney’s great-grandfather and his brother had come from England to “enjoy civil and religious liberty, of which they were deprived at home.” They eventually settled in Morris County, New Jersey. After graduating from medical school at Columbia College in New York, Jonathan left his parents’ home in Mendham and headed south to the bayside Village of Absecon. He was 23 when he arrived in southern New Jersey, and he remained there the rest of his life.

There wasn’t much to New Jersey south of Trenton in 1820. During the two generations following the American Revolution, things had changed little. With the exception of the city of Camden along the Delaware River and the summer resort village of Cape May at the southern tip of the state, southern New Jersey was a vast pine forest. This pine wilderness was interrupted by narrow, sandy stagecoach roads that followed the footpaths of earlier residents, the Lenni Lenape. Sprinkled throughout this green expanse from the Delaware River and Bay to the Atlantic Ocean were tiny villages whose residents descended from the British Isles and Northern Europe. Their lives were centered on farming, fishing, and the manufacture of glass, bog iron, and charcoal. In time, these pioneers became known as “Pineys.” Absecon Village was part of that world and the place Jonathan Pitney chose to begin his medical practice.

Pitney was dedicated to his profession and worked tirelessly. He made rounds by horseback up and down the South Jersey coast to places a doctor had never been. Eleven years after his arrival, on April 21, 1831, Jonathan Pitney married Caroline Fowler, daughter of Rebecca Fowler, owner of the Sailor Boy Inn in Elwood, 15 miles west of Absecon and one of the many villages Jonathan Pitney visited. For years, Pitney was the only doctor many families knew and it was common for him to be called away from dinner or awakened in the middle of the night. Delivering babies, comforting the dying, stitching wounds, and setting broken bones from farming and fishing accidents made him well known throughout the region and loved by his patients. But his income was meager. Oftentimes he had no choice but to barter, and some say he relied upon his mother-in-law to get by. As the years piled up Pitney’s enthusiasm shrank, and he became as weather-beaten as his doctor’s bag.

Pitney wasn’t satisfied just being a doctor, and about 15 years into his medical career he took to politics. A Democrat in a region overwhelmingly Republican, Pitney had his own agenda and bucked the status quo. In 1837 he led the successful fight to have a new county, “Atlantic,” carved out of what was at the time Gloucester County. On the strength of that victory, Pitney was elected the first chairman of the new county government. He was also chosen Atlantic County’s representative to the State Constitutional Convention in 1844. In 1848 he ran for the U.S. House of Representatives. South Jersey wasn’t ready for a Democratic Congressman and Pitney lost, bringing his political career to a dead-end.

Political power beyond his grasp, Jonathan Pitney decided to reinvent himself—this time as an entrepreneur. His hopes lay with a sandy little island off the South Jersey coast.

Early in his career, Pitney crossed Absecon Bay in a rowboat to treat a patient at a site known as “Further Island.” Created by the tides and storms, this barrier island was a wild place dominated by sand dunes, marshes, and waterfowl. The Lenni Lenape had called this island “Absegami,” meaning “Little Sea Water.” Before the American colonists arrived, Absegami was a campground for the Native Americans who came to avoid the summer heat. Further Island was a desolate place with a handful of residents all from the same family, living in seven cottages scattered about the island. Aside from these solitary cabins, there were only “shanties for oystermen and fishermen, and a rude hostelry that served the purposes of the jolly fellows from Philadelphia, who came down in wagons to fish and shoot or to rough it.” Early Americans enjoyed Further Island much the same way as the Lenni Lenape.

The Lenni Lenape gave up their rights to all of South Jersey in exchange for finished goods such as woolen cloth, iron kettles, knives, hoes, and axes. The first record owner of the land comprising Further Island was Thomas Budd. He bought 15,000 acres on the north and south sides of the Great Egg Harbor River in 1678 from William Penn and a group of trustees of the Quakers. The Quakers had become owners of the land—together with the rest of South Jersey—in payment of a debt owed to them. Budd sold off his holdings to other settlers for sale prices of 4 cents per acre on Further Island and 40 cents-plus per acre for mainland property.

When Pitney arrived the only people living on the island were all descendants of a Revolutionary War veteran, Jeremiah Leeds. Several years after the war, Leeds built a cedar log cabin on Further Island and settled there with his wife, Judith. (The Leeds’ homestead was the site of what was later to become Columbus Park and after that the “Corridor” at the foot of the Atlantic City Expressway.) Leeds and those who followed him called their home “Absecon Island.”

Jeremiah Leeds was a bear of a man, standing six-foot-tall and weighing 250 pounds. With the help of his 10 children, he cleared the fields around his home and raised crops of corn and rye. The crops he grew and sold, plus his catches from fishing and hunting, allowed the Leeds family to want for little. Leeds enjoyed the solitude of the island. The thrifty farmer bought land every chance he could but never sold any. At the time of his death, Jeremiah Leeds owned nearly 1,200 acres on Absecon Island, having title to everything except a single tract of 131 acres.

Pitney was charmed by the serenity and unspoiled beauty of Absecon Island. He returned often and grew convinced that this was where he would make his mark. Pitney believed that Absecon Island had potential as a vacation retreat for the wealthy. As a doctor, Pitney felt the island could be promoted as a health resort. He wasn’t going to get rich from his medical practice, nor would he ever have any real clout in politics, but as the founder of a resort he might gain both money and power.

Pitney’s dream was to build a “city by the sea.” He tried selling his idea by touting the healing powers of salt water and sea air, recommending a stay at the beach for every ailment. The problem was getting people to South Jersey and then to the island.

Rail transportation was the answer. During the second half of the 19th century, railroads opened vast tracts of land, otherwise inaccessible, to development. In Pitney’s time the railroad locomotive became a symbol for progress and opportunity. Pitney knew it was his best and only hope to exploit Absecon Island.

Pitney began his campaign by writing letters to any newspaper that would print them, concentrating on the Philadelphia dailies. He recognized the potential for a link between Philadelphia and Absecon Island. If his plans were to become a reality he needed to position his health resort within the orbit of a major population center. Philadelphia was his only choice. In his letters, from “Doctor Pitney,” he expounded upon the health benefits of Absecon Island. In all his letters he stressed that the only thing necessary to make this health-giving island available to everyone was a railroad from Philadelphia to the seashore. Pitney’s letter campaign continued for years without success. The only people excited about his idea were the descendants of Jeremiah Leeds. Some of them had no desire to farm and hoped to sell their land.