Nelson Johnson - Boardwalk Empire - The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City

126 “What you had was a solid organization man.”Interview with Murray Fredericks, Esquire.

127 “If your uncle got locked up for being drunk … the ward leader would make sure he wasn’t convicted.”Interview with Richard Jackson.

127 “Here, take care of these.”Interview with Richard Jackson.

127 Taggart thought “everything was up for grabs …”Interview with Paul “Skinny” D’Amato.

130 “… Despite his politics, Hap thought that Nixon crowd were fools.”Interview with the Honorable John Sirica. During my research, I learned that Farley and Judge Sirica had graduated from Georgetown Law School the same year. I wrote to him and asked if he recalled Hap. Much to my pleasant surprise I learned they had maintained their relationship over the years via telephone.I interviewed Judge Sirica by phone. He loved talking about Farley and recalled what a great athlete Hap was. The judge laughed frequently, reminiscing about their many conversations over the years. Judge Sirica was the classic raconteur. He had an idiosyncratic figure of speech that he used frequently and which you wouldn’t expect to hear from such a learned person, “don’t cha see?” that was both disarming and endearing. Talking to him over the telephone was a treat. I can only imagine what it would have been like to have him over for dinner.

130 “Whatever you do, do it thoroughly or don’t touch it.”This quote is from “A Conversation with a Politician,” an interview of Hap Farley by Robert Hughey and Chick Yaeger. The interview was conducted several years before Farley’s death and is an excellent piece of oral history. It’s on videotape and is on file at the Library of Stockton State College. Anyone interested in Farley’s career should view it.

130 “Hap was one of those kind, when you’re gonna do something, you’re gonna do that and nothing else.”Interview with Murray Fredericks, Esquire. Dick Jackson and many others confirmed that from the moment you encountered Hap there was no mistaking his seriousness of purpose when it came to Atlantic City politics. There was nothing casual about a political alliance with Hap Farley. He wasn’t forgiving. If you betrayed him ever, or disappointed him one time too many, the alliance was over permanently.

131 “Hap’s people were poor, and the Feyls always thought their daughter was too good for him.”Interview with Mary Ill. I have Bill Ross to thank for introducing me to Mrs. Ill. She was a delightful person and a wealth of information, not just about Farley but about Johnson and Kuehnle as well. Mary grew up with Hap and taught him how to dance. She met him in Philadelphia on weekends while he was a student at the University of Pennsylvania. They went to dance halls that charged a “dime a dance” to be on the floor. When they were teenagers, at his prompting, she passed love letters between Hap and Honey during their early courtship.

131 “Honey was an alcoholic for as long as I knew her … It was like that most nights.”Interview with Joseph Hamilton, confirmed by Mary Ill and others.

133 “He was as smooth a glad-hander as ever lived …”Interview with Richard Jackson.

135 “Ripper Resolutions.” Atlantic City Press , May 22, 1942.

135 Farley’s representation of George Goodmanwas a skillful move in his efforts to succeed Nucky. I learned about it from Patrick McGahn, Esquire, and it was confirmed by Murray Fredericks, Esquire.

136 The discussion of Farley’s career as a legislator in Trenton is in substantial part the product of an interview with his colleague, Senator Wayne Dumont of Phillipsburg, Warren County. Senator Dumont was a gentleman from the old school. His bond with Farley was strong one, forged over many years of working together as legislators. He credited Farley with arranging to have Richard Nixon appear in New Jersey when the Senator ran, unsuccessfully, for governor. I met with Senator Dumont in his law office, and we had lunch together. He took his dog with him everywhere, including lunch. At one point in the interview he became tearful when reminiscing about his personal fondness for Hap Farley.

140 “Hap’s agenda was always first.”Interview with Senator Wayne Dumont.

145 Kefauver’s Committee produced …Final Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, pursuant to S. Res. 202 (81st Congress) August 31, 1951.

147 “Farley could never cultivate the Blacks the way Johnson had.”Interview with Richard Jackson.

148 The several quotes concerning Jimmy Boyd’s role in Farley’s organization are based on an interview with Richard Jackson, confirmed by Bill Ross and Murray Fredericks, Esquire.

151 “It was a strict system … you’d have to wait until there was.”Interview with Richard Jackson.

151 The system guaranteed that “if you were going to move up …”Interview with Richard Jackson.

151 The story of Richard Jackson’s career is based on interviews with him. In hindsight, I now realize he should have been interviewed on videotape, as Hughey and Yaeger did with Farley. It would have been a valuable piece of oral history. I consider it a privilege and an honor to have known him.

Chapter 8: The Painful Ride Down

155 The incident regarding the photo of the dog—without Farley—was told to me by Frank Ferry, Esquire. Hap and Ferry were very close, comparable to father and son. He smiled sardonically as he told the story. There was no mistaking that Frank Ferry felt Hap had been treated badly in his final years.

157 Today, aside from the conventioneers … Time magazine. August 31, 1964.

160 Hotel services broke down …Theodore H. White, The Making of the President, 1964 , (Antheneum Publishers, 1965) at p. 290. As noted by White, more than 5,000 newspersons descended on Atlantic City in August 1964 for the Democratic National Convention. Instead of a marker on the road back , the Convention was a public relations disaster. The reports published and broadcast throughout the nation destroyed what was left of Atlantic City’s aura and revealed it for the beat town it was.

160 Never had a town …T. H. White, Ibid., p. 291.

161 Of Atlantic City it may be written: Better it shouldn’t have happened …T. H. White, Ibid., p. 289.

163 Baker vs. Carr , 369 U.S. 186, (1962) was followed by a second U.S. Supreme decision, Reynolds vs. Sims , 377 U.S. 533, (1964). These two decisions dictated the ruling that Haneman and his colleagues on the New Jersey Supreme Court had to make on legislative districting in New Jersey.

163 “There comes a time in the career of practically every judge …Justice Vincent Haneman in his separate opinion in the decision of Jackman vs. Bodine , 43 N.J. 453, 205, A. 2d. 713 (1964). Justice Haneman’s opinion is a lesson in the history of New Jersey’s bicameral legislature. Haneman eloquently traced New Jersey’s history from colonial days when the province was divided into East and West Jersey. He explains that New Jersey had always had an upper and lower house in its legislature with representation in the senate being “based upon territory as distinguished from population.” Each time the State Constitution was revised, this practice was preserved. Justice Haneman’s concurring opinion is really an “unanswerable dissent.” Despite the persuasiveness of Haneman’s opinion, my hunch is his real audience wasn’t his brethren on the Court or the legal community but rather his old friend, Hap Farley. The opinion is a tribute from one old warrior to another.