Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times And Corruption of Atlantic City (12 page)

Nothing prevented the resort from providing illicit thrills to its patrons, not even a crusading governor in the New Jersey Statehouse. John Fort was elected in the fall of 1907 campaigning on a promise to enforce the Bishops’ Law, which prohibited sale of alcoholic beverages on Sunday. In response to the annual summertime exposés of the
Bulletin
, Governor Fort declared war on Atlantic City. In July of 1908 he vowed to clean up the town. He appointed a special commission to investigate the resort’s illegal activities and demanded to know why the county prosecutor refused to file complaints against the saloon keepers, gambling room operators, and madams cited by Philadelphia’s newspapers.

In August 1908, Atlantic County Prosecutor Clarence Goldenberg appeared before the governor’s commission. Goldenberg testified that personally he saw nothing wrong with the way the resort was run, but that if someone had evidence of wrongdoing, he would prosecute the cases. The prosecutor admitted that witnesses had brought complaints to him, but that on each occasion after a “courteous hearing,” the grand jury refused to return an indictment. “It has been impossible to get indictments … the grand juries are representative of the business interests of the city and the county. The people of the city are getting the government they want.”

The grand juries were handpicked by the county sheriff, Smith Johnson. Sheriff Johnson understood the legal system and knew how to protect Atlantic City’s businessmen. He controlled the selection of the grand jury and saw to it that everyone chosen to serve was “safe.” He even chose jurors who were tavern owners themselves or local businessmen who benefited from vice. When asked why he made no arrests, Johnson told Governor Fort’s commission that he had enough to do already and saw no need to “go looking for trouble.”

The preliminary reports from his commission enraged Governor Fort. On August 27, 1908, Fort issued a Proclamation branding Atlantic City a “Saturnalia of Vice,” demanding the city close the saloons on Sunday and threatening to exercise Martial Law by sending in the state militia. The Governor’s Proclamation read in part:

No one in office or before the Commission questioned the fact that street walking, gambling, houses of ill-fame, people of ill-repute, and obscene pictures and open violations of the Excise laws exist in Atlantic City … never have the notorious street walkers been worse than they have been recently. Never has gambling been more open and more of it in the city than it is right now and the police department and officials of the city all know it.

The resort’s political leaders countered the governor with their tried and true defense—they ignored him. But the business community was incensed and launched a counterattack. On September 8, 1908, a joint letter from the Atlantic City Board of Trade, the Hotel Men’s Association, and the Businessmen’s League was sent to Governor Fort. It amounted to an “Atlantic City Manifesto,” arguing that the governor was being heavy-handed and had treated the resort unfairly. As for the gambling, prostitution, and illegal sale of liquor, the businessmen asserted the “peculiar needs” of a vacation town. It was simply the local custom of entertaining guests and the traditional way of doing business in Atlantic City. This broadside at the governor appeared in the
Bulletin
and stated in part:

The Excise Commission came down and substantially demanded that the sale of liquor on Sunday should immediately cease. This demand, coming as it did in the midst of the summer season, after 50 years disregard, was not complied with … She (the resort) hopes that the State Legislature will not permit to remain longer upon the statute books, in their present shape, laws so crudely drawn that, in their endeavor to prevent a wrong, they, without necessity, have prohibited a right which all consider it without harm to anyone, and which is necessary to the welfare of one of the State’s principal industries, namely, its seashore business.

Governor Fort’s commission never got around to issuing its final report until late December. By that time, the furor had subsided and the report’s recommendations were forgotten, as were the governor’s complaints. The notoriety didn’t hurt any, and by the following summer it was business as usual.

The more popular Atlantic City became, the greater was the need for cooperation between the resort’s businessmen and politicians. Everyone in town lived off the profits from the three months of summer. If the season was slow, it could mean a long, cold winter. Without the blessing of the community, the racketeers who provided the “booze, broads, and gambling” would have had a tenuous existence. Atlantic City’s residents understood the role of the local vice industry and appreciated the need for protecting it from interference by law enforcement officials. From the beginning, the police were instructed to turn their heads. Whatever the attraction, if it brought visitors to town and helped to generate a few dollars for the local economy without hurting anyone, then it was legal by Atlantic City’s standards.

As the resort’s economy matured, the vice industry’s relationship with the local government became more structured. The politicians saw the easy money being made by the racketeers and demanded a piece of the action. Prior to the beginning of the 20th century, an informal partnership between the politicians and racketeers ran the town with broad-based consent of the community. Day-to-day decisions were made by a three-man coalition consisting of County Clerk Louis Scott, Congressman John Gardner, and County Sheriff Smith Johnson. Scott was the unofficial leader of the threesome. His most trusted lieutenant and protégé was a young hotelier, Louis Kuehnle.

Born on Christmas Day 1857, Louis Kuehnle was tall and broad-shouldered. He had a ruddy complexion, dark brown eyes, and a bald head nearly always covered with a hat. Kuehnle smoked big cigars, wore dapper clothes, and enjoyed a good time with the boys. He also had a fondness for dogs. His terrier, “Sparkey,” was his constant companion, following him around town for nearly 15 years. Sparkey went everywhere with his master, including city council meetings, restaurants, and church. Kuehnle’s parents were German immigrants from New York, where his father was renowned as a chef. The Kuehnles were attracted by Atlantic City’s growing tourist economy.

Kuehnle’s father had acquired a small fortune working in New York and quickly made a successful transition from chef to hotel owner. He purchased a large hotel in the mainland community of Egg Harbor City, the New York Hotel, and another in Atlantic City known as Kuehnle’s Hotel. The latter was built shortly after Richards’ second railroad and was located in a prime spot on the north side of Atlantic City near the railroad station. It was a typical “hotel,” a large boardinghouse, for its day, with a wraparound porch highlighted by Victorian gingerbread and wicker furniture. Kuehnle’s Hotel was a popular meeting place year-round for local residents.

By age 18, Louis Kuehnle took over the management of the hotel in Atlantic City. In a short time, Kuehnle was running the hotel on his own, looking after every detail and overseeing everything from changing sheets and cleaning the barroom to waiting on guests in the dining room. Kuehnle was a typical resort hotelier and enjoyed playing the role of host. Through the management of his family’s hotel Kuehnle became well known by everyone in town. He was free with his money; he entertained generously and never denied a request for help from the resort’s poor. Kuehnle joined the Atlantic City Yacht Club and became active in its affairs, serving as chairman. He earned the unofficial rank of “Commodore,” a moniker that stayed with him the remainder of his life. In time, the entire town referred to him only as “the Commodore.” During the next 20 years, the Commodore created a loyal crew of supporters by doing favors and offering his hotel as a meeting place for anyone who needed it.

Kuehnle’s Hotel became known by both politicians and the general public alike as “the Corner.” The ruling coalition of Scott, Gardner, and Johnson met regularly at the Corner to plan their strategy and to hear requests from their constituents. From the porch of Kuehnle’s Hotel, these three power brokers dispensed patronage and favors. In time, people seeking political favors had to first clear their petitions with Kuehnle who had the ear of Scott and his partners. Trusted implicitly by the members of this ruling coalition, Kuehnle’s voice soon became a potent factor in political decisions. At the time of Scott’s death in 1900, his two cohorts had neither the youth nor desire to assume control and Kuehnle became the unchallenged leader. In a short time after Scott’s death, the Commodore was
Boss
and nothing was done without his okay; every candidate, employee, city contract, and mercantile license required his nod of approval.

When things got hot everyone turned to the Commodore. The scorching attacks of Philadelphia’s newspapers and the threats made by reform governors caused anxious moments nearly every summer. The Corner was the scene of many late night meetings with Kuehnle calming the politicians’ fears by reminding them that publicity of any kind was good for business. One popular story has it that the Commodore assured his lieutenants and the local merchants that if the governor ever did send down the militia, then Kuehnle would have the local whores greet them at the train station.

Kuehnle’s closest ally was Smith Johnson, who served as sheriff every other three years from 1890 to 1908. State law prohibited a sheriff from succeeding himself and Johnson was forced to alternate from sheriff to deputy sheriff. When his first term for office was up, Johnson nominated his loyal deputy, Sam Kirby, to run for sheriff. Upon his election, Kirby appointed Johnson his deputy and so on and so on for 20 years. As sheriff, Johnson doled out political patronage and controlled the fees collected by his office. There were charges for such things as serving summonses, conducting real estate foreclosure sales, executing on civil judgments, and housing inmates in the county jail. These fees totaled $50,000 annually at a time when a round-trip excursion ticket from Philadelphia cost $1. The fees were the personal income of the sheriff and he answered to no one except his political allies. Johnson’s fees together with the protection money paid by the gambling rooms, brothels, and saloons financed Kuehnle’s organization. When the fee system was abolished by state government and the sheriff limited to an annual salary of $3,500, the Commodore squeezed the racketeers harder, making protection money from the vice industry the life blood of the local Republican Party.

The source of Kuehnle’s power included more than protection money. The Commodore was embraced by the business community, which supported his efforts to build up the resort. Kuehnle’s favorite slogans were “A bigger and better Atlantic City,” and “Boost, don’t knock.” He succeeded in identifying the local Republican Party with the welfare of the community. Any criticism of the Commodore’s regime became an attack on the city. Hoteliers and Boardwalk merchants would shudder at reformers complaining of corruption. “It will hurt the town,” they said, “don’t spoil the season.” Success of “the season” was everything to local residents. With tourism the only industry in town, the months of June, July, and August were crucial. Nothing could interfere with the visitors’ happiness and the last thing merchants needed was some reformer tampering with things.

The Commodore understood that Atlantic City’s business owners would gladly sacrifice honest government for a profitable summer and he gave them what they wanted. Kuehnle protected the rackets from prosecution and worked with the tourist industry to ensure its success. In exchange, the community let him call the shots.

Louis Kuehnle used his power to help transform a sprawling beach village into a modern city. He understood the need for making investments in public facilities to accommodate the growth generated by Atlantic City’s increased popularity. He believed the resort needed a larger, permanent Boardwalk and saw to it that a new Boardwalk with steel pilings and girders was constructed. Resort residents, in particular the hotels and shops, were the victims of a telephone monopoly. Kuehnle broke it up by starting an opposing company, which later was controlled by an independent telephone system with reduced rates. The city’s electric lighting was inadequate and expensive; the Commodore backed a competing utility and prices came down. Natural gas was selling at $1.25 per 1,000 feet and Kuehnle organized a gas company, which resulted in prices going down to $.90 per 1,000. The local trolley system, important to the convenience of both tourists and residents, was a mess. Kuehnle organized the Central Passenger Railway Company, which was eventually sold to the Atlantic City and Shore Company, that gave residents and visitors alike first-rate street and railway service.

Kuehnle was corrupt, but he had a vision for his town’s future and he worked the levers of power to make that vision a reality. Vitally important, the Commodore realized that without a secure source of fresh water, this island community would never become a true city. His foresight was the driving force behind the purchase of several large tracts on the mainland that were used as sites for wells for Atlantic City’s water system. (A portion of this acreage would years later become the site of the Atlantic City International Airport.) It was also his regime that established the city’s first modern sewage treatment facility. Additionally, street paving, or the lack of it, had been a sore point ever since the resort was founded, with visitors and locals having to constantly dodge mud puddles. Kuehnle went into the paving business, and in a short time the resort had safe and clean paved avenues and streets. Under Kuehnle’s reign, all the elements for the infrastructure of a modern city were put into place.

Atlantic City prospered and so did the Commodore. The companies organized by Kuehnle were all sold at handsome profits to buyers who knew they would have no difficulty obtaining franchises and contracts from the city. Kuehnle was one of the owners of the Atlantic City Brewery, and its beer was the most popular in the resort. If a saloonkeeper wanted his liquor license renewed and not be cited for selling brew on Sunday, he bought the right beer. Kuehnle amassed a fortune.