‘Old Smoke’

Few modern statesmen enjoy resumes like that of Congressman John Morrissey, who once told the House: “I have been a wharf rat, chicken thief, prize fighter, gambler, and member of Congress.” When Morrissey, irritated during congressional debate, roared, “If any gentleman on the other side wants his constitution amended, just let him step into the Rotunda with me,” his threat was not empty. Yet Morrissey was enormously popular simply because he was his own man.The Irish-born Morrissey apparently spent his youth learning to fight in barrooms and riverboats. He made his metropolitan debut in the Arena, Captain Isaiah Rynders’s saloon at 28 Park Row. The captain was a kind of political consultant, specializing in organizing general mayhem and ballot-box stuffing on a cash-retainer basis. Morrissey, whom an Arena habitue had addressed with inadequate respect, asked if any prize fighters were present, took off his cap, and said, “I can lick any man in the place.” Some eight men silently turned from the bar, grabbed chairs, bottles, and other handy utensils, and rushed him as one. Nonetheless, Morrissey held his own until Rynders hit him under the ear with a spittoon.The captain, who admired spirited men, paid Morrissey’s medical bills and then employed him as an immigrant runner. He met immigrants at the dock, found them work and shelter, and, after obtaining their pledges to vote the Tammany ticket, helped them get American citizenship by arranging their appearances before sympathetic judges (naturalization then involved merely convincing a jurist of one’s loyalty to the United States).Testimony during Boss Tweed’s corruption trials later indicated the hardworking Morrissey had been convicted of assault with intent to kill and for burglary in 1849, serving 60 days. He was indicted three times in one day in 1857 for three separate assaults with intent to kill. And he was convicted of breach of the peace in 1861 and sentenced to a $50 fine and three months’ hard labor.Busy as he was, Morrissey was also a bare-knuckle boxing contender under the old London Prize Ring rules, the Marquess of Queensberry having not yet reformed the sweet science. These fights were rough: rounds ended when a fighter fell, was knocked down, or was thrown; matches endedwhen a fighter could not stand up. In 1858, Morrissey fought John Heenan, the Benicia Boy, for the championship at Long Point, Canada. They battled for 32 minutes, during which, after Heenan broke his hand on a ring stake, Morrissey beat him into the ground “as a hammer beats a nail.”Morrissey’s most renowned exploit was recounted by William E. Harding, longtime sporting editor of the National Police Gazette:Morrissey … became infatuated with a noted cyprian, Kate Ridgely, who was a mistress of Tom McCann, a noted rough and tumble fighter. … This inflamed McCann’s jealousy, and when he met his rival in Sandy Lawrence’s house proposed to fight him for an undivided share in Kate’s affections. … At the commencement of the fight McCann was successful, and threw Morrissey heavily. As he fell a stove was overturned, a bushel of hot coals rolled out, and Morrissey was forced on them. McCann held him there until the smell of burning flesh filled the room. The bystanders made water on the coals, and the gas and steam arose in Mc-Cann’s face and choked and exhausted him. Morrissey then … pounded McCann into insensibility. From that time until the day of his death Morrissey was called “Old Smoke.”Retiring from the ring in 1859, Morrissey built a clubhouse and bought the racetrack at Saratoga Springs, N.Y., then a genteel watering hole. In 1866, he opened lavish gaming rooms on 24th Street in Manhattan. Some neighbors maintained his casino lowered the neighborhood’s tone. Their wives, when Mr. and Mrs. Morrissey attended grand opera at the Academy of Music, glared at the beautiful Mrs. Morrissey through their mother-of-pearl opera glasses.Morrissey revenged the snubs by winning election to Congress from the district where his casino was located. He celebrated his landslide reelection by commissioning diamond-and-sapphire opera glasses from Lemaire of Paris as a $75,000 gift for his wife. Their glitter alone permitted a delighted Mrs. Morrissey to dazzle her detractors on opening nights.After the Tweed Ring’s collapse in the early 1870s, Morrissey served as police commissioner, perhaps due to his experience with the criminal justice system. As he would not obey new Tammany boss “Honest” John Kelly, he was fired in 1875. Old Smoke was then elected state senator from Tweed’s old district. In 1877 he ran for re-election from the city’s wealthiest neighborhood. Enraging respectables and machine pols alike, Morrissey won by a huge majority. He contracted pneumonia during his last campaign, however, and died, age 47, on May 1, 1878. More than 12,000 mourners saw him to his grave.

‘Old Smoke’

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