As the elevator came to a stop its lone passenger waited impatiently for it to open. When the doors parted, Frank Farley was through them like a shot. At a near run, he was on his way down the hall. Awaiting him daily in the reception area of his office were 14 chairs, each one filled with someone seeking a favor. As he entered the office, Farley greeted everyone and asked his secretary who was first. Then it was into his office where he met with one person after another until they all had a chance to speak with the senator.

Atlantic City’s residents had come to expect favors that went beyond politics. Farley’s duties were like those of a feudal lord. The calls for help ranged from jobs, licenses, and contracts coming out of city hall to advice with legal or personal problems and pleas for financial aid. No one was turned away without hope. Sometimes it was a telephone call while the person sat there. Often it took the form of a letter that Farley dictated to his secretary, Dorothy Berry, while the person waited. Occasionally there was no solution, but Farley never let on. Instead, he referred them to someone else who gave the bad news. Regardless of the outcome, everyone who left Farley’s office was grateful for his help. He was the town’s new boss.

The transfer of power from Nucky Johnson to Frank Farley is revealing of both Farley and the organization Nucky had built. The type of control exercised by Johnson wasn’t something he could simply pass to another. The cogs in the machine had a say about whom they’d follow. Nor could Nucky’s kind of authority be grabbed by sheer force—there were too many competitors, and no one had an edge.

The power structure Nucky Johnson left behind was more complex than the one he inherited from Louis Kuehnle. While the Commodore had cooperated with the local vice industry and used protection money from the rackets to build his political organization, they remained separate spheres of power. Under Nucky the hierarchy of the local crime syndicate was linked to the chain of command of the city’s Republican Party. The local power structure was a single, integrated unit comprised of politicians and criminals. The two spheres of power became one. Nucky presided over what had become a perfect partnership, and the person who took his place had to have the respect of the politicians and racketeers alike.

By 1940, several years into the FBI’s investigation, Johnson’s inner circle knew it was only a matter of time before he’d be in jail. William Frank and his agents weren’t going to leave town until they got him. Once Nucky was indicted and awaiting trial, several of his lieutenants began jockeying for position. The two main competitors were Frank Farley and the mayor, Thomas D. Taggart, Jr.

Tommy Taggart was born in Philadelphia in 1903, and his family moved to Atlantic City when he was six. The Taggarts were one of hundreds of Philadelphia families who relocated to the resort at the turn of the 20th century. Thomas, Sr. was chief surgeon at the Atlantic City Hospital for 25 years and was one of the most respected members of the community. Taggart’s mother came from old wealth and boasted that her ancestors had arrived in America on the Mayflower. If Atlantic City had an upper class, the Taggarts were part of it.

Tommy Taggart attended Atlantic City High School and then Dickinson Law School. He was admitted to practice in 1927 and with his family’s backing opened his own law office. Taggart immediately gravitated toward politics, joining the Third Ward Republican Club, serving the organization faithfully as a campaign worker in several elections. He did everything from writing campaign literature and printing copies, to personally handing them out on the streets. Despite his advantage in education and family wealth Tommy Taggart worked side-by-side with the other ward heelers. But he wasn’t “one of the boys.” A little known fact about his personal life was that Taggart was a closet homosexual. One well-connected tavern owner spoke of Taggart this way: “What can I say? He liked boys, young boys. Several times I even fixed him up with good-looking young fags. But he was a hell of a politician, even though he was queer.”

Taggart was more fascinated with political power than the attraction of handsome young men. He was devoted to the organization. His commitment and loyalty impressed Nucky, and in 1934 Johnson passed over several other people with more seniority and made him a candidate for State Assembly. Upon his election, Taggart was married to Atlantic City politics. “What you had was a solid organization man. Tommy Taggart moved up because he played by the rules of the ward system.”

Once elected, Taggart found the campaign never ended. He was expected to devote himself full-time serving the people; however, an Assemblyman’s annual salary of $500 didn’t begin to pay for the time spent on politics. Nucky supplemented his income with a second office. The position was police recorder. Comparable to today’s municipal court judge, Taggart handled minor criminal complaints, disorderly persons offenses, and traffic violations.

The local municipal court was a sensitive part of the political ward system and its judge had to be a team player. “If your uncle got locked up for being drunk, the ward leader would get him out. If your boy happened to get picked up because he was caught in the wrong place, the ward leader would get him off. If your brother was involved in a fight, the ward leader would make sure he wasn’t convicted.” The ward leader or his precinct captains needed direct access to the court. They had to be able to fix things whenever one of their constituents had a run-in with the law. If the ward leader couldn’t deliver, he would lose the loyalty of the voters. The police recorder had to be someone who could be counted on to bend the law when necessary. He had to know what to do when a ward leader walked into his office and dropped several summonses on his desk and said, “Here, take care of these.”

Tommy Taggart knew how to take care of things as police recorder. He understood his new position could be a powerful tool in advancing his career and seized the opportunity. Serving in the municipal court brought him daily contact with the ward leaders and precinct captains throughout the city. His position enabled him to build up hundreds of political IOUs among Atlantic City’s residents. He was re-elected to the assembly in 1936 and in 1937 won a three-year term as state senator. Taggart was the most popular Republican candidate in town and considered himself the rightful heir to Nucky’s power. When the FBI’s investigation began to intensify and key people were indicted and convicted, Taggart thought “everything was up for grabs” and began positioning himself to become boss.

Taggart made his move in 1940. That year he ran for yet another office. He was part of the machine-endorsed slate for City Commission. It was understood that after the election he would be chosen mayor by his fellow commissioners. During the selection of the slate Taggart made a miscue. He resisted, unsuccessfully, the party’s choice of one of his running mates, Al Shahadi. Taggart feared Shahadi might support another candidate for mayor rather than him. Shahadi became the candidate and after the election supported Taggart for mayor along with the other commissioners. But Taggart had damaged his standing with the organization. He was a little too ambitious. He had shown that he had “plans of his own” and that disturbed Nucky and his key lieutenants. Despite his personal popularity, Taggart began his term as mayor in May 1940, in an atmosphere of resentment.

Taggart’s moves didn’t go unnoticed by Assemblyman Frank Farley. A young local attorney with none of Taggart’s social advantages, Farley was elected to the assembly in 1937 when Taggart moved up to state senator.

Francis Sherman Farley (Hap) was born in Atlantic City on December 1, 1901. He was the last of 10 children born to Jim and Maria (Clowney) Farley in a family that struggled to keep everyone fed and clothed. Farley’s family lived on Pennsylvania Avenue in an area that was fast becoming part of the Northside. Only poor Whites lived next to Blacks. And the whores were there, too. The Farley home was around the corner from “Chalfonte Alley,” the local red light district. The prostitutes and their neighbors accepted one another, and Chalfonte Alley was part of the neighborhood. As a boy, Hap delivered newspapers and while in high school worked nights as a proofreader for a local newspaper, the Press-Union.

Jim Farley was secretary to the local fire department and one of the leaders in the change from volunteers to full-time firefighters. Through being a leader in the movement for a paid fire department and his efforts as a ward worker in the Kuehnle organization, Jim was appointed secretary in 1904. It didn’t pay well, but it was secure and provided income 12 months of the year, something most local residents didn’t have. The steady income meant a lot to a man with 10 kids. Secretary of the fire department was also a focal point for patronage, and Jim Farley used his power to make friends. Over the years, he helped several of his sons obtain jobs in the city’s fire and police departments. The Farleys were an organization family that marched to the music of the Republican Party. In return they were rewarded by the Kuehnle and Johnson machines. Hap learned from his father and brothers that the local political ward system was the most important institution in town.

The most important person in young Frank Farley’s life was his sister Jean. There was a 20-year spread between the 10 Farley children. Typical of large families where children oftentimes pair off and become closer to one sibling than the rest, Frank was inseparable from his sister Jean. She was his closest friend, confidant, and supporter his entire life. Jean saw potential in her younger brother and encouraged him to go to college. She sacrificed and did without to help her brother get through college and law school. Throughout his career Hap visited with Jean every morning to seek her counsel. When an important decision had to be made, Hap didn’t act until he first spoke with his older sister.

Farley had none of Nucky’s flamboyance. “Monastic” best describes his devotion to Atlantic City’s politics. He lived for his town. Hap was a big man with an athletic build and large, powerful hands. He combed his thinning hair straight back and wore nothing but double-breasted suits and wing-tipped shoes. His posture was almost stooped shouldered, his gray eyes focused straight ahead, and he walked nearly at a run every place he went. He had the earnestness of a demanding parish priest. Not a gifted public speaker, he was, nevertheless, a persuasive communicator one-on-one. Unlike Nucky and the Commodore, Farley was Irish and Catholic, the first of his ethnicity to rise to a position of power in Atlantic City.

Frank Farley was a joiner and a doer. As a youth, he developed a passion for sports, which he had until his death. In high school, he played fullback in football, catcher in baseball, and forward in basketball. He was an outstanding athlete, exceling in basketball. While in law school, he was a starting player on the Georgetown University basketball team. Farley loved the competition and thrill of athletics, but, more importantly, he reveled in the camaraderie. He was the spark plug who got things moving whether it was practice or a game. His teammates dubbed him “Happy,” which became “Hap” when he left his teens.

Farley had a special trait—some might say need—when it came to maintaining friendships. He remained close with every friend he made throughout his life. New acquaintances found themselves part of Farley’s network and would discover they had someone who remembered their birthday, dropped them a note when they were ill, or telephoned unexpectedly just to chat.

One such friendship was struck in 1921 during the summer between Farley’s years at the University of Pennsylvania and Georgetown Law School. That summer Hap became acquainted with another Georgetown law student who was working as a night clerk in an Atlantic City hotel. That student was John Sirica, who years later gained fame as the judge of the Nixon/Watergate trials. Farley and Sirica maintained their friendship until his death. Judge Sirica spoke of Farley with great warmth and humor, remembering him as “one of the friendliest fellows I ever met. … We met one summer in Atlantic City and became great friends in law school. After that he would call me at different times and we’d talk and talk. I’d never know when I might hear from him. Once we talked about the Watergate defendants and how stupid they all were to think they could get away with perjury. Hell, any first year law student would have known to plead the 5th Amendment before lying under oath. Despite his politics, Hap thought that Nixon crowd were fools.” But there was more to Farley than his genial personality.

Hap Farley was a no-nonsense competitor. He thought of everything in terms of “the team.” You were either part of his team or you weren’t. He approached everything he did, whether work or play, with a fierce determination to succeed. If he couldn’t do a thing well, he’d rather not get involved. “Whatever you do, do it thoroughly or don’t touch it.” Farley lived by this rule. A lifelong friend recalls, “Hap was one of those kind, when you’re gonna do something, you’re gonna do that and nothing else.”

Upon returning home after graduation from law school, Farley was more interested in sports than law and politics. He was active in baseball and basketball, playing semi-professional baseball with the Melrose Club and forward for the Morris Guards. He also coached the Atlantic City Catholic Club and Schmidt Brewers basketball teams, both of which won several league championships. Farley’s involvement in athletics continued for more than 10 years after his graduation from law school. While other young lawyers were sharpening their skills and establishing a law practice, Hap Farley was playing ball and building a network of friends who became the base for his career in politics. Years after he was gone from politics, there were peers of his who remembered him first as an athlete rather than as a politician. However, Farley’s teammates weren’t the kind of clients who paid large retainers and the little legal work he picked up through sports was hardly the basis for a successful law practice.

Years later Farley would tell “the story” of how he got involved in politics. He always said he had taken up the cause of his basketball team, which had been locked out of the school gym. It’s true Hap did lead a movement for better facilities for his young athletes, but that wasn’t the impetus for his political career. What really influenced him were years of going nowhere in his law practice and struggling to survive. In contrast, several of the Farley brothers, who had no formal education, had risen through the ranks of the Johnson organization and had well-paying, secure jobs as officers in the fire and police departments. During the Great Depression, these jobs looked good to a lawyer having a hard time paying his rent. Farley realized the political ward system was the road he’d have to follow if he was to make a place for himself in Atlantic City.

At about the same time Farley became involved in politics, he married his high school sweetheart, Marie “Honey” Feyl. Hap and Honey had met when they were teenagers. The Feyl family was socially prominent in the resort, and they discouraged their daughter’s relationship with Hap. In their eyes the Farleys were Shanty Irish, proud but poor and common people. “Hap’s people were poor, and the Feyls always thought their daughter was too good for him.”

For the first several years of their courtship they communicated with one another by exchanging letters, which were delivered by one of Honey’s girlfriends. Hap went off to college and Honey went to work as a secretary at a local realtor’s office. Their bond was strong, and the correspondence continued while Hap was away at school. After his graduation from law school, they continued dating for another five years, finally marrying in 1929. But Marie Feyl had an illness that plagued her throughout her marriage to Hap. “Honey was an alcoholic for as long as I knew her. I remember the first night after their honeymoon—my apartment was just below theirs—Hap carried her up the stairs, and it wasn’t because they just got married. She was too drunk to walk. It was like that most nights.” They never had children and Hap was devoted to Honey until his death. Not even his closest friends detected a hint of infidelity.

Honey’s job at Fox Realty brought her into contact with Herman “Stumpy” Orman. Stumpy Orman was a real estate salesman and through his association with Honey, he and Farley became acquainted. Orman had little formal education but was as shrewd and streetwise as anyone in Atlantic City. He had done well during Prohibition and was one of Nucky’s key lieutenants. Orman knew a comer when he saw one. He became friends with Farley and treated Hap and Honey to dinner frequently. Through his relationship with Orman and observing Nucky Johnson, Farley learned the mechanics of the partnership between the racketeers and politicians. When Farley was given the nod to run for state assembly in 1937, Stumpy Orman was there to support him, providing Farley the money needed to wage his campaign. This investment was the beginning of an alliance that generated benefits to both of them for the next 25 years.

The network of friends that Farley had made over the years showed itself in the 1937 election results. In his first political contest Farley ran ahead of the ticket and came within 127 votes of out-polling the leading candidate, Tommy Taggart. This was Taggart’s fourth election, and prior to Farley he was recognized as the Republican’s most popular candidate. With his strong showing in the election of ’37 Farley became a force in the Republican Party. Farley and his running mate, Vincent Haneman, a popular local lawyer and mayor of neighboring Brigantine, set about making names for themselves as public servants throughout Atlantic County and in the State House. Farley and Haneman meshed well and quickly became a powerful team, re-elected by large majorities in 1938 and 1939.

Taggart, Farley, and Haneman: They were the most obvious contenders to replace Nucky Johnson. Besides them, there were three others who had standing in the party: James Carmack, a local dentist, well connected socially and politically; Walt Jeffries, a former U.S. Congressman and county sheriff; and Joe Altman, city commissioner and former assemblyman and police recorder. Farley studied the strengths, weaknesses, and ambitions of each contender and crafted a strategy for each of them. He began with Haneman.

When Taggart became mayor, the party leaders wouldn’t permit him to seek re-election to the state senate. Either Farley or Haneman could have been the candidate to replace Taggart. Haneman was popular and more respected for his intellect as an attorney. Had he pushed for the nomination, Haneman probably would have been successful. Farley knew his friend loved the law more than politics and that he’d prefer a career as a judge rather than a politician. He also believed Haneman didn’t have the stomach for a struggle to replace Nucky. Farley knew Haneman’s backing would give him the edge over any other rival who might jump into the fray. In exchange for Haneman’s support for senator and party chairman Farley agreed to push Haneman’s name for an appointment to the bench. Haneman was appointed to the Common Pleas Court in 1940 and was eventually elevated to the State Supreme Court in 1960 where he had an outstanding career as a jurist. Next was Carmack.

James Carmack was never a serious contender to replace Nucky, but he thought he was, and his money and social ties were a force to be reckoned with. Farley sensed Carmack wanted only to hold an office with prestige. That would satisfy Carmack and keep him out of the race to succeed Nucky. Farley and Haneman supported Carmack for county sheriff in 1941 and the new sheriff closed ranks behind Farley. Then there was Jeffries.

Walt Jeffries was a long-time, loyal Republican and a popular vote-getter in every campaign. He had worked his way up from local office in the down beach community of Margate, to U.S. Congress. Jeffries didn’t want power so much as a decent paying position to round out his career. The quid pro quo for backing Farley’s bid to become party chairman was Hap’s pledge to permit Jeffries to seek the job of county treasurer without competition, after Johnson was forced out. Farley’s Senate salary wasn’t enough to live on, and he wanted to be treasurer himself. Haneman counseled him to be patient. Jeffries replaced Nucky for a single three-year term when he went to jail in 1941. Three years later, in 1944, Farley had the votes he needed among the county board of freeholders and ousted Jeffries, remaining treasurer until 1970. Finally, there was Altman.

Joe Altman was a clever and experienced politician. “He was as smooth a glad-hander as ever lived” and was popular among the party leaders and the general public. But, Altman wasn’t ambitious. He was quite comfortable following Nucky’s lead. While the support may have been there, he wasn’t about to try to become boss himself. That would have been too much work. Joe Altman preferred playing cards every afternoon at the Lion’s Club. Farley could see what Altman wanted was a safe job with prestige. Mayor was what he wanted, provided someone else was the boss. Farley assured Altman he would back him for mayor once Taggart was out of the way. Altman became mayor in 1944 and remained there, following Farley’s lead all the while, for the next 25 years.

Another player, without whose support Farley couldn’t have risen to power, was James Boyd, clerk of the board of freeholders. Boyd was Nucky Johnson’s political right arm and leader of the powerful Fourth Ward. Boyd recognized that of the contenders for Nucky’s title, Farley was the only one with whom he could continue to exercise the same control over the organization he had under Nucky. Boyd had no choice but to back Farley. Finally, as for Johnson’s support, there were no deals Farley could make. Nucky was preoccupied with trying to keep out of jail, and as he countered the moves of the FBI, his presence faded. Farley had nothing to offer Johnson except a sympathetic ear and quiet support for a job in city government for Nucky’s new bride, Flossie. The trick was to remain loyal but still keep his distance.

As the key players in the Republican machine were lining up behind Farley, Taggart set upon the course that led to his ruin. In addition to being elected mayor, Taggart insisted on being named the director of public safety, giving him direct control over the police department. Taggart believed he could use this power to bludgeon the local vice industry into line. He began sporting pearl-handled six shooters on this hips and was tagged by the local media, “Two Gun Tommy.” In the summer 1940, while Johnson was awaiting trial, Taggart began making raids on various gambling rooms throughout town. He had a police radio installed in his car and personally took charge of the raids.

Through his raids on the gambling rooms Two Gun Tommy was sending out the message he was now the boss, and that the racketeers had to deal with him or he’d shut them down. Taggart’s raids attracted sensational coverage in both the local and national media. Never before had an Atlantic City politician declared war on the rackets. When the vice industry refused to support him, he increased the raids and cast himself as a crusader cleaning up the town. Tommy Taggart, “the solid organization man” who as police recorder had bent the law to advance his political career, was now a reformer.

It may have made good headlines in out-of-town newspapers, but politically, Taggart’s actions were a disaster. Two Gun Tommy’s power grab failed. Farley’s supporters got the word out that in addition to being a grandstanding troublemaker, Taggart was a homosexual. His position was severely damaged and by April 1941 the Republican ward leaders formed a “War Board,” making plans to have Taggart removed from office. That May, only one year after Taggart had been sworn into office, the precinct captains were gathering signatures to have Two Gun Tommy removed at a recall election.

There never was a recall election. Instead Frank Farley engineered a coup, which eliminated any chance of the voters doing something unpredictable. At Farley’s prompting, the city commissioners adopted two “Ripper Resolutions” that made Taggart a figurehead. While Taggart was out of town, the other four commissioners stripped him of the Mayor’s supervision of the police department, municipal court, the building department, and public relations office. Taggart was mayor in name only. The four commissioners issued a joint statement claiming, “We have restrained every effort” to aid the mayor, they said, but “he has been unable to properly discharge the duties of his departments.” This was their only public statement. Farley instructed everyone to duck any questions from the media. Farley and his allies followed the political adage of Calvin Coolidge, “I’ve never had to explain something I didn’t say.”

Taggart knew who had masterminded the coup, but there was nothing he could do. By May 1942, with Nucky in jail, everyone of any importance had closed ranks behind Farley. Taggart sued his fellow commissioners to regain his powers and lost, being replaced as mayor by Joe Altman in 1944. Later Taggart attacked Farley and harassed him by every means he could, but it was no use. Consumed and frustrated to the end, Tommy Taggart died, most say from nervous exhaustion, in September 1950. He was crushed by a system he only partly understood.

A telling footnote to the transition from Nucky to Frank Farley is Farley’s service as legal counsel to one George Goodman. While Taggart was leading his gambling raids and grabbing headlines, Farley was quietly using his talents as a lawyer to assist the local vice industry.

George Goodman was the operator of the horse race information service for the Atlantic City gambling rooms. He had a private wire to his place of business, originating there and going to 23 other places in Atlantic City. In 1940 New Jersey Bell notified Goodman it intended to cut off his telephone service. The telephone company worried it might be prosecuted for giving service to an illegal enterprise. Farley interceded on behalf of Goodman and met with Frankland Briggs, Bell’s general counsel. Briggs later testified in a legal proceeding that “He [Farley] told me Goodman frankly admitted he was in the scratch sheet business but that he [Goodman] was neither a bookmaker or gambler but was merely conducting an information service. Mr. Farley argued that his client could legally furnish such information and was no more liable to arrest than newspapers or radios which dispensed racing news.” Farley won several extensions of Goodman’s service, but the telephone company prevailed in the end. By representing Goodman Farley gained the respect of Atlantic City’s gangsters, which was essential to becoming boss. While he valued the racketeers’ support, it was the respect of the state’s political leaders that Farley wanted most.

His several years as an assemblyman had made a lasting impression and with his election to the state senate in 1940, Hap Farley was where he wanted to be. The overwhelming majorities delivered by Atlantic County in Republican primaries guaranteed Nucky’s successor a prominent position in Republican politics statewide. Farley’s dual role as boss and senator brought him into regular contact with the leaders of both parties. At the time, South Jersey was overwhelmingly Republican and Atlantic County was the leading Republican county. It wasn’t long before Hap was the acknowledged spokesman for the seven senators from South Jersey.

Farley loved being State Senator and worked tirelessly to become an effective legislator. He studied his 20 colleagues and always knew what issues were important to them. His relationship with his fellow senators was marked by “unfailing courtesy, personal warmth, and complete integrity to every commitment made.” As Senator Wayne Dumont, a colleague of 20 years, recalled, “He never made a commitment lightly, but you could always rely upon his word—it was totally good. I knew if I got a commitment out of him I never had to worry because he would keep it.” And he expected everyone else to do likewise. “Once you reneged on a deal with Hap Farley, that was it. He had nothing more to do with you.”

Frank Farley had a gift for the legislative process: He never forgot the terms of any alliance, he avoided conflicting obligations with remarkable finesse, and always knew where he had to be on a piece of legislation at any given time. “He would remember if he shook your hand and said to you that he was going to do something. You could count on it. Hap remembered every horse he ever traded, nothing got by him.” He had a parochial view of the legislative process—Atlantic City and County were his only interests. Provided it wasn’t harmful to Atlantic County, Farley would support any legislation devised to help another senator’s county. He never became involved in statewide issues per se, except for the impact on Atlantic County; then he was out front taking control of the situation. If Hap couldn’t help a colleague on legislation important to him, he’d never hurt him, letting someone else deliver the blow.

Unlike most politicians who are forever looking to the next election for another position, Farley had no aspirations for higher office. He could have run for congress, governor, or U.S. Senator on any one of several occasions, but chose not to. He knew the Atlantic City Republican organization was perceived as one of the most corrupt political machines in the state, matched only by the Democratic Hague-Kenny regime in Jersey City. “Hap knew better than to try to be anything more than the boss of Atlantic County.” To run for statewide office would have exposed Farley and his organization to scrutiny he’d rather not have. With that in mind, being senator from Atlantic County satisfied his political ego. Farley had attained all he wanted or could safely aspire to from electoral politics. Politically, he was a competitor to no one in Trenton and his fellow senators never suspected his motives, trusting him completely.

Equally important as his relationship with the other senators were his work habits. In 34 years in the legislature, Farley missed a total of three sessions; on each occasion he was in the hospital. He dedicated himself to being on the job and was a full-time legislator who didn’t believe in vacations. His work was his relaxation. Hap believed that “If you’re going to get things done you have to be there and apply all your energies to the work at hand.” He focused his intensity on learning the ropes of the state bureaucracy, mastering the function of every agency, acquiring a thorough knowledge of their budgets. He understood how valuable the administrative branch could be to an elected official in providing constituent services. He cultivated his relationship with the bureaucrats at every level in much the same way he did with his fellow legislators. His commitment to his duties could serve as a role model for any elected official.

Reminiscent of “Nucky’s Nocturne,” Hap formed the “21 Club,” a social organization dedicated to promoting informal gatherings of all 21 senators, Republican and Democrat. The group got together at the close of each legislative session with Hap always hosting the affair. Each year Hap invited his fellow senators, together with their families, for a weekend of entertainment, food, and relaxation in Atlantic City. The senators and their families were put up in style in one of the Boardwalk hotels. While not as lavish as Nucky’s parties, Hap saw to it every need of his guests was satisfied without expense. The 21 Club lasted for nearly 25 years and was valuable public relations for both Farley and the resort.

Farley’s relationship with his fellow senators wasn’t the only one he nurtured. He had daily contact with the ward leaders and precinct captains. He made himself accessible to the public and had his hand on the pulse of the community. When someone was sick, he would send flowers or a get well card; if there was a death, he went to the wake; should a voter be down on his luck and too proud for welfare, Farley arranged an anonymous gift or a loan. Sometimes it was necessary for him to perform free legal services. Hap was doing “pro bono” legal work before the phrase was coined.

For the first 20 years of his legislative career Farley spent every Monday morning representing constituents who had been threatened with loss of their driver’s license before the Division of Motor Vehicles in Trenton. He represented six to eight people each morning before reporting to the Senate and never took a fee; the only thing he ever asked for was their vote for the Republican ticket come election time. Hap was the point person in an elaborate social service program, namely, Republican ward politics, and everyone did his or her part. Whatever the problem, Hap’s lieutenants had orders that he was to know about it.

During the early years of Hap’s reign, there were other “lieutenants” in town. They had nothing to do with ward politics, but they were important, too. The United States Army had come to town. Throughout most of World War II, Atlantic City was used as a training center for tens of thousands of American GIs. It was a boon to the resort economy.

The large hotels and Convention Hall were ideal temporary facilities—they were mostly empty anyway because of the war—and Atlantic City became a Basic Training Center for the Army Air Corps. The Army leased Convention Hall and its main arena and meeting rooms were transformed into a training facility. Thousands of recruits did calisthenics, received briefings daily at the Hall, and trained for maneuvers on the beach. While many of the troops partied on their time off, there was no gambling. The Army brass made it clear that they didn’t want their men losing money in the resort’s gambling rooms. For the first time in nearly 50 years “the slough was on” for more than several days. The “slough” was the term used by locals when the presence of someone in town, or the occurrence of an event, would temporarily force the closure of gambling rooms. It never lasted any longer than necessary. Even during the FBI’s investigation of Nucky the “slough” was only intermittent, weeks at a time at most. With World War II, it lasted for years and created hard times for the people operating gambling rooms that weren’t part of a nightclub or restaurant.

The war may not have been a good thing for the local racketeers, but it was great for the resort’s economy. Many hotels and boarding-houses throughout the resort were converted into barracks and offices. By 1943, the Army had moved into such places as the Traymore, Breakers, Brighton, Shelburne, and Dennis. For many servicemen, basic training in Atlantic City was a pleasant surprise. Their accommodations were far better than the average GI who trained in places like Fort Dix. Many of the soldiers enjoyed their stay so much they returned with their families after the war. For Boardwalk merchants, shopkeepers, barbers, bartenders, and restaurant owners, the Army and its seven-day per week visitors were a blessing. The Army’s presence helped many businesses survive the hard times that followed the repeal of Prohibition and the further loss of vacationers and conventioneers caused by the war. World War II was good to Atlantic City and times were very good for Hap Farley, who saw his power enhanced considerably.

In the election of 1943 Farley’s career received an unexpected boost. He was transformed from one of the more influential legislators to the dominant force in the New Jersey Senate. At the age of 70, after being away from Trenton for nearly 25 years, Walter Edge, Atlantic City’s most distinguished self-made man ever, made a political comeback and was elected governor. Following the term as governor engineered by Nucky Johnson, Edge went on to serve as U.S. Senator and Ambassador to France. From Hap Farley’s perspective, the timing of Edge’s return to politics could not have been better. As the political boss of the governor’s home county, Farley’s stock with the politicians in Trenton rose dramatically. With Walter Edge in the governor’s office, political leaders from the entire state, not just South Jersey, treated Farley with respect and sought his support. Hap exploited it for all it was worth. In Edge’s first year in office Farley was chosen majority leader; the following year he was elected senate president, becoming the undisputed leader of his party’s caucus. In terms of statewide power, Hap Farley never looked back.

Hap ruled the Republican Caucus in the state senate the same way a strong-willed coach runs his team. He called all the plays. At the time, the Republican Caucus was the senate, and in short order, Farley was the caucus. The GOP maintained sizable majorities, consistently controlling 13 to 17 of the 21 counties. The seven southern counties were nearly always represented by Republican senators; these were Farley’s votes. As leader of the caucus, Farley set the ground rules for how legislation was handled. He imposed a rule that no bill could be voted on in the full senate unless it had the support of at least 11 senators in the Republican Caucus. Once 11 votes were secured the other senators were expected to follow the rule of the majority and vote for the bill when it reached the senate floor. But 11 votes it had to be. Even if a majority of the Caucus, comprised of, say, seven to nine North Jersey senators, supported a particular bill, it would never see the light of day if Farley opposed it.

Farley’s dominance made the senate’s committee system meaningless. With Hap in control, the committees had no function except for political window-dressing. The only senate committee of any real importance was Judiciary, which passed upon nominations of the governor. Farley was either chairman of that committee or its dominant member during most of his career. For the next 25 years, Hap Farley was an insurmountable reality with whom every governor, regardless of party, had to contend. He could not be ignored. Farley controlled the senate so totally that it was political suicide to oppose him. “I can remember sitting in on more than one meeting between Hap and a governor. Hap’s agenda was always first.” The governors either dealt with Hap Farley or had their programs frustrated.

One bill that passed into law in 1945 demonstrates the power that Farley had attained after four years as senator. In September 1944 the Boardwalk was severely damaged by a hurricane. Whole portions of it had been washed away. It was wartime and Atlantic City’s government didn’t have the finances for the necessary repairs. Farley and Atlantic County Assemblyman Leon Leonard sponsored legislation to create the Municipal Improvement Tax or “Luxury Tax.” The Luxury Tax was special legislation designed to permit Atlantic City to levy a sales tax, something neither state government nor any other city in New Jersey had the power to do. The bill would permit a 5 percent tax on all retail sales, including food and drink in public restaurants, hotel rooms, and other services and entertainment. The idea was popular in the resort as the bulk of the revenue raised would come from tourists. It was estimated that the Luxury Tax would gross $500,000 to $800,000 per year and was to expire after a single summer season.

Securing the necessary votes in the senate was routine. Despite the opposition of a lone Republican Senator from Essex County, Farley had 15 votes, four more than required. The problem was in the assembly, where 31 votes were needed, and again the opposition came from the Republicans of Essex County. The Essex County Republicans had campaigned for election the previous year by running against new taxes of any kind. Without the four Republican votes from Essex County, there were only 28 Republican votes available. Farley tried every tactic he could think of, but the Essex County Assemblymen wouldn’t budge. Rather than see his bill go down to defeat, Farley turned to Nucky Johnson’s old ally, Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague.

Hudson County Democratic boss Frank Hague controlled four votes in the assembly, and Farley had something he wanted. There were two Republican bills aimed at Hague’s machine, both of which had the support of Governor Edge. One bill limited the jurisdiction of the Hudson County Traffic Court, reducing the authority of Hague’s handpicked magistrates. The other was designed to make the Hudson County Boulevard Commission a bipartisan agency—the commission was a major source of patronage. Hague wanted both bills killed, and only Farley could do that. Farley defied the governor and promised Hague the bills would never reach the floor of the senate. In exchange, Hague delivered his four votes and Farley got what he wanted. More than 50 years later the Luxury Tax is still in effect, generating millions of dollars in revenue.

With each re-election Farley’s presence loomed larger in the state house. In 10 years as senator he had become the most respected, and feared, powerbroker in New Jersey. To get anything done in Trenton, you had to see Hap. His power brought attention, and between 1946 and 1950 Farley was subjected to one investigation after another. His role as attorney for both the Atlantic City Race Track and a local contracting firm, Massett Construction Company, were scrutinized, as were the finances of Atlantic City’s government and the county Republican organization. In each instance Farley came away unscathed. Rather than tarnish his image, these investigations increased his stature.

One inquiry into Farley’s empire that attracted nationwide publicity was the U.S. Senate’s investigation into organized crime. In 1951 Estes Kefauver, U.S. Senator from Tennessee, was gearing up to run for President. As part of his campaign he had declared war on organized crime and the rackets. Using his position as chairman of a Senate Committee, Kefauver went from one city to another holding public hearings, exposing the local crime syndicates. During the preceding year there was a rebellion by several Atlantic City police officers, which attracted national attention and placed Farley and his organization high on Kefauver’s list.

In the summer of 1950 a group of police officers and firefighters organized themselves in an effort to secure a wage increase. The average police officer received an annual salary of less than $3,000; they were seeking a pay increase of $400 per year. The wage demands weren’t taken to Mayor Altman or the city commission but rather to Farley. City hall was filled with people handpicked by Farley. He was the puppeteer, and city government moved as he pulled the strings. When the city commission held its weekly caucus, Farley was always on hand for key decisions. No public contract, tax assessment, fire inspection, liquor license, or Boardwalk concession received approval if Hap said no. The leaders of this group knew they could never get a pay raise without his support.

Farley met with a delegation of employees and heard their requests. As usual he was cordial and assured them he’d “work something out.” The employees took this to mean they’d receive a raise. Several city commission meetings came and went with no action taken or any mention of their request. When approached a second time, Farley told the group’s leaders they’d have to be patient a while longer. Rather than wait, the group began a petition drive. Their game plan was to force a public question for their pay raise onto the ballot at the November election of 1950. Circulating their petition door-to-door, they gathered more than 16,000 signatures. With that type of public support, they believed Farley and the city commissioners would have no choice but to support them. They were wrong.

Farley went to a mass meeting of police officers and fire fighters and asked them to withdraw their request for the referendum. The leaders of the petition drive refused. Farley responded by having a loyalty oath circulated. The oath amounted to a counterpetition for police and fire fighters to renounce the referendum and to accept a future wage ordinance to be approved by the city commission. City employees who had signed the loyalty oath were expected to show their paper ballots (the election was pre-machine voting) to the poll workers. The intimidation worked. The referendum proceeded as scheduled and was soundly defeated. The question received the support of less than half the number of voters who had signed the petition, humiliating the group’s leaders.

Three of the movement’s spokesmen were policemen Jack Portock, Fred Warlich, and Francis Gribbin. They were bitter at their defeat and determined to get revenge. They retaliated by hitting Farley’s organization where it hurt.

After Nucky Johnson went to jail, and during World War II, the “slough” had been on more often than not. The slough was the term used to describe the closing of the gambling rooms because of outside pressure, first the federal investigators and then the U.S. Army, which stationed thousands of recruits in the resort’s hotels during World War II. By 1950 things had returned to normal. While Farley’s people were less brazen than Nucky Johnson, the rackets flourished under Hap. Protection money continued to be paid to the organization with Stumpy Orman tending to such matters, keeping Farley one step removed from handling payoffs.

Portock, Warlich, and Gribbin knew the card games, horse rooms, and numbers syndicate were able to exist because the police officer on the beat looked the other way. The rackets were something individual patrol officers had nothing to do with. If there were problems with an operator who didn’t have the okay from Stumpy Orman, or if someone failed to pay protection money, then either Lou Arnheim or Arch Witham of the vice squad would be sent out by Orman to apply pressure by either collecting the money or shutting them down.

Several weeks after defeat of the referendum, Portock and company tried to subdue the organization by attacking it head-on. As Tommy Taggart had done 10 years earlier, they began making arrests for violation of the state gambling laws. Atlantic City’s racketeers were stupefied. No one could believe what was happening. Farley responded cautiously. Each of the patrol officers were summoned first to their ward leaders and then to Orman and Jimmy Boyd. According to a ward leader at the time, Portock and the others were told they were “creating a lot of bad publicity for Atlantic City” and were ordered to stop the raids. “What are you doing this for? It won’t do you any good, and you know you can’t fight the organization. Keep it up and you’ll be out of a job.”

In winter 1951 one of Farley’s lieutenants, Richard Jackson, assistant to the commissioner of public safety, arranged a meeting between Farley and the rebel police officers in an attempt to make peace. At the last moment, Jimmy Boyd killed the meeting. Boyd viewed the police officers’ willingness to meet as a sign of weakness and advised Farley he could wipe them out. Nevertheless, the arrests continued and Portock and his cohorts became celebrities, of sorts. Between November 1950 and May 1951 Portock and company wreaked havoc on the rackets. Their raids spared no one and enraged Orman, Boyd, and Farley. They were dubbed by the national media as the “Four Horsemen,” portrayed as heroes crusading against crime and political corruption. (There never really was a fourth “horseman” per se; William Shepperson and others occasionally accompanied Portock, Warlich, and Gribbin.) When Farley refused to compromise on the wage increase they found they had backed themselves into a corner. The Four Horsemen had no choice but to continue the raids. The best they could hope for was to embarrass Farley.

But the organization had the last say. The Four Horsemen were given remote duty assignments, at odd hours, patrolling on foot areas of the city where police officers didn’t usually patrol. They were assigned deserted potions of the Boardwalk during the winter months and to guard the public water mains coming from the mainland reservoir on the outskirts of town. A special traffic squad was created and Portock and friends were ordered to remain in the middle of the street prohibited from moving farther than 20 feet from their post. The traffic squad’s hours were from 10:30 A.M. to 6:30 P.M., the hours during which numbers runners and bookies collected and paid off. The rebels persisted by making raids on their own time and found themselves suspended without pay for five days at a time, the maximum then permitted under Civil Service without a hearing. Eventually each of the Four Horsemen was brought up on charges for misconduct and fired from their positions.

Before they were crushed, the Four Horsemen had their day in the sun as witnesses before the Kefauver Committee. Portock and his supporters appeared before the committee and named the key politicians and racketeers who profited from gambling. They produced a card index file listing more than 300 racketeers. They told how the numbers barons parlayed the nickels and dimes of local residents and tourists into yearly incomes of $150,000. Their testimony detailed the corrupt workings of the police department. Chief of Police Harry Saunders was at best a figurehead and the city commissioner in charge of the public safety department, William Cuthbert, was exposed as a senile old man. Testimony revealed that Cuthbert was routinely driven around town in his city car by a fireman, delivering eggs from a farm he owned on the mainland. The police department was really run by Stumpy Orman and Jimmy Boyd. Orman, the city’s leading racketeer, made sure everybody paid up. Boyd was the political enforcer who kept everyone in line. Kefauver’s Committee report concluded that it was “inescapable that Stumpy Orman has controlled the Atlantic City Police Department in the interest of the underworld gambling fraternity.”

Orman was subpoenaed to the hearings, but the committee learned nothing from him. He alternated between refusing to answer the questions put to him, and taking refuge in what he called “my very bad memory.” Farley had given him such free rein of the rackets that Stumpy Orman wasn’t used to answering to anyone.

Supporters of the Four Horsemen, such as former Judge Paul Warke and Jack Wolfe, appeared before the committee and told of the punishment meted out to anyone who bucked the system. As a county judge, Warke had given stiff sentences to several gambling operators arrested by state investigators. When he came up for reappointment he found himself out of a job. Farley denied Warke’s sentencing practices were the reason he wasn’t reappointed, but the denials were hollow. Jack Wolfe, who was not a Lafferty Democrat, had run for state assembly on the Democratic slate and was fiercely critical of the organization. He received increased assessments on the taxes and municipal utilities at his place of business.

The committee’s hearings stripped Farley’s organization bare. The testimony elicited by Kefauver’s Committee produced the following revelations: The traditional alliance between the racketeers and politicians was alive and well with the local Republican Party financed through protection money; Stumpy Orman periodically issued a list of approved gambling operations and had the vice squad close down anyone who didn’t have his blessing; Lester Burdick, a Farley lieutenant who served as Executive Clerk of the New Jersey Senate, was also the bagman for racing results payments from horse-room operators; Vincent Lane, an Atlantic County Probation Officer, moonlighted during his off hours as a gambling room operator; those racketeers arrested by the Four Horsemen were routinely charged with a disorderly persons offense, and, if convicted, sentenced to the county jail from which they were promptly released. In one such instance Austin Johnson, a convicted bookmaker, was driven home on weekends during his sentence by Sheriff Gerald Gormley’s chauffeur. In response to all the negative publicity Farley made changes in city government, mostly shuffling the players. In time a grand jury was convened but no one of any consequence, other than the Four Horsemen themselves, was prosecuted.

The impact of the Kefauver hearings was felt on two fronts. The first was in the rackets. Post-Kefauver, Atlantic City’s gambling operations could no longer be run wide open. Farley and Orman agreed things had to be done at a lower profile and gambling became a minor industry in the resort’s economy. There was also political fallout from the Kefauver investigation. Farley’s enemies were emboldened by the negative publicity and decided to make a contest of the city commission election held in the May following the hearings.

The 1952 commission election featured Farley’s handpicked slate of incumbents headed by Mayor Joe Altman, minus Public Safety Director William Cuthbert, who was forced to step down. An opposition slate headed by former Atlantic County Sheriff James Carmack ran as the “Fusion-for-Freedom Ticket.” Jimmy Carmack had fallen out with the organization shortly after becoming sheriff in 1941. As sheriff, Carmack had failed to clear his patronage appointments through Jimmy Boyd. For refusing to be a team player, he was dropped from the organization. Carmack was joined by Marvin Perskie, a pugnacious former Marine officer and brilliant young attorney who had represented the Four Horsemen in their problems with the organization.

With Perskie firing most of the salvos, the Fusion Ticket made one blistering attack after another against Farley and the Republican machine. Portions of the Kefauver Committee transcripts were reprinted, as were articles from the national media condemning corruption in Atlantic City. Cozy relationships between local contractors and city government were exposed. The payment of insurance premiums and vendors’ contracts to local politicians were revealed. The details of the lawyer fees paid for a municipal finance bond ordinance were also made public. Of the nearly $100,000 in fees paid by the taxpayers, only $21,000 went to the New York law firm that actually did the legal work for the bond issue. The remaining $79,000 was divided between Farley and 11 of his cronies, with Hap himself receiving $9,500 for having done nothing. Perskie and Carmack named names and criticized the Republican organization like never before. For the first time since becoming boss, Frank Farley had a fight on his hands.

There were the obligatory denials of the charges made by Perskie and Carmack, but there was no counteroffensive or debate on the campaign issues raised by the Fusion slate. Instead, Farley’s strategy was to go to his strength. He appealed to the ward leaders and precinct captains in terms they understood: If the Fusion slate won, the ward workers would lose their access to political patronage.

Farley also brought Nucky Johnson out of retirement and turned him loose in the Northside. Hap had no choice but to rely on Nucky. Despite his imprisonment and the passing of time, Nucky remained popular in Atlantic City’s Black community. “Farley could never cultivate the Blacks the way Johnson had. When Nucky went to jail everyone in the Black community assumed he’d eventually come back as the Boss. They never really accepted Farley.” Nucky stumped for the slate in every Black precinct, being introduced as “the champion of ’em all.” The strategy worked. The machine slate carried 49 of the 64 voting precincts. Carmack, the “high man” for the Fusion Ticket, trailed Tom Wooten, the machine’s “low man,” by nearly 3,000 votes. The revolt had been quelled. The political ward system constructed by Nucky Johnson more than 30 years earlier was still able to crank out the votes when it had to.

Without the political ward system, Farley’s slate would have gone down to defeat. Ward politics was the mortar that held things together; its influence was woven into the fabric of the community. The players in the ward system had a devotion bordering on religious fervor. Atlantic City’s ward politicians were streetwise foot soldiers, as disciplined and loyal a group as could be found in a well-trained army. And everyone was a soldier. A move up in the Republican machine meant not only more power but responsibility. From the lowliest ward heeler on up to Farley, every member of the organization had a job to do. The ward system was not a monolith headed by a dictator but rather a network of savvy politicians who worked at their craft daily. Farley was boss because he was the one at the top of the pyramid, and remained there only because he delivered to those under him. The pressure to deliver was constant. Hap Farley either performed as expected or he would have been replaced.

Farley was boss, but he wasn’t the day-to-day ruler of the political ward system. Just as he had insulated himself from the rackets by delegating authority to Stumpy Orman, he did the same with political matters. Farley enjoyed his role as a legislator, manipulating the state senate, more than anything. He couldn’t immerse himself into local politics to the extent Nucky had and still have time for his duties in Trenton. Orman’s counterpart was James Boyd, Clerk of the County Board of Freeholders.

Jimmy Boyd or “Boydie” had been a protégé of Nucky Johnson. He and Johnson met in the 1920s when Nucky was becoming involved with Luciano and the Seven Group. Johnson needed someone to whom he could assign a portion of his political chores. Boyd was a bellhop at the Ritz Carlton where Nucky lived, and they took to one another almost immediately. Boyd had a knack for politics and manipulating people, whether by charm or intimidation. Johnson recognized his talent and groomed Boyd to take care of political details for him. Starting out as an assistant to Nucky’s personal secretary, Mae Paxson, and then, with the boss’s help, moving quickly through the ranks to become freeholder clerk and Fourth Ward leader, Boyd was one of Johnson’s most trusted lieutenants. Hap Farley inherited Jimmy Boyd. He couldn’t have replaced him if he wanted to.

Jimmy Boyd was “the guy where you ran into the NO.” Every political leader who relies on the voters for his power needs someone to be the heavy. Letting a supporter know his request can’t be granted is dangerous business for a candidate. There has to be a thick-skinned S.O.B. to take the heat when there is bad news to be delivered. “Hap, and Nucky before him, couldn’t come right out and tell you NO. He needed someone to do it for him and Boyd was the one.” Farley never told anyone no, and rarely gave someone an unconditional yes. More often than not, no matter what the request, Farley would say, “It’s okay with me, but you’d better go over and see Boydie. He’ll work out the details.”

Working out the details could be an unsettling experience. When he wanted to, Boyd had a “personality like a piece of ice.” He knew most people were intimidated by the power Farley let him exercise and exploited their relationship for all it was worth. He usually started out by telling the favor-seeker that what he wanted couldn’t be done, or to list all the problems granting the request would create. He did this as a matter of routine even when the answer was clearly yes. Boyd knew how to capitalize for political gain on every opportunity. The more difficult it was to grant a favor, the more indebted the constituent would be to the organization.

As the day-to-day leader of Atlantic City’s four political wards, Jimmy Boyd was the enforcer, the one who imposed discipline and kept things running smoothly. Boyd arranged all the meetings and scheduled candidates’ appearances. He made the ward workers jump to their assignments. If anyone complained that their task couldn’t be done, Boyd would say sarcastically, “Sure, that’s okay, we’ll just postpone the election.” But the sarcasm was the only warning. If the job didn’t get done, the worker was replaced and quickly found himself an observer with no access to the organization or its patronage. Jimmy Boyd “had the ability to pull things together with an iron hand.” Boyd learned well from Nucky and understood that to remain in control, the Republican machine had to be run like a business.

The organization survived on “services provided.” Boyd had a disciplined network of political workers who were in daily contact with the community. Every lost job, arrest, illness, death, request for financial assistance, or new resident in the neighborhood was reported to the precinct captain. If the matter was important enough, it would be brought to the ward leader and possibly Boyd or Farley. No matter what the problem, the ward workers had orders to make an effort to solve it. Nothing could be left to chance. Every voter had to be accounted for, especially someone new to the neighborhood, “You had better not let anybody move into your precinct without registering them to vote or you would hear about it.” Under Jimmy Boyd, “politics was a business, an absolute business.”

The business of politics produced more than votes. It could generate money, and not all of it was from the obvious sources of graft and extortion. A classic example was Jimmy Boyd’s ice cream monopoly. During the summer seasons of the ’50s and ’60s a combine consisting of Boyd, Edward Nappen, and Reuben Perr had a corner on the sale of ice cream on the Atlantic City beach. There wasn’t a popsicle or ice cream cone sold from which Boyd and company didn’t profit.

The ice cream combine was a natural. Each of the principals brought a special talent to the project. After World War II the state adopted legislation giving veterans priority for the right to peddle goods in public; however, it was a right subject to local licensing and Boyd had absolute control over who received a license. Despite the fact that as clerk to the freeholder board Boyd had no official tie with city hall, his relationship with Farley gave him the undisputed jurisdiction over such matters. During his reign as Fourth Ward leader there wasn’t a business license for anything that didn’t require Boyd’s approval. Ever the conniver, it took Jimmy Boyd no time to see the potential in the situation.

Boyd recruited Ed Nappen because of his ties with the veterans groups. Nappen had been Fourth Ward leader and local magistrate and was active among Atlantic City’s veterans. Nappen chose people who could be trusted to play ball with the combine by kicking back a portion of their profits. Perr was a lawyer who had contacts with the Philadelphia ice cream manufacturers. He saw to it no independents were supplied and set up the mechanics for distributing the ice cream. There were more than a few people who knew of Boyd’s scheme, but no one ever complained or cried foul. Only in Atlantic City could you find someone like Jimmy Boyd profiting from the sale of popsicles.

Sweetheart setups to line politicians’ pockets such as Boyd’s ice cream monopoly were accepted as common practice by the community. Corruption was routine. Atlantic City’s residents didn’t care that their government was dishonest. What mattered was that government, through the ward politicians, responded to their needs. Quite often that need was for a patronage job with city or county government. The Farley and Boyd regime continued Nucky Johnson’s practice of doling out hundreds of part-time and no-show jobs. The organization controlled thousands of positions such as lifeguards, health inspectors, couriers, maintenance men, clerks, ticket collectors at Convention Hall, and groundskeepers at the racetrack.

Obtaining one of these jobs began by making contact with your precinct captain. You didn’t just drop by city hall and ask for an application. The precinct captain where you lived had to “sponsor” you or you’d never even receive an application. Every position was allocated and filled on a ward-by-ward basis. Appointments to fill vacancies by resignation, death, or dismissal were always done on a ward basis. If a person who resigned or died was working in city or county government and came from the Second Ward, then his replacement came from the Second Ward. It was possible for ward leaders to make trades for one position or another, but the rule was that when a vacancy arose the first question asked was where did the person live? “It was a strict system and was absolute law in the Atlantic City political organization. If there wasn’t an opening available for your ward you’d have to wait until there was.”

Atlantic City’s seasonal economy made year-round, full-time employment a precious thing. If you were lucky enough to land a full-time job, such as a police officer, firefighter, or office worker, you were indebted to the Republican Party. As part of your employment, you were required to become active in ward politics and to contribute a percentage of your salary to the party. This usually took the form of buying tickets to political fundraisers. More importantly, any promotions at work were generally dependant on how well you performed as a political worker.

The incentive to work for the party was the chance of upward mobility. The person ahead of you had been where you were and he had worked his way to that position by being loyal to the party. If you did the same, you could move up, too. If you were to amount to anything, either in government or the political organization, you had to get an education in politics. The system guaranteed that, “If you were going to move up politically, you had to know what you were doing in terms of street politics. If you didn’t, you simply didn’t move up.” The ward system was continually renewing itself by breeding new politicians.

An example of a political leader bred by the Atlantic City ward system is demonstrated in the career of Richard “Dick” Jackson. In 1928, at the age of 20, Dick Jackson moved from the Fourth Ward of Atlantic City to the Second Ward. He had two reasons for his move. He was unhappy and poorly paid with his job as a bank teller and was looking for permanent employment as a fireman with the city. The number of applicants ahead of him on the waiting list in the Fourth Ward made any chance of getting a job hopeless. Dick’s brother, Howard, was a veteran fireman and encouraged his younger brother to move, because the likelihood of winning an appointment to the fire department would be better in the Second Ward. Howard also had plans of his own. He wanted to become a captain in the fire department but knew it would never happen until he first became a precinct captain. Dick had an engaging personality and Howard recruited his brother to help in expanding his power base. As a precinct captain, Howard would then command the respect of the organization and have the “political standing” needed to become a captain in the fire department.

Although Dick joined the Second Ward Republican Club promptly after moving, he had to wait more than a year for an opening with the fire department. Immediately after moving to the Second Ward he immersed himself in ward politics. “I knew that if I was ever going to advance myself, I’d have to do like my brother, Howard, did. I went to all the political meetings, made sandwiches, served beer, waited on tables and cleaned up after rallies. I handed out political literature, ran errands, drove people to the polls and registered new voters. Whatever my precinct captain or ward leader asked me to do—I jumped to it.”

Jackson made himself known by participating in sports and circulating in the community, getting to know everyone in his neighborhood on a first name basis. One of the people he met through sports was Hap Farley, and they became friends and political allies immediately.

At election time, Jackson went door-to-door urging support for the Republican slate. The standard pitch was, “You don’t know the candidate, but I do, and he is the one I have to go to when there’s something that you need and you come to me for. So if you expect me to be able to help you, you have to vote for this person.” Jackson was selling himself and the system more than he was selling a particular candidate. Through their efforts, one election after another, Dick and Howard Jackson paid their dues to the Republican organization. They finally got their opportunity to break into the hierarchy five years later in 1933. The precinct captain where the Jacksons lived was ill and near death when he decided to step down. The person presumed to be his successor was John Lewis, a freeholder. However, the Jacksons demanded a vote on who would be the next precinct captain. According to party rules every registered Republican in the precinct was permitted to vote, not just dues-paying club members. Dick and Howard Jackson called in all their favors and packed the meeting place with their supporters. Howard won easily and within a year’s time became a captain in the fire department.

Dick Jackson had to wait five more years to make his move. In 1938 Howard moved from the Second Ward to the Fourth Ward, leaving a vacancy for precinct captain. Jackson succeeded to his brother’s job and remained there until 1941 when he found himself in the middle of Hap Farley’s maneuvering to become boss. Jackson respected Farley and had committed himself to support Hap as Nucky’s replacement. The Second Ward leader, at that time, was Sam Weekly, who was also chief of police. Weekly had ties with both Taggart and Farley and was reluctant to choose between them, trying to remain neutral. To Farley that was the same as being an enemy. By 1941 Farley was gaining control in city and county governments. He began putting out the word in the Second Ward that the person to see for patronage was Jackson. When Weekly was cut out of the spoils system, the ward workers knew he had fallen and wanted no part of his leadership. In ward politics, “everyone is waiting for the person ahead of them to stumble.” When the election of ward leader came up the following year, Weekly resigned rather than be humiliated by Jackson.

Shortly after being chosen Second Ward leader, Jackson was appointed secretary to the fire department. During his years as a fireman Jackson had gone back to school and obtained his high school diploma. He had also taken business college courses in bookkeeping, typing, and accounting. He was better prepared to serve as secretary than anyone realized and he did an outstanding job, receiving National Fire Board commendations for his indexing system of logging fires.

As both Second Ward leader and secretary to the fire department, Jackson had clout in the Atlantic City power structure. But Jackson didn’t relax. “I never let myself forget that Secretary of the Fire Department is made with the stroke of a pen and can be taken away with a stroke of a pen. I protected my position by taking the tests for captain and Battalion Chief and passed them both.” However, at Farley’s request Dick Jackson remained secretary until 1950, when Farley had Public Safety Director William Cuthbert appoint Jackson his Executive Secretary. Cuthbert was growing senile and in no time Jackson was performing his duties.

The Kefauver hearings made Cuthbert look like a fool, and in 1952 Farley wouldn’t permit him to seek reelection. Much to Jackson’s disappointment, he was passed over to run for city commissioner. The candidate chosen was Tom Wooten (a favorite of Jimmy Boyd), who replaced Cuthbert as public safety director and retained Jackson as his executive secretary. Wooten knew nothing about his new job and had to rely entirely upon Jackson. The following year Commissioner Phil Gravatt resigned and Farley saw to it Jackson was appointed to his seat. Jackson was elected and re-elected to city commission in ’56, ’60, ’64, and ’68, each time the high vote getter. From 1963 to ’67 Jackson served unofficially as acting mayor, assisting Joe Altman who was ill after a serious auto accident. When Altman finally retired in 1967, Jackson became mayor. He had climbed every rung on the ladder.

Despite a federal conviction for extortion in 1972 as one of the “Atlantic City Seven,” Dick Jackson is remembered as one of the more effective mayors Atlantic City has had. That his administration was corrupt doesn’t diminish his stature. In Atlantic City corruption was the norm; Jackson just happened to be the one in office when the FBI came to town.

While in federal prison, Jackson was offered his freedom in exchange for fingering Hap Farley. “I wasn’t there a week when who do you think shows up—the same guys who handled my investigation. They tell me, ‘Give us Farley and you can leave now.’ I told them, ‘I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.’” Jackson remained silent and served his time. Upon his release he was received well by the community and earned income as a “consultant” to businesspeople needing access to city hall. Jackson often said, “You really do meet the same people on the way down. You had better be good to them on your way up.”

Until the time of his death in 1988, Jackson remained a force in city politics and was admired by everyone, greeted by locals as “Mayor.” It was loyal foot soldiers such as Dick Jackson who helped make Hap Farley one of the most powerful political bosses in New Jersey’s history. Farley’s career shows he was worthy of Jackson’s loyalty. Hap’s success, and with him that of the Republican organization, was the product of a team effort in which every player knew instinctively that true glory is losing yourself in a common good.