At sunrise the mercury stood at 21° with fair skies, a marked change from the day before, when the region was struck by a “fierce northeasterly gale” that stretched from Portland, Maine, westward to the Great Lakes and as far south as the Carolinas.  

On this day however the biggest news was not the weather. The city of Boston was five days from a mayoral election and the fiercely contested campaign dominated the newspapers. All attention was on the race between the Democratic incumbent, John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, his Republican opponent, Boston postmaster George Hibbard and Independence League candidate John Coulthurst.

Fitzgerald was running scared, planning to deliver 100 speeches on the day before the December 10 election. Two years earlier he had made 37 speeches in a single day, a feat that astounded both Fitzgerald supporters and detractors.

But making nearly 40 speeches in a day to get elected was one thing; trying for 100 to be reelected looked desperate. One of Fitzgerald’s most influential supporters was a man named Dennis Driscoll, newly-elected secretary-treasurer of the Massachusetts chapter of the American Federation of Labor. Before that he’d been head of the local horseshoers union.

A day earlier Driscoll had used his clout to steer an endorsement from the Boston Central Labor Union to Fitzgerald, a move that sparked controversy and anger among union rank-and-file who felt their arms were being twisted into supporting Fitzgerald’s reelection.

Indeed, that afternoon’s edition of the Boston American had a big story on the way that Driscoll had used the Boston Central Labor Union as, quote, “an adjunct of the Fitzgerald campaign.”

 Organized labor, from one end of Boston to another, from the Wage Earners Club of Ward 23 to the Carpenter’s Union, were furious with Driscoll for linking his personal politics with his official position.

The head of the Carpenter’s Union was outraged by Driscoll’s strong-arm tactics and declared, quote, “that a man who had acted as did Dennis Driscoll ought to have his union card taken from him.”

That afternoon, at about the same time the Boston American hit the streets with that story, Dennis Driscoll was due to meet with Massachusetts Governor Curtis Guild. He was there in his capacity as secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Labor and was accompanied by its president, Edward Cohen of Lynn, and Arthur M. Huddell, who had served as president of the Boston Central Labor Union until a few months earlier, when he left to become New England organizer for the International Union of Steam Engineers.

Governor Guild, who had been reelected a month earlier to a third one-year term, doubtless knew of Driscoll’s role in steering the union endorsement to Fitzgerald. He certainly knew that Driscoll was one of Honey Fitz’s key supporters; Guild himself was a big supporter of George Hibbard, one of Fitzgerald’s opponents.

But Guild also knew that the mayor’s race was dividing unions and driving families, friends and co-workers apart. As residents of Lynn and Chelsea respectively, Teddy Cohen and Arthur Huddell probably considered themselves fortunate that they could sidestep the increasingly nasty campaign.

But the reason why Driscoll, Cohen and Huddell were to meet with the governor that day had nothing to do with the mayor’s race. They were there to talk to Guild about a pardon request from a prisoner, whose case had been heard the day before by the Governor’s Council.

And this is where it gets interesting.

We know that the three labor leaders arrived at the State House a bit early for their meeting. Of course, entry to the State House and access to the governor was a lot different in those days. There were no metal detectors to walk through and certainly no search, however cursory, of a person’s satchel or briefcase.

We know that Cohen, Driscoll and Huddell had taken seats in the anteroom to the governor’s office. They sat underneath a life-size portrait of Abraham Lincoln, which was hanging about where the portrait of William Weld hangs today.

As the three labor chieftains chatted, a man wearing a black derby entered the governor’s office, walked to the rear of the room where Guild’s secretary and stenographer were seated, and asked to see the governor.

Although in those days it was possible for an individual to walk in off the street and grab a few minutes of the governor’s time, his schedule that day was tight and the man –a 38 year-old resident of Everett named John A. Steele- was told that he would not be able to see the governor.

As he turned to walk out of the governor’s office, he thought the three men sitting under the portrait of Lincoln were whispering about him. Without a word of warning, he pulled out a revolver he’d bought that morning and fired. Both Teddy Cohen and Dennis Driscoll were struck in the head and fell to the ground.

Huddell, though he’d been grazed by a bullet, wrestled the gunman to the floor, assisted by Governor Guild himself, who had come out of his office to see what all the commotion was about.

As the gunman was brought to a cell in the basement of the State House –don’t forget, this was truly the “state” house and all state offices, including the headquarters of the State Police, were housed in this building.

Because of time constraints, I’m going to press Fast Forward and tell you that Driscoll, though gravely wounded, eventually recovered. Teddy Cohen was not so fortunate. He died the next day and was honored with a huge and spectacular funeral that was even attended by Samuel Gompers, national president of the A.F. of L.

As some of you may know, I wrote about this incident in an issue earlier this year of CommonWealth magazine. Although the piece was well-received, I’m here to tell you now that I got a few things wrong and today I’d like to correct them.

I wrote that Cohen, Driscoll and Huddell were there to discuss a pardon, quote “for A.M. Kennedy, a union man imprisoned for murder in Essex County, a crime the labor leaders believed he committed while insane,” end-quote.

But I was wrong about a couple of things. First, they were not there to seek a pardon for a man named A.M. Kennedy. His name was William Kennedy. And he wasn’t in prison for a murder he committed while insane. He was in prison for trying to poison his boss, and none of the hundreds of people who signed petitions in support of his pardon, were under the impression that he committed the crime while insane.

Although I cannot be certain, it now seems likely that I was wrong also in presuming that the three labor leaders were there to support, quote, “a union man,” end-quote.

Here’s why I got it wrong. I assumed the New York Times and the Boston Globe had gotten it right. But they hadn’t.

A front page story in the Times on the day following the shooting said that Cohen, Driscoll and Huddell were in the governor’s office, quote, “in regard to a pardon for A.M. Kennedy of Salem, who is serving a sentence at the Essex House of Correction.”

The Boston Globe ran a front page story, continued on page six, that said they were, quote “interested in the case of a man under confinement for a homicide committed while the man was insane, and they intended to request the governor to consider an application for pardon,” end-quote.

I assumed that the New York Times’s “A.M. Kennedy of Salem” was accurate, and that the Globe’s description of him “under confinement for a homicide committed while the man was insane,” was equally accurate.

As such, I made the leap that Kennedy was “a union man.” My theory –and I don’t think it was far-fetched or required a great leap of logic- was that a guy who could command the advocacy of these three labor heavyweights had to be a well-respected “union man.”

But Kennedy, a native of Portland, Maine, was just a lowly farmhand, and pretty much illiterate at that. There’s no indication that he was ever in a union.

Nor is there any indication how or why he could command labor leaders like Cohen, Huddell and Driscoll to show up at the State House and plead his case directly to the governor.

But I do have a theory. Unfortunately I do not have time here to go into it, but if you’re interested in hearing my hypothesis, I would be happy to speak with you afterward.

The bottom line is that it doesn’t quite matter why they were at the State House that day advocating on William Kennedy’s behalf. The important thing to keep in mind is that they were not there as private citizens. They were representing organized labor in general and their respective unions in specific. The notion of honoring one, two or all three of them with a plaque on the hundredth anniversary of the shooting is every bit as legitimate now as it was when I first wrote the story.

Thank you.

 Used with permission of James V. Horrigan. Copyright 2007

 

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