went beyond what Kuehnle had done; come the winter he was their savior. Long stretches of unemployment in the off-season could be devastating. Johnson saw to it that the Northside had food, clothing, coal, and medical care. “If your kid needed a winter coat, all you had to do was ask—maybe it wouldn’t fit but it was warm. If the grocer cut off your credit, the ward leader told you where to shop on the party’s tab. The same was true if someone needed a doctor or a prescription filled.” In return, he was loved by the Black community and looked on as a “White god.” Nucky Johnson “owned” the Black vote and when a large turnout was needed to produce the right election results, they never failed him.
Johnson understood the need for controlling the flow of money to the candidates. With a stranglehold on the money there was no fear of reformers getting into office. To remain boss, he needed an uninterrupted flow of cash. He transformed the system of bribes that existed at the time. Under the Commodore, bribes had been paid in line with a “gentleman’s agreement” between the Republican Party and the vice industry. Under Nucky, protection money paid by Atlantic City’s racketeers became a major source of revenue for the business of politics. “With Nucky, the payments weren’t voluntary. You paid or he shut you down.”
The gambling rooms, whorehouses, and illegal saloons were vital to Nucky and his town. Without a flourishing vice industry, Atlantic City would lose an important competitive edge for attracting visitors, and the local Republican Party would lose the money needed to continue its dominance. An important lesson Nucky learned through witnessing Kuehnle’s destruction at the hands of Woodrow Wilson also required large amounts of cash. Nucky knew he’d never be safe remaining a local boss. He had to become a force statewide if he and the resort were to avoid future attacks from Trenton. His opportunity came in 1916.
In the gubernatorial election of 1916, Nucky supported the candidacy of Walter Edge. An Atlantic City resident and product of the Kuehnle machine, Edge had served in the state assembly and was elected senator from Atlantic County in the election of 1910: the election made infamous by the Macksey Commission. Edge was as honest as could be hoped for from the Atlantic City organization. He was a capable legislator and in 1912 was selected majority leader of the state senate, having gained the respect of the state Republican organization.
Walter Edge was Atlantic City’s answer to Horatio Alger. Born in Philadelphia, he moved to Atlantic City as a child when his father’s position with the railroad was transferred. Like other self-made men of his day, Edge pulled himself up by the bootstraps to acquire his wealth through the ownership of a local newspaper and a public relations firm. Edge continued his business success into politics and went on to hold more influential positions than any resort politician, becoming Governor, U.S. Senator, and Ambassador to France. He was an intimate of Warren G. Harding and narrowly missed becoming his vice president. While Edge later disavowed his ties to Kuehnle and Johnson, he needed their support. Despite his personal wealth, he couldn’t have been elected from Atlantic County unless he was loyal to the Commodore and his Atlantic City machine; proof is Edge’s choice of Nucky as his campaign manager for governor. “Edge was a stuffed shirt, but he knew where to go when he needed something done in politics—Nucky Johnson.”
Edge’s opponent in the Republican primary was the wealthy Austin Colgate, heir to the toothpaste fortune. The primary was hotly contested and, in a time when there were no campaign finance reports, Colgate spent his money freely. Nucky helped Edge by raising the funds needed to wage a statewide campaign and by using his skill as a powerbroker to gain support for Edge from an unexpected source.
There was no contest in the Democratic primary; the candidate was Jersey City Mayor Otto Wittpenn. A reform mayor, Wittpenn was a headache for Hudson County Democratic boss Frank “I am the Law” Hague, who decided it was time for Wittpenn to move up and out—out of Hague’s way. Frank Hague was becoming a force in Democratic politics at about the same time Nucky was making his move to prominence as a Republican. Hague was the son of immigrant Irish parents, born in the “Horseshoe Section” of Jersey City in 1871. Despite having neither an education (he was expelled from school in the sixth grade) nor a family name to bolster him in local politics, Hague became a leader while still a young man. One step at a time, he amassed power as he went from constable to custodian of City Hill to the office of street and water commissioner. Like Nucky, Frank Hague branched out into state politics not because he wanted statewide power, but rather because it was useful to have the influence of state government to safeguard his city’s interests.
When the election of 1916 rolled around, there weren’t any Democrats whom Hague trusted enough to support for governor, making him ripe for an overture by Nucky. Prior to the 1947 State Constitution, a governor couldn’t succeed himself and when Wilson left Trenton for Washington, he was succeeded by James Fiedler, a party hack from Jersey City who happened to be president of the Senate at the right time. Hague controlled Fiedler and supported him in the election of 1913; however, come 1916, Hague could find no one to support. At Nucky’s prompting and with a pledge of cooperation from Edge, Hague instructed his people to “crossover” and support Nucky’s candidate in the primary. Hague then abandoned Wittpenn in the general election. Wittpenn was a pawn in Hague’s and Nucky’s game, and Walter Edge became governor. This was the first of many occasions when Nucky and Hague put aside party differences to work for their mutual interests.
As governor, Edge dutifully rewarded Nucky by appointing him clerk of the State Supreme Court. “Can you imagine that, a character like Nucky Johnson, the head clerk to New Jersey’s judiciary.” Johnson continued serving as Atlantic County Treasurer despite the fact that both jobs were supposed to be full-time. The position of clerk meant little to Nucky, but it gave him an excuse to be in Trenton and to begin making contacts in the state Republican organization. At the age of 33, having a close ally in the governor’s chair and the power to dispense favors beyond Atlantic City, Nucky had arrived as a force in statewide politics.
At about the same time Atlantic City was striving to move beyond being merely Philadelphia’s Playground into a national resort, the city’s popularity and, with it, Johnson’s power, were given an enormous boost. In 1919, with Woodrow Wilson in the White House, Victorian morality won a major victory with the adoption of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Volstead Act. Woodrow Wilson, the reformer, was again unwittingly advancing the career of Nucky Johnson along with hundreds of other racketeers. “Prohibition” banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors—it was doomed to failure. For decades, the Anti-saloon League, and before it, the National Prohibition Party, had been waging a single-minded campaign to shut down the liquor industry. With Wilson as president, the Prohibitionists finally had someone who would listen to them. The 18th Amendment was adopted by the required three-fourths of the states within a single year. The Amendment had been written into the Constitution and scheduled to go into effect in a few months when Hague’s candidate, Edward I. Edwards, was elected governor. During the campaign, Edwards pledged, “I intend to interfere with the enforcement of Prohibition in this State.” Thanks to Edwards, New Jersey was the last state to ratify the Amendment, doing so after it had been in effect for two years.
That so many people in power could take leave of their senses by supporting a law so utterly unenforceable stands as a monument to the ignorance of single-issue politics. It’s the classic example of the “law of unintended consequences.” While Prohibition reduced the general availability of alcohol, it greatly increased the money available for political corruption and organized crime. Otherwise law-abiding citizens refused to give up the pleasure of an occasional drink and got their booze from illegal suppliers. An authority on Prohibition, Al Capone once said:I make my money by supplying a public demand. If I break the law, my customers, who number hundreds of the best people in Chicago, are as guilty as I am. The only difference between us is that I sell and they buy. Everybody calls me a racketeer. I call myself a businessman. When I sell liquor, it’s bootlegging. When my patrons serve it on a silver tray on Lake Shore Drive, it’s hospitality.
Selling liquor unlawfully was nothing new in Atlantic City. Resort tavern owners had violated the state’s Bishops’ Law for years by serving drinks on Sunday. If they could get away with it one day a week, why not seven? “Prohibition didn’t happen in Atlantic City.” As far as Atlantic City was concerned, the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution never existed. While other cities had speakeasies and private clubs, the sale of alcohol in the resort continued as usual in taverns, restaurants, hotels,
