Hap
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
