The Irish In Me

I don’t especially identify with my Irish roots. I completely forgot this year to make corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick’s day. But, San Francisco can sometimes make me delight in my cultural heritage.

There were quite a few Irish in the city from its earliest American days. By 1910, Irish-born or the children of Irish-born parents represented 23.5% (66,784) of all “foreign white stock” and at least 16% of the city’s total population (416,912). By comparison, in Los Angeles, the Irish were 9.5% (12,804) of white, foreign-born residents and 4% of the city’s total population (319,198).[1] As a result, in contrast to other cities around the nation, the Irish (and Catholics for that matter) enjoyed a peaceful coexistence with their neighbors. Of course, that did not make them impervious to criticism particularly when it was believed one’s Irish-ness contributed to the problems of municipal governance.

One of the sources I found in a recent trip to the California Historical Society was a “Report of the Committee Investigating Police Court Procedures in San Francisco” published in 1913. A defining features of a “Progressive” was their love of committee-led municipal reports, particularly those aimed at addressing government corruption.

It’s no great wonder that this report came out when it did, less than two years after progressives swept into power across the state, most notably Hiram Johnson as Governor. In that same year, San Francisco elected James Rolph Jr., (aka, “Sunny Jim”), who replaced one-term Mayor Patrick McCarthy of the Union Labor Party (ULP). Notably, however, Rolph’s views on vice reform differed in important ways from many of his constituents that are particularly important to my work, which I will delve into deeper here in the near future.

Although the report did not state the purpose behind its investigation, reformers had long held the city’s police courts in contempt for their failure to uphold the city’s ordinances, especially those related to vice. The power and profit of commercial vice interests, they claimed, prevented any meaningful enforcement of anti-vice laws. In fact, the author begins the report with a description of the Hall of Justice as one enters it and is immediately struck by the presence of “cheap lawyers, termed ‘shysters’; the bail bond agents or ‘sharks’” and a host of other men described as “‘friends of the court’, whose influence, obtainable for a consideration, may result in clemency or even a dismissal” (2). The clubwomen of San Francisco were also quite bothered by the lack of consequences for men accused of sex crimes. (Coming in a future post, the tale of Superior Court Judge Weller who was recalled after allowing an accused rapist to skip bail. Sound familiar?) 

But enough of all that context. What cracked me up about this report was the author’s description of Judge Sullivan’s courtroom. After describing the austere and business-like atmosphere in Judge Crist’s courtroom, the author next described Sullivan’s–a transition akin to moving from the “repressed, conscience-burdened New England” mind of our Puritan ancestors to that of a “rollicking” Irish tale made famous by Seumas McManus. “For Judge Sullivan,” the author observed, “is unmistakably Irish, and is blest, or burdened, according to the viewpoint, with humor, likewise temper, both of which qualities are evidenced at each session of his court” (5).

Hamilton Henry Dobbin, “Group portrait of Judge Sullivan, Attorney Sheehan, and others at the Police Court,” ca. 1912. California State Library.

It’s my contention, almost certainly not groundbreaking, that Progressives were frequently not at al ‘progressive” in the sense that one might equate with “forward looking,” but, rather, quite conservative in viewpoint and would have found much to cheer about when examining seventeenth-century New England.

The author continued with her criticism of the judge in ways that echoed the concerns of the era’s municipal reformers. Most notably was the concern previously noted that judges were too easily influenced by special interests–political “bosses” or “machines” in the popular lingo of the day. (It was against one of the city’s most infamous party boss, Abe Ruef and the Union Labor Party, that gave lead prosecuter Hiram Johnson his reputation as a reformer.) She noted, for example, that former ULP Mayor Patrick McCarthy (1910-1912) appointed Sullivan following the death of the previous judge who died shortly after winning the election against Sullivan. In other words, subverting the will of the people in an election. In another case, it was noted that the judge ruled in favor of a Dr. Timlin who was “a politician, a friend of Sullivan, and lives in the Mission, from which district Sullivan hails” (6). The reporting from Sullivan’s courtroom concludes by noting that he was allegedly associated with “the McDonough Brothers in their bail-bond business” and his election headquarters “were at the McDonough saloon” (7).

Another interesting indictment of Sullivan’s courtroom reflects a practice I’ve read about several times elsewhere in my research. It would seem, in San Francisco, one form of entertainment in the early twentieth century was to spend an afternoon or evening in a police court, listening to the lurid details of a trial. “Slumming” in the city’s chief vice district, the Barbary Coast, was a popular pastime and this practice seems like another form of that activity. Sullivan and one of his fellow judges, Edward P. Shortall, ‘play[ed] to the galleries” and supposedly conducted their courtrooms in the manner of “vaudeville performances, with crowded houses and seats at a premium” (6). In the section dedicated to Shortall, the author berated the judge for his “lack of consideration for women in his court, expressing itself not in harsh treatment, but in a lack of delicacy.” He was in the habit of speaking in a provocative manner that “was thoroughly enjoyed by the men in the audience” (8). 

I’m not quite half way through reading the full report but the committee, which by and by consisted of eighteen women, was less than impressed by Judge Sullivan. He was “not weighed down by the dignity of his office” and in the author’s opinion, “he has not the judicial mind” (5). 

“Report of the Committee Investigating Police Court Procedures in San Francisco,’ 1913, League of Women Voters Records, 1911-1979, Judicial System, 1912-1932, California Historical Society, North Baker Research Library