The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1902-10-25

Tammany Hall in 1886. In the Eight
zenith district the laboring vote APP
peared to have Topped to Henry
George. 1t was a situation for a re-
| sourceful politician to face and con-
| quer, and Silent Charley Murphy
faced it.
The fight centered in the Eighteenth
and contiguous districts around the
nomination for congress. Spinola got
the Tammany nomination. His OPP
pohent was Allen Thorndike Rice, from
the SILK stocking Fifth avenue neigh
oorhood. Mr.. Rice had the Republican
nomination, and being himself a poll
| tlc1an of no mean ability. on the eve of
the election he secured the indorse-
ment of the Henry George party
Sp1nola won by ia votes The Repub-
leans claimed that ballots headed by
the name of Spinola but carrying the
rest of the Republican candidates
were being voted in the Eighteenth
This was said to be the political coup
that made Charley Murphy.
Previous to this campaign Murphy
mad opened another saloon-this one at
Nineteenth street and First avenue.
Shortly afterward he opened a saloon
at twentieth street and Second avenue
which is the headquarters of the Ana
wanda club, the district Tammany or
ganization. Then he sold out the little,
place he started business in and opened
a saloon at the northwest corner of
First avenue and Twenty-t third street.
In 1890 he was running four saloons in
the district
Murphy had no ambition to hold Of
| flee until Van Wyck was elected. Then
he accepted a place as dock commits
sloner. Upon taking office he gave his
four saloons away to relatives and
close friends. d.
When 'SilentsCharley' went into the
dock board he is reputed to have been
worth probably $500, 900. He is now said
to be worth a million.
After the Tammany ticket was
beaten last year Murphy went after the
Tammany leaders in earnest. Through
MS close connection and friendliness
with the east side leaders he got a.
good start. He is an intimate friend
of Tim Sullivan, and Tim Sullivan
helped him.
When he came out in the open in his
fight for the leadership his enemies ac-
cused him of showing favoritism in
awarding contracts while he was dock
commissioner and of sharing in the
profits. He issued a denial and COM
plains that the newspapers did not
voritism in awarding contracts and
asks why not?"
Mr.. Murphy is a religious man. a
communicate of Epiphany Roman
Catholic church. He goes to mass every
Sunday and donates literally to the
finances of the church. In all his ca
reer as saloonkeeper-and some of his
saloons are in neighhorhoods where
the practice is general--he never al
lowed a woman in one of his places of
business. He had no wine rooms for
women and would not tolerate them.
So far as is known, Murphy has little
real estate. One of the proudest mo-
mentS of his life was when he was en-
abled to buy the little property at 324
East Twentyfirst street for his father
and mother. 1t had been their home for
years, they loved it and they died in
1T, happy in the consciousness that it
was their own.
This property was bought a. short
time after he embarked in the saloon
business. After a few years he bought
the house at 300 East Seventeenth
street, where he lives now with the
wife he married a few months ago
During the blizzard of 1883 the Tam
many general committee of the district,
at his suggestion, voted $4,000 for the
relief of the poor, and a large part of
it came from his own pocket Of this
sum $1,000 was given to Dr. RAINS
ford's mission for distribution This
moved DR.. Rainsford to say from the
pulpit of St Georges that if all the
Tammany leaders were like the leader
of the Eighteenth district Tammany
would be an admirable organization.
DR.. Rainsford and Charley Murphy
and great friends. In his projects for
the betterment of the poor the preacher
often consults the Tammany leader.
When his brother, Genial Bill" died
he left four children Charley Muir
ply took those children and he has
reared them as though they were his
own. The eldest boy, John J., is a
cadet at West Point and will be gradu-
ated next June