The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1907-08-31
FOLEY, The CHILDREN'S CHOICE
hrs picnic AT SUFFERS SWINGS
THEM ALL IN LINE.
Head Of the leo Cream and Cake Ticket.
He Leads All Possible Leaders Of the
second Assembly District "A Good
Man ami a Kim One EntertainS Kids.

Assembly district ever pulled OF. and hat
is going some, az anybody in the Second
will tell you. Big Tom went down In his
pocket, pulled out 5000 and fed some
$500 kids ice cream and cake until little
stomachs were filed tight.
There are Tammany leaders who hire
steamboatp and brass bands and go up to
College Point with cargoes OF voters and
cases OF beer, but Big Tom Foley doesn't
believe In hat sort Of racket. He wants
the women and the children TO "a " a part
In any celebration he bosses.
And why not?" said Big Tom yesterday
as he watched the children fairly washing
their faces in ice cream and the women
sitting about gossiping a little, maybe.
Haven't they a right TO the best a leader
can give them? Don't they control tho
votes? Whenever 7 run a game of this kind
| want the women folks and the kids declared
in on every play"
There's really another and perhaps mCfs
important reason why the best part of
Tom Foley'sS picnic is given over tn the
kids and to their mothers. The Second
Assembly district is a Toor district. Most
of the men who follow Big Tom to the
primaries aren't able TO put up SIS n head for
the College Point variety Of picnic, and so
Big Tom holds his party every year at
Sulzer's Harlem River Park, where the
women and children can go easily and II
only costs IS cents apiece for the men TO
enter. taking with them as many Of their
womenfolk and children as they please.
There wasn't any parade to. start on
with yesterday. Kids have a habit Of
getting lost in parades. There weren't
any street cars hired to take them up either.
The last time Big Tom tried that was three
years ago and the cars failed to arrive
or somebody turned off the current or some
thing else unpleasant happened. Anyway,
at going home. time there were no cars
ready and about 5000 weeping youngsters
who hadn't brought carfare with them
gave Big Tom and his lieutenants a bad
half hour. II was a real Tragedy.
Yesterday the small boys and girls Of the
Second arrived at Suffers just as they
pleased and at any old time. Congress
man Dan Riordan and Charley Brady and
jim Shevlin and John j. Flanagan and
others met them all ut the gate and quizzed
them. just to he sure that they were really
Second district kids and not buttersin from
Harlem, who have district leaders Of their
own.
SAY" said Congressman Riordan 70 half
a dozen wriggling youngsters. squirming
in their eagerness to enter forthwith into
that paradise Of ice cream and cakes and
carrousel rides and goodness knows what
besides. SAY. you kids don't belong IN the
Second at all. Now. on she level where
do you live?"
IN Cath'rine street, mister, honest
we do"
AN right. Whereabouts in catharine
street,"
There was a pause then, a little shuHing
OF feet and s~idelong ~glances. A nine-year-
old took a chance.
AT 602, mister
Riordan laughed. The house nlhihcrs
in Catherine street stop long before 800.
But what was the difference, anyway In
they went with "A shri!l whoop OF delight.
II was impossible to separate uptown
kids from downtown kids, and nobody
really cared much Outside on the sidewalk.
whore at 5 O'Clock in the afternoon there
must have been AT lea. three thousand
youngsters frantic for fear that IN soneway
they would be barred from the delights
behind that tall board fenC' ehere was, at
times. much palayering and whispering
Small sche,ners from Harlem plotted with
kindly disposed kids from the Second,
An. g'wan. Nuh Kin gun We in all right.
When youse git to the gate just make a
break fer it and well tag along. They
won't git wise"
Holy smoke yelled Brady. watch
Along came a score Of young Seconds.
properly Youchcd for, and bunched with
them ten or a dozen little boys or girls
who probably We're never south OF i25th
street in their lives; There was no stop
ping them. They just bucked the line,
big cops, Foley's l~eutenants and all the
rest Of the gatekeepers. and II was quite
impossible to separate the sheep from the
goats. .
Inside the gates they we're handing out
ice cream and cake tickets and tickets
for free rides on the %carrousei. II was a
riot, nothing less, for two or three hours.
Some foxy little chap supplied IN due turn
with a set Of tickets would slip away in
the crowd. turn his coat inside out or borrow
another boys cap and go back for more.
innocent as you please. Dan Callahan
spotted one.
What dye mean. Do you mean 10 say
yoI didn't get a batch Of pa~S'ehoards' you
Nah, i didn't That was me brudder.
Sure. Don't he look like me? Well, cant
I havc some fer me sister? She's back there
scared and 'fraid to asst we fer EN-"
OF course they got them, two and three
times over. There were plenty Of tickets
and plenty Of ice cream and cakes for every
body, even IL the supply did run short and
Big Tom had to order more cans of cream
and baskets OF cake.
Down At the far end Of the park they made
fun for the children with a vaudeville show
slap sticks, bladders and all the rest, but
the trouble with it was tina IT was a how
for g%rownups. Big Tom saw the point. He
the boys and girls and studying their faces.
Now, that isn't my idea Of. q show for
kids" said Big Tom. when l was one
myself. and that's a pretty long time ago
son, the thing that got me going right and
made me want 10 just yell was tho old
Punch and Judy stunt. / don't think kids
have changed much since my time. Next
picnic we'll nave old Punch knocking old
Mrs. Judy around in the good old way"
Along toward o O'Clock. when the cans of
rraann yvara aunpty and tho vary Ei1aa mol