The Waterbury Democrat., 1946-01-04

Michael r. Slavin of 46 Spencer avenue, & former Out Easter, died and was buried a week or ten days ago. He was buried in the old St. Joseph cemetery, 8 section of the city, 30 well known to Mike and others in his young days when he romped about the very grounds which now claim his remains, watching the dead of the time being placed in the various graves allotted to them in the only Cath olic cemetery then in the city.
 There was much to remind us when we learned of the death. In the first place Mike was an anla- teur ball player of note in and around the early part of the nlne- teen hundreds. He was big and strong, and had an arm that threw 6 ball with lightning speed. His position was behind the bat, and what @ stone wall he was to the team he played with, most of the time, the well known MeTrimacs, whose hang-out was in the Me- Grath Bldg. on East Main St. nearly opposite Wall Street. This was the spot where most of us from old Out East stood about in the old days, and from which we were stooed away many times by some of the fine old cops of former days, like the fatherly Maurice Noonan, Chester Allen and Joe Mccarthy. But none of these cops ever run us in; they simply caught up with US, now and then, lectured Us, and let 1t 90 at that. They were sticklers about Sunday. We had no place to go, except the street corners, and we could generally be found at the foot of Wall Street, until the time we spotted cop approaching. Later the Merrimac club was or- ganized, and 1t afforded a haven for the young of the east end. Bear in mind, this was at a time when there were no movies, no places of association for the young, except the Boys club, but which cared little for our presence on the Holy Sabbath. But even there during the night season, some of us were turned adrift be- cause they claimed our manners were bad, and we were banned for the time being. No wonder, then, many of us, as we were, pushed into the shop, and allowed to finger along through the years at the same old biff-wheel.
 Mike Slavin, however, if he act- ually did, spent only a brief period within the factory gates. For Q time he was associated with the school department ;n Q clerical cap acity, and later went into the Of- flee of the registrar of voters, where re remained until a few years before his death. From the beginning, he made Q deep study of the figures of voting; he had on the end of his tongue the ex- act number of qualified electors, the exact number who voted, the percentages obtained in actual voting, and the loss sustained ty the ones who remained away from the polls. No other official in Wa terbury ever possessed this infor- nation and data. Mike was the guide to all of this: he produced regularly before the Democratic town committee a tell-tale sum- mary of the votes required for success in the coming election, ex- blaming in detail before each ward committee, not only the loss of votes sustained in the ward at the previous election, but would pre- sent chart on which was pictured the gain and loss of each particu- lar street. especially those in the Democratic Strong-holds. He was probably the best informed person on prospective results Waterbury ever produced; that was the opin- ion of former mayors, like the clever Wm. E. Thoms, Frank Reeves, Frank Guilfoile, and Mar tin Scully, He predicted the dee feat of the latter by Wm. H. Sandland. on the basis of the flg- ures of the election before, and warned the necessity of united action by all of the various ward committees. Also, he claimed treachery on the part of certain ones figured by others as friends of the administration. And then when Frank 0uiltoile was nom mated for Mayor he sat down with the leaders. got out his sketch of party success for % years be- hind, and 'dcped" out potential possibilities for the coming cam- paign. Never, however did he un- der-estimate the great strength of Billy 9andland. and his excep- tional popularity with aH classes in the city. Of course, the clever lit- tle hand of Johnny Crary, also. was an important aid to the party in it's campaign program. How these two men worked, and how successful they were is eaally proved HE the figures that he'd klle