Gary Cartwright > Quotes

“Two days later Father Kirwin’s face was similarly ashen. A member of his congregation came to the cathedral and told the priest: “My mother-in-law is back.” “That’s impossible!” said Father Kirwin, reminding the man that they had dumped his mother-in-law’s weighted body eighteen miles out to sea. But she was back, as were the bodies of hundreds of others: they had washed up on the beach overnight. The committee had to rethink its strategy. Since it was no longer possible to haul decaying bodies through the streets, the committee decided to burn corpses on the spot.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“The Kempners helped the Sealys maintain control of the wharves because they needed the Sealys’ support for their own agenda. They were activists, constantly devising what they considered to be cures for the Island’s malaise—building a bridge to Pelican Island, filling in mud flats, extending the seawall, advocating new parks and playgrounds. The Moodys recognized no malaise, and liked Galveston just the way it was. To the Moodys, the Kempners and the Sealys were arrogant fools. To the Kempners, the Moodys were cretins who exhibited, as I. H. Kempner wrote, “the smugness and the self-conceit of those whose wealth so far exceeds their civic pride.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was in his mid-thirties when the Spanish fleet set sail from Cuba to conquer the Florida peninsula. His family traced its ancestry (and its ludicrous name) to a humble shepherd who carved a place in Spanish history by showing the troops of King Sancho of Navarre a shortcut through the mountains north of Seville. The shepherd’s name was Martin Alhaja and he marked the mountain pass with the skull of a cow—cabeza de vaca—thus enabling the Spanish to rout the Moors during the Reconquest of 1212. As a reward, the king gave Martin Alhaja the noble name of Cowhead. In the centuries that followed, the family distinguished itself as builders, civil servants, and explorers. Cabeza de Vaca’s paternal grandfather led the conquest of Grand Canary Island in the late 1400s. By 1500 the island of Cuba had become headquarters for Spanish conquistadors. Cortés had sailed from Cuba in 1521 to conquer the Aztecs of Mexico (which he called New Spain).”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“Two weeks after the hurricane, Will Moody, Jr., purchased a thirty-room mansion at 2618 Broadway, for ten cents on the dollar.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“William Walker was a pious and dangerously deluded man who cultivated his image as carefully as any contemporary television evangelist. In an earlier, unsuccessful attempt to conquer the Mexican state of Sonora, Walker had bestowed on himself the title of colonel. After his invasion of Nicaragua, he promoted himself to generalissimo, and later el presidente. Born in Nashville, the eldest son of a banker who had immigrated from Scotland, William Walker was the archetypical southern gentleman and aristocrat. He loved to put on airs. He did not drink or smoke or use profanity, and he considered purity of thought and deed as the first and finest duty of a Christian. William Walker was a practitioner of that unique blend of lunacy and hypocrisy that characterized the antebellum South. What attracted many of the wealthier Islanders to Walker, however, was his outspoken opinions on race and slavery: he referred to slavery as “the divine institution.” In Walker’s twisted view God put the black man on earth to “secure liberty and order” for the white race, which in turn was obliged to “bestow comfort and Christianity” on blacks. As proof of this, Walker pointed out that God allowed Africa to “lie idle until the discovery of America gave a chance of utilizing the raw material of slavery.” Walker believed that fighting for the institution of slavery was his destiny. Some Texans saw Walker for what he was. “Walker is not a liberator,” wrote the editor of the Quitman Free Press, “he’s a slaver.” But many more saw him as man of extraordinary vision.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“Eventually, two rival gangs divided up the Island, using Broadway as a line of demarcation. The Beach Gang, so called because it landed most of its goods on West Beach, occupied the south half of the Island. It was led by an oldtime mobster named Ollie J. Quinn, and his partner, Dutch Voight. A rotund, unfailingly pleasant man, Quinn was an Island icon. On Sundays he faithfully attended services at the First Baptist Church, always placing a hundred-dollar bill in the collection plate. In secular circles, however, Quinn was the acknowledged kingpin of Galveston vice. He ran a joint at 21st and Postoffice called the Deluxe Club, and leased slot machines and other gambling equipment through his Modern Vending Company. Quinn and Voight ran a dependable, relaxed, downhome operation, known for its tolerance to competition and its commitment to peace among outlaws.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“If there is a tear left, shed it for Jack Ruby. He didn’t make history; he only stepped in front of it. When he emerged from obscurity into that inextricable freeze-frame that joins all of our minds to Dallas, Jack Ruby, a bald-headed little man who wanted above all else to make it big, had his back to the camera.

I can tell you about Jack Ruby, and about Dallas, and if necessary remind you that human life is sweetly fragile and the holy litany of ambition and success takes as many people to hell as it does to heaven. But someone else will have to tell you about Oswald, and what he was doing in Dallas that November, when Jack Ruby took the play away from Oswald, and from all of us.”
― Gary Cartwright, Confessions of a Washed-up Sportswriter : Including Various Digressions about Sex, Crime, and Other Hobbies

“Though he was a scholar with considerable lingustic talent and training—he collected colloquialisms, which he recorded on the cuffs of his shirt—”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“Ike Kempner incurred the wrath of the Moodys and many other wealthy families in 1907 when he fought against an ordinance that would require blacks to sit at the rear of streetcars. Not only did he oppose the ordinance, Kempner made certain that the names of those who signed petitions favoring it were published and distributed across the Island. In the space of a few weeks about one-third of the Island’s maids, coachmen, and cooks quit in protest. But the ordinance was passed anyway, and remained in force for more than fifty years.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“The crisis created by the hurricane was the perfect excuse for a political power play—if Galveston had been Nicaragua, what Kempner and his friends accomplished might have been described as a bloodless coup. The instruments of insurrection were in place. Kempner was already city treasurer, and minister of finance for the Central Relief Committee. Kempner, John Sealy, Morris Lasker, and Bertrand Adoue provided a link between the Central Relief Committee and the Deep Water Committee. By simply withholding taxes, members of the DWC created the illusion that the Jones administration was being irresponsible and probably dishonest in handling the public purse. Whatever the DWC had in mind, the Galveston Daily News could be counted on for support. When Mayor Jones accused the DWC of using the hurricane to bring down the duly elected government, the newspaper charged that the mayor was appealing to “class differences.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“As governor of Tennessee, Houston had been the focus of a marvelous scandal when his bride of a few months suddenly ran home to her parents. Houston offered no public explanation, and threatened to kill any man indelicate enough to stain his wife’s honor with speculation. He resigned his office in disgrace, and for years lived among the Cherokees, who knew him as “Big Drunk.” Like many other outcasts of his generation, Houston ended up in Texas. He was exactly the sort of man to rally an army of rowdies and misfits, and settlers rushed to join up.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“the seventeen-year-old Lasker had his eye on bigger things. He contacted a nationally known heavyweight from Philadelphia named Joe Choynski and offered him five hundred dollars to take on the Dixie Champ.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“For some inexplicable reason word spread that Galveston was a wonderful health resort. A traveler from Ohio wrote that invalids who had come to the port to arrange passage to the United States “all revived under the salubrious influence of the climate.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“Albert Lasker’s biographer, “The Dixie Champ took one look at Choynski, who had hands like hams and was a real professional to boot, and promptly fled town on the same train that had brought Choynski in.” Lasker had invested most of his savings in this fight. He had promoted it, sold tickets, rented Harmony Hall. What to do? That’s when he remembered a black dockworker that people called Li’l Artha’ Johnson. Li’l Artha’ could fight.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“Most of the dead were buried in the cemetery at 43rd and Broadway. Young Sidney Sherman, whose father had helped Texas win its war of independence with Mexico, was put to rest not far from the graves of two Yankees—Lieutenant Commander Edward Lea, who had died in his father’s arms, and Captain Jonathan Wainwright, whose grandson and namesake became a famous American general in World War II and hero of the Bataan Death March.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“Alfred Noble had built bridges across the Mississippi, constructed the breakwater across the lakefront at Chicago, and helped build the locks at Sault Ste. Marie. Ripley had served with the Corps of Engineers in Galveston—he had designed the wagon bridge across the bay—and was considered an expert on Island pecularities like tides, winds, currents, and the workings of storm tides on sand and subsoil. This latter field of expertise was especially vital since the 1900 storm had drastically rearranged the Island’s topography.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“the city of Galveston passed an ordinance requiring all free blacks and mulattoes to register at the office of Mayor Sydnor, the slave auctioneer. There they were required to post a $1,000 bond to ensure that they would not become public charges or disturb the peace. Hardly anyone, black or white, had $1,000 in 1840. Blacks who were legally free were frequently arrested and sold at auction.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“There wasn’t yet a permanent water supply, but a steamer made daily trips with fresh water from the San Jacinto River. There was talk, too, of building a bridge to the mainland. By now Galveston had not one but two hotels. The Tremont (also owned by McKinney & Williams) was the largest and grandest in the Republic. The Island supported fifteen retail shops, six taverns, an oyster house, three warehouses, two printing establishments, a newspaper, and a number of small artisans’ shops. Ice cream was available for three dollars a gallon; schooners brought the ice from the coast of Newfoundland. Gail Borden enventually quit his job with the Galveston City Company and opened a meat-biscuit factory in a two-story building at the corner of the Strand and 25th Street.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“In February 1857, these Ranger units rendezvoused in Galveston, where they were guests at a grand reception at the Methodist Church and a gala ball at the Tremont. The principal speaker, Francis R. Lubbock, praised the volunteers for their efforts to strengthen the institution of slavery and secure a base for the slave trade: Lubbock’s views on slavery later got him elected to a term as governor.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“In his spare time, Lasker organized a boxing club and began promoting fights. For most of the nineteenth century, prizefighting was legal in Texas, as was dogfighting, bullfighting, and bearbaiting. But in 1891 the law was changed to make boxing a felony, punishable by prison terms of two to five years.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“Immigrants by the thousands were pouring into ports such as Galveston. Some of the immigrants took a liking to the Island and settled there, on land purchased from the Galveston City Company. Most took one look and headed inland. One regal Galveston immigrant who arrived about that time was a pompous fool named Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels. The prince brought along a shipload of serfs and marched them across 170 miles of wilderness to found the German colony of New Braunfels, between Austin and San Antonio. The prince rode ahead of the pack with his retinue of horsemen, including his personal architect, cook, and hunter. Solms-Braunfels passed through Galveston again on his way back to the Fatherland: he had gotten homesick, and left the colonists to fend for themselves.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“To bring the city to a level that would protect it from the ravages of the sea, every house, every building, every church and school over an area of five hundred blocks had to be raised on jackscrews and filled under with sand. Streets had to be torn apart and repaved. Streetcar tracks, water pipes, gas lines, trees, and even cemeteries had to be elevated. The grade would vary across the Island, from seventeen feet at the beach to ten feet or less at Broadway: the average was about thirteen. The technology of jacking up large buildings had been used successfully during Chicago’s grade elevation: Alfred Noble had worked on that project.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“Moody used it to cheat cotton farmers. From his interviews with farmers, Brann cited an example of how Moody worked. Say the market reached 8.5 cents per pound: Moody would hold a large amount of cotton on consignment, but advise his clients to wait for a better price. When the price slumped to 6.5, as Moody knew it would, he would pretend to sell, apologizing to his clients for the unexpected downturn—and at the same time charging them extra storage fees, and interest on money advanced. In fact, Brann claimed, the colonel actually sold the cotton at 8.5, paying hush money to keep the transaction secret.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“A wildcatter named Patillo Higgins leased a thousand acres along an inconspicuous hill called Spindletop, near Beaumont, but ran out of money before he completed drilling. Looking for investors, Higgins first contacted John D. Rockefeller at Standard Oil, but Rockefeller wasn’t interested. Finally, he found a backer named Joseph Cullinan, a Pennsylvanian who had set up a refinery in North Texas, at Corsicana, and who had experience in raising seed money for drilling operations. Cullinan had heard of the Moodys of Galveston and decided to visit the Island and offer them a chance to invest. The story of that meeting is one of the Island’s enduring legends. During the negotiations, the story goes, Cullinan happened to mention that he had recently paid $10,000 for a painting by a well-known New England artist. The look that passed between Colonel Moody and his son would have fried a ship’s anchor—ten grand for a single picture! The Moodys decided that anyone that gullible wasn’t worth additional conversation, and they dismissed Cullinan as quickly as possible. Cullinan and Higgins eventually hooked up with a gambler and speculator named John W. “Bet-a-Million” Gates, who had hung around Texas in the late 1890s trying to peddle barbed wire, and in his dealings had acquired ownership of the Kansas City & Southern Railroad. Gates’ railroad connections were an invaluable asset for a field as isolated as Spindletop, and he agreed to take 46 percent of the action. On January 10, 1901, Spindletop blew in with such force that it shattered the derrick and spit drills and equipment hundreds of feet in the air. The raging spout of oil measured a steady 160 feet—it was nine days (and a loss of half a million barrels) before they got it capped and controlled. So prodigious was the strike that at the time it was estimated that Spindletop could supply one-sixth of the world’s oil. The company in which the Moodys declined to invest became known as Texaco.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“Free blacks had never had it easy in Texas, and in the antebellum mood of the 1850s their position became untenable. State law prohibited blacks from immigrating to Texas, and required those who were already there to get special legislative permission to stay. Deeds of freedom were meaningless, and blacks were frequently kidnapped off the streets of Galveston and sold. Captain Thomas Chubb, a Galveston shipmaster who would later command the Confederate steamer Royal Yacht during the Civil War, hired crews of free blacks in Boston and sold them as slaves when they reached Galveston.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“The Denver construction company of J. M. O’Rourke built the seawall in sixty-foot sections, using massive and sophisticated equipment and techniques never seen before in Texas. Giant four-foot-square blocks of granite and carloads of gravel came by rail from Granite Mountain west of Austin. Forty-two-foot pilings were shipped from the forests of East Texas. Four-horse wagons delivered the materials to the Little Susie line at 15th and Avenue N, and from there they were hauled on specially constructed tracks to the excavation along the beach where the wall would eventually sit. Steam-powered pile drivers that looked like oil derricks hammered the pilings down into the clay stratum, and work crews covered the pilings with foot-thick planking that became the base for the wall. Once the materials started”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“The mill employed 550 women and 150 children, and paid them 90 cents for their thirteen-hour day. They worked in hot, poorly ventilated, poorly lighted rooms—one light bulb for every four looms—under brutish foremen who slapped them around and docked them five to fifteen cents a day for mistakes. Many tried to quit and return to their homes on the mainland, but few could afford a ticket off the Island. They appealed to city aldermen, who were sympathetic but unwilling to buck the power structure. Company officials claimed that a sixty-six-hour work week was standard for the industry, and pointed out that, after all, the workers had gotten off Christmas Day. When the women and children decided to strike, mill owners did what management almost always did in those days—brought in strikebreakers. In the end, everyone on the Island lost.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“Underfed and poorly trained, Li’l Artha’ Johnson made a fight of it for five rounds and then quit. At that exact moment, five Texas Rangers raided the arena and hauled away both boxers, though not the promoter, and certainly not the well-connected spectators.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“Engineers were regarded as the heroes of the new millennium, and Galveston’s board of commissioners voted to put its problem in the hands of three of the best known—Colonel Henry M. Robert, Alfred Noble, and H. C. Ripley. Robert, who had recently retired from the Army Corps of Engineers (and was famous for having drafted Robert’s Rules of Order), knew Galveston well. He had been instrumental in deepening the harbor, and had recommended constructing a dike between Pelican Island and the mainland, to redirect the current and prevent sedimentary deposits from clogging the channel. He had also recommended building a breakwater along the beach, a recommendation that, had it been approved, might have saved thousands of lives in the 1900 storm. But it had been rejected, beaten back by the argument that such a construction would obscure the view and play hell with the tourist trade.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island

“All the famous pirates operated in the Gulf of Mexico—Henry Morgan, Captain Kidd, Edward (Blackbeard) Teach. Hundreds of Spanish treasure ships passed along the Texas coast in the seventeenth century, bound for Cuba and Spain, and legend has it that pirates sometimes tied lanterns to the backs of burros and led them along the beach, hoping seamen would mistake them for passing ships and pile up on the reefs.”
― Gary Cartwright, Galveston: A History of the Island