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The Secrets of the Hopewell Box
The Secrets of the Hopewell Box
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In the period just before and some while after World War II, Nashville, Tennessee was more like an overgrown town than a big city. Many liked it that way.
The gentry voted in elections but rarely got down into the political trenches of conflict unless it affected their lives or money. The rest figured their votes didn't matter much and voted for familiar names as much as anything.
At one point a man named E.H. Crump in Memphis held political control over much of the state and certainly over the legislature in Nashville, which consisted largely of rural lawmakers who owed allegiance to "Boss Crump."
With that kind of example, it was not remarkable that cities like Nashville were easy prey to local politicians who wanted to "run things." This is the story of three men who put together what the morning newspaper called "the Sheridan-Robinson-Garfinkle machine."
One could hardly find three men as diverse in an unlikely partnership. Jake Sheridan was a clever man who kept a low profile in the general community, except where it really counted--with the county court and the city council, of which he was a member. Elkin Garfinkle grew up in the Jewish community, was a city councilman, and an advisor to a former mayor. He was a practicing lawyer who happened to know a great deal about state election laws. Garner Robinson came from a line of Robinsons who lived in East Nashville. He ran the funeral home that bore his name.
Of the three, it was Robinson who was in closest touch with and had the most influence with the common people of the city. All people have deaths in the family, so he intimately touched many lives. If you couldn't pay just then, Garner would give credit. If you needed a loan instead of his professional services, he could handle that. At election time he would pay the poll taxes for eligible voters. Many who didn't owe Garner a cent valued his friendship, for he was an outgoing, friendly man who liked people.
With the combined talents and skills of the three, they became a political force to reckon with. They controlled the election machinery, from poll workers to ballot counters. They could make ballot boxes disappear and reappear at will. If a machine candidate needed, say, 200 votes, they would magically appear. Everybody knew that some elections were stolen, but knowing it and proving it were vastly different things. This is a chronicle of a force that won election after election for two decades, told by a newspaper man whose grandfather was part of that force and who grew up intimately acquainted with the cast of people who come off as warm and sometimes very funny, sometimes sad and sometimes outrageously happy.
It is a story of a city coming of age, politically and economically. Political machines rarely last forever, especially when change comes through a new breed of citizen activists who don't want machines. James Squires has written a thoroughly delightful story about the times and the people whose follies and foibles could have been in any town. One doesn't have to live in Nashville to enjoy a really good story from its past, but those who do live here will find it hard to put down.
Lloyd Armour is a retired newspaper editor.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.
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