Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas Read Free Book Online Page B

Kennedy gave what seemed like “the world’s worst speech”—halting, awkward, clumsily worded. But then the candidate looked out across the phalanx of women, all of whom had lost sons in the war, and said, “I think I know how you feel, because my mother is a Gold Star Mother too.” (Jack’s older brother, Joe, had been shot down over Germany.) In the back of the room, Powers could hear some women weeping and others turn to their neighbors and say, “He reminds me of my boy.” When the speech was over, the young aristocrat was mobbed by dozens of working-class women, ardently promising him their support. Powers was convinced.
    A few denounced him for deserting Cotter, but working with other veteran operatives, Dave mounted a crisply efficient campaign. On a routine day in Charlestown, Kennedy started at 7:00 a.m., shaking hands outside the Navy Yard, then rang doorbells at every three-decker along Bunker Hill Street. In the afternoon he dropped into grocery stores and barbershops, ending up back at the Navy Yard, where he shook the hands he’d missed that morning. In the evening there’d be a rally at the American Legion Hall or a get-together in somebody’s parlor.
    Meanwhile, Jack set out to acquire the more formal badges of Irish Catholic orthodoxy, starting with membership in the Knights of Columbus. Shrewdly, his aides directed him to the Bunker Hill Council, oldest in the state, much honored among Boston’s Celts. Appropriately enough, induction in the Third Degree took place on St. Patrick’s Day. The ceremony began with fifty “candidates” marching through Charlestown’s streets to the Knights Hall, each with a “relic”—an oversized key, cross, or candle—to lug along the three-mile route. Jack was assigned a special burden—a live, frisky billy goat which the future President hauled on a leash past hundreds of amused spectators. A powerful symbol in Knights ritual, the goat was intended to teach humility: the candidate might think he was leading it, but as would eventuallybecome clear, the goat was leading him. After the initiation, Jack adjourned with his fellow Knights to Sully’s Cafe on Union Street for the traditional hoisting of the brew. It was a moment that would remain sacred to all those who stood that night at Sully’s beer-stained bar.
    But the climax of the Charlestown campaign was the annual Bunker Hill Day parade on June 17. The night before, Townies and their guests celebrated at a half dozen banquets and balls. Jack addressed no fewer than five, then went on with Powers to an after-hours joint called the Stork Club, where he stayed until 2:00 a.m.
    Hours later, he was back in town for the traditional round of house calls before the afternoon parade. With the primary only hours away, each candidate sought to make a final splash. Seeking to exploit his image as a war hero, Kennedy marched that day under the glittering new banners of the Lieutenant Joseph P. Kennedy Post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, named after Jack’s late brother. Hatless, dressed in a dark gray flannel suit, he strode up Bunker Hill Street with more than a hundred supporters marching three abreast behind him. Every few steps, someone broke from the crowd to pump his hand or ask for an autograph.
    The Kirks watched the parade from a friend’s stoop on Monument Square. As Kennedy went by, Bernie stood stonily with arms folded; he was sticking with Cotter. But his wife, Gertrude, and his three daughters had long since succumbed to Jack’s charms. Alice, then only nine, was desolate that she couldn’t cast a vote for the dashing young candidate.
    The next day, Kennedy lost Charlestown to Cotter by only 337 votes, and elsewhere in the Eleventh District he outpolled his nearest competitor by nearly two to one. That night at a victory party, eighty-three-year-old Honey Fitz clambered up on a table and croaked out his famous rendition of “Sweet Adeline.”
    Almost overnight Jack Kennedy had become an