Heeler Quotes

Hubert Humphrey is a treacherous, gutless old ward-heeler who should be put in a goddamn bottle and sent out with the Japanese current.

Tammany owed much of its power to the fact that it got the children young and educated them in the party ways. The dumbest ward heeler was smart enough to know that time, no matter what else it did, passed, and that the school boy of today was the voter of tomorrow. They got the boys on their side and the girls, too. A woman couldn’t vote in those days but the politicians knew that the women of Brooklyn had a great influence on their men. Bring a little girl up in the party way and when she married, she’d see to it that her man voted the straight Democratic ticket.

question. “Because girls weren’t allowed to compete in bull riding. But I did goat tying, and I was a heeler and breakaway roper, too.” Mother grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “And she was a rodeo clown. You know, the ones who protect the riders from the bulls.” Gordon, one of the bull riders on the rodeo team at Tech—a guy who was a real mentor and friend to me—had been gored by a bull and died when I was a sophomore. It hit me harder than anything had in my life since my dad left. Gordon was the reason I had taken up

The Kennedys were indeed more successful at the rough-and-tumble of politics than the Rockefellers. But, as JFK had understood, that was not the full story when it came to evaluating a family's power. He fully appreciated that the Rockefellers held a unique place in the pantheon of American power, one rooted not so much within the democratic system as within what scholars would later refer to as "the deep state" that subterranean network of financial, intelligence, and military interests that guided national policy no matter who occupied the White House. The Kennedys had risen from saloonkeepers and ward heelers to the top of American politics. But they were still overshadowed by the imperial power of the Rockefellers.

Although he was considered to be a dictatorial boss by his enemies, Mayor Hague was thought of as a hero and benefactor by most of his constituents. Serving as the mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey 30 years, from 1917 to 1947, he was adored by his constituents and feared by his enemies. Known as the boss he served as the mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey from 1917 to 1947. If anyone in the city had a problem, they could go to one of his Ward Heelers to get help. Hospitalization at the Medical Center, the art deco hospital complex, built on the center slope of the city, was free to any Jersey City resident, lacking the money for the care they received. My sister was treated there prior to her death, and my brother was born at the Margaret Hague Maternity Hospital. By the same token, contractors judiciously selected to do work for the city, knew that they would have to give the mayor a hefty kick back. That’s just the way it was.… ‘Nuf said!

as we hammered out our work, our sturdy, ancient typewriters went click, click . . . click . . . click, click, as if, independent of us, the transitory occupants of their abode, they were holding a conversation with one another. There was simultaneously camaraderie and intense competition among us heelers as we struggled to prove ourselves.