Document text
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
KATE
New York
NA's.T. OF ‘,.OliFF!.1
Earl Tiowman
ATTRFSz
86 West 12 Street
DAIE
February 23, 10S
StMJECT
A Dirty Trick on the Little Horse
1011V 1
Circumstances of interview
1. Date and time c' ihterviow
2. Place of interview
Daea's BoAstore
63 Washincton Square
3. Name and lialtdrorlitof litryro rot ant.
4. Name and address of person, A any, wno put .you in
ton,: with informi,nt.
o. Name and address of porson, if otny, I3ccouipanv Lnm, you
6. Description of room, WJise. surrc,unt_in!..s, etc.
FOLKLORE
YORK
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material refers.)
FORM C
Text of Interview (Unedited)
STATE New York
NE OF WORKER Earl Bowman
ADDRESS 86 Nest 12 Street
DATE February 14, 1939
SUBJECT "A DIRTY TRICK ON THE LITTLE HORSE"
Narrator, Tom Nolan (Homeless)
Age 73 years
Interview at Dace's Bookstore
63 Washin6ton Square, So.,
New York City
"A DIRTY TRICK OP THE LITTLE HORSE"
(Told by Tom Nolan, an old-time
(horse truck driver; jobless
(by reason of old age and the
(substitution of motor trucks for
(horse trucks in New York City)
(Unedited)
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
Part 1
It was in the cave -like corner (the-,officel) in the rear
of Decals Boeketoro, while the thick hese froth Dace and Tom Nolan's
pipes steadily reduced the visibility, that Tomo the still husky
old exi.horse truck driver, told of the most terrible "accident"
in the history of trucking in New York City.
Old Tom, in no vise discounting his sympathy for the
human victims of the disaster, indignantly called it, "also, a
damned dirty trick on the little horse", that had without any
choice on its part been made an actor in the tragedy and because
of it perished with the others.
4.2*
We were back in Dace's place after the three of us had
been around to the cheap restaurant a block away, idlers twenty-five
cents bought a "truck -driver" order of liver and onions. So, for
the time at least there was ar "arnstice" between us and Men's most
cruel and relentless enemy -Hunger; the enemy that attacks every
human creature daily and without mercy, regardless of age, sex or race,
creed or color...
Our individual stomachs were full; our smokes were going;
we were conenial souls, and as aen at peace and who neither regret
"yesterday" nor fear "tomorrow," we were in the mood for talk.
Daea spoke of a dreadful accident of which he had road in
the paper that day; an accident in which a giant motor truck had
crashed into a private car...the &as tanks exploded, there was a
fire, five people were burned to death....
"Those big trucks sure are bad actors mhen Me of them
does break loose and go wild," Dace comaented tersely and let it
go at that. The picture was plain enough for all of us. Tom
Nolan took it up from there, and this is the story he told;
"Ye are right, Dace, qe boy," Old Tom who had guided
horse trucks through the streets of Liew York for many years,
began,"#Tis true, and I have observed it; when one of them big
"mankillerst such es knocked Jerry ens ,A1 out of our jobs ans
made um both 'obsolete' as hell, takes a notion to misbehave, it
can and often does do a vast amount of damage to human life and
limb and other things.
"Ten•itan trucks are ti,t things for little boys and
girls to play with, for at times they are bad actors indeed.
"No taxi cab, private car or any other sort of light.
weight conveyance has the slightest business disputint the right-,
of•way, or who shall go first with one of them damn 'mogul motor'
trucks.** That is the name 1 call them, and ftis a good name for
them, for they can be as dangerous as one of them big Imogule
railroad locomotives would be if it decided to run on the street
or highway instead of on the steel rails where it properly belongs,,.
"For a little oar to go up against one of them in a
collision is like it would be for a feather -weight amateur to get
in the way of Joe Louis or Tony Gallentos one good smack and it
is all over except gatherinf up the human and other fragments and
clearint the street of the wreckage.
"But distasteful and bad as they are they are necessary.
People have bccome so numerous in New Fork that trucks with strength
enough to carry four or five tons of potatoes or flour or beer or
what have ye, and with power enough to do it fast were just as un-
avoidable as it was to keep little buildings from being torn down
and big ones built on the spot where the little ones had been.
"They are here and there is nothing that can be done about
it, and I am not complainint even if I do get homesick sometimes
for Jerry and the old horse -truck.
"Since 'tie necessary to have big trucks to move big
loads and do it in a damn big hurry, accidents will happen in
spite of hello
"Some of the trucks are bound to go haywire once in a
while; or their drivers will go to sleep, or get drunk, or get
to payint attention to some girl on the sidewalk instead of keepin'
their eyes and their minds on the job for which they are hired--
040
which is to drive ths damn truck and then hell is to pay. An
accident happens and somebody, maybe four or five people at once,
usually innocent bystanders who've had nothing at all to do with it
in the first place, get killed or busted up in the destruction that
follows,
"'Tis hell, but that is the way of it..
"But what I was reminded of, Dace, when ye mentioned
them five unfortunate victims getting smashed up by an 'accident'
with one of them big motor trucks —then roasted in the fire that
followed the tragedy ye read about in the paper, was of thg most
terrible slaughter of human beings that any truck, in thg whole
history of thg trucking industry, was ever alma, up in the City
of .4ew York.
"It was no 'motor truck' as big as a box oar, traveling
along thl street at thirty or forty miles an hour, that was responsible
for it, or mixed in it.
"It was a damn little one.4aorsit /horse truck' and it was
standing still when thg disaster happened. Indeed, thf damn thing
was not even big enough to be properly called a 'truck' at all, if
a man sticks to thl absolute truth which of course he should always
do. It was nothing but a rickety, wobbly -wheeled (Which probably
needed groasint) spring wagon. The kind of rig ye can sometimes
see, even these days. Some flower peddler or junk0collector will
be driving it around the streets...and thi horse pulling it will
be bony and need currying and evidently doesn't get as much oats
and hay as he ought to.
"That was the sort of outfit; just an old spring wagon
to whioh was hitched a horse scarcely larger than a polo pony in
lase, yet twas mixed up in the most horrible and wiokedest 'truck
tracedy, in the history If New York...
"What happened? The whole damned works blowed up--exploded*-
distributed dreadful and bloody death all arouad thg vicinity in which
it happened. 'Teem like —or =mit have been very much like when them
'insurgent' airplanes (that's what ye call thg bastards ain't it?)
drops bombs in the streets of one of them towns in Spain, or like the
Jape are dropping, so they say, in China.
"It was in the summer of 1920...I'm pretty sure that is
the year, though I'm not always positive about dates, but never forget
places or things I have seen.
"The time of day was noon and the little truck, if ye can
oall it a truck, certainly picked one hell of a bad place in which
to blow up like it did..
"Wall Street, in front of the Subtreasury Building, straight
across the street from Morgans.
"Twould take a hell of a lot of hunting to find a worse
spot in the entire City of liew York -.or a worse time, for a lot of
dynamite to go off,
"Imagine it if ye can, Lads-- Hundreds of stenographers,
clerks, messengers full of life, laughing, kidding each other, crowding
the walks, hurrying to the drug store or lunch counter for their slice
of apple pie and glass of milk, or chocolate malted, or double -deck
sandwich an cup of coffee, or whatever they more aiming to eat for
lunoh...
"Nobody paying a damned bit of attention to the little
horseuvagon standin' there at the curb in front of the Subtreasury
Building; there was no red flags or "Danger" signs on it as the Law
requires to warn people if it was loaded with dangerous explosives*
and there was no reason for anybody to pay attention to it.
"Innocent as hell it looked* standing there* headed Nest
toward Broad Street a few hundred feet away and on the southwest
corner of which they were then starting to put up the big building
that is now there...just well started on it and still excavating...
working in the rock on which 'tie built....
"Then* without an instant's warning that damned little
horsetruck or* to be accurate what was in it vent off!
"In thi wink of an eye more than a score...thirtp-one
I think it was* or maybe 'teas thirtp.three of them stenographers*
clerks and messengers who a breath before were alive* laughing
and happy...never dreaming of deathrneere lying mangled and blowed
to pieees...dead or dying there in one of the busyest and probably
thg richest damned street in thg world...
"'Twas nOthing but slaughter* wholesale and hellish
slalkhtere Lads, that come from that little horse -wagon that
day in wall Street.
-7
Part 2
*taw ye understand what I meant, Lads, when I said that
no big teni.ton motortruck, deadly as they can be at times, has
ever in th' history of th' truckini industry in Now York City been
responsible:for the amount of destruction and ruin that that one
little ho.-magon brought about that day in Wall Street.
"Of course th' first idea that most people had was that
it 'tees a plot to blow up th' Subtreasury BuildiLz and take a crack
at Morgan's ehile they were at it. And from what .th' police found
it sure as hell looked like it might be just that, horrible as
,'suoh a thing would be.
"Thl Subtroasury Building and Morgans' and even down th'
street toward th' list on thl corner across from where they were
starinl to: put up till bit building that is now there, there were
sears on th' stone walls Where slugs of iron had been flung against
them by th" explosion.
"Those slugs, th' police decided were pieces of window
weights.. chunks of iron like 'shrapnel' I think they call it that
ie used in warfare.
"Bo till newspapers and most everybody else decided that
it could have been nothing but a dastardly plot of th' 'reds' or
'th' 'communists* or th' 'socialists' or some other unpopular and
supposed, to be wicked bunch to spread death and ruin in the center
of New York City's financial district...
"Perhaps ftwas a natural conclusion on account of those
'slugs of window weights that had bombarded th' buildings in th'
neighborhood. But when one stopped to think about it...it did seem
a little curious that anybody could be such damned fools as to think
they could knock down. and wreck a building like th$ Subtrsasury
Building by exploding a bunch of small chunks of iron against till
walls of I thought of that when, later, I vent down and looked
the &eine of tilt carnage over, which I did th$ next day.
"But anyhow, that's the way they figured it out. They
figured that some fiends in human form had made a biz bomb, fillin$
th$ center of it with dynamite, then packin$ ell outside of it with
out up pieces of window weights to make it as deadly as possible;
they had loaded it in till little one horse truck behind thl innocent
and unsuspioious little horse, drove it up to till curb in front of
thl Subtreasury Building and then ducked out, leaving the little
horse to be blowed up along with whatever unfortunate human beings
who might also be blowed to pieces when it vent offi
"The driver of th$ rig, so it was said, left thl outfit
at th' curb, went down to th$ new building they were working on...
asked for thl boss and while waitino for -Wit boss to be found, vent
into a telephone booth to make a call to somebody... He was in the
booth when the explosion took place...
"After that, nobody saw him any :uore. I presume that he was
well aware that what was left of the wagon and th$ poor little horse
that had been pulling it you'd not be worth trying to gather up.
Besides, I imagine that he thought that was a hell of a 600d place
to get away from and do it quick. That's what he did. And so far
as I've ever been able to learn nobody knows yet who he was or viler*
he went to...or if they do know they've kept mighty still about it for
all these yearsi
"Wells everybody thinlAnt it was a bomb plot' everybody...
including massif was properly horrified and indignant...
"For I tell ye, Lads, like all good citizens I have no
damned use for people who blow other people up, whether they do it
intentionally and with wicked motives or whether they do it through,
well, I'll say carelessness and perhaps an improper disregard for ths
safety of others...not only blow up human beings but also blow to pieces
a poor damned little horse who was simply earnins his oats and hay
while he pulled th' rig in which the dynamite or whatever it was was
being hauled... And I still say, It -was a dirty trick on th' little
on the horse
"The more I thought of it th' dirtier I thought it was.
"Supposes I thought to mesolf„ it had been Jerry they left
standint there to be blowed to hell when th' explosion took place.
Even to think of it mede me aad as 11814..
"I felt, as I suppose most everyone felt, that It like to
get me hands on the devil or devils that could be guilty of buildint
a bomb and sperpertratinl such an outrage. So, Lads, though I'm no
detective and I don't claim to be smarter than most other men, even
truck drivers, I did a bit of investigatinl an me awn hook.
"I wanted to see what was left of that little horse that
was murdered along with th' rest of th' victims. It was possible
I thought that I would recognise it, for I've always been observant
of horses and everyone I've noticed is a little different from
every other one, and has some mark or peculiarty that makes a body
remember it.
"If did recognize him I might know th' stable he ova*
from and then ftwould look to be an easy matter to find out who till
hell took him out that daymand didn't bring hit back.
"So I looked for him, but I never saw him... They took the
body away immediately and sent it to Barren Island to be turned into
fertiliser like I was afraid they would do Old Jerry when the damned
motor tr.icks made him and AM '01-soletet and we lost our jobs.
"But I did see some other things, Lads. I noticed that the
scars on the buildings from the window weight slugs that were supposed
to be packed around th' bomb had only been fired in three directions...
to each side and forward toward where they were building the new build
in on the corner. Then, hell, I realised it was all a mistake.
"The whole thing was an 'accident' but a damned wicked and
cruel one....•
*What happened was this Lades
"Somebody vented some knamite that day and were in too
big a hurry for it to wait for the proper time to haul it through the
streets...and which certainly was not in the ,aiddle of the day when
the streets were crowded.
"At the same time the same people or somebody el 'e vented
some lundow-veights delivered to them too, so th' lad who was handlin'
that little wagon..truck was instructed to take the stuff to where it was
ordered.
*Ue loaded the stuff in his wagon, cordint the window weights
up in the front end of it against the baok of the seat; behind the win-
dow weights he pushed in his boxes of dynamite...probably not realism'
haw damned dangerous the stuff was.
"Then he drove across town with it... In drivinl the
window weights jugled down on each side of the dynamite boxes, and
no doubt there ww; some fulninatine caps in the outfit too...and I can
tell ye, Lads, that fulminatinl caps and dynamite and window weights
are damned poor neighbors to have close together in a wagon that is liable
to be jolted or shaken a bit...
"Then he got up to the Subtreasar-, Building and 'twee the
only place where there was a spot for him to pull into the curb, which
he did. There he left the downy lord and while he was gone something
happened —maybe the little horse, being hot and sweaty shook himself..,
which would cause the wagon to shake...a window weight might have dropped
down on a s2ot of nitro-gyeerine that had "sweat" out of the dynamite, or
on a fulminatint cap that had spilled out...
"And the laocident happenedlo All, Lads, because somebody
was in too damned big a hurry to do a little blaatinl in rock...and
wanted their dynamite delivered at once...regardless of the Lew...
or the safety of human lives...
"But it was 'murder/ Lads, just the same...and it also should
be a lesson'to all of us, drivers of these damned big motor trucks as
well as other people, to never be in too big a hurry...either to deliver
dynamite...or jump at conclusions as to just haw anything happened'
"There ye have th. story of thl worst 'truck accident' that
ever happened in New York and-- Hell, Lads, 'tie tiAs I was driftiO
down to ma flop house's'
That vas Old To Nolanos story of the Great Inall Street
explosion...and neither Daoa or myself could doubt Old Tom's sincerity in
believing that it was the TRUE STORY.