Just One of Those Things

As the New Haven Railroad's Colonial chuffed into Boston's dimly lit Back Bay Station, the crowd surged up against the train gates. More than 1,000 were there, cheering and jangling cowbells. When a heavy-lidded, heavy-jowled man in a grey fedora stepped off the train, one oldster cried: "Three cheers for the greatest figure in America."

Such was the homecoming last week for James Michael Curley, 71, who is both a Congressman ($10,000 a year) and Mayor of Boston ($20,000). He was returning from Washington, where a Federal Court jury had found him guilty of using the mails to defraud. The welcoming committee, 1,000 strong, included his old friend Maxwell Grossman, who is also Boston's Commissioner of Penal Institutions.

Jim Curley invited his friends to his home in Jamaica Plain for an informal reception, and they followed him out in a long and noisy motorcade. His comment on the unfortunate happenings in Washington: "It's just one of those things."

As in the past, Jim Curley's conviction would not stop him from being Massachusetts' most agile and successful politician. He had once been jailed for violation of the Civil Service Act, had once been forced to pay back $42,629 he had taken as graft from the city which loves to elect him. Now he faced a possible prison sentence. But there was nothing in the law--or Boston's political morals--to prevent his continuing as Mayor. If necessary, the "greatest figure" could run the city from jail.

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