Bend a knee to no one

                  On bended knee to no one

It was the 1880’s in Buffalo. Shipping and commerce of all types made the city a trade center for the world. Grain, iron ore and foodstuffs poured in from the West to her Lake Erie Harbor. Immigrants, manufactured goods and supplies of all types flowed westward to fuel the greatest  expansion in American history. There was work for all and the Martin clan prospered along with the rest of Buffalo.

       Old Emmanuel Martin, now in his early 80’s, still managed to entertain the grand and great grandchildren with his stories of life as a lake sailor on the steam ship St. Lawrence. He talked of his, his stay in Eire and his voyage across the ocean to Canada and  Buffalo. The children listened wide-eyed and remembered. Snatches of those conversations would survive well into the next two centuries. The Martins had a tradition of story-telling like the old Irish. Over and over again stories of family history and intrigue would be repeated around the dinner table or camp fire, until all remembered the people and events like they were but yesterday.

       William’s son Danny made his life in Erie, Pa.  and soon owned a successful boiler factory spreading the Martin clan into NW Pa. Maunch (young Emmanuel) was a waterfront grain-scooper. Ralph and Willie owned saloons. Willie’s on lower Main St.,  Ralph’s further over on Washington Street. The Martin clan and its in-laws had spread all over the first and second wards of Buffalo, intermarrying with many of the larger families of  Buffalo's clan na Gael. They were poised to greet the coming new twentieth century, a clan of immigrants who had come to America and carved out a life for themselves. They stood aside for no man and called no man sir. 

         One of  William’s sons, Emmanuel, worked as a grain scooper, unloading grain from the ships in the Buffalo harbor. It was hard and dirty work, but it paid well. The ship owners contracted with local suppliers, like saloon owners Fingy Conners, to supply them with men to unload their ships. Fingy ran a prominent saloon and naturally picked the men for work who drank in his saloon. In this manner he not only got paid for his services, the men drank a portion of their pay in his saloon. He was but the largest of many such entrepreneurs, but among the most flamboyant. He made so much money, that he was able to move up to a Delaware Avenue home with the upper crust. Naturally, the established folks  looked on in horror at this uncouth product of the docks who was now their neighbor. It was the stuff of modern comedy. In later years Hollywood writers would dream up similar situations like the Clampett Family in Hollywood. It was the stuff of high humor.

              Down on the docks, it wasn’t quite so funny. In 1899, there was a strike by the laborers, protesting such indentured servitude by men like Connors. The men resented the favoritism involved in the selection of who went to work and the need to spend a chunk of their pay at saloons like Fingy Connors. Fingy called in the authorities and some goon squads to bludgeon the boys back into line. 

                    One night, at Radigan’s Saloon, a few of the lads were having a beer, talking animatedly about the grain shoveler’s strike. Casually a large man leaned into speak with them.

              “Is it no work, you are doing then?”  said one of Fingy’s goons, a red-haired giant, with a plug ugly face and a nasty air about him.

                   “Not for that fecker Connors, “ the striker replied. “Him that would steal the coppers from a dead man’s eyes.

              “Is that so,” the goon asked, remembering the man’s face. for later. “And who might you be lad?”

              “Sure, it’s none of your feckin’ business, is it then? “said the man whose ire was raised. “Go on with ye, or we will give you a sound thrashing. For, Fingy doesn’t run everything down here yet.”

              The giant looked sore tempted to swing on the defiant drinker, but thought better of it as several of the lad’s neighbors wandered over to watch the coming argument.

              “I will remember your face, lad,” he said ominously as he backed out the door of the saloon.

              “You might want to be after watching out for that lad,” said Spoons McGuire. “For I hear tell that great ape broke some heads last week after a meeting.”

              “Aye, I will watch him, right up until me cudgel cracks his noggin,” said the defiant one. “Mr. Connors has to learn some time that we are not all sheep here.”

              There was some violence and hard feelings. All unloading stopped while the dispute raged on. Finally, Buffalo’s Catholic  Bishop Quigley helped mediate a settlement and the men went back to work. Only a few men were killed and several injured in the strike.

               The scoopers did their worked, fed their families and lived their lives as best they could manage. They were a proud and independent bunch, that called no man sir and made way for no one.

                                       -30-

                                (865 words)

                            Joseph Xavier Martin