National Affairs: End of Lord Andrew

From the Federalist period until 1928 Newburyport, Mass, was a staid, church going, codfish-eating community. Before and since, this has been far from the case. Prime clown of early Newburyport “Lord” Timothy Dexter. He sent coals to Newcastle, warming pans to the In made a fortune. He lived in a mansion bristling with minarets and wo statues. He drank constantly, crown haddock-hawker his private poet laureate with a wreath of parsley, spelled v than Chaucer, published oftener.

Four years ago another eccentric fi burst forth upon the world from Newburyport. He was Andrew Joseph (“Bossy”) Gillis, 34, a hard-boiled red-headed Irishman with close-set eyes, a screwed-up mouth and a pancake felt hat pushed down over his forehead. Onetime sailor roustabout, he started to erect a filling station on his lawn in contemptuous regard of a city zoning law. He protested at the City Hall and, having “hung one on the the Mayor’s jaw,” was sentenced to 60 days in the local jail. From then on he began to act like the reincarnation of “Lord” Timothy. Also, turning write addressed the electorate:

“I have harpooned the whale.

“I am using its oil in the machine will carry you to the polls to vote for me.

“Such Bombastic Fiction brought fame to said Barnum.

“As the pup in ‘Aesop’s Fables’

“The codfish aristocrats give way—

“They acknowledge they have lost, the substance grasping at the shadow.

Just as “Lord” Timothy decorate home. “Lord” Andrew rigged up a line of oldtime bedroom crockery on the ridgepole of his house, planted a graveyard in the front yard with names of his opponents on the tombstones. Fascinated Newburyport elected him its Mayor. He won a second term. Contrary to Newburyport tradition, he stood for election a third time last week. This time, shocked by his brawling, his publicity junket to the Pacific Coast, his high-handed method or turning the municipal administration over to his cronies, Newburyport did not vote “Lord” Andrew a single ward. Into the hands of Gayden Wells Morrill, retired shoe manufacturer, was placed wha left of the city government.

Crestfallen but still truculent, “Bossy” Gillis declared: “I’ll take my lickin like a man. . . . But I’m going to watch coming administration and if anything isn’t going right I’m going to get my gang together and see about it.”