Empire of Sin by Gary Krist Page A

Mayor Shakspeare nor his secretary were in their offices, and no one seemed to know where they were. Chief of Police Dexter Gaster, Hennessy’s successor, was present, but the neophyte chief seemed reluctant to do more than send a few extra patrolmen over to the parish prison. If Corte and Villere wanted any greater precaution than that, they would have to speak to the mayor, who—conveniently, some would later say—wasn’t due in City Hall before noon.
    Frustrated, and in a state of rising alarm,Corte and Villere hurried over to consult with Louisiana governor Francis T. Nicholls, who was known to be in town at his lawyer’s office. But here they got no help either. Nicholls,a white-haired former Confederate general, seemed sympathetic to their concerns, but he claimed that there was nothing he could do to aid them. To deploy the militia in any city, he would have to receive an official written request from its mayor. Without such a document, he said, he was powerless. But Nicholls at least knew where Shakspeare could be found: the mayor was breakfasting at the Pickwick Club. If the gentlemen would simply have a seat, he would send a message over to the club and ask Mayor Shakspeare to come to the office.
    By this time,crowds were already gathering at the foot of the Henry Clay statue, which in 1891 still stood on the neutral ground (the median) of Canal Street at the intersection of Royal. At ten o’clock, when Parkerson and his self-styled “Vigilance Committee” arrived on the scene, approximately six to eight thousand citizens already thronged the avenue. Intersections were blocked to traffic and the Canal Street trolleys were so swamped that they could barely move.
    Amid shouts and cheering, Parkerson and the other leaders of the committee got the meeting started. They marched three times around the monument to give the other leaders a chance to fall in behind them. Then Parkerson climbed the steps to the foot of the statue. He took off his hat as another cheer rose up from the crowd.
    “People of New Orleans, once before I stood before you for public duty,” he began, referring to his role in the 1888 elections. “I now appear before you again, actuated by no desire for fame or prominence. Affairs have reached such a crisis that men living in an organized and civilized community, finding their laws fruitless and ineffective, are forced to protect themselves. When courts fail, the people must act!”
    Again the crowd roared its approval. By now, spectators had climbed to the roofs of the paralyzed streetcars to get a better view. Others looked on with opera glasses from nearby windows and balconies.
    “What protection is there left us,” Parkerson went on, “when the very head of our police department—our Chief of Police—is assassinated in our very midst by the Mafia Society, and his assassins [are] again turned loose on the community? The time has come for the people of New Orleans to say whether they are going to stand [for] these outrages.… I ask you to consider this fairly: Are you going to let it continue? Will every man here follow me, and see the murder of D.C. Hennessy vindicated? Are there men enough here to set aside the verdict of that infamous jury, every one of whom is a perjurer and a scoundrel?”
    The roar of the spectators left no doubt about their answer. And after a few other men had made speeches from the foot of the Great Pacificator, the crowd, excited to a frenzied pitch, heeded Parkerson’s final words: “Men and citizens of New Orleans, follow me! I will be your leader!”
    The crowd parted as Parkerson and the other leadersmade their way down Royal Street. At Hayne’s house on the corner of Bienville, a previously selected group of men armed themselves with the shotguns, Winchester rifles, and rope that they had cached there the night before. Then they returned to Canal Street and began their march toward the parish prison. “The crowd accordingly fell in line, three and