The health commissioner shifted nervously in the wicker chair. It was just before noon on a Saturday and he found himself seated at a table on Boss Crump’s porch. Crump hadn’t held office in the city for some years, but he still more or less ran the government. And when he summoned you, you came, no matter the time or day.

“I believe in a quiet city,” Came Crump’s gravely voice from behind him. “More than that, I believe in a city that sounds good. It keeps people happy, keeps them calm, keeps the crime down. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes, sir?” The commissioner hadn’t meant that to come out as a question, but he didn’t know where this was going.

“And what keeps a city sounding good? Songbirds. A darling little girl down the street, Lucy, raises them. Told me a stray cat got in, killed all of her birds. Says they’re doing that to all the song birds in the city. Chipping away at the population.”

The commissioner blinked at Crump, confused. “I’m sorry, but what does this have to do with me?”

“Good lad, you’re the health commissioner, I want you to catch the cats.

All of them.”

Memphis Note
This actually happened. Crump got fed up with the stray cats in Memphis eating all the songbirds, so he organized a massive effort to round up all the strays in the city. All because he wanted the air to be filled with the sound of chirping birds.

Crump fumed in the overstuffed chair, chomping on the end of a lit cigar. His aides glanced nervously at each other. They were in quite a quandary, and Boss Crump hated quandaries. The judge had ruled that he couldn’t hold both the sheriff’s and mayor’s offices at the same time, and it was too late to get their man on the ballot for the vote.

Crump leaned forward.

“You ever seen one of those trained crows that writes its own name? Stupid bird’s got no idea what it’s writing, it just knows how to put lines down on paper to get a treat.

“Now, near as I can figure, even the simplest human brain should be as smart as a crow’s.

“Gentlemen, I propose we teach the population of Memphis to scratch out a name, just like a trained crow.”

“A write-in win? Is that even possible?” Asked a man in the back.

“I once bought an election by paying the poll tax for every negro that voted for me, and even then, I only won by 79 votes. This isn’t even close to the heights of lunacy I’m willing to climb. Get to teaching crows to write, boys.”

Memphis Note
Boss Crump’s first major political mistake was attempting to hold both the offices of city mayor and county sheriff. When the courts finally ruled against him on the matter, it was too late for Crump to get his chosen man on the ballot. So, he organized a write-in campaign. And to ensure his man wouldn’t lose, his people taught illiterate voters how to write his candidate’s name,”Reichman.”

“Would you believe when I started, everyone was all in favor of it?”

Around him, movers were diligently packing up his office.

“If I backed temperance, I’d get the holy rollers playin’ all nice and the hillbilly Republicans back east, too. Just had to get the negroes to vote how I wanted, and make sure the prohibition thing slipped through like greased spit. It was absolutely symbiotic.”

He pulled out his pocket square, and cleaned his round black-rimmed glasses.

“What none of them understood is that people are like horses. They buck under too hard a hand. And keepin’ a man from taking a drink after a long day’s work, well, that’s too hard a hand. Where I saw wrong, I acted. And where I saw a hard hand, I turned a blind eye.”

Satisfied, he put his glasses back on.

“And they’ve come at me because of it. Written a law because of it. The Ouster Law. Those scheming bastards in Nashville aim to prove I’ve intentionally refused to enforce their idiocy.”

He gave the office one last look and turned on his heel, grinning.

“Let them have the mayor’s office. The city still belongs to Boss Crump.”

Memphis Note
Boss Crump was the driving political force in Memphis for almost 50 years, but he only served three two year terms as mayor. This is because while he initially backed Prohibition to get elected, he failed to enforce it, which infuriated his former allies in the capital. Their response? Drafting the Ouster Law, which let them remove any elected official from office for failing to execute their duties. Crump left office before they could charge him.