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Chapter Eleven SenatOR BUlkeleY Aa When 1904 rolled around, Morgan Bulkeley’s biggest political dream began to snowball into a reality. He waited twelve years for the sainted Joe Hawley to give up his Senate seat and much had changed in the interim. In that time, the population of Hartford had grown by 50 percent.∞ The waves of Irish Potato Famine immigrants that had washed into Hartford beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century had now been replaced by an equally powerful surge of Northern Europeans and Italians. Since 1892, the Democrats , harnessing the new-immigrant votes, managed to win half of the mayoral races.≤ Due to a still-high infant mortality rate and workplace accidents, the average life expectancy held stubbornly below fifty years, yet the amenities of life had expanded greatly.≥ Even people of limited means now had safety bicycles, enabling young women to get about freely and allowing factory workers to zip home for a hot lunch. Wealthier people used electric vehicles.∂ Speaking of upper-income families, 18 percent of all the homes in the United States hired a domestic servant of some kind. Budgets needn’t be stretched, because the national average wage was twenty-two cents an hour, and o√ering meals and lodging e√ectively cut that rate in half.∑ City folks enjoyed indoor toilets, but only 14 percent of Hartford’s homes featured bathtubs. In a wealthy city like Hartford, a great many people hooked up telephones, but nationwide only 8 percent would answer them. There were 8,000 cars driving on 144 miles of paved roads in the United States. Still, hygiene lagged, and four decades away from the common availability of antibiotics, people died mostly from pneumonia and tuberculosis.∏ aLife was good for the Bulkeleys of Washington Street. Morgan turned sixtysix while Fannie celebrated forty-four. Their three children, Morgan Jr., Elinor, and Houghton, were eighteen, ten, and seven, respectively. As for creature comforts , no mortals had it better. There were domestic servants, cooks, coachmen and nannies.π The Bulkeleys socialized extensively and threw lavish parties for prominent guests from all over the United States. Morgan and Fannie Bulkeley s e n a t o r b u l k e l e y ∞∏∞ knew almost every person worth knowing in the country and one or both of them had made the acquaintance of every president since Ulysses S. Grant. Their son, Morgan Jr., graduated from Hartford Public High School in 1902 and now attended Yale University.∫ Naturally, Elinor and Houghton would be a√orded all the same educational opportunities as their older brother. On the not-so-pleasant side, many of the lodestones of Morgan Bulkeley’s life were gone—his mother and father; his brothers Charlie and Billy; his brother-inlaw Leverett Brainard; his political touchstone, Marshall Jewell; and his first real boss and mentor, Uncle Henry Morgan. However, just as Bulkeley wielded a heft of fortitude when it came to politics, he heaped an even greater amount of denial when it came to the grim reaper. While temporarily out of the political arena, Bulkeley busied himself overseeing Aetna Life and enjoying his family, Republican Party meetings, military encampments, parades, horse racing, antique collecting, and traveling. He could never have spent so much time in politics or at play if it hadn’t been for the loyal and talented executives at Aetna Life. Chief among them was Vice President Joel English, whom shareholders regarded so highly that they o√ered him the top job after Morgan Bulkeley’s passing in 1922. By then, however, English was seventysix , and poor health forced him to decline.Ω In May 1904, one of the biggest celebrations ever held in Hartford was scheduled to take place—the National Encampment of the members of the Grand Army of the Republic (gar). Fifteen thousand soldiers and spectators from all over the East Coast were expected to attend.∞≠ While the event was still in the planning stages, Morgan Bulkeley visited Fitch’s Old Soldiers Home in Noroton (a section of Darien, Connecticut) to issue a general invitation to the elderly veterans.∞∞ As a result of this little courtesy, almost 400 soldiers from Fitch’s Home chartered a special train to Hartford for the encampment. While Bulkeley walked the grounds at Fitch’s Home, an old soldier approached him. The man handed Bulkeley a small item, carefully wrapped in tissue paper. When Bulkeley opened it, he beheld a picture of his brother, Capt. Charles Bulkeley, who died during...

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