KLAN TAKES ROOT: Members of the Ku Klux Klan form an aisle during a rally and wedding in the Georgiaville neighborhood of Smithfield in 1927.
12.19.99
When Rhode Island found out in 1899 that Minnesota was building a State House dome bigger than the one going up on Smith Hill, the General Assembly threw out the old plans and demanded a still-bigger dome for Rhode Island.
The massive result gave Rhode Island bragging rights for years. It was generally reported to be the second-largest self-supported dome in the world, eclipsed only by St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
That is, until 1994, when retired engineer George Kempler decided to actually measure Rhode Island's dome. His conclusion: yup, St. Peter's is bigger.
So is the Taj Mahal, in India.
And so is the Minnesota State House. We are number four.
A river of corruption has always run through Rhode Island government. In 1904, investigative reporter Lincoln Steffens said, "The political condition of Rhode Island is notorious, acknowledged and it is shameful. . . . Rhode Island is a state for sale, and cheap.''
The shameful secret behind Rhode Island's turn-of-the-century prosperity was child labor. Tiny, nimble fingers and small hands helped create lives of luxury for the rich. Children quit school to work in textile mills, jeopardizing their health and future.
In the picture above, 14-year-old Leola Alger, third from the right in the front row, stands with young coworkers at the Lonsdale Mill.
Reformers and trade unions pushed in the General Assembly to raise the minimum work age so that 12- and 13-year-olds would not be permitted in factories. But mill owners had a strong lobby; the minimum work age was not raised to 15 until 1923.
As immigrants flooded the state, some natives got very restless, taking refuge in racism and anti-immigrant hysteria. The Ku Klux Klan took root in northern Rhode Island. Its targets were mainly Roman Catholics, Jews, and the newly arrived.
The photo above, taken in 1927, shows a Klan rally and wedding in the Georgiaville neighborhood of Smithfield.
Some called it bizarre, some called it damned appropriate: a "stink bomb'' of bromine gas was dropped into the state Senate chamber on June 19, 1924. The funk drove senators out of the State House, ending a marathon battle over requiring citizens to own property before they could vote in municipal elections. Republicans supported the property requirements;Democrats didn't.
Rhode Islanders scoffed at Prohibition , guzzling illegal drinks with aplomb. From Newport's rich swells to working-class Woonsocket, Prohibition was more widely flouted in Rhode Island than in just about any other state.
Prohibition was finally repealed in 1933, the year the photograph to the left was taken. The happy gentleman in the spats is Johnny Tucker.
Television ushered in a communications revolution that changed the way Americans thought about themselves, entertained themselves, and conducted family life. The box became the focus of family life, as shows such as I Love Lucy, The Texaco Star Theater, Father Knows Best, Leave it to Beaver , and Perry Mason enthralled viewers -- and, critics say, turned their brains to mush.
WJAR, Channel 10, was the first Rhode Island television station on air, in 1949.
Fernand St Germain , shown above at the microphone, was a bright young go-getter from Woonsocket when he was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1960. For years, he built housing for senior citizens from one end of his district to the other while amassing power and influence on the House banking committee.
He chaired that committee when he was abruptly defeated in 1988 by an upstart named Ron Machtley, who campaigned around Rhode Island with a pig named Les Pork, proclaiming, "We need Les Pork in Congress.''
Voters apparently turned on St Germain after reports that he lived the high life on a credit card belonging to a banking lobbyist. "He changed so much during his years in Washington,'' said one long-time lobbyist, "it was like looking at the portrait of Dorian Gray.''
State Supreme Court Justice Joseph A. Bevilacqua grew up on Federal Hill with boys who went on to become gangsters. As a noted defense lawyer, he kept up those friendships in later life. Though he denied any wrongdoing, he was censured for judicial misconduct in 1985, and resigned during impeachment hearings a year later. He died June 21, 1989 at the age of 70.
State senator Dominick J. Ruggerio, of Providence, was arrested in September 1990 for shoplifting condoms from a CVS drug store, in Cranston. He stuffed the condoms in his socks. Ruggerio was not prosecuted and has been reelected from his district in the city's North End every election since.
It started as a mortgage program to help first-time home buyers. But the Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corp. ended up funneling cheap mortgages to the politically connected; its director, Ralph A. Pari, was arrested in 1985.
RIHMFC seemed like chump change compared with what came next: the collapse of the state's insurance fund for credit unions. Federal Hill banker Joseph Mollicone disappeared after auditors discovered $13 million missing from his bank; the embezzlement bankrupted the underfunded insurance fund.
The failure of the Rhode Island Share & Deposit Indemnity Corp. closed 44 banks and credit unions, cutting off 300,000 depositors -- a third of the state -- from their money. By the time the bill is finally paid, it's expected to top $500 million.
State Rep. Robert V. Bianchini, who oversaw Rhode Island's credit unions in his private job while helping to regulate them as a legislator, was one of the political figures scored by the RISDIC Commission for his role in causing the 1991 credit union collapse.
But in 1994 Bianchini landed on his feet, getting a job as president of the Oklahoma Credit Union League. Oklahoma officials said they hired Bianchini because of his "background and knowledge'' of the credit union industry. Bianchini's role in the Rhode Island mess was, an Oklahoma official said, "absolutely overstated by the media.''
Edward D. DiPrete was a nondescript Cranston mayor who ran a winning campaign for governor in 1984 on a platform of ethical government. His slogan was an ad-man's concoction: "The Change We Need.''
But almost from day one, rumors of misuse of office swirled around DiPrete, many concerning favors to various state contractors. He developed a taste for high living and the grand gesture; he used campaign funds to treat his family to a Las Vegas gambling junket and ran with the jet set at publisher Malcolm Forbes's $2-million Morocco birthday bash, in 1989.
Indicted in April 1994 with his son, Dennis, on 24 counts of racketeering, bribery, extortion, and perjury, DiPrete vigorously protested his innocence. But on Dec. 11, 1998, he pleaded guilty to 18 counts of rackeetering, extortion, and bribery, becoming the only Rhode Island governor to be sent to prison. Serving almost a year at the ACI, DiPrete was released on Dec. 4, 1999.
In February of 1992, it rose like the Emerald City of Oz from the rolling hills of eastern Connecticut: Foxwoods, the largest, richest casino in North America, and the putative domain of the Mashantucket Pequot tribe.
Across the border in Rhode Island, the Narragansetts -- a tribe as small and obscure as the Pequots had been just a decade ago -- were watching. They, too, want to enter the lucrative world of gambling.
The Narragansetts have been thwarted for years by a series of agreements with the government and changes in the law. But Foxwoods pulls in more than $1 billion per year, and every year the gambling interests come up with new proposals. Stay tuned.
The champion of the State House pension scams of the 1970s and 1980s was John Orabona, a state senator from Providence's Federal Hill neighborhood. Orabona amassed more years in the state and city of Providence pension systems than he had years on earth. When he retired in 1995, Orabona, then 51, claimed 79 years of pension credit. Orabona, who is now a State House lobbyist, is collecting a $58,000 state pension and fighting the city in court over his those pension rights.
Orabona was the poster boy for scores of special pension and early retirement deals by the General Assembly. Among the scams were: government insiders getting credit toward pensions for military time never served; for union work; for serving on private boards; for moderating town meetings; and for part-time summer jobs, such as lifeguarding.
After the deals were exposed, many of the loopholes were closed. And voters scuttled the legislative pension system in a 1994 statewide referendum.
When Rhode Island found out in 1899 that Minnesota was building a State House dome bigger than the one going up on Smith Hill, the General Assembly threw out the old plans and demanded a still-bigger dome for Rhode Island.
The massive result gave Rhode Island bragging rights for years. It was generally reported to be the second-largest self-supported dome in the world, eclipsed only by St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
That is, until 1994, when retired engineer George Kempler decided to actually measure Rhode Island's dome. His conclusion: yup, St. Peter's is bigger.
So is the Taj Mahal, in India.
And so is the Minnesota State House. We are number four.
A river of corruption has always run through Rhode Island government. In 1904, investigative reporter Lincoln Steffens said, "The political condition of Rhode Island is notorious, acknowledged and it is shameful. . . . Rhode Island is a state for sale, and cheap.''
The shameful secret behind Rhode Island's turn-of-the-century prosperity was child labor. Tiny, nimble fingers and small hands helped create lives of luxury for the rich. Children quit school to work in textile mills, jeopardizing their health and future.
In the picture above, 14-year-old Leola Alger, third from the right in the front row, stands with young coworkers at the Lonsdale Mill.
Reformers and trade unions pushed in the General Assembly to raise the minimum work age so that 12- and 13-year-olds would not be permitted in factories. But mill owners had a strong lobby; the minimum work age was not raised to 15 until 1923.
As immigrants flooded the state, some natives got very restless, taking refuge in racism and anti-immigrant hysteria. The Ku Klux Klan took root in northern Rhode Island. Its targets were mainly Roman Catholics, Jews, and the newly arrived.
The photo above, taken in 1927, shows a Klan rally and wedding in the Georgiaville neighborhood of Smithfield.
Some called it bizarre, some called it damned appropriate: a "stink bomb'' of bromine gas was dropped into the state Senate chamber on June 19, 1924. The funk drove senators out of the State House, ending a marathon battle over requiring citizens to own property before they could vote in municipal elections. Republicans supported the property requirements;Democrats didn't.
Rhode Islanders scoffed at Prohibition , guzzling illegal drinks with aplomb. From Newport's rich swells to working-class Woonsocket, Prohibition was more widely flouted in Rhode Island than in just about any other state.
Prohibition was finally repealed in 1933, the year the photograph to the left was taken. The happy gentleman in the spats is Johnny Tucker.
Television ushered in a communications revolution that changed the way Americans thought about themselves, entertained themselves, and conducted family life. The box became the focus of family life, as shows such as I Love Lucy, The Texaco Star Theater, Father Knows Best, Leave it to Beaver , and Perry Mason enthralled viewers -- and, critics say, turned their brains to mush.
WJAR, Channel 10, was the first Rhode Island television station on air, in 1949.
Fernand St Germain , shown above at the microphone, was a bright young go-getter from Woonsocket when he was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1960. For years, he built housing for senior citizens from one end of his district to the other while amassing power and influence on the House banking committee.
He chaired that committee when he was abruptly defeated in 1988 by an upstart named Ron Machtley, who campaigned around Rhode Island with a pig named Les Pork, proclaiming, "We need Les Pork in Congress.''
Voters apparently turned on St Germain after reports that he lived the high life on a credit card belonging to a banking lobbyist. "He changed so much during his years in Washington,'' said one long-time lobbyist, "it was like looking at the portrait of Dorian Gray.''
State Supreme Court Justice Joseph A. Bevilacqua grew up on Federal Hill with boys who went on to become gangsters. As a noted defense lawyer, he kept up those friendships in later life. Though he denied any wrongdoing, he was censured for judicial misconduct in 1985, and resigned during impeachment hearings a year later. He died June 21, 1989 at the age of 70.
State senator Dominick J. Ruggerio, of Providence, was arrested in September 1990 for shoplifting condoms from a CVS drug store, in Cranston. He stuffed the condoms in his socks. Ruggerio was not prosecuted and has been reelected from his district in the city's North End every election since.
It started as a mortgage program to help first-time home buyers. But the Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corp. ended up funneling cheap mortgages to the politically connected; its director, Ralph A. Pari, was arrested in 1985.
RIHMFC seemed like chump change compared with what came next: the collapse of the state's insurance fund for credit unions. Federal Hill banker Joseph Mollicone disappeared after auditors discovered $13 million missing from his bank; the embezzlement bankrupted the underfunded insurance fund.
The failure of the Rhode Island Share & Deposit Indemnity Corp. closed 44 banks and credit unions, cutting off 300,000 depositors -- a third of the state -- from their money. By the time the bill is finally paid, it's expected to top $500 million.
State Rep. Robert V. Bianchini, who oversaw Rhode Island's credit unions in his private job while helping to regulate them as a legislator, was one of the political figures scored by the RISDIC Commission for his role in causing the 1991 credit union collapse.
But in 1994 Bianchini landed on his feet, getting a job as president of the Oklahoma Credit Union League. Oklahoma officials said they hired Bianchini because of his "background and knowledge'' of the credit union industry. Bianchini's role in the Rhode Island mess was, an Oklahoma official said, "absolutely overstated by the media.''
Edward D. DiPrete was a nondescript Cranston mayor who ran a winning campaign for governor in 1984 on a platform of ethical government. His slogan was an ad-man's concoction: "The Change We Need.''
But almost from day one, rumors of misuse of office swirled around DiPrete, many concerning favors to various state contractors. He developed a taste for high living and the grand gesture; he used campaign funds to treat his family to a Las Vegas gambling junket and ran with the jet set at publisher Malcolm Forbes's $2-million Morocco birthday bash, in 1989.
Indicted in April 1994 with his son, Dennis, on 24 counts of racketeering, bribery, extortion, and perjury, DiPrete vigorously protested his innocence. But on Dec. 11, 1998, he pleaded guilty to 18 counts of rackeetering, extortion, and bribery, becoming the only Rhode Island governor to be sent to prison. Serving almost a year at the ACI, DiPrete was released on Dec. 4, 1999.
In February of 1992, it rose like the Emerald City of Oz from the rolling hills of eastern Connecticut: Foxwoods, the largest, richest casino in North America, and the putative domain of the Mashantucket Pequot tribe.
Across the border in Rhode Island, the Narragansetts -- a tribe as small and obscure as the Pequots had been just a decade ago -- were watching. They, too, want to enter the lucrative world of gambling.
The Narragansetts have been thwarted for years by a series of agreements with the government and changes in the law. But Foxwoods pulls in more than $1 billion per year, and every year the gambling interests come up with new proposals. Stay tuned.
The champion of the State House pension scams of the 1970s and 1980s was John Orabona, a state senator from Providence's Federal Hill neighborhood. Orabona amassed more years in the state and city of Providence pension systems than he had years on earth. When he retired in 1995, Orabona, then 51, claimed 79 years of pension credit. Orabona, who is now a State House lobbyist, is collecting a $58,000 state pension and fighting the city in court over his those pension rights.
Orabona was the poster boy for scores of special pension and early retirement deals by the General Assembly. Among the scams were: government insiders getting credit toward pensions for military time never served; for union work; for serving on private boards; for moderating town meetings; and for part-time summer jobs, such as lifeguarding.
After the deals were exposed, many of the loopholes were closed. And voters scuttled the legislative pension system in a 1994 statewide referendum.
A
yearlong Providence Journal series about life in Rhode Island.
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in cooperation with the Rhode Island Historical Society.
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© 1999 The Providence Journal Company
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