Joe's Smuggling Past
In January 1914, Joe was named president of Columbia Trust, making him the youngest bank president in the country. In October of that same year he married Rose Fitzgerald, daughter of Boston mayor John Francis Fitzgerald, the first son of Irish immigrants elected mayor in America. Fitzgerald and P. J. were the two most influential men in Boston, and the union of their children cemented their power base. Joe Kennedy would unabashedly use those family connections to further his personal and political ambitions. He would use less savory associates to get rich.
THEY SAID …
“Joe's time was his own, as it had been and always would be. School and college had once taken much of it before, and now it was business that did so…. We were individuals with highly responsible roles in a partnership that yielded rewards which we shared.”
— Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, in America's Queen
Starting a Family
The Kennedys' honeymoon period was short-lived. Once settled in a new house in Brookline, Massachusetts, Joe's primary interests were making money and siring children. Rose became pregnant almost immediately and nine months later gave birth to the couple's first child, Joseph Patrick Jr. on July 25, 1915. In short order John (1917), Rosemary (1918), Kathleen (1920), Eunice (1921), Patricia (1924), Robert (1925), Jean (1928), and Edward (1932) were welcomed into the family. After Kathleen's birth, the family moved into a twelve-room house. While Joe immersed himself in business ventures and extramarital affairs, Rose was left to raise her children in relative isolation, although Joe did provide her with a sizable household staff. Lonely and dissatisfied, Rose once tried to leave her husband, but her father wouldn't hear of it and sent her back.
FACT
The Black Hand was an extortion crime gang. The typical targets were wealthy Italian immigrants. A letter would be left at their doorstep threatening bodily harm or death if the “ransom” demanded was not paid. The letter would be signed with a handprint done in black ink. The practice disappeared as more profitable rackets, such as bootlegging, emerged.
On January 29, 1919, Congress approved the Eighteenth Amendment, and the era of Prohibition began. For Joe Kennedy, it was an opportunity to make a financial windfall. There was no shortage of private citizens and speakeasies willing to pay top dollar for smuggled liquor. To facilitate his new business, Joe formed alliances with mob figures in Boston, Chicago, New York, and New Orleans. Among his associates were Frank Costello, former head of the Luciano crime family, and Diamond Joe Esposito, an extortionist and bootlegger who belonged to Chicago's notorious Black Hand. Joe would buy liquor — mostly scotch — from foreign distillers, who would deliver it at specific safe spots — areas where local police and politicians had been paid to look the other way. From there, organized crime would pick up the shipments and distribute it to their clients.
Onward and Upward
Smuggling was extremely profitable, and by the mid-1920s Joe's personal fortune was in excess of $2 million — the equivalent of more than $15 million in today's money. But the size of his bank account did not bring Joe the respect and acceptance he so desperately desired. Instead, he was viewed by many as a swindler at best and an outright criminal at worst. When his membership to the Cohasset Country Club was rejected, Joe moved his family to Riverdale in Bronx County, New York, partly to be closer to Manhattan and partly because he believed the Boston area was an inappropriate place to raise his children.
He used the fortune made from smuggling to continue playing the stock market and to invest in the film industry. While in Hollywood, he had a very public affair with actress Gloria Swanson. Rose's response was to ignore the press reports, indulge in lavish shopping trips, and go on extended vacations, leaving her children in the care of household help.
Joe may have been a philandering husband, but he was a savvy businessman. He made another $5 million in Hollywood by cofounding RKO Studio then selling off his share. He also pulled most of his money out of the stock market in early 1929. He was one of the very few who made money after the devastating stock market crash in October. As it became clear that Prohibition would be repealed, Joe made deals to open a legitimate liquor import business. He would later go on to earn an estimated $100 million during World War II in various real estate ventures.
The Ambassador
In 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt named Joseph Kennedy ambassador to Great Britain. The appointment heightened Joseph's profile, and he moved his family to London. As ambassador, Joseph argued for appeasing Nazi Germany and opposed U.S. aid to Britain after Britain entered World War II. In 1940, a Boston Globe reporter published some remarks Joseph had thought he made off the record. The interview showed Joseph's negative outlook on Britain's chances against the advancing Nazis, and it included some uncomplimentary comments about both the British government and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
THEY SAID …
“I'm willing to spend all I've got left to keep us out of the war. There's no sense in our getting in. We'd just be holding the bag…. Democracy is finished in England. It may be here.”
— Joseph Kennedy, in remarks made to reporters, November 1940
Joseph had already handed in his resignation as ambassador, but the resulting furor ended his hopes for attaining high political office in the future. However, his time as an ambassador had provided valuable experiences for his family. His son Jack used Joseph's connections to research his senior thesis at Harvard, which he subsequently published as Why England Slept.
