‘Hizzoner means business!’
McKeesport’s mayor Kinkaid brings the Tube City a vigorous administration in the face of threats by racketeers

By Harry N. Frosburg
(reprinted from Commonwealth magazine, May 1947.)
Original article in Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh collection

A gray-haired, round-faced healthy looking man with a pleasant way and a frequent smile took his oath as Mayor of McKeesport, Allegheny County's second-largest city, on January 7, 1946. The ceremony over, 60,000 citizens turned back to everyday tasks, giving scarcely a second thought to their new executive.

Before many days passed, however, Tube City people knew something was taking place in the smudged Peoples Bank building housing the municipal offices.

"This man Kinkaid means business, doesn't he?" became a customary greeting along Fifth Avenue.

McKeesporters felt the presence of a new, strong hand. Their interest perked. By spring responsible men and women were coming to his active support. By the year's end, the entire city was in a tense, watchful, angry mood as police guarded the mayor and the zero hour for his slaying set by mobsters came and passed.

Charles A. Kinkaid, who began working when he was 13 as an office boy and rose through to general manager of sales and secretary of the huge McKeesport Tin Plate Company, who never before had held public office, had vitalized municipal affairs.

Slightly oversimplified, Kinkaid's formula is efficiency. That quality, flippantly spoken of in politics, pathetically lacking in many governmental operations, had so long been a part of his business life that he inevitably injected it into his new responsibilities. His results are an inescapable challenge to many a public official.

"When I came into this office I began enforcing the laws," says Kinkaid. "Somehow that seemed to catch the people off-balance. Although the laws were on the books and the people knew about them, they were unaccustomed to city action. It took them by surprise, I guess. Really, though, they just needed a little time to learn."

Kinkaid immediately issued orders that no favoritism was to be shown anyone. He set an inflexible rule of "no fix" either by himself or any other official. The word went out to clean up the city. The police department was placed under a new chief and lieutenants. A new fire chief was appointed. Parking meters were watched more closely and traffic violations quickly detected and punished.

The free-moving numbers writers suddenly found bluecoats tapping them on the shoulder, asking them to call on the magistrate. Gamblers crept behind locked doors. Vice establishments ducked for cover.

For the first week of the new administration, police receipts totalled $623. In the last two weeks of January, they reached $2,300. In the first two weeks of February they mounted to $4,480 and for the balance of the month, $4,775.

Numbers men hailed into court and convicted never got off with less than a $100 fine and costs. Parking tickets likewise became plentiful as police cracked down on those neglecting to observe the laws. In February parking fines totalled $1,969. As the people learned and obeyed, fines fell off until in July they were only $769.

In the administration preceding Kinkaid's, the police court receipts for the first year, 1942, were $20,000; each of the succeeding years averaged a little better than $7,000. In 1946 police activities netted the astonishing total of $51,000. The budget estimate had been $20,000.

Altogether there had been 9,476 arrests in the city in 1946 for traffic and parking violations. Total police arrests were 11,575.

Where in 1945 receipts from meters had totalled $23,000, Kinkaid's first year in office showed a parking meter income of $39,000. And that's a lot of extra nickles and pennies!

: :

The mayor's activities decidedly hurt the feelings of the men who had to run from the police. In fact, they became downright resentful. When several months had passed they took cowardly action -- they picked up the phone and threatened the life of the mayor's wife.

It didn't end there. Badly written, misspelled, threatening missives began coming through the mayor's mail. The FBI was called and police guards were mounted at the mayor's home.

For his own safety Kinkaid gave little thought, but when his wife was subjected to the curses and indecent language of anonymous phone calls His Honor's dander rose. Efforts to catch the criminals were re-doubled.

On December 21 this friendly greeting reached him: "Listen wise guy, you lay off the numbers now and stay off or you and your whole damn family is going to get what you aren't looking for."

The Christmas mail brought on brown wrapping paper this out-of-season comment, "Tell your old man ritzy ladies don't look so ritzy ritz with a hole in them either. He'd better take advice and get out."

By this time the entire city was aroused and a tenseness settled over the community when the McKeesport Daily News received notice that the mayor would be "bumped off" at 2 a.m. December 25. Fortunately the stipulated time passed without incident.

Reviling and libelous letters continued to come into the mayor's office. On the 27th of December he received the following: "Tch, tch, so you squak you and your kind are all Sunday saints and week-day hypocrites. to bad you don't have to work for a living you grinning ape you and the old dame look alike. Her beauty saloon won't fix her up when the boys get done. Shut your trap you damn fool before too late and get out."

On the same day he received the above he personally out-witted and helped police capture a would-be extortionist.

Late in the evening the phone rang in his home and Mrs. Kinkaid answered. The caller asked for the mayor but refused to give his name. Mrs. Kinkaid hung up, a lesson she had learned over the months. Presently the phone rang again and the mayor answered. A male voice offered aid in the capture of numbers men threatening Kinkaid's life. The man wanted $2,000 for the information.

Unabashed the mayor signalled his wife who in turn notified the policeman on duty outside. While Kinkaid stalled and talked for an hour and five minutes the police traced the call and surrounded a phone booth in the local bus station to nab a 23-year-old ex-paratrooper. Police were disappointed when he proved to be a "free agent," had no connection to the numbers rackets, and was motivated only by the hope for easy money.

: :

Throughout the flurry of his feud with the rackets the mayor has maintained his equanimity. Two small signs are on the wall of his office, "Keep smiling" and "Don't worry." Living by the first comes to him naturally, the second he has had much occassion to cultivate. It is his practice to live for the day, making decisions on municipal affairs in the light of the whole city's welfare. In the turn of events tomorrow he reflects an obvious religious faith.

One of his topmost concerns is the city's youth. About ten weeks after he had taken office he appointed the city's first policewoman. Married, with experience as a nurse but no background in police work, she was instructed to keep an eye on mothers as well as children. Mothers with babes in their arms are kept out of taprooms. Girls who have slipped into difficulties are treated with patient and corrective understanding. Employment is found for such girls where possible. The experiment has turned out so well the mayor would like to place two more women on his staff.

Kinkaid's flair for bringing the city's people into direct concern for their own problems reaches down even to the children.

Without invitation or announcement four boys from the neighborhood of the mayor's home appeared at his downtown office one Saturday morning last November volunteering as junior police. Touched and impressed, the mayor was also pleased. An appropriate oath of office was prepared and the boys sworn in. The word spread. On succeeding Saturdays, more children came to his office and volunteered. The number is now over two hundred, including two girls. Ages range from 8 to 14. Their oath stresses law abidance and personal integrity. The mayor gives each a badge and talks to them briefly impressing upon them the need to talk and live exemplary lives and to share in the protection of property and lives.

Repeatedly Kinkaid has made his fellow townsmen cognizant of their share in the city's operation. Through the Fall months much of the East had been absorbed in the fight of Steubenville, Ohio, ministers to wipe out that city's unsavory reputation. Early last December Mayor Kinkaid put the spotlight on McKeesport clergy by issuing the following statement:

"I'm going to reverse the Steubenville story. I challenge you ministers to bring me any information on illegal establishments. I guarantee that all complaints will get action."

: :

The entire vigor of the administration has not, however, been expended upon crime. Fiscal matters, too, have received needed attention.

As a hangover from previous administrations dating back as much as 20 years, a crammed file of delinquent water accounts and sewer liens faced Kinkaid. A sizable amount of those delinquencies has now been reduced but $125,000 still remains on the books. The mayor sincerely believes his campaign for collections will get nearly all of that figure within the next year.

Believing the city's garbage collection system was costly and inefficient with rates inequitably levied, Kinkaid pushed through a contract for private collections which he estimates will save the city $50,000 to $60,000 annually.

Municipal employees walked out last July when refused an 18.5-cent hourly raise. After five days they relented, recognized the paucity of municipal funds, settled for 8 cents an hour and $15 a month for salaried employees. To that raise was added on March 1 this year an additional 5 cents an hour and $10 a month for those on salary. The raises will drain $90,000 from this year's budget.

In the face of these added costs the tax rate is being held at the same level, 13.5 mills. Of this, 4.5 mills covers bonds and indebtedness. When asked how such increases can be absorbed and a budget balanced, the mayor comes quickly back to the byword that threads sharply through all of his work -- "Strict economy and a business-like operation."

Sitting in the mayor's office directing the affairs of a city, Kinkaid is still a bit surprised at his presence there. During the war he had served with the War Production Board in Washington, then spent a short time in business for himself. Coming back to McKeesport in 1946 the city's affairs piqued his curiousity. "I'd like to see just what could be done if a mayor really set his heart on doing a good job," he found himself saying. A man of action, he offered himself to the Republican committee and had an opportunity on his hands.

: :

Unhampered by long-standing political allegiance, scornful of political expediences, Kinkaid brought to his office a fresh, forceful, independent spirit. Knowing the rackets thrive where they are permitted to do so, he declared war on them. With his interested support, the City Planning Commission and the City Zoning Commission became active. A master plan for city projects is in preparation. The perennial problem of numerous Baltimore and Ohio Railroad grade crossings in the heart of the business district is receiving new attention. A City Hall, to include a bus terminal and a public auditorium as well as municipal offices, is in the planning stages.

Kinkaid wants people to know what he is doing and he wants every McKeesporter to participate fully in the city's development. He enforces to the letter the statutes on the city's books. When he feels that a statute hinders progress, he makes an effort to remove it.

The job, he engagingly confesses, has been interesting and educational as well as hectic. Fifty-five when elected, he could have found far more profitable employment. In too many cases, he feels, cities pay less than enough to attract competent men. He feels there is far too much politics in government. There is, he emphatically asserts, need for courage and recognition of duty in every level of governmental activity in this country.

Personally he has no political ambitions.

"All I'm interested in is doing a good job while I'm in this office. The future doesn't concern me."