KELAYRES
Kelayres is a borough in Eastern central Pennsylvania. It's known to history for one thing.
In the elections of 1934, with FDR in the White House and popular, the Democratic ticket had a real chance in Pennsylvania for the first time in decades. In the perennially Republican precincts of little Kelayres and surrounding Kline Township, Democrats had high hopes. The evening before the election they held an old-fashioned parade with red torches and flags and chose to take it, cheering and chanting, past the house of Joseph Bruno, for 27 years the unchallenged GOP boss of the township.
Bruno was not only a politician but a county detective, a saloon keeper, a bootlegger, and a slot machine racketeer. Members of the Bruno clan got the choicest jobs on the public payroll and bought votes to stay in office.
As the paraders approached the residences of Bruno and relatives of his who lived across the street, machine guns opened up on them from upstairs in the Bruno house, from its lawn, and from the house opposite.
The paraders never had a chance. Frank Fiorella, 65, fell dead. Joseph Galosky, 30, was shot to death as he tried to help Fiorella. William Forke, 37, died at the scene. Dominic Perna, 37, and Andrew Kostician, 36, were mortally wounded. Thirteen others were struck.
One funeral was held for all five victims of what at once became known as the Kelayres Massacre.
The statewide Republican ticket ended the race in confusion and on the defensive. It lost. In Kelayres, out of 682 votes cast, only 24 went to the Republicans.
The Brunos claimed to fear attack by the unarmed marchers. The jury thought they could tell the difference between a lynch mob and a political parade. Several Brunos went to prison. Joe got three life sentences, slipped away from a guard while on a dental visit, was recaptured after a few years, and eventually was pardoned by a Republican governor, which suggests both that he retained influence and that murder is no deal-breaker for some in our politics.
What has this horror to do with us? Like the Bruno machine, our Congressional Republicans are sore losers. Reckless, they detest democracy and trust in money, privilege, power, fraud, and firearms.
The Republicans understand what's happening. When we elected a black man president, they saw that their day is over. They've lost permanently to those of us who accept government assistance, to blacks, to Hispanics, to women who demand equality with men, to gays, to Muslims, to old people who don't care to live in penury, to young people who want a world that can survive them. The shutting down of the government, the obstructionism, the lies, the attempts to keep qualified voters from voting: these will fail - and they know it. It's no longer their country to run in their own exclusive interest.
The Republicans' answer is to take us down with them. Their members from "safe" Gerrymandered districts respond to the wildest of their constituents, who have the most energy and motivation. The more "moderate" Republicans, lacking decency and guts, go along and hope for the best while people are hurt and the world economy is endangered for no reason.
By now we know whose the GOP is. It isn't that of the reactionary Goldwater or the rightist True Believer Reagan or the pathetic, prevaricating poseur Romney. It's that of Joe Bruno.
