Read Politics Never Broke His Heart - Washington Secretary of State

KANE & SPELLMAN
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and arranged for him to receive a line of credit until Bart’s estate and the
medical bills were sorted out.
JOHN SUCCEEDED his father as president of the Seattle Kennel Club. He was
elected president of the Seattle University Alumni Association and became
one of the most influential members of Archbishop Connolly’s kitchen
cabinet. Thomas A. Connolly—“TAC” to friends—was a large, charismatic
man. He had prowled the gritty docks of San Francisco as a young priest.
Equally at home in a fashionable club or the banquet room at the Olympic
Hotel, the archbishop was a hard man to refuse when he needed money to
build a new school or church.
Spellman was increasingly in demand as a toastmaster and fundraiser.
He headed the Archdiocesan Holy Names Society and, at Connolly’s urging,
traveled widely in the Northwest, giving speeches on “the Lay Apostolate,”
Catholic education and the dangers of pornography. In 1957, King County
Prosecutor Charles O. Carroll—one of Bart Spellman’s football stars at
the UW—appointed Spellman to the King County Salacious Literature
Committee. The “magazine probers” were spotlighted in The Seattle Times,
where Carroll had friends in high places. Spellman and Deputy Prosecutor
James A. Andersen, together with church ladies in hats and gloves, were
shown gravely inspecting “girlie” and “exposé-type magazines” plucked
from newsstands all over the county. 4 Spellman took some razzing and,
for the first time, political heat. Liberals accused him of censorship. He
was unapologetic, arguing that magazines depicting rape and murder, not
just bare-breasted centerfolds, could be easily acquired by kids. By 1958,
Spellman had three children of his own. Magazine distributors agreed to
cooperate with the committee.
KANE & SPELLMAN developed a thriving practice. John’s top clients were
the unions. He represented the Steelworkers, Ironworkers and Communications
Workers, as well as the Butchers & Meat Cutters, the Bakers,
Transportation Workers and the National Maritime Union. The tiny law
firm also handled the classic walk-ins—probates, bankruptcies, traffic cases
and custody battles. In a case that reads like an episode of Maury Povich’s
tawdry TV show, Spellman did his best to win leniency for a 17-year-old who
had fathered illegitimate children with two different girls, one 14, the other
15. As the mothers looked on from the front row in Superior Court, fidgety
infants on their knees, Spellman argued for a deferred sentence on a morals
charge so the defendant could finish 10th grade at Garfield High School.
The judge was unmoved. Noting that the demonstrably promiscuous youth