A CHALLENGE TO TAMMANY
By CHRISTOPHER HOBHOUSE
WITH Congress, the embassies, and all the administrative departments at a distance of 200 miles, New York is starved of political life and interest. All the more keenly does attention concentrate upon the City Hall, an elegant two-storied pavilion built in 1812. There is little apathy about the city's affairs : and never less than in the elections that are due to be decided on November 2nd. For the issue at this next election is nothing less than the survival or the permanent defeat of Tammany Hall.
When New York consisted of Manhattan Island, and while the process of expansion was absorbing the activity of bolder spirits, it was a simple thing for Tammany to set up and maintain their invincible political machine. All the money and the brains were in business : the city became an amiable partnership of profit-sharers. Today things have changed. In decayed street-corner saloons, in Mooney's Bar and the Shamrock Grill, " the boys " still get together and soak to the memory of better days. The humbler ones among them aspire merely to public relief : the more ambitious hope for jobs in the administration of relief. Tammany promises all things to all men. But the inexorable facts are that Manhattan Island now contains a bare quarter of the popu- lation of New York ; that Brooklyn itself is larger still ; that the city is too large and too proud to remain much longer the perquisite of the Murphys and Ryans and O'Haras.
The beginning of the end was in 1932, when Mayor Walker was obliged to quit in the face of an unpleasant investi!lation. The extreme hardships of the depression made the people impatient of such sumptuous graft ; and the New Deal was in the air. In 1933, the people of NewYork elected Fiorello LaGuardia as Mayor. He was a New Dealer running on a " Fusion " ticket : a Fusion, that is, of Repub- licans and Democrats formed to defeat Tammany. There had been several Fusion Mayors in the past : but in each case the task of cleaning up the Augean stables of Tammany corruption had proved so expensive, and invidious to so many popular individuals, that in no single instance had a Fusion Mayor been re-elected to a second term of office. Accordingly in 1933 " the boys " sat down to wait four years, while LaGuardia should alienate his supporters and increase taxation, and Tammany meanwhile could perfect its machinery and exploit the personal popularity and loyalty on which it relies.
" Don't expect any patronage if I'm elected," LaGuardia had said : and when, according to custom, his supporters turned up later to claim their rewards, they were sent empty away. Scores of popular and influential officials were dis- missed : their places were taken by " carpet-baggers "- men from outside New York, who carried no voting power whatever, who merely happened to be the leading experts in the services to which they were appointed.
LaGuardia inherited a fraudulent budget, and a public debt of £360,000,000. He found the public services struggling along with equipment that should long since have been replaced. He inherited public contracts by which the city was paying double and treble value for its purchases. He found anarchy in the police, and an open traffic in drugs in the prisons.
In four years the picture has been changed beyond recognition. Not quite all the jobbery has been abolished ; for example, the Mayor has not even yet succeeded in stopping a salary of kr-,5oo which is paid to a Commissioner of Records who is unable to read or write his own name. But huge savings have been made; -and the money diverted from the pockets of the faithful Itish is now poured out in hospitals and schools and sewers. Now; towards the end of his term, hardly a day can pass but the Mayor must attend the inauguration of some improvement of his own con- triving. New subways, new tunnels, the Triborough Bridge, five thousand acres of new parks and parkways, the gigantic West Side highway opened in October—these are the visible monuments of the most vigorous administration that New York has ever had.
LaGuardia himself is the son of an Italian bandmaster. In stature he is on a par with Dr. Dollfuss. In personality he is a self-advertiser, though he stops short of the long hair of John Lewis. Before the War he was an interpreter and a lawyer : in 1916 a Congressman : in 1917 a major in the Air Force. He combines an infinite capacity for work with an uncertain temper. In any country and at any time he would be acknowledged as a big man. In New York, coming after Mayor Walker, he is fairly idolised. The " little flower," as journalists call him after his Christian name, is admitted on all sides to be " the best man we ever had."
None the less, there is considerable uncertainty about LaGuardia's re-election. He has stuck fast to his refusal of patronage. He has obliged no individuals, he has created no machine. He has scared the rich by his New Deal proclivities and by his rough handling of the elevated-railway company. He stands on nothing but his personality and his record. Tammany, on the other hand, possesses still its powerful if antiquated machine. It has popular leaders and faithful voters, each man buoyed up by the anticipation of his due proportion of the spoils of victory. The Tammany candidate, whose name is Jeremiah Mahoney, is a former Judge who returned to practice in 1928: he is a " good fellow " of the most ingratiating kind, and the leading figure in New York's athletic organisations. Behind Mahoney stands the Postmaster-General, Mr. Farley : and behind Mr. Farley, who is the organiser of his victories, stands President Roosevelt. Such is the marvellous intricacy of American party politics.
On the figures of the " primaries," it appears certain that LaGuardia will be defeated. But the voters at primaries are the more organised electorate ; and some two millions are expected to vote on November 2nd. In fact, the odds are on LaGuardia. Tammany has betrayed unmistakable signs of panic : its orators are reduced to a wild and meaningless rant. The reputable newspapers are solidly behind the Mayor. Yet if he wins, he will be the first Fusion Mayor ever re-elected. The man will have beaten the machine. The indirect interests of all will have overborne the immediate interest of the few. Demo- cracy will have cast off the Democratic Party. New York will have become a City at last, and not a Corporation.
In this struggle for its very existence, Tammany has made a blunder that in the opinion of many will prow to have been fatal. On September 2nd, 1937, Mayor Walker would have been for five years out of the employment of the City and accordingly ineligible for a pension. It was an awkward moment : yet, on the -other hand, an agonising hardship. His services, of their kind, had been outstanding, and his misfortunes well known. The temptation was too much for " the boys." In the last days of August, Walker was appointed to a position on the Transit Commission, whereby he automatically regained his right to a substantial pension. They didn't get away with it. The appointment had to be revoked to a date later than the crucial second of September. Alas for the good old days : how much better a-private subscription would have met the case. But here was their friend, and there were the public funds. Such a display of unregeneracy, coming at such a moment, may well turn out to have sealed the ultimate fate of the Society' of Saint Tammany.
Previous page
