PART ONE

ITALIAN AMERICANS:

THE ELECTORATE AND THE ELECTED

NEW YORK’S EMINENCE GRISE

The long, ongoing fight in New York’s political world to dethrone Carmine De Sapio[1] from the leadership of the Democratic Party, and consequently from the city’s secret government, got nastier. The fight is now involving Mayor Robert Wagner[2] who is wrapping himself in the mantle of honorable causes, both ethical and political. But the true prize is the distribution of positions in the administration, or, to use the local term, patronage. The maelstrom created by the contenders has sucked in even President [John F.] Kennedy[3] who is trying to stay as much as possible above the fray while at the same time keeping an eye on what is going on between his party’s factions. In European countries, where the populations have been stable for centuries and national unity is a done deal, political fights tend to have a regional character (and Italians know this pretty well.) In America, instead, racial unity has not been reached yet. Thus, the stocks of European bodies, removed from native lands, are caught in racial wars, rather than regional ones. The current fight in New York fits this pattern: De Sapio’s base is composed of Italians while the competitors are generally Irish, Jews and Anglo-Saxons.

It doesn’t matter that the propaganda themes discussed in public by the political bosses are morality, democracy, the electoral systems and hegemony. The only thing that matters is the spoil system, which means jobs and prestigious posts. Something similar also happens in some European countries where the state is not the product of a true national unity. This is the case of Belgium, for instance, where political fighting often boils down to the reciprocal animosity of two races forced to live under the same roof.

Twenty years after Fiorello La Guardia had defeated it, Tammany Hall[4] came back thanks to the efforts of the suave persuader Carmine De Sapio. In 1953 he supported Robert Wagner and managed to get him elected city mayor. The following year he did the same with the millionaire Averell Harriman[5] for the governorship of the State of New York. It was an enormous success. From then on, he was considered the most powerful boss of the Democratic Party in New York and, consequently, one of the most powerful in the entire country. Tammany Hall is the common name of the Democratic political organization in New York County. Similarly to Lorenzo de’ Medici[6] (no offense to Lorenzo is intended,) De Sapio doesn’t care about being mayor, governor, senator or congressman. All he wants is to be the boss. He doesn’t care about being popular, but he wants congressmen, senators, mayors and others to take orders from him, regardless of their political orientation, right or left. Tammany Hall has always included people with reputations for being socialists as well as reactionaries. For De Sapio it suffices that when he wants something done, the thing gets done without too much fuss. When he talks about the organization, it sounds like he is talking about the sacrament of the Eucharist.

He speaks in velvet tones, walks with a gliding stride and bows with curial deference. These, at least, are the personal impressions I recently gathered when I attended a ceremonial banquet. After the usual speeches were over, De Sapio came to our table to greet the big wigs. He glided around the table and it felt as if his velour-lined wings cast a reassuring shadow over us. Ostensibly, he was coming to pay homage to the people at the table, but it was rather clear that he was like the shepherd who keeps an eye on his flock. He couldn’t understand exactly what I was doing among those powerful people but nevertheless he paid homage to me too. Then he moved on to the next table, to review his troops, weighing precisely the smiles, the handshakes, the words and their sincerity.

Tall, with a handsome Italian face (he shows resolve, in comparison to the faces of Irish, Anglo-Saxons and Jews in circulation,) he sports gray hair and a pair of big dark eye glasses. Given my suspicious disposition toward politicians, I thought they were a screen to hide his window to the soul and to prevent his true feelings from transpiring. I later discovered that he suffers from a condition that causes the irritation of the iris, called iritis. This is also the reason why his office is the only one among all New York politicians’ not to be filled with smoke—like those that appear in political cartoons portraying the bosses of American democracy. De Sapio dresses like a British gentleman, smartly, without ostentation and without the histrionics of Fiorello La Guardia with his cowboy hat and Italian-anarchist cravat. Apparently he does not own a car and lives on a modest salary from the party. He has the good taste of living on Washington Square which in my opinion is the most beautiful and poetic square in New York. Nobody has ever challenged his personal honesty. There is a curious anecdote, however. It so happened that one day a taxi driver went to the police to report that a client had left on the back seat an envelope with $40,000 in five and ten dollar bills. Sums of cash of this entity usually pertain to illicit transactions, so this aroused some interest. This is the way gangsters and extortionists handle their accounts, since larger-denomination bills are marked by banks. Moreover, the taxi driver said he thought De Sapio was the client who forgot the money. De Sapio denied it and the thing died there. I don’t know if anybody else came forth to claim the money or if the taxi driver ended up keeping it.

De Sapio is said to be tough when it’s necessary for the good of the party. But he is also said not to harbor rancor and to be a master in the art of compromise. Like all politicians active in democratic systems, he has an excellent memory and remembers every single person he met even for a few minutes; and he remembers if they are married and have children. If he were an opera singer his natural role would be the caricature Don Basilio.[7] He is sharp, intelligent, a quick study and a hard worker. His usual workday lasts fourteen hours between office, meetings, visits and events. He has no days off, as is the case for all top leaders in business and politics (who are even more dedicated as workers than Marcus Aurelius[8]). His greatest passion, he claims—and it’s hard to deny it—is people. He likes people. He likes to meet people. Among the various ways to meet people are lectures and speeches he gives to colleges or clubs, despite the fact that he doesn’t even have an undergraduate degree. Some mean spirited commentators alluded to the possibility that those speeches may be written by someone else. First of all, having a speechwriter compose a speech is standard operating procedure for American politicians, presidents included. Second, speeches and lectures by De Sapio on good government don’t stray much from the usual string of boilerplate rhetoric about the ideals of democracy (as opposed to the reality of democracy, as denounced by Vilfredo Pareto,[9] Gaetano Mosca,[10] Robert Michels[11] and others).

He became the head of the Democratic organization in 1949, after it suffered a severe loss at the hand of Fiorello La Guardia in 1934 and after the election of William O’Dwyer,[12] a non-Tammanist independent Democrat. De Sapio knew how to move comfortably behind the scenes in the hallways of power and in the local clubs. He was totally devoted to politics and struggled to get to the top. In some circumstances he wasn’t helped by his principles, or by luck. He supported the election to mayor of Judge Ferdinand Pecora[13] who was defeated by Vincent Impellitteri,[14] an absolute zero whose only skill was to move to tears the hearts of New Yorkers playing the part of the poor victim. De Sapio had his revenge when he mastered the victory of Robert Wagner, thus interrupting the Irish domination of the city administration. The first one who had succeeded against the Irish political machine was La Guardia, who clearly had both ambition and abilities far in excess of what was needed to be the head of New York City. His election, however, was a huge disappointment for Italians. For the longest time, Italians had complained about the distribution of perks and offices in the spoil system, and in particular there had always been bad blood between them and the Irish (which is curious, since they are both Catholic). With La Guardia’s election things didn’t improve much for Italians, at least if we pay heed to their complaints. La Guardia wanted to choose people on the basis of their abilities and not their race. In the end, though, it was the Irish and the Jews that came out ahead.

With De Sapio the Italian faction felt protected. The unjust wheel of fortune that assigns favors to the winners (in every country in the world, Russia included) stopped by the Italian houses for the first time. Today this supremacy is once again under attack and the recent election of President Kennedy strengthens the faction dominated by the Irish. In the following chapters we will see how this has come to pass.

New York, February 5, 1961