THE NEW YORK MAYORAL ELECTION

Carmine De Sapio, with his black eyeglasses, tall stature, light step, suave and velvety voice; but most of all with his little secret conversations not even a whisper of which reaches the public, in this moment dominates the electoral scenario of the largest American city. In a few days registered Democrats will be asked to choose the party’s candidate [for mayor]. The primary elections are one of the remedies that the American democracy is trying to adopt to prevent organizations (a fact) from dominating the free choice (a myth) of the electorate. Partitocracy has been denounced in the United States as the nullification of democracy much earlier than in Italy, for the simple fact that the American democratic system is older. Currently, the Democratic party of New York, which dominates the political scene, is split into several factions due to the lack of a strong unifying personality. This is the result of a series of scandals, revelations and reciprocal accusations among the various contenders, the most prominent being De Sapio—who is not a candidate for office. De Sapio stays away from direct political responsibilities and is satisfied with his role as leader of the Democratic Party of Greenwich Village (a neighborhood that aspires to compete with Montmartre and via Margutta).[1] As secretary of Tammany Hall he is accused of reserving for himself the power of dispensing big and small political appointments, no-show jobs, sinecures, concessions, contracts, commissions, recommendations, favors and awards. The money is hidden in the creases and wrapped in the shadows of New York City’s budget, which is larger than that of the Italian state.

What have we learned from the ongoing controversy? De Sapio has been the target of accusations that he wants to be a boss. In politics this word comes from the history and political sociology of the United States and has a precise metaphorical meaning. It refers to local political dictatorships that were common in the middle of the nineteen century and that continue to this day, albeit with less frequency. An example of a classical boss is James Curley[2] in Boston. This phenomenon is one of the many betrayals of the democratic system that flourished in particular in large cities overflowing with masses of people who did not speak English, were disenfranchised from the institutions and were willing to exchange their votes for a minimum of protection in order to survive. Bossism [sic] was the remedy that social reality imposed on the democratic theory according to which citizens are independent and their votes are based on conscience and knowledge. Contrary to these principles, even today these citizens vote only in order to gain favors since they do not possess the kind of conscience and knowledge that democracy presupposes. Naturally, the boss dispenses unjust protections as well as just ones. At times he is forced to use immoral or even outright illegal means. At times he has to make compromises even with the criminal element. However, over time the entire enterprise reaches some kind of natural equilibrium, so natural in fact that it is reproduced in city after city. And it tends to return even in those cases where it is temporarily uprooted by reformers, as was in the case of Fiorello La Guardia. In New York the system is at least a hundred years old (the Tweed Ring[3] dates back to 1870). In a city like New York, with so many races, this physical and historic element has great importance. It is noticeable, in fact, how an Irish boss was followed by an Italian one: De Sapio.

Harlem has a black boss, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.[4] In thirty years, when, according to projections, the majority of the city’s citizens will be black, he may be able to see one of his successors become mayor, as happened to Fiorello La Guardia who represented Italians and Jews. In the Democratic Party, in the recent past, a coalition against De Sapio has emerged. At the helm of this Jewish-Irish opposition are Ms. Roosevelt and Senator Lehman. On February 3, 1961, the current mayor of the city, Robert Wagner, joined the opposition. This is an important development since Wagner owes his election to De Sapio; and, even more damning, Wagner’s mayoralty was literally one of De Sapio’s creations. Ingratitude being a common feat in life and even more so in politics, this thing did not scandalize anyone. The origin of the divisions among the Democratic party’s bosses is to be found in the past presidential election: some supported Kennedy, others Adlai Stevenson and others Stuart Symington.[5] This had nothing to do with ideals: what mattered was feudal loyalty to the candidates. When his adversaries accused him of being the boss of New York, De Sapio had plenty of arguments to defend himself. With his velvety voice he reminded Senator Lehman that he heeded his requests to find a couple of positions for his nephews or cousins and the senator could not deny it. He also reminded Mayor Wagner whom he should thank for his election and the mayor did not dispute this point either. It is the typical justification used by the thief: “Yes, I stole but you held the bag.” Mayor Wagner is generally considered an honest person because he didn’t enrich himself through politics. However, the common complaint about him is that he has been a weak mayor. During the eight years of his administration he turned a blind eye to the festering scandals that have just now blown up (obviously, the person who lit the fuse is another candidate for mayor) while the conditions of the city have become deplorable. Criminality is up, women and children do not feel safe walking in the streets and even the police are targets of assaults and attacks by hordes of hooligans. Disturbances with the use of firearms are growing; gangs of teen-age thugs are ever more aggressive; school buildings are decrepit, while a large number of cases of corruption among building inspectors has been discovered and tried in court. Investigations targeting the police (which are controlled by the city) have led to the dismissal of entire groups of corrupt agents and officers. Lately, the mayor forced the resignation of the commissioner of the city’s power and gas agency when it was found that he kept in his home, in his piggy bank, more than $60,000 whose origin he could not explain. After he resigned, he accused the mayor of charging the city for his clothes and for Florida vacations with his family. This is incredible stuff; yet, the mayor has not sued him. For eight years none of these scandals became public. And now the firings of dishonest city employees look like a ruse for election’s sake or scenes from an electoral drama. At the same time, we saw the mayor and his opponents visit the poorest and most depressed areas of the city to take stock of the situation personally. The mayor showed up in a special car, a convertible limousine that allows people to see him and approach him with complaints and pleas similarly to what used to happen with the kings of yore. His opponents do the same thing and also make promises: public housing, safety, tax reform. The press plays along with these pantomimes worthy of Aristophanes.[6] But does it matter? The public pretends to believe; or, maybe, like people who buy lottery tickets; they think “you never know,” while they crowd around the mayor or his opponents with their pleas. To be noted: in this country, where the constitution, the judiciary, teachers, preachers and even politicians are all in agreement (so they claim) in their condemnation of racism, there is visible reliance on the race factor for electoral purposes. Competing slates of candidates always contain at least an Irish, a Jew and an Italian. And the person who, more than anyone else should be against racism, Mr. Powell, the Harlem representative; has used most of his time complaining that there are too few black candidates, in a percentage that is much lower than that of the black population. The theoretical premise of democracy is merit not race or religion: we can thus conclude from this that political education has not penetrated very deeply.

When the scandal of the horrible conditions of school buildings came to light, many members of the board of education were forced to resign by the governor. That is when we found out their names: complete mediocrities. In a great city that is a major hub of the film and television industry; where the most important publishing houses are located; where some of the greatest newspapers are published; with the headquarters of the best and most popular magazines and with some of the best schools of education in the country, the board did not have one single eminent personality. One more interesting detail: membership in the board is a non-paid position. Yet, the members make decisions about millions and millions of dollars on education-related contracts, from construction projects to the purchase of books, pencils and notebooks. What is one supposed to think?

American metropolises have attracted heterogeneous masses of foreigners; unfocused and disorganized; distant both in spatial, cultural and religious terms from their origins; uprooted from their traditions and not yet fully integrated in the new venues. The democratic system is simply inadequate to the task of selecting the best and the brightest. The job of politician is at the same despised and feared and people think that a jack-of-all-trades who decides to pursue a political career is up to no good. However, people are glad someone is doing the job and takes care of deciding, bossing, opposing and pushing. Since the official salary of politicians is very low, people tolerate it when they make money on the side, provided that they do not cause a scandal. Based on what we heard in this period of electoral revelations; the practice of kickbacks, cash donations and shady deals is rather common among vendors and suppliers on one side and public employees on the other, even between criminals and law enforcement agents. It’s understandable why many try to fatten their paycheck: taxes are so high that nobody could survive only on a salary. So, everyone pads expense accounts and overcharges private or public employers. Each abuse encourages the next abuse, and soon it’s all downhill, careening toward the very serious ones. The entire system encourages lies and the all-pervading lies ensure that corruption does not bother any conscience.

There are other competitors in the battle between Arthur Levitt[7]—the De Sapio-Tammany Hall candidate—and the incumbent Mayor Wagner. Judge Louis Lefkowitz[8] is the Republican party’s sacrificial lamb, with zero possibilities of winning. There is also an Italian, an honest person, Lawrence Gerosa,[9] who was and still is city comptroller and who, in the last couple of years, has been opposing the anything-goes fiscal policy of the mayor and has scored a significant success in a referendum concerning the issuing of city bonds. The mayor wanted to float a bond for school buildings (from which, as we can guess, many would have profited handsomely). Despite the fact that Gerosa is personally very popular, it is rather improbable that he will be able to get the Democratic nomination for the simple fact that the Democratic Party’s machine is not in his hands.

In the smallest Swiss cantons and in small communities in America, like Vermont, where everybody knows everybody else, where the citizens come from a homogeneous background and the problems are not particularly complicated, direct sovereignty by the people is simple, natural and beneficial. But in American cities, those huge caldrons that are similar to imperial Rome, the system is less and less able to work without big unbalances. One of the true counterbalances is a free press, and often this works well. But how many people in this city, so frazzled and high-strung; so rude and badly put-together; so scarred by primitive passions and fertile with bright minds (too bright and therefore sterile); how many will be moved to action or even empathy by an article in a newspaper? Or more precisely: how many actually read the newspapers’ opinion pages or the editorials? But then, maybe this is why living in New York is so exciting. It is enjoyable because the city is not made of model citizens. If it were dominated by the spirit of the Salvation Army, it would be mortally boring. Fiorello La Guardia was certainly an honest person and he was the only administrator who did not allow the city’s treasury to be looted—with the help of another honest Italian administrator, Portfolio[10]  [sic]. Mayor [James] Walker[11] was a merry and funny Irishman who accepted $50,000 from friends as if it were a necktie, and in turn gave away cars to actresses and other beautiful women as if they also were neckties. All things considered, the people of New York loved Walker more than La Guardia.

New York, September 3, 1961

P.S. Carmine De Sapio was beaten not only in Tammany Hall but even in his own Greenwich Village district. He has since disappeared from the scene.