For Mayor of New York

The eyes of the nation are always on New York City, be it for entertainment, stock quotations, fashions, or UN diplomacy. This year, national curiosity is even greater. In a year that is politically dull, New York City is the battleground of an election significant enough to have reverberations in national politics clear through to the 1956 Presidential conventions. Because of this, and especially because over a thousand members of this academic community are native to metropolitan New York, it is hardly meddling for this column to endorse a candidate for mayor of New York City.

In this polyglot of eight million persons, the air is dirty, the traffic cramped, the public transportation inadequate, the slums growing, and the budget falling out of balance. These problems are not peculiar to New York. They are rooted in the very bigness of cities, and the inevitable neglect that comes of growing too fast. Without considering this, many people, vocal in the present campaign, are obsessed with a LaGuardia complex. Pointing to the administration of the great Fiorello, they say that one man, if he is dynamic enough and independent enough of political influence, can solve these problems. They forget, however, that LaGuardia only dented the city's problems and that most of his projects needed financial support from Washington, support the present national administration is in no mood to give. They forget that LaGuardia also had nasty associates, men like Vito Marcantonio. In fact, to say that anyone can operate in the atmosphere of big city politics without some support from bosses is to either be naive or drugged by campaign propaganda. All that can reasonably be asked of a New York mayor, then, is that by training and accomplishment he be willing and able to make a vigorous attack on the city's ills, and be the kind of man whose past actions have not reflected the influence of the people who, by public default, have power in big city politics.

In the campaign are one Republican and two types of Democrat. The Republican, Harold Reigelman, has a long record of service in financial matters. He would make a fine Comptroller. But to the mayorship of a city crying for social welfare legislation he brings a record bereft of achievement in this field. And around his neck is the albatross of a party which in New York City has been historically indifferent toward these matters.

Wagner and Halley Compared

This leaves the two candidates who have the proper social purpose to be mayor of New York City: Rudolph Halley and Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Halley is a Johnny-come-lately to the public service, while Wagner has been in public life for sixteen years. Halley flashed to eminence in the Kefauver hearings. Wagner has built his reputation brick by brick. Halley has held one office, President of the City Council, in which he voted on crucial issues with a fickleness that raises doubts as to his sincerity. Wagner has been State Assemblyman, head of the New York Planning Commission, chief of the Housing Commission and Manhattan Borough President, administering each office in a capable, if plodding manner. As long as capability is preferred to color, sincerity to slick public relations, and achievements of the past to promises of a bright future, Robert Wagner is clearly a better choice than Halley, and as such, is the best man to be mayor of New York.

Nor is he not just best comparatively. In his years of public service, he has joined in the group life of all the racial, religious and economic elements of the city. It is hard to find a man who knows New York better than Robert F. Wagner. And he will have the advice and support of that liberal element of the Democratic party, led by men like Averell Harriman and Herbert Lehman, which best expresses the social aspirations of what is admittedly a "Fair Deal town."

It is said against Wagner that he has the support of Tammany Hall and all the low associations that go with it. Those who charge this forget that sixteen Tammany district leaders, including those associated with Frank Costello, broke with Wagner to support Impelliteri for mayor. Wagner owes them nothing. It is also said that Wagner wants to use the mayorship not for the welfare of New York but as a stepping stone to his late father's seat in the United States Senate. Those who claim this forget that the mayor is so controversial and unthanked a figure as to be in a political graveyard: in the last thirty years, no former New York mayor was ever elected to another office.

New York city politics is a roughhouse game. Until they die and often after, bad things are said about all politicians. It is almost enough that in this maelstrom, Robert F. Wagner has accomplished as much as he has. For his record, his program and his person, compared with the others or judged absolutely, we endorse Robert F. Wagner for the mayoralty of New York.

(This is the first of the CRIMSON'S endorsements for the fall elections. Endorsements of candidates for Boston and Cambridge elections will appear next week.)