Current Campaign Lacks Clear Cut Issues

In this age of sound trucks and stickers, it is unlikely that many in Cambridge will be entirely unaware by Tuesday that an election campaign is going on. But it seems even more unlikely that many people will have much idea of the issues of the 1959 campaign. Even those people actively involved in the campaign might be hard-pressed to tell you what issues are involved, and if there are unexpected surprises in the outcome, it will be still hard to tell what policy has triumphed.

No one would deny that Cambridge politics are unusual, and it is one of its oddest phenomena that the local form of government apparently discourages the entrance of issues in a rountine campaign. If there is a scandal, as at the 1957 elections, that can become an important issue; but in a quiet year, few candidates are heard debating each other on the relative merits of their positions.

The absence of a mayoralty campaign also contributes to this lack of focus. For nearly twenty years Cambridge elections have lacked the personal clash of two candidates putting not only their personalities but also their beliefs into clear opposition. Since the adoption of Plan E in 1945, no elected official has been able to say with certainty that his election represents general public acceptance of his policies.

Without clear-cut issues or personalities, diffusion results. This year, 31 City Council candidates and 21 School Committee candidates will fight on election day for the all-important first choice ballots.

Such an election inevitably will have an effect on the operation of the Council. Each man has been elected largely on his own strength. His campaign promises have frequently been limited to protestations of faithful service to his supporters and the city at large, and, thus, if he has won election by hammering upon a controversial issue such as opposition to the belt route, he is likely to find few in the Council who will stand with him to push it through. For a well-oiled political machine must have followers as well as leaders, and nine politicians each leading in his own direction seems at best an inefficient operation. Plan E, the Cambridge form of government, has faced opposition of professional politicians from its very inception in 1945; and while many ascribe this opposition to the difficulty Plan E presents for potential grafters, there seems to be an honest objection that without leadership--or "party responsibility"--the Council has trouble arriving at a clear definition and settlement of its internal conflicts.

To meet the practical difficulties raised by governmental reform, Plan E supporters in Cambridge banded together to form the Cambridge Civic Association. Functioning not only as an election-time support to good-government candidates but as a fulltime watchdog and policy development group, it assumed and has maintained a strong position as perhaps the principal source of progressive ideas in the city.

In an attempt to seek responsive support from as many quarters as possible, the CCA prepares at election time a very detailed statement of its platform--probably a more detailed statement than any candidate, CCA or "Independent," ever would find necessary. A revised zoning code would hardly arouse much enthusiasm for a candidate, simply because the issue is so complex and seemingly removed from the everyday life of most voters. But those who, by training, inclination or business, might be involved or interested in that issue would find a clear statement of the position adopted by CCA candidates.

The Independents, on the other hand, not required by their supporters to present detailed stands on such issues, come into the council without any such proposals--without, in fact, any clear idea of how to vote on them. Thus, when a CCA-initiated proposal comes up for action, the Independents may vote against it because some special-interest group has requested opposition or just because they are suspicious of any sort of CCA proposal which seems to have no origin in popular demand.

Few Cambridge voters, it must be admitted, demand progress; most like conditions the way they are, or feel that political action can do nothing positive and may make everything more difficult. Politicians, sensitive to this sentiment, oppose actions with uncertain social effects. If there is no public outcry for Urban Renewal, they think, why should we risk our future by agreeing to tear down slum dwellings? After all, voters live there.

It must not be supposed, however, that the apathetic and the conservative do not vote for CCA-endorsees. Two or three of the CCA's incumbents could probably get elected without committing themselves to progressive stands. They gain support, as do most of the Councillors, on grounds seemingly peripheral to their Council work--because they are Irish or Italian or Jewish or Catholic or live in East Cambridge or Cambridgeport or Kerry Corner.

Some win elections with a confusing complex of support. Mrs. Pearl K. Wise, for example, seems to gather support not only from her CCA endorsement but from some labor groups, women's groups, and "the Jewish vote." And Councillors Joseph A. DeGuglielmo '29 and Edward A. Crane '35, both Harvardtrained lawyers and strong CCA supporters, seem to get much backing from Irish and Italian people who care little for CCA programs. In fact, one of the few factors which seem to have little influence on the election is party affiliation: there is only one registered Republican, Mrs. Cornelia B. Wheeler, on the Council at present, and before her election the Council was solidly Democratic.

In receiving CCA endorsement, these Councillors, regardless of their backgrounds and manner of their campaigns, have accepted, in general form, the goals of the Association's platform. They are not, of course, obligated to vote with the CCA on any issure at all, though they could lose endorsement or overzealous independence. And they have the further responsibility of initiating as well as supporting progressive legislation.

This uniform commitment to progress makes things difficult for the independent Councillors. They are not devoid of ideas or desirable civic improvements, particularly items of largely neighborhood importance which the CCA could overlook. But if CCA Councillors do not offer their support, the independents must form temporary alliances, often by trading votes with their fellows. There are always more or less permanent alliances within this group, but these are sometimes unreliable. Not infrequently the independent Councillor must choose between the CCA's plan for progress, or no plan at all.

In this situation there can, of course, be compromise. One sees no relatively important compromises worked out on the floor of the Council; perhaps both sides feel that they should not deal with the enemy in public. Eric H. Hanson, executive secretary of the CCA, and a regular observer of the Council in action, insists, however, that there have been frequent and important concessions by both sides paving the way for major steps. These seem to have been made informally in discussions between individual members and perhaps with the Mayor as mediator.

But sometimes it has seemed as though an opportunity for compromise has been passed up in the hopes for an all-or-nothing victory. If there have been major compromises, no one has drawn attention to them as an example of how the Council should operate.

Such a picture of the Council--as consisting of two sides always opposing each other's moves--neglects the many outside sources of pressure exerted equally heavily on both sides.

Still, the great divide dominates. The CCA used to have a one-man edge. It lost that several years ago, but feels sure of its incumbence and hopes to regain domination with new candidates. But such a victory might be dangerous to the CCA. The urban renewal program gives the city the weapons needed to tear down massive areas of low-grade housing, preparing the way for private redevelopment of desirable property. Such projects would inevitably permanently displace from the city a large number of its residents, and such a move might well provide political impetus for a move to abandon Plan E. Cities with Plan E charters have fought tough battles to retain them against both local and state legislatures in combination, and some, without permanent civic associations, have returned to the more traditional forms.

The CCA-Plan E alliance has given Cambridge some of the best local government in the state. But in the never-ending pursuit of progress, the CCA may occasionally forget that many of its programs stand to impose upon people values and ways of life they would prefer to reject, an imposition that could have serious consequences.

While the CCA remains in the minority, it can hope to make progress principally through compromise with the independents. But if it regains dominance and shed that check on its action, it is in the position to destroy the social balance of the city. Of the present CCA Councillors, only Mrs. Wise has so far expressed concern for this aspect of Cambridge life.

There thus appear to be no issues in Tuesday's election. But the voting will be an important indication of the speed and nature of progress in at least the next two years, especially if the CCA manages to win a clear majority in the Council or the School Committee