Five Other Republicans I Admire, Part IV

Just as disdain for the needy and love of the greedy (or the perception of it) has been the bane of the Republican Party throughout history, so too has the stink of corruption has been the same for the Democrats. Even when our nation was being led by Democrats of strong personal integrity, the party's leaders at too many local levels were awash with ill-gotten lucre (So were a lot of local Republicans, but they seem to have had better P.R.). And nowhere in America was this more true than New York City, from Aaron Burr to Adam Clayton Powell and, quite probably, beyond.

Fiorello Henry LaGuardia was, above all else, a reformer, who attacked the corrupt New York political machine, operating under the umbrella of an organization known as Tammany Hall. He didn't always win these battles, but he won enough of them to make a huge difference. It is a tribute to his dynamism and integrity that he won at all. Certainly, that he was Italian didn't hurt in that city. That he was a Republican was-or should have been-the kiss of death, but, obviously it was not. Don't forget, the New York of LaGuardia's time was not the same city that Mayor Michael Bloomberg (maybe the only present-day Republican I have any respect for) runs today.

Like another mayor who broke a long spell of Democratic rule, John Lindsay, LaGuardia was, essentially, a progressive. Unlike John Lindsay, though, LaGuardia knew how to govern. (Note: While Lindsay did leave the Republican Party at some point in his career, he originally won the mayoral race as a Republican running against the corrupt Democratic machine of his predecessor, Robert Wagner).

Although he was a major hawk on the subject of our nation entering the First World War, well before we actually did (And I wonder how enthusiastic his ardor would have been if Italy had stayed neutral, as she was at the start of the war.), he both respected and cooperated with Governor, then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on a great many progressive initiatives. Perhaps, if there had been no corrupt Tammany Hall machine to tilt against, LaGuardia himself might have been a Democrat.

One thing I need to add about that war-hawk business: unlike so many Republicans in the recent past administrations, LaGuardia backed up his talk with action. He volunteered and served in the war he favored in probably the most dangerous of roles: a combat aviator. What is more, at his age (35), he almost certainly would not have been drafted, once the war started for America.

LaGuardia served several terms as a Congressman from what is now Spanish Harlem, but, then, was largely Italian and Jewish, which was perfectly suitable for a man of his background. His father was Catholic, but his mother was Jewish, which meant that, ethnically, so was he. As sometimes happens in cases of a mixed marriage, the parents became Episcopalians. How do I know such things sometimes happen? My father was raised as a Christian Scientist and my mother a Catholic, and they made the same compromise for the sake of harmony.

In the wonderful musical, Fiorello, which I described in an earlier essay about My Top Ten Pulitzer Prize Dramas, there is a wonderful number called "The Name's LaGuardia," in which he campaigns against Tammany Hall throughout his district, not only in English, but in Italian and Yiddish as well. While the show took a few minor liberties with the historical narrative, the real LaGuardia did speak all those languages (and others), so it could have happened.

As his district became less populated with those ethnicities and more with Hispanic residents, LaGuardia finally lost his seat in the 1932 election. He had tried to leave the seat earlier by running against popular mayor "Gentleman Jimmy" Walker, and got trounced, despite a vicious, but truthful, campaign against the incumbent.

But, by 1933, conditions were a lot different throughout the city. The boom times were gone and, like everyone else, New Yorkers had become less tolerant of easy money and easy morals. Furthermore, Walker had been caught with his hand so far into the cookie jar that even fellow-Democrat, Governor Roosevelt, was working to have him removed.

Fiorello LaGuardia ran again and became the mayor of New York in 1934. He held the job for the next twelve years. After his third term, he voluntarily stepped down, possibly for health reasons. He would not live another two years.

As an Italian, LaGuardia harbored a particular anger at what the Mafia, in his city and elsewhere, was doing for the reputation of the Italian people in America. As a result, he went after them with a vengeance. He gave mobster Frank Costello a peck of trouble, even if he was unable to put him away for a long stretch, and he did nail Lucky Luciano. He was also after Dutch Schultz (who, presumably, was an affront to his Jewish ethnicity), until that process got rendered moot by a rub-out from a rival gang.

Despite LaGuardia's progressive notions, he proved to be a careful and responsible steward of the city's finances, probably as a result of the massive cutback in the corruption that had heretofore been automatically built into the budget. He probably was unable to stamp out every last vestige of corruption in the entirety of the city, but he did make a tremendous amount of progress to that end. Of course, when he retired, many of the "old ways" reappeared in a hurry.

The biggest and best thing Fiorello LaGuardia is remembered for, in a long and distinguished career, I think, is his action during the city's lengthy newspaper strike in 1945. Figuring, rightly, that children should not have to suffer for the inability of adults to function reasonably, he went on the radio and read the Sunday funnies to the children of the city. That just about says it all.

Sources

AmericanHeritage.com

Wikipedia

Fiorello