Word: craned
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...truth of Crane's accusations will always be a matter of dispute. Certainly, Smith was no admirer of John Curry or a friend of Crane, but it is unlikely that he single-handedly--as Crane seemed to imply--sowed the disscent that brought Curry down. Cran'e speech was more significant for its tone than its substance: this fight was a personal one, and its intent was not merely to keep John J. Curry as city manager, but to reaffirm the administration of the Crane-Curry era. Crane, in short, has become combattant because he reads both conspiracy and challenge...
...mayor for the past six years, Crane was the senior partner of the collaboration, and it is indeniably he who has masterminded the defense for the Curry side. On the Council floor, he has constantly challenged Mayor Daniel J. Hayes Jr., praised Curry, and damned his enemies. Off the Council floor, he has been intimately involved in the legal aspects of the Curry defense. Throughout, he has shown why he was mayor for six unprecedented years; he has been the most articulate, the best prepared, the most pugnacious of all the councillors...
...early days of the dispute, Crane consciously sought to destroy the power arrayed against him--the five anti-Curry votes--by demonstrating that it was, in essence, unreal. First came the mayor's election, when he attempted, it seems, to prolong the deadlocked balloting. The longer the delay, the more time there would be to work behind the scenes to shatter the majority. But the mayor's election was resolved in only a week; and with a victory for the anti-Curry forces, the dispute moved out into the open...
...first--and throughout--Crane tried to intimidate the five. He grasped at every parliamentary mistake made by an inexperienced Mayor Hayes. With his colleagues, Alfred E. Vellucci and Thomas H.D. Mahoney, he injected into the meetings the most intimate details of political maneuvering that preceded the mayor's election and the suspension of Curry. The threat was implicit: the meetings proceeded only at great risk to the political reputations of the five anti-Curry councillors. But this strategy alone failed to work, and a variety of other specters were raised before the Council...
First, there were the legal questions. Was the majority five proceeding correctly? Was it dismissing Curry under the proper law? Wouldn't the Council be reversed in the courts? Combined with this approach was the threat of turning Curry's dismissal into a popularity contest. The hearing, Crane claimed, would be jammed. "You won't be able to get an auditorium big enough to hold the people that want to come and will come." Still remaining was the possibility of escalating the political conflict: "Only a few torpedoes of minor size were let go till now," Crane said before...