Word: craning
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...When Crane served as alderman in 1939, he faced an inefficient self-seeking government which operated under the Plan B system of a weak 15-man council and a strong mayor. During this time, popular indignation against the city hall gang swelled and when the mayor went to jail, voters demanded reform. The result was a Cambridge Civic Association which instituted extensive municipal changes, including a new system of administration for Massachusetts--Plan E, a weak 9-man council, mayor, and city manager. The Cambridge Civic Association refused to back any of the old Council members, except Crane. "I guess...
...Crane is a huge, impressive man. "I'm 5 feet, 17 inches tall--that's what I tell anyone who asks how tall I am. When I was in the Army, a Texan requested that I prove that his commander's 6 feet 4 inches was nothing. On the way over to the officer's quarters, he confidentially inquired of me my exact height. I replied, '5 feet, 17 inches.' The Texan looked shocked, then smiled, 'Oh, come now, you're taller than that...
Throughout the interview, Crane talked slowly, punctuating each idea with a long pause, and exhausting one topic completely before going to a new one. He likes music, and follows the theatre assiduously. But his main interest is politics. His election campaigns are conducted in keeping with his personal dignity and respectability. Before the last election, he sent personal letters to all the registered voters in the city, beginning with the usual biographical details, qualifications for office, and ending with this unusual political statement: "Again I have disregarded some traditional and annoying tactics--no billboards, no wall posters, no sound trucks...
...mayor's example of successful, noiseless campaigning might lend confidence to prospective politicians. But Crane continues, "I'm surprised that more people do not run for political office. Many well-qualified men do not enter politics because they have not recognized this public life as a career. In most cases today, the man, through his own selfish desires, seeks the office; seldom does the office seek the well-qualified...
Even as an undergraduate, Crane was interested in the problems of municipal government. His senior thesis dealt with the need for a new system of government in Cambridge. "You might call this my life project. Now I can watch my hopes, my ideas, my desires actually work...