Word: publicizer
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...custom, the vanquished leaders, Fitzgerald and Curley, met Ely to congratulate him on a public platform in Worcester. When it came time for Curley to speak, he rose and presented Ely with a check for $1000 --"to show my sincerity in the effort to elect Mr. Ely." The press the next day went wild, praising Curley for his magnanimity; but Mr. Ely was less enthused. The check had been made payable to the Boston City Committee --to be used by the mayor and not by Mr. Ely for getting out the Boston vote...
This sort of shrewd gallery play is what makes James M. Curley the most colorful and probably the most successful politician in Boston's history. In whatever Curley does in public life, he is ostentatious--whether driving down Boylston Street when the theatre crowd lets out with the lights on in the back seat of his limousine; or stealing the show at the Harvard Tercentenary celebration with an eloquent dissertation on the history of the relationship between the State of Massachusetts and Harvard--plus a timely presidential election year plug for Franklin D. Roosevelt...
...generally very hostile to him; even during his first administration when the late Senator David I. Walsh, a democrat, was governor, the members of the Fin Com bitterly fought Curley's spending. But, for all their efforts, and despite cases of graft that were obvious even to the public, it was not until 1940 that they were able to make a court tell Curley to "pay or go to jail." In that year, the West Roxbury District Court ordered him to pay $42,000 to the City of Boston in payments of $500 weekly...
Under the heading of the word color comes Curley's gift for public speaking. Originally, he was only a commonplace orator but he sensed the need for inspiring speech-making even before he was mayor. He studied nights under a Professor Staley at a public speaking school in Boston. Staley comments that Curley was so unrefined when he first went to the school that the young man had a very difficult time convincing the professor to keep him. Curley soon became Staley's best pupil, and even now, the teacher still sends written comments to the mayor on each...
...hired him on the spot, was dismissed as Commissioner of Education in favor of a small-town Superintendent of Schools. Thomas H. Green, to whom Curley himself once referred to as one of "the James brothers" was made head of the Civil Service. Case workers in the Department of Public Welfare were removed and in their place went unem...