Word: sam
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...money, is unable to fuse the income of the independent Port Authority and Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority into the city's finances. Atlanta's Mayor Allen, like many other big-city mayors, is hampered by the intransigence of a rural-dominated state legislature. And, though Sam Yorty may have more authority than he cares to exercise, the fact remains that his power is severely limited. "Mayors are being made scapegoats all over the country," says Yorty. "In lots of ways, the cities we represent have much bigger problems than the states...
...Sam Yorty is in many ways the personification of the city he heads. He is a maverick in a land of mavericks, a scrapper who is part political opportunist and part high-minded booster. Like a majority of adult Angelenos, he comes from "back East"-anywhere east of the Sierras. He is defensive about California's virtues and suspicious of condescending Easterners. Like Los Angeles itself, which has long put up with the patronizing attitude of northern neighbor San Francisco, he seems to take pleasure in playing the underdog even when he knows that he is top dog. During...
Post Office Meeting. Sam Yorty is one of the millions who came to California to seek opportunity and room to roam. He was born in Lincoln, Neb., in 1909, the son of a poor farmer and an Irish-born mother, arrived in Los Angeles after high school with $80 in his pocket. He enrolled in Southwestern University Law School, working first as a part-time clothing salesman, next as a movie projectionist, but found that his real flair was for speechifying: "I would rather give a speech than
...Sam wanted office for himself. In 1936, he ran for the California state assembly-the first of more than a dozen public offices he has sought and the first of seven he has won. He was swept into office on the strength of Franklin Roosevelt's landslide win over Republican Alf Landon. A few days after winning re-election in 1938, Sam met blonde, attractive Betty Hensel in a post office, married her within two weeks. (They have one son, William, 20, a U.C.L.A. student and lead guitarist in a shaggy-haired group called the Ryot.) The following year...
...assembly, Sam adopted the sometimes liberal, sometimes conservative, always independent course he has followed since. He authored legislation curbing sweatshops, created and headed an un-American activities committee that waged campaigns against both Communists and Nazis. After rising to captain in the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II, he bounced back to the state assembly in 1949, got himself elected a year later to the first of two terms in Congress, where he fought doggedly for California's claim on tide-lands oil. Looking, as always, for bigger things, he took on Republican Senator Tom Kuchel...