Word: sapio
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Sapio fought Finn for district leader again in 1941, won again, and was again refused Tammany's recognition. In 1943, with another De Sapio victory, the Tammany sachems at last gave in (partly because Finn had become involved in a factional dispute with Tammany Leader Mike Kennedy). That year De Sapio took his place on the Tammany Hall executive committee. Within six years he was the Boss...
...rapid ascension came partly because Tammany was torn by factionalism, partly because of his capacity for work and his attention to political details, partly because the late Bronx Leader Ed Flynn, the real power in New York politics during Tammany's dog days, spotted De Sapio as a comer. Says Julie McArdle, who was Flynn's secretary for 20 years and is now De Sapio's: "I remember Mr. Flynn saying Mr. De Sapio was the only Tammany leader he could sit down with since Mr. Murphy, and not have to talk out of the side...
...Flynn's influence, he could not make De Sapio's position secure. Beneath De Sapio's shaky perch slavered a whole litter of lesser tigers just waiting for him to make his first slip. He slipped, and soon. With Flynn, he supported Judge Ferdinand Pecora, an honest man cursed with every outward attribute of the typical Tammany stooge, against a Tammany outcast. Vincent Impellitteri, who looked to the voters like a brave little David slinging stones at a Goliath. "Impy," without machine support, won easily. Never had Tammany Hall suffered a more galling defeat. De Sapio...
Then, with the cold introspection that may be his greatest political strength, De Sapio took stock of himself and his situation. "After Pecora," he now says, 'I felt something drastic had to be done to disprove the public impression of me and my organization. As time went on, I could only see that, unless we put our house in order, the Democratic Party in New York would have no value as a party at all. I watched very carefully for the right places to push for or against the right program...
...apartment building than he is besieged by a horde of political suppliants who have been crouched there like Arab beggars since daybreak. No sooner does he arrive at his office as Secretary of State than in troops a platoon of prospective cosmetology board officials, ready to have De Sapio administer the oath in which, as required by law, they swear to adhere to the Constitution of the United States of America and to the constitution of New York as they supervise the state's hair wavers. Then, moving uptown, he holds forth for at least a few hours each...