Word: sapio
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Carmine found out soon enough that kings are made, not born, in New York's racial and cultural jungles. De Sapio still winces when reminded of the "Wop" cry that came at him from all sides in his boyhood. The fact of his Italian ancestry has followed him always. It held him back in politics for precious years. De Sapio is talking about the old Irish bosses when he says, with low-keyed but intense anger, "I was the first leader they really gave the treatment to; I had to win three elections before they would seat...
Even after he became Tammany's top tiger, De Sapio was plagued by his Italo-Americanism. When Racketeer Frank Costello (born Castiglia) casually told the Kefauver committee that he knew De Sapio "very well," the public assumed the worst. After all, weren't both men Italians? "What do I have to do?" asks De Sapio. "Send a special scout ahead all day everywhere I go to case a joint before I step inside? About a week ago, I was having lunch with some friends at one of the best restaurants in town.† We're all having...
...Sapio's reactions to his problem is to bear down on the Italians around him. An aide says: "If an Italian name comes up at the Hall for a prominent public job, Carmine goes into his background with as much thoroughness as J. Edgar Hoover, a thing he never does with an Irishman or a Jew." De Sapio can also set a personal example. His present job as Secretary of State pays him $17,000 a year, the most he has ever made, and never once in his career has there been any evidence that he makes money from...
...want to get sentimental or dramatize this thing," says De Sapio, "but I want to tell you-I swear to God that if the day ever comes when those guys or their kind [Costello & Co.] have any hold over me whatever, I'm going to get out so quickly it'll make your head swim. The thing you have to remember is that an awful lot of people are depending on me-on my political integrity-for their political futures, their jobs-everything. I couldn't possibly afford to get mixed up with mobsters or hoods...
Tammany's new public-relations approach may either be sincere or "sincere"-but it is certainly the reverse of the old easy, open cynicism. There have been no grave city political scandals involving De Sapio's men, and until there are, fairness requires the assumption that things are better in City Hall-although experience whispers a caution against a conclusion that graft has stopped. As for municipal services, New York is still far behind many other cities, but its filthy, potholed streets and clumsy police may be blamed as much on an apathetic citizenry as on Tammany Hall...