Word: wagnerism
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Most of the time, a New York City municipal election has all the suspense and flavor of lunch at the automat-deposit the votes and out pops another machine-tooled Democrat. But two-term Mayor Robert Ferdinand Wagner has jammed the mechanism by breaking openly with the Democratic bosses (TIME, June 30) and choosing his own running mates for a third-term attempt in November. Ever since, the city's political future has been as confusing as a subway...
Hardly had Wagner picked his ticket when the bosses he had defied selected their own slate, dared him to enter a bloody September primary. The Tammany organization's choice for mayor: State Controller Arthur Levitt, 61, a respected vote getter ever since he survived Nelson Rockefeller's 1958 Republican blitz into Albany. Levitt is a product of New York schools, from P.S. 19 to Columbia University; he served on the board of education before running for controller, and has won bipartisan praise for cautiously watchdogging state funds...
Sinister Evil. Wagner wasted no time labeling the Levitt choice as "a gang-up of callous political bosses headed by Carmine De Sapio," warned of "sinister evil" if Levitt were elected. What the mayor forgot was that he himself had also been a De Sapio selection (TIME cover, Oct. 1, 1956) and that there has been a lot of evil in the city under Bumbling Bob. Wagner's administration, among its many scandals, has been graced by a city purchasing agent who milked the city of $500,000 through rigged bidding on rock salt. Currently the city is flinching...
Since this is an election year in New York (see THE NATION), the teachers got fast action. Mayor Wagner personally visited the school and got more publicity than he bargained for when a rat scurried across his path in the auditorium. Pictured in the papers, this scene encouraged a rash of complaints...
Checkout & Checkup. Superintendent of Schools John J. Theobald, on a six-week Ford Foundation tour of European schools, hurriedly beached his gondola in Venice after a summons by Wagner, returned to send a 35-page questionnaire to all 860 principals, asking for itemization of urgent repairs. No fewer than 845 replied. Among their beefs...