Evening star., 1937-08-22
Another La Cuardia Victory
May Put Tammany on Way Out
Second Defeat in Row. for First Time
in $50 Years, Might Weaken
Wigwam Permanently.

TAMMANY HALL. after almost
$50 ysars OF political ascend
ancy in New York City poll
4 tics. may now become 4 polit-
ical organisation Of only secondary
importance. Not within the memory
of man has Tammany suffered two
defeats IN . row in . mayoralty
campaign. yet Mayor La Guardia may
turn the trick in November. Tammany
has been beaten only three times
during the last so years. and each
time 1t could tell the faithful with
assurance: Just be patient \ little
longer. We're coming back strong
next election: and for those who have
stuck around. the pickings will be
many and juicy"
50 the boys stuck around, patching
up their neighborhood support In the
meantime. You can forget todays s
empty stomach II you know you are
going to feast tomorrow. But il after
four years Of wandering in the will
derness the gate to the promised land
Is now to be closed for four more
hong years-well. most of the quon-
dam faithful may fall BY the way
side or drift away to newer and
greener pastures
Why Fusion Fell Before
The three previous mayors who
trounced Tammany were too much
the "silk-stocking" or "highbrow'
to make permanent inroads upon its
following. William L. Strong. vic
torious over Tammany in 1894. didn't
make 4 bad mayor, but his person.
Atty was hardly magnetic. His po-
lice commissioner, one Theodore
Roosevelt, was q more vigorous fig-
ure, even II he was . blueblood and
did labor under 4 Harvard accent,
which collapsed into 4 falsetto when
he got excited. Commissioner Roose-
welt didn't make the Strong admin
htration especially popular by trying
to close the saloons on Sunday.
Tammany won the next election.
Seth Low was elected fusion mayor
In 1901 He had been president Of
Columbia University and admitted
sadly that that hardly taught 4
man how to become = popular idol.
Moreover, Mayor Lows administra-
ton saw bit of scandal in the po-
lice department.
La Guardia's predecessor as q fu-
sion mayor was John Purroy Mitchell,
elected in 1918. Mitchell was some
thing OF an executive genius, and his
administration was eficient in an
impersonal kind OF way.
Mitchell had political liabilities be-
sides = personality which didn't click
with the great unwashed.
Also Mitchell. although a Catholic,
insisted on certain changes in the
administration of parochial schools in
New York City. Tammany assidu-
ously spread the word that the Mayor
had turned against his own.
Tammany Once Anti Catholic.
Tammany Hall wasn't always what
It Is today. 1t Is now thought Of ~
controlled chiefly by Catholics OF
Irish descent and as relying largely
upon the foreign-bo but in the
beginning 1t was strongly anti-alien
and somewhat anti-Catholic.
The Society OF Tammany was or
sanized two weeks after George Wash
ington had taken the oath Is frst
President of the United States. Tam.
many arose in opposition to the old
royalist societies and to the aristo.
cratic tendencies represented in the
Society Of Cincinnati, composed OF
officers and ex-omcers Of the Con-
tinental Army. The new organiaa-
ton took Its name from an Indian
chief-TAmAnend Of the Delawarss
whom tradition had clothed with al
the virtues
Representing the common man,
Tamnany pasdsed ksek u tlae satoeG
b snd tlaprsonuant for deht ana "a