Page 193 - Demo

Is Reform Politics A Substitute For Religion?BY JOHN SCANLONI believe it was Frank O%u2019Connor(the writer, not the judge) who saidthat it should be accepted ascommon ground that no Irishmanis of much interest until he has losthis faith.My own retirement from thebosom of Holy Mother Church wasa painful and circuitously slowwithdrawal. From the standardparish church, to the NYU chapelwhere we could, at least sing a fewfolk songs, to an undergroundliturgy. Finally, into a reformdemocratic club in Brooklyn. Afterall, what would an Irishman bewithout a cause. Steingut LeoneIt was a consoling transition.And as I look back now, it was justwhat I needed. Reform politicsmade it easier to deal with theguilt. Instead of telling my rosary,I could now count election nightreturns and visions of devils,dancing in hell fires so much a partof my fantasies were replaced bythose vicious old regulardemocrats who sat aroundbackrooms making contracts.I worked diligently in thevineyard for several years, electedsix McCarthy delegates to the 1968convention, managed Paul O%u2019Dwyer%u2019s Brooklyn campaign andeven took a stab at a local officemyself, unsuccessfully.But the vigor of this new convertebbed slowly. I started to meetsome of those regular old devilsand they turned out to be prettymuch like everyone else. Theydidn%u2019t speak as well as the people Iknew. Sometimes it toox tnem awhile to move on an issue %u2014 but byand large they were politicians justlike my reform friends werepoliticians. Both groups enjoyedpower.For the last few years I%u2019ve beenlax, still hanging around thefringes of the movement supporting or working for good candidates now and then but finallyadmitting that my new religionwas about the same as the old one.The dumb reverence for%u201c reform ,%u201d the dogma, theevangelism, was familiar anddisturbing. Reformers argued thatthey were open; that they encouraged free debate %u2014 but myexperience was that they seldomsaid %u201cThis is the way I think. Whatare your objections?%u201d For dialoguethey had substituted the communique. %u201cThis is the truth. Youcan discuss it all you want. Wearen%u2019t interested.%u201dI felt finally that %u201creform%u201d isoften a question of personaltemperament rather than acommitment to a moral or apractical principle. A regularcould argue for hours but he wouldseldom win because the lastrecourse of the reformer wasalways to %u201csuperior wisdom.%u201dAll of this was made so vivid tome a few weeks ago when I madeone of my infrequent visits to mylocal reform club; the one I helpedstart in the winter of 1967.1 went tosupport Bob Steingut for councilman-at-large and to do all Icould to stop the endorsement ofSteve Solarz for borough presidentof Brooklyn.Solarz typifies for me what isworst about politics. He is a cynicand a superb manipulator. Hedistracts people from real issuesand he keeps old mythologies alive.Elected as a reformer in 1966, l.e became the regular party candidate for assembly in 1970 and1972. He was the only Brooklynreformer not to endorse Lindsayover Procaccino in 1969. He supported the reg u lars%u2019 Arthur Goldberg over Howard Samuels for governor in 1970. While Sam Leone. Present Boro President was campaigning for McGovern in Massachusetts, Solarz was putting' together a Muskie Slate in Brooklyn. He failed to support Elizabeth Holtzman in her brilliant primary against Manny Cellar. 1could go on. In spite of all of this.Solarz had successfullymanipulated, the regular reformissue to the hilt. His mailings nevermentioned Brooklyn%u2019s needs %u2014only that Leone should be beatenbecause he was the regular candidate.I tried to make these points. Itried to argue that %u201cregularreform%u201d was not a real issue.Brooklyn%u2019s needs should bedebated. Solarz should be made topresent a program. But changingtheir minds would be like moving acemetery. Brooklyn reformerswould have snored through theSermon on the Mount.They finally made it quite clear.Solarz had to be supported becauseSam Leone was a friend of MeadeEsposito. Few listeners wereshocked by this hint of reformMcCarthyism.Not a word was uttered aooutwhat Solarz could do for Brooklyn;how he would handle the problemsof housing and jobs. He simplydeserved to be elected because aSam Leone defeat would hurtEsposito. That Solarz had neverpassed a bill in Albany meantnothing. That his record as areformer was at best dubious wasconsidered heresy.Bob Steingut, a former schoolteacher, a veteran of at least 15campaigns, eldest son of theMinority Leader of the Legislatureclearly as qualified as any of theother candidates, was roundlydenounced essentially because hewas Stanley Steingut%u2019s son. Thespeaker was a bright youngHarvard lawyer, a veteran ofalmost every losing campaign inmemory. Most recently, however,he had brilliantly manipulated aspot for his wife on the McGovernSlate in the 15th CongressionalDistrict. That she had lived in theHospital and Community a t W ar?Dear Editor:The community is still trying toassess the meaning of the Community Planning Committeeelection meeting at St. Peter%u2019s Hallon the 29th of March.It was rumored during the dayspreceding the meeting thatL.I.C.H. was preparing its ownslate and that L.I.C.H. hadpromised jobs to influential peoplein the anti-poverty groups so thatL.I.C.H. would appear as thedefender of the down-trodden.The demolition of Hoagland Lablast summer meant an opendeclaration of war against thesurrounding community. Manypeople in the community understood the hostile intentions ofthe Hospital but failed to realizeLiicti iiiuwcuu ru n ci, v iicuundii ofL.I.C.H., and the neanderthal bossof the hospital hierarchy meant toslap the community in the face andcontinue the arrogant policy thatthe hospital has always pursued.Parallel to this truculentexhibition, L.I.C.H. proceeded tosoften the community for the nextblow. It convinced communityA %u2014 e%u2014 %u201e j : _ i ------- i'uauci o niai< in uiuci tui a umiugucto exist, a community organizationought to include all groups in thehospital service area, thus openingthe road for future, disruption andmeddling in community affairs byoutsiders.The neanderthals of the hospitalpulled out and they were not to beseen. Their places were taken byJoseph Broadwin and localprofessionals, mostly lawyers, whowere dying to join the hospitalmanagement in order to promotetheir corporate careers. So now thehospital claimed that theyrepresented the community. Thecommunity got together andstarted what was to be later theC.P.C. The hospital let its newlyacquired liberal spokesmen takeover all representation anddialogue with the community.They in turn kept telling us thatthey understood us and that theywere fighting our battles before thehospital board. Once, in a while, ifthe community objected, theywould get nastier than Neaanderthal Ed but they soon wouldreturn to sweet reasonableness.L.I.C.H. recognized C.P.C. and letit attend meetings of its subcommittees. The hospital keptlying to the community that all itwants was simply to replace 407beds that it now has.In actuality, though, the wolf waspreparing the lamb for the feast.They had secretly asked the statefor 1000 beds.Some people in the leadership ofthe C.P.C. never lost theirillusions. They felt that JoeBroadwin, Murray Adams andPeter Ness understood the finegame of compromise. After allthey came from the communityand they were of the same socialand economic background. Aperfect arrangement for compromise. The hospital kept a lowprofile and Dr. Hyde even invitedthe community to use its facilities,while preparing the coup d%u2019etat.The C.P.C. in its regard fordemocratic procedures invitedhundreds of people andorganizations to participate in theelections of officers and of theexecutive board. The hospitalmobilized all its employees,cajoled some and reportedlythreatened others with loss ofemployment if they did not attendthe meeting and vote for thehospital policy. The hospitalpromised jobs, thus, corruptingconsciences and had employees,job appointees, nurses, doctors,friends and relatives come fromnthor nronc cunli uc Pox; PiHrro on^some others not even remotelyconnected with the hospital area;and they came to vote and overwhelm the community. The Casapeople led others in rowdybehavior. Although they would notaccept anyone outside their owncommunity on the Ad Hoc Committee to Save the Water Front,when they were fighting to s a v e their own homes and some of ushelped them in that fight, now theywere shouting us down and theywanted to be on a committee thatinvolved a sister neighborhood.Their rowdyism for hospital expansion, undoubtedly, is connectedwith humanitarian principles andnot with the abolition of O.E.O.The hospital employees andvarious hospital stooges took overthe meeting shouting everyonedown and preventing the community from proceeding with theelections. A few trial votes inContinued on Page 12Richmond at C.P.C.iTo the Editor:City Councilman Frederick W.Richmond%u2019s absurd and inappropriate comments at last week%u2019sCommunity Planning Committeemeeting dramatically demonstrated his unsuitability to hisappointed post.Proving his political ineptitude,he chose the tensest moment of theshock-filled evening to assureconstituents of his support of adying issue (LICH takeover ofhomes in the community) whichbrought the meeting to apremature ending.H o w e v e r fn a iv e h im en m ocredit for this startling performance, he did accomplish theformidable and seeminglyhopeless task of totally writingbricks and mortar, health consumer and hospital factions %u2014 ifonly for a moment and if only inbewilderment.Martha WillettKane StreetPHOENIX, Page Sevenneighborhood a short time, that shehad been singularly absent fromany community activity apparently meant little. She was areformer and somehow she wasn%u2019tsubject to the same rules. It was interesting to hear him denounce nepotism. 1 also wondered what he might have told this son had he been Stanley Steingut.Speaker after speaker argued for their candidates and denounced the Esposito-Steingut axis. They were led by the district leader, a large, warm man who might easily have been a monsignor had he chosen the chancery instead of theprecincts. Like many clerics of mypast, he could still deduce auniversal statement from twofallacies and an error. I met himfirst politically in 1968. He cameinto a neighborhood store front thatspring where I was organizing ahandful of political novices tryingto elect Eugene McCarthy. He wasfor Lyndon Johnson then, arguedthat we should vigorously pursuethe war because we really had tobeat the commies and he gave methe first and only lecture I everheard on the domino theory. By1972, he was finally for McCarthyand most recently he had arguedJerry Kretchmer for Mayorbecause Kretchmer was the onethe %u201cethnics%u201d could understandand Kretchmer could campaignbest in our local bars. Honest toGod!Sitting by as silent as a plastersaint was the candidate. A youngman in his late thirties, he hadbeen the club%u2019s nominee for theNew York Assembly during theprevious general election. Acommunity activist of long standing, he had beaten the regularmachine for the nomination for theclub%u2019s first major victory.He was accepted as the partycandidate by the regulars andSteingut%u2019s Committee to Elect aDemocratic Legislature gave himmore money than any other nonincumbent in the state. Steinguthimself campaigned with thecandidate in Boro Park where hespoke for him to leading rabbis.The candidate met with Espositoduring the general election. Heasked these men for help and hegot it.Meanwhile an earnest youngman, with perhaps one year%u2019spolitical experience was roundlydenouncing Esposito as a %u201clink inthe chain, indeed the whole chainof reaction in New York State %u2014these regulars must be destroyed.%u201dThe candidate was mute %u2014staring straight ahead %u2014 as if hewere enjoying a clear vision wewere not privileged to see.Somehow %u201creform%u201d seemed tomean more than these men%u2019sreputations. And I wondered how aman who couldn%u2019t be loyal to afriend could ever be loyal to anideal.BROOKLYNCONSERVATORYOF MUSIC58 Seventh Ave.at Lincoln PlaceMA 2-3300Chartered by Board of Regents76thTEARPrivate lessons for everyone in Piano, Voice and all instruments. Classes in MusicalQi ih lontt /P ir f i %u2014in l_l i%u00ab- 4- ,-*%u00bb%u25a0> %u00abof Music, Sight Singing, and many more)Register NowTestimonials, Certificates, Diploma.FREE MUSICAPTITUDE TESTUnder New Yoyk State Approval