Left in the Center: The Liberal Party of New York and the Rise and Fall of American Social Democracy 9781501759888

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LEFT IN THE CENTER

LEFT IN THE CENTER TH E LI BER A L PA RTY O F N E W YO R K AND TH E R I SE A ND FA L L O F A M E R I C A N S O CIA L D E M O C R AC Y

Daniel Soyer

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2021 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu. First published 2021 by Cornell University Press Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Soyer, Daniel, author. Title: Left in the center : the Liberal Party of New York and the rise and fall of American social democracy / Daniel Soyer. Description: Ithaca [New York] : Cornell University Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021007650 (print) | LCCN 2021007651 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501759871 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501759888 (pdf ) | ISBN 9781501759895 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Liberal Party of New York State—History. | Liberalism—New York (State)—History—20th century. | New York (State)—Politics and government—1951– Classification: LCC JK2391.L62 S69 2021 (print) | LCC JK2391.L62 (ebook) | DDC 324.2747/08—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021007650 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc. gov/2021007651 Cover photograph (background): International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union members learning about the voting process, 1936. Courtesy of the Kheel Center, Cornell University.

Contents

I ntroduction: The Liberal Party and the Rise and Fall of Pragmatic Social Democracy1 1. Labor Politics in New York

10

2. “Fighting Liberals” at the Polls

36

3. New Deal Legacy at the Crossroads

61

4. A “Year-Round Party”

85

5. Cold War Liberalism in City, State, and Nation

112

6. Liberal Crusades and Backroom Deals

135

7. New Frontiers

160

8. Liberal Victory and Liberalism in Turmoil187 9. Wars in Vietnam and at Home

215

10. The End of the Rose Era

242

11. Not Liberal, Not a Party

270



 ostscript: The Afterlife of the Liberal P Party296 Acknowledgments  302 Notes  305 Bibliography  389 Index  405

LEFT IN THE CENTER

Introduction The Liberal Party and the Rise and Fall of Pragmatic Social Democracy

On May 19–20, 1944, 1,124 delegates and several hundred observers—­ representing unions, district clubs, and ­progressive fraternal and communal groups—packed the ballroom at the Hotel ­Roosevelt in Manhattan for the founding convention of the Liberal Party of New York State. The convention call envisioned a new world order based on “international cooperation” and a domestic policy of “economic democracy.” It attacked the Republicans as the party of reaction and “imperialistic-isolationism,” and the Democrats as the party of “viciously reactionary” southern congressmen and corrupt big-city machines. Convention speakers picked up those themes, demanding a fair distribution of wealth and positing an important postwar role for “social enterprise” alongside “private enterprise.” The convention’s emotional high point came on the second day, when the new party nominated Franklin Delano Roosevelt for a fourth term so that he could continue his fight against the Axis powers abroad and economic royalists at home.1 The history of the Liberal Party thus begins on a high note: the party’s platform reflected its social democratic ideals, the packed convention hall its mass base, and the nomination of FDR its pragmatic strategy of fusion with the major parties. Third parties have come and gone, and this exuberant founding convention could also have been forgotten as soon as the bunting had been removed from the hall. But as it turned out, the third party established then was no 1

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flash in the pan. Rather, it wielded real power for more than half a century— longer than any other in US history—helping between 1944 and 2002 to elect presidents, governors, and senators, not to mention several mayors of the nation’s largest city. The sources of both its longevity and its influence lay in its close alliance with the labor movement, especially the garment unions, and in its practical approach to politics. When the Liberal Party finally collapsed, it was because the connection with labor had been lost and the pragmatism had degenerated into cynicism. By that time, as one oft-repeated quip had it, just as the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire, the Liberal Party was neither liberal nor a party. Rather, it was a law firm with a ballot line. This story of political rise and fall thus has much to say about both the meaning and the shifting fortunes of American liberalism in the second half of the twentieth century. At the start, it suggests that post–New Deal, postwar liberalism did not surrender its social democratic character as quickly or completely as has been suggested most influentially by Alan Brinkley. A labor party drawing financial and popular support especially from the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU), the Liberal Party represented a form of ideologically charged “postcapitalist” politics. As described by the historian Howard Brick, some postcapitalists were reformist Socialists. Others were liberals who had concluded that capitalism could neither survive on its own nor provide for social justice without significant public intervention. Whether they came from liberal or Socialist backgrounds, postcapitalists called for an extensive government-run social security system, increased mechanisms for democratic economic planning, government intervention in the market not only to smooth out business cycles but also to guide the economy in socially desirable directions, public ownership of some industries, and an equitable distribution of wealth through taxation and government spending on social programs and public services. The Liberal Party and the larger current it represented thereby synthesized liberal and radical traditions. With no explicit mention of Socialism, they called more vaguely for “social justice,” “industrial” or “economic democracy,” a politics of “social responsibility,” or even a “cooperative commonwealth”—all visions that postcapitalists could share as American parallels to European-style social democracy not only in the Depression decade, but for decades thereafter.2 American social democracy was stronger in some parts of the country than others, and New York was one of its bastions. Indeed, the Liberal Party was a central pillar of what the historian Joshua Freeman and others have called an experiment in social-democracy-in-one-city that flourished especially between the 1930s and the 1970s. In its heyday, New York social democracy

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sought to provide the city’s working-class citizens with a decent standard of living through an expansion of the public and cooperative spheres, social welfare programs, and regulation of private enterprise. Features of New York’s social democratic polity included widespread public and cooperative housing projects, rent regulation, municipal hospitals and health clinics, free public education from kindergarten through college, cheap mass transit, and even cultural and arts programs.3 New York’s social democracy had national implications, informing such initiatives as the 1949 Housing Act, which its opponents feared would spread Socialistic “New York-style public housing,” in Samuel Zipp’s words, to other parts of the country.4 The labor movement, social reformers of various stripes, Communists, Popular Front liberals, major-party politicians, and even old-fashioned urban political machines helped build the social democratic polity. But historians have overlooked one element of this coalition—actual social democrats.5 Many of the Liberal Party’s leaders and activists had been members of the “right wing” of the Socialist Party, which had enjoyed some electoral success between 1914 and 1922. Tired of their political isolation, they established the Liberal Party’s predecessor, the American Labor Party (ALP), in 1936 to support the New Deal nationally and locally through an independent labor party. Given New York’s complicated political alignments, this meant backing Democrats like President Franklin Roosevelt and Governor Herbert Lehman, and Republicans like Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. While not explicitly Socialist, the ALP, and later the Liberal Party, nevertheless retained a social democratic thrust—pushing for further extensions of the New Deal, into health insurance, for example, and in general for the expansion of the public sector. Through the ALP, and later the Liberal Party, Socialists joined liberals and laborites in the social reform coalition. They were able to do so because of the phenomenon of “fusion voting,” or “cross endorsement.” Since the 1930s, a number of small parties have taken advantage of an unusual feature in state electoral law that allows candidates to run under the banner of more than one party, seeking to manipulate the larger groups by proffering or withholding their support. This provision thus allows third parties to have their political cake and eat it too—retaining their independence while exerting real influence on elections and policy. Often united around a more coherent program than the Democrats or Republicans, they have brought a European brand of ideological and coalition politics to New York. The Liberal Party inspired emulation by others of both Right and Left, including the Conservative and Working Families Parties, both of which continued to exert outsized influence well into the twenty-first century. Major-party politicians might resent the minor parties’

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influence, but doing away with them has proven difficult. Only in 2020 did Governor Andrew Cuomo, angry at the Working Families Party for its reluctance to support his reelection two years earlier, manage to slip into the state budget a provision that would make it harder for small parties to gain and maintain official ballot status. Even so, both the Working Families and Conservative Parties managed to survive the 2020 election, and the possibility for cross endorsements remains.6 In an era in which the ideological distinction between the two large American parties was not always clear, the Liberals leaned on both Democrats and Republicans. The GOP may have been the party of big business, but it also had a progressive wing. The Democratic Party was the party of New Deal liberalism, but it also had its southern white supremacists and its relatively conservative urban machines. The Liberal Party sought to leverage its support to strengthen the liberal wings of both. For decades, no Democrat could win a statewide race unless the Liberals decided not to split the progressive vote by running their own candidate. But at a time when liberal Republicans sometimes sought to outflank Democrats from the left, Democratic-Liberal fusion was not always a given. Especially in New York City, where the Liberals claimed a part of the anti-Tammany reform tradition, they frequently fused instead with reform-minded Republicans, for whom the Liberal seal of approval was essential to success in citywide races. Success depended on the ability to mobilize voters. In fact, the Liberal Party could count on thousands of union members to show up for rallies or distribute flyers, and hundreds of thousands of voters to pull its candidates’ levers on Election Day. It thus provides a model of political mobilization based on class interests for progressive ends. At the same time, as has often been the case in US politics, ethnic identity played a central animating role. With its base in the garment unions, the Liberal Party appealed especially to New York’s Jewish and Italian voters, many of whom had recently united behind La Guardia in his challenge to Irish-dominated Tammany Hall and the city’s other Democratic machines. In this way, the Liberal Party contributed to the process of ethnic succession in New York political power that took place from the 1930s to the 1960s. But the party expressed above all a Jewish political sensibility. Indeed, although in its heyday its chair was always a gentile intellectual, and it included members of other ethnic groups, the Liberal Party was perhaps the closest thing to a Jewish political party to exist in the United States. The Liberals espoused not only far-reaching social welfare programs, but also cosmopolitan internationalism, a liberal cultural orientation, and an insistence on the strict separation of church and state, stances that sometimes

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put them in conflict with Catholics in local and national politics.7 But rather than reflecting some sort of Judaic essence or modern Jewish nationalism, the Jewish liberalism the party represented was rooted in specific historical conditions of late nineteenth- and twentieth-century Eastern Europe and United States, and in the historical experiences of working-class and upwardly mobile immigrants and second-generation Americans. Historians have debated the source, nature, and staying power of Jewish liberalism, but the social democratic core of American Jewish liberalism has been largely overlooked in much of the scholarship.8 The Liberal Party thus influenced both local and national politics, and it was deeply embedded in the histories of American Jewry and the American Left and liberalism. But while many scholars have noticed its existence, few have paid it much attention.9 By contrast, the New York Conservative Party, founded in 1962 in explicit imitation of the Liberal model, is the subject of several scholarly and semischolarly books. Of course, while the Conservative Party successfully achieved its goal of pulling the Republican Party to the right, the Liberal Party disappeared, and this might be one reason why scholars have ignored it.10 Another reason for the lack of scholarly interest might be the Liberals’ decidedly unromantic and unfashionable anti-Communism. Although the party only arose in 1944, its roots were in the decades-long civil war in the American and Jewish Left sparked by the Russian Revolution. Historians have by and large favored the Communists, viewing the Communist Party and its Popular Front periphery as the historical Left’s most heroic and effective element. Conversely, influential historians have viewed anti-Communism as inherently reactionary—necessarily a spur to imperialism and militarism, and an obstacle to movements for labor empowerment and racial equality. When liberal, Socialist, or anarchist anti-Communism is considered at all, it is viewed as a surrender to conservative pressures, one that bore much of the blame for stalling the progressive agenda during the early Cold War.11 The Liberals’ premature anti-Stalinism has thus made them unattractive to historians of American radicalism. The pro-Soviet Left has therefore received much more attention than the anti-Soviet Left, even in the period when the former was becoming increasingly isolated and the latter worked more effectively to expand labor and civil rights and other progressive causes.12 This book aims to recover the history of anti-Communist American radicals and liberals. In addition to anti-Communism, historians may not have found attractive the precarious attempt to balance idealist ideological politics with pragmatic urban political horse trading. Party leaders and loyalists saw backroom

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wheeling and dealing, occasional compromises with the machine they claimed to oppose, and support for imperfect politicians as necessary levers of progressive influence. Self-consciously unromantic, their methods were unappealing to historians caught up in the romance of American Communism. But even during the party’s heyday, many progressives thought the party too compromised, opportunistic rather than pragmatic. When some party members also came to this conclusion, there were lively, even bitter, contests for the soul of the party. But the established leadership always won out. Tensions between ideology and pragmatism, idealism and compromise, are inherent in any attempt at practical progressive politics. But the Liberal Party also embodied the friction between the institutionalization of that politics and highly personalized leadership. Historical studies of twentiethcentury New York politics have generally focused on a few remarkable ­individuals—from Big Tim Sullivan to Ed Koch, with Al Smith, Fiorello La Guardia, Herbert Lehman, and Bella Abzug in between. The institution that has received the most attention is Tammany Hall, New York City’s dominant Democratic Party political machine. Once mainly reviled for its endemic corruption, Tammany has more recently been rehabilitated as an expression of small-d democratic politics and a vehicle for working-class and immigrant empowerment. Its opponents, on the other hand, have been painted as stuck-up, upper-class, Anglo-Protestant (or Anglo-Protestant wannabe) elitists.13 This book not only shifts attention from individuals to the institutions through which they worked, but highlights an alternative anti-Tammany reform tradition, one based just as much in the immigrant working class as was the Hall. But although the Liberal Party was rooted in the immigrant working class, it was a top-down affair, in which a few strong personalities played an outsized role. In fact, a handful of leaders, especially the ILGWU’s David Dubinsky and Alex Rose of the hatters’ union, exercised near complete control over its direction. In the early years, the party was something of a model labor-intellectual alliance, as a number of prominent liberal intellectuals, including the legal scholar Adolf A. Berle Jr., the housing reformer Charles Abrams, and the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, joined Dubinsky and Rose in the inner circle. That party leaders took intellectuals seriously was in itself an important difference between the Liberal Party and Tammany. But as the years wore on, the inner circle contracted and ideas seemed to matter less and less. By the mid-1960s, Rose was in almost complete control. By that time, too, favors and jobs seemed to outweigh ideological considerations in decisions regarding candidate selection. Leaders became bosses, as some

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even within the party noticed, and the difference between Tammany and the Liberals narrowed. The history of the party thus illustrates the dangers of overly personalized leadership; the institution did not survive the personalities intact. Moreover, during the 1960s, as American liberalism tore itself apart over such issues as the Vietnam War and racial conflict, the general crisis played itself out in local institutions. Many members of a party founded on Cold War anti-Communism supported the Johnson administration’s policy in Vietnam as a means of containing Soviet and Chinese aggression. Others, however, fell under the influence of the “New Politics” movement and viewed opposition to the war as a litmus test for true liberalism. Petty personal politics further magnified disputes over the war. Thus, after Dubinsky retired from the presidency of the ILGWU in 1966, the union gradually removed its cash and mass base from the party. Although differences over the Vietnam War played a role in this decision, so did the determination of Dubinsky’s successor, Louis Stulberg, to consolidate his own position by doing everything the opposite of his predecessor. Since the Liberal Party was Dubinsky’s baby, Stulberg distanced the union from it. Likewise, changing urban demographics challenged New York’s traditional brand of social democratic liberalism and undermined its base. Increasingly polarized racial politics—as manifested in conflicts over school governance and the placement of public housing—created divisions within the party and drove a wedge between it and its traditional working- and middle-class Jewish supporters. In any case, that base was shrinking as Jews moved out of New York City and up the social ladder. Moreover, the terms of politics—both Jewish and general—were changing. Many Jews who remained in the party’s former strongholds in the city’s outer boroughs turned rightward and deserted liberalism. Meanwhile, despite some desultory efforts, the party proved unable to attract a mass following among the ascendant African American and Latino populations. Finally, the New York City fiscal crisis of the mid-1970s and a national conservative trend inaugurated a period of austerity that made the Liberal Party’s tradition of social democratic liberalism appear outmoded.14 As its own brand of social democratic liberalism fell out of step with both ascendant identity liberalism and free-market, austerity neoliberalism, the party seemed to degenerate, becoming less principled and more focused on patronage. In fact, with more power and fewer people, it came to resemble a patronage club in which everyone was angling for appointed office. If the dour Rose had been the party’s undisputed boss, at least he seemed to remember its original social democratic raison d’être. After his death in 1976,

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his successor, the flamboyant Raymond Harding, made fewer bones about being a political operator. By the end, which came in 2002, the party was little more than a cynical patronage machine, more open than ever to charges of corruption. By that time, the party had outlived the social and political conditions that gave rise to it, and had failed to adapt to a new era. In 1944, speakers railed against economic royalists at a mass rally and founding convention. The party’s end is best captured by a widely circulated news image of an obese and worried Harding, the epitome of a corrupt boss caught with his hand in the till, being led in handcuffs to his arraignment for influence peddling.15 Though Harding’s 2009 arrest came seven years after the Liberals had lost their ballot line and closed their office, the party and its former leader were so closely identified that the scandal seemed a fitting coda. So what are the stakes of a history of the Liberal Party of New York? On the one hand, as the recent Democratic Socialist insurgency led by Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and others within the Democratic Party demonstrates, the issues of principle and strategy raised by the Liberal Party are not dead. The party’s history illuminates the ways in which the ghost of American Socialism has long animated certain corners of American liberalism. Moreover, it rescues anti-Communist liberalism and social democracy from undeserved association with right-wing reaction, and the Left from unnecessary association with foreign tyrannies. With its base in the immigrant and second-generation Jewish (and secondarily Italian) working and middle classes, the Liberal Party illustrates the ethnic component of American political movements, just as it represents a model of a successful political mobilization of organized labor in alliance with radical-liberal intellectuals. On the other hand, the history of the Liberal Party also provides a cautionary tale for political movements of all stripes. The party ultimately failed to maintain a balance between idealism and pragmatism. Its practice of trading support for jobs and influence, combined with the exclusivity of its inner circle, eventually transformed it into the kind of political organization it professed to oppose. Finally, its success depended not only on the continued vitality of a particular base, but also on the perceived viability of its brand of liberalism. When both of these conditions disappeared, the party lost not only its influence but also its direction. A statewide party, regulated by New York State election law, the Liberal Party’s permanent spot on the ballot in elections throughout the state was determined by the vote total for its gubernatorial candidate every four years. Nevertheless, most of its support came from New York City, and that is where it

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was most active. Accordingly, this book pays attention to statewide elections and developments but focuses mainly on the party’s role in New York City. Liberalism was national in scope and much broader than a single party. So it is hard to avoid confusion in referring to those liberals who were members of the Liberal Party and those who were not. Here, when the word “Liberal” is capitalized, it refers to the party and its members. When the word is not capitalized, it refers to those who were not in the party, or to the broader movement of which the party was just one section.

Ch a p ter 1

Labor Politics in New York

In 1886, Henry George, the radical social philosopher and advocate of a “single tax” on land, ran for mayor of New York at the head of the Union Labor Party. Advocating higher pay, shorter hours, and better conditions for workers; public ownership of utilities and mass transit; and the right to strike and organize, the George campaign assembled a varied and enthusiastic coalition of trade unionists, Irish nationalists, middle-class social reformers, German Socialists, and the dissident Roman Catholic priest Father Edward McGlynn. Radicals in the still-small East European Jewish immigrant community eagerly enlisted in the campaign as well, willing for the moment to put aside Socialist doctrinal purity in favor of a broad appeal for social justice. The spirited campaign gave voice to the city’s working class and frightened its bourgeoisie. In the end, George won just short of a third of the vote and came in second, ahead of the Republican candidate, Theodore Roosevelt. Radicals were encouraged by the results. But before they could build on them, the coalition fell apart and, riven by factionalism, the movement faded. In the memory of many New York Socialists, however, the 1886 Henry George campaign remained an exciting memory of a first hurrah.1 Indeed, the prehistory of the Liberal Party and its predecessor, the American Labor Party, can be seen as a long struggle to reconstruct the broad coalition for radical social reform that had powered the George campaign. For a short while, it seemed like the Socialist Party could by itself serve as a viable 10

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vehicle for effective independent labor politics. But when that prospect faded in the early 1920s, many Socialists searched for a way to insert themselves into the political mainstream while remaining independent of the major parties. At the same time, a cohort of progressive Democratic and Republican politicians emerged to make it increasingly difficult for radicals to pretend that it made no difference which “capitalist” candidate was elected. By the mid-1930s, four political streams gradually came to intersect in New York politics to make possible the reconstruction of the George coalition: reformist Socialists, the farmer-labor movement, radical social liberals, and progressive members of the dominant political machine. The new politics found a base of support especially in the working-class new-immigrant communities of East European Jews and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Italians. Beginning in 1936, New York’s moderate Socialists, as well as its independent laborites and social reformers, finally found an effective means to reinsert themselves squarely into the political mainstream—establishing the American Labor Party. Over the next eight years, the ALP became an essential partner in the complex local New Deal coalition that ranged at times from liberal Republicans to Communists, demonstrating in the process that a powerful constituency existed for its brand of practical social democratic politics. At the same time, however, the civil war between Communists and anti-Communist social democrats that had embroiled the Left in the 1920s had never been settled, and when the two sides found themselves uncomfortably together in the ALP, their battles took the form of a struggle for control. The internal war, though waged in primaries for local public and party office, often centered on international issues, especially those of special interest to the New York Left’s core Jewish constituency. By 1944, the conflict led to a split and the founding of the Liberal Party.

Immigrants, Socialists, and Reformers Between 1870 and 1914, mass migration from Eastern Europe made New York’s Jews the largest single ethnic community in the city, and not surprisingly they left their mark on its culture, economics, and politics. Settling first on the Lower East Side, they soon branched out to neighborhoods in Brooklyn, upper Manhattan, and the Bronx. For decades, they constituted a majority of workers—and employers—in the garment industry, New York’s largest manufacturing sector. They were politically divided, but the most characteristically Jewish contribution to New York’s politics was a strong strain of Socialism. By 1910, a “Jewish labor movement” emerged that included not only unions and the Socialist Party, but newspapers, fraternal organizations,

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and even theatrical troupes. This interlocking Jewish Socialist and labor milieu was a visible and influential presence in the Jewish districts.2 Italians, overwhelmingly from Sicily and the south of Italy, also came to New York in great numbers at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. By 1930, there were just over a million Italians and Italian Americans in various neighborhoods throughout the city. Coming at the same time as the East European Jews, many Italians, especially women, also found their way into the burgeoning garment industry, and by the mid1920s, Italians made up a majority of its workers. The Italian community also gave rise to a significant radical subculture, with its own newspapers, orchestras, choral groups, theaters, libraries, and schools.3 Jews and Italians together built the radical unions in the needle trades. The most important unions to emerge by the second decade of the twentieth century were the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU), an American Federation of Labor affiliate founded in 1900, and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA), a militant independent union founded in 1914. Both the ILGWU and the ACWA, as well as smaller unions such as the Cloth Hat, Cap and Millinery Workers International Union, were led primarily by immigrant Jews. Though relations between Jews and Italians within the unions could sometimes be tense, Italian workers achieved some autonomy with the founding of two Italian-language ILGWU locals: Local 48 for cloakmakers in 1916, and Local 89 for dressmakers in 1919. Not only did the locals offer their members a way to participate in the union in their own language, but they formed bases of power for leaders such as Luigi Antonini, who later played an important role in the American Labor and Liberal Parties.4 The ILGWU was most closely tied to the Socialist Party, but all three unions proclaimed a belief in independent labor political action for a transition to a cooperative commonwealth. With the support of the unions, the Socialist Party started to achieve some electoral success in the city in 1914. According to the historian David Shannon, the New York Socialists “put great emphasis on political action, on getting votes,” in an effort consistent with an “evolutionist” approach to Socialism.5 Over the next seven years or so, Socialists had substantial success, especially in Jewish immigrant districts, electing a congressman, a municipal judge, a state senator, and a number of state assemblymen and city aldermen. New York Socialists never governed the city, but in thinking about what it meant to legislate and serve constituents they were forced to consider the nuts and bolts of municipal and state policy. High points in the Socialist electoral surge included the election in 1914 of the popular labor lawyer Meyer London to Congress from the Lower

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East Side, and the attorney Morris Hillquit’s dramatic run for mayor in 1917. In Congress, London introduced bills to create a system of social security including unemployment, disability, and health insurance, and he successfully sponsored a bill that would make bankrupt employers responsible for some of the wages they owed their workers.6 What the journalist and historian Melech Epstein noted was often called Hillquit’s “peace and milk” campaign focused mainly on opposition to US involvement in World War I, but, as Hillquit himself put it, he also put forward the “usual Socialist platform of municipal reform,” stressing the “high cost of food” and calling for public ownership of transit lines, free meals for schoolchildren, municipal nurseries, and health care. The Socialist didn’t win, but he finished with over 20 percent of the vote in third place, just behind the unpopular incumbent.7 Hillquit’s remarkable campaign carried ten Socialists into the state legislature, where they acted as a disciplined caucus for what they called “constructive Socialist legislation” and against legislation “hostile to the interests of the people.” Of course, the Socialist assemblymen were for the abolition of capitalism, but in the meantime, they reported, their “daily question” was this: “Is this for the benefit of the workers? If it is we are for it. If it is not, we are against it.” Only one Socialist-sponsored bill passed—enabling workers who had recovered wages in court to collect them more easily. But other bills that were “for the benefit of the workers”—mostly involving improvement of working conditions—did pass, introduced by members of other parties and supported by the Socialists. If nothing else, the Socialists acted as a goodgovernment caucus, exposing the inefficiencies, inequities, laziness, and cronyism of the legislature. They were proud of the kudos they received from such bourgeois reform groups as the Citizens Union.8 The seven Socialist New York City aldermen had a similar program, though they were hampered by the unfortunate fact that the New York City Board of Aldermen did very little of substance.9 The Socialist elected officials were not all Jews, but they were all elected from Jewish districts in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. There were, of course, other reformers besides the Socialists. An elite good-government tradition that stretched back to the middle of the nineteenth century culminated in the administrations of Mayors Seth Low (1902– 3) and John Purroy Mitchel (1914–17). These good-government campaigners fought Tammany Hall, the dominant Democratic machine, and sought to promote honest and efficient municipal governance. But their elite orientation often led them to antidemocratic views and social conservatism, and they sought to redirect power from the immigrant working class to wealthy businessmen and allied technical experts. Their “Fusion” campaigns could

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occasionally succeed by taking advantage of egregious Tammany scandals and bringing the Republican Party together with dissident Democrats and representatives of ethnic communities who felt they were not getting their fair share of the spoils. But once in office, Low and Mitchel adopted conservative policies, often tinged with Protestant moralism (though Mitchel was a Catholic), that alienated their working-class and immigrant supporters. Reform administrations in New York City generally lasted one term.10 Other progressives, on the other hand, sought to combine political reform with social reform. One progressive politician who shared those interests was Fiorello La Guardia, who over the years frequently crossed paths with New York Socialists and radical unionists. Though his disgust with Tammany led him to join the Republican Party, La Guardia had many friends among the left-wing Italian immigrant intelligentsia and played an active role as a union attorney and organizer. La Guardia was no Socialist. But even as he ardently supported the US war effort during World War I as a member of Congress and officer in the Army Air Corps, La Guardia defended civil liberties, opposed the Espionage Act, and criticized the exclusion in 1920 of elected Socialists from the New York State legislature. Unafraid of associations outside the political mainstream, La Guardia later recalled, “I had many friends in the Socialist Party.” Thus, though they encountered each other sometimes as allies and sometimes as antagonists, La Guardia’s progressivism made it increasingly difficult for the radicals to dismiss mainstream politicians out of hand.11 Some progressive politicians even rose from Tammany Hall itself. Chief among these were Al Smith and Robert Wagner, who as Democratic leaders of the state assembly and senate, respectively, chaired the official Factory Investigating Commission after the deadly Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of March 1911. The commission crisscrossed the state taking testimony and researching industrial conditions. Its recommendations led to the passage of a slew of laws more strictly regulating working hours, wages, and conditions. Social reformers such as Frances Perkins and the radical labor activists Rose Schneiderman, Clara Lemlich, and Pauline Newman all took staff positions for the commission, guiding Wagner and Smith through the state’s industrial netherworlds. Just as the reformers gave Smith a seminar in industrial relations, he educated them in effective political infighting.12

Socialists in the Political Wilderness After 1920, the electoral fortunes of the Socialist Party in New York declined and Socialists entered the political wilderness. A number of factors led to the

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Socialist electoral fall: voter intimidation and ballot fraud, gerrymandering, Democratic-Republican fusion campaigns, and outright repression. The split between Socialists and Communists, which soon erupted into a full-fledged civil war on the Left and in the unions, did not siphon off many votes, but it did sap energy from a movement now engaged even more than before in bitter internecine battles. Finally, the compact working-class immigrant Jewish neighborhoods were beginning to thin out as Jews moved up socially and out to new areas around the boroughs. The Socialists remained active and, especially in Jewish communities, retained a large following and some influence. But they were continually and increasingly frustrated in their efforts to break into the political mainstream.13 Since the predominantly Jewish and Italian unions in the garment trades formed the most important base for independent labor political action, the tumultuous state of those unions in the 1920s handicapped such efforts. The most serious wounds were inflicted on the ILGWU by an internal “civil war” between the Communist-led “Left” and the mainly Socialist administration. The culmination of the civil war came in 1926, when the Communist-dominated New York Joint Board led a general strike of cloakmakers that dragged on for six months as the indigenous left-wing leaders were ordered by Communist Party functionaries to reject a favorable settlement. The cloakmakers eventually returned to work having won little beyond what had been offered in the first place. The disastrous strike all but wrecked the union, leaving it with millions of dollars in debt.14 The civil war in the ILGWU had lasting effects. For one thing, the leadership retained its bitter anti-Communism and, though it tolerated a wide range of political orientations in the union, it tended to see Communists behind every internal challenge. The struggle also furthered the rise of David Dubinsky, one of the most fervent anti-Communists, to the top of the ILGWU hierarchy. Short and stocky, gregarious and moody, shrewd and idealistic, opportunistic and practical, the Brisk-born and Lodz-raised Dubinsky had arrived in the United States in 1911 at the age of nineteen. Through personal connections he managed to get admission to Local 10, the union of the highly skilled and relatively well-paid garment cutters. A veteran of the underground Jewish Labor Bund who had been arrested for revolutionary activities in Russian Poland, Dubinsky also joined the Socialist Party. Throughout his career, he retained sentimental ties to the Bund and remained close to the leading Socialist Yiddish daily, the Forward, and Jewish Socialist circles. But his main efforts went into the union. By 1920 he was president of Local 10, by 1929 he was secretary-treasurer of the International, and in 1932 he ascended to the union presidency.15 As

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president for over three decades, Dubinsky led the ILGWU to the height of its power and influence. The ACWA did not suffer nearly as much as the ILGWU from the civil wars of the 1920s. In fact, for the ACWA the decade was one of institutional consolidation and growth, in which it pioneered what came to be called the “New Unionism,” according to which the union took responsibility not only for the needs of the workers, even outside the shop, but also for organizing the industry as a whole. Partly because the ACWA administration allied itself for a time with the Communists, factional battles were not as acute. The ACWA’s president and dominant personality was Sidney Hillman. Although Hillman, too, had been a Bundist in his youth, he was otherwise very different from Dubinsky politically and temperamentally. Born in Zagare, Lithuania, Hillman was, as his biographer Steve Fraser describes him, “neat, trim, quiet, consummately self-possessed, reserved, and taut with concentrated energy.” A former yeshiva student from a rabbinical family, he had an intellectual mien, though some biographers have seen him as a more limited “half-intellectual.” After arriving in Chicago in 1907, he went to work as a cutter’s assistant in the men’s clothing industry. Prominent in the militant workers’ insurgency that led to the founding of the ACWA, Hillman was a believer in independent labor political action. But he nevertheless quickly left dogmatic Socialism behind, turning instead to the American Progressivism of Jane Addams. Moreover, unlike Dubinsky, Hillman moved away from Jewish concerns and affiliations, and sometimes allied with the Communists and the Soviet Union. Hillman thus came into conflict early on with the Forward and was, as Melech Epstein put it, “practically a stranger to 175 East Broadway,” the Forward Building and center of the Jewish labor movement in New York.16 Another, much smaller union, whose leaders nevertheless played an important role in the development of labor politics in New York, was that of the hatmakers, whose longtime president was Max Zaritsky. Born in Pietrikov, Belarus, Zaritsky was, like Hillman, a former yeshiva student and retained a scholarly air even after immigrating to the United States and going to work as a hat blocker. A Labor Zionist by conviction, Zaritsky believed in independent labor political action, and his union generally endorsed Socialist candidates. During the 1920s, Zaritsky drove the Communists out of the union in a protracted battle with the help of his fellow Labor Zionist Alex Rose, secretary-treasurer of the milliners’ Local 24. He also helped to prompt the Seabury investigations of corruption in New York politics with his complaint to Governor Franklin Roosevelt concerning gangsterism in the garment industry.17

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Apart from the Socialist Party, some American Federation of Labor (AFL) trade unionists abandoned the federation’s traditional nonpartisan political stance to advocate an independent labor party. The New York branch of the national Farmer-Labor movement, known as the American Labor Party, was organized in January 1919 with the support of many trade union bodies. The new Labor Party adopted a platform that called for the “democratic control of industry and commerce by those who work with the hand and brain, and the elimination of autocratic domination of the forces of production, whether by selfish, private interests, or bureaucratic agents of the government.” This translated into practical demands for better regulation of hours, working conditions, and pay; guarantees of full employment and the right to organize; social security; progressive taxation; free higher education; equal pay for equal work regardless of sex; and public ownership of utilities and natural resources. But the American Labor Party had a tough time gaining traction. In 1919, the ALP failed to get its candidates on the ballot. Under pressure from AFL president Samuel Gompers, the New York City Central Trades and Labor Council dropped its support for the party. In 1920, its results were disappointing: the Farmer-Labor presidential candidate Farley Christensen received less than 1 percent of the vote statewide, compared to 7 percent for the Socialist Eugene Debs.18 At first, the Socialist Party saw the Labor Party as a rival on the left and refused to cooperate. But with the Socialist Party losing ground in the early 1920s, it began to reassess its attitude toward the ALP. Inspired by the rise of the British Labour Party and hoping to establish closer ties to the trade unions, the party now reversed itself and sought affiliation, as long as the Socialists could affiliate with a new labor party as a group, as in Britain, and as long as the new party did not endorse candidates of the two old parties. This remained the essential Socialist position on a labor party through the 1930s.19 For a moment, Robert La Follette’s 1924 Progressive campaign for president seemed to be just such a national labor party in the making. The campaign originated in the Conference on Progressive Political Action (CPPA), a coalition called together at the end of 1922 by the railroad brotherhoods and the machinists’ union, and included the Socialist and Farmer-Labor Parties, the farmers’ Non-Partisan League, and the Committee of 48, a group of veteran social reformers who had the franchise on the Progressive Party name. The CPPA adopted a program that offered a little bit to everybody, but the question of forming a new permanent political party vexed the coalition from the beginning—the Socialists and old Progressives were eager to do so, while the unions held back.

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In the meantime, however, all were ready to pursue an independent campaign with a national ticket headed by Wisconsin senator “Fightin’ Bob” La Follette. In many ways, the campaign was a success: La Follette garnered almost five million votes, nearly 17 percent of the total. But the divisions concerning the nature of the effort continued throughout the campaign. La Follette himself insisted he was running as an independent, rather than as the leader of a new party. And although the Socialist Party, feeling that this was a unique opportunity to break out of its isolation, swallowed its qualms and campaigned enthusiastically, the AFL and many of the unions endorsed the ticket only reluctantly and made it clear they saw it as a one-off deal.20 In New York, Socialists, laborites, and Progressives cooperated uneasily. At the same time, New York Socialists continued their on-again-off-again flirtation with Congressman La Guardia, who as a supporter of La Follette now ran for reelection on the Socialist ticket. Throughout the campaign, La Guardia and his supporters worked closely with the Socialists, the congressman was reelected, and although the Socialists were disappointed when he returned to the Republican fold, the coalition partners remained in cordial contact after the election.21 Moreover, according to Nathan Fine, La Follette made a “clean sweep” of Jewish districts that “had once been . . . socialist stronghold[s].”22 But reactions to the results followed the same pattern of division between radicals and labor, and quickly led to the demise of the movement. The Socialists were initially encouraged and hoped the campaign would lead to a permanent labor party. The trade union leaders, on the other hand, were disappointed by the results and saw them as a good reason to pull out of the CPPA entirely. By the time of the follow-up conference in February 1925, it was clear that neither the unions nor the radical farmers’ groups would help found a farmer-labor party, and without them, even the Socialists concluded that there was no point in continuing. In the end, the Socialists felt they had emerged weaker, having subsumed their identity in the effort and gotten little in return.23 As third-party dramas played out, the Democratic Party under Al Smith began to take on a progressive cast. As governor, Smith continued to work for progressive social and structural reform, maintaining cordial behind-thescenes relations with the radical labor movement. With advice from two of his top advisers, the reformers Belle Moskowitz and Frances Perkins, Smith continued to support legislation to expand the social welfare state, establish public control over natural resources, and regulate industrial conditions. More than once, Smith intervened in threatened garment industry strikes on terms favorable to the union. By the time of Smith’s ill-fated try

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for the presidency in 1928, Socialist trade unionists were thus in a quandary. Officially, the Socialist Party denied that Smith’s platform had anything to do with Socialism, and excoriated the Democrat as a mere “shirtfront” for Tammany corruption. But some Socialists weren’t so sure. As for Dubinsky, despite his Socialist affiliation, his primary loyalty was to his union, and so, as he later recalled, “When I was asked to make speeches for Norman Thomas in 1928, I told the Socialists that I couldn’t do it, because I really believed it would be better if Smith got elected.” In the end he abstained from voting at all. In the absence of a strong Socialist or labor party, radical labor leaders were thus forced to reject doctrinal purity to make practical distinctions among “capitalist” politicians.24 Smith’s two Democratic successors as governor continued his progressive, pro-labor policies. Like Smith, Franklin Delano Roosevelt intervened in garment and other industrial disputes in ways favorable to labor. At the beginning of the Great Depression, he supported, though somewhat inconsistently, an extension of social security measures. FDR, too, was educated in the problems of working people by Rose Schneiderman, whom he appointed to the state prison labor commission.25 But it was Herbert Lehman—financier, Jewish communal activist, ­lieutenant governor under Roosevelt, and then his successor as governor— who established the closest ties to the needle trades unions. When Smith and Roosevelt took an interest in the garment industry, Lehman often served as their point man. In 1924, Smith named Lehman to a committee that mediated a threatened strike and then worked to stabilize the notoriously chaotic industry and maintain union conditions. He chaired a similar commission in 1929 at the behest of Roosevelt. In 1931, he helped broker the first collective bargaining agreement in the millinery trade, where the following year he helped root out racketeers at the request of the union. Using his personal wealth, Lehman financed an ACWA cooperative housing project, and provided a loan of $25,000 to the ILGWU to save it from insolvency after the disastrous 1926 cloak strike. Through this work, Lehman established good working relationships with Dubinsky, Hillman, and Zaritsky, winning their lasting gratitude.26

Municipal Reform and the New Deal Meanwhile, though the Socialists failed to form the kernel of a broad-based labor party, their campaigns began to attract the support of some good-­ government reformers. In 1929, the mayoral candidate Norman Thomas even received the endorsement of the city’s premier good-government group,

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the Citizens Union.27 In articulating their program, the Socialists began to develop an interest and expertise in the nuts and bolts of municipal policy.28 One important expression of this new Socialist interest in civic reform was the City Affairs Committee (CAC), which brought Socialists together with prominent liberal reformers. The CAC served as a vehicle for Socialist influence in mainstream politics even when the Socialists could not elect candidates of their own. Indeed, it played a role in prompting the famous Seabury investigations of municipal corruption and ousting Mayor James Walker in 1932.29 With their ties to prominent politicians, New York’s non-Communist radical labor leaders and Socialists thus found themselves on the margins of New York’s political mainstream. When Morris Hillquit again ran for mayor, in the special election in 1932, his program once more combined good government with radical social reform. But while the Socialists proposed a detailed set of municipal policies, it wasn’t always clear who they thought would implement them. Their demands for such things as public housing, improvements in relief programs, and a “unified and publicly owned” mass transit system added up to a “new point of view in government,” according to the Socialist former assemblyman William Feigenbaum—“a point of view that can be described as social responsibility.” But “social responsibility” was hardly Socialist revolution, and Feigenbaum recognized that more mainstream politicians might, under pressure, enact at least part of the program. Even a 10 percent vote for the Socialists, he wrote, would push the politicians toward this program. In subsequent years, such an argument left some Socialists open to coalitions with those, such as La Guardia, who articulated a similar vision for the city.30 Hillquit was not elected mayor in 1932, but Franklin Roosevelt was elected president. The advent of the New Deal the following year sharpened the dilemma faced by New York’s practical Socialists and radical trade unionists. They had an especially difficult time sorting out their feelings (almost more than their thoughts) about the National Recovery Administration (NRA). The cornerstone of the early New Deal program, the NRA called for industry-wide cartels that would set “codes” to regulate competition, prices, wages, and conditions in each industry. Many Socialists regarded the NRA as the kernel of a new form of “state capitalism” that might even lead to what the Socialist New Leader called a “monstrous feudalism of capitalist power” or fascism. But since the NRA also seemed to open up new possibilities for the organization of workers in unions and to give them a seat at the table where decisions about their industries would be made, labor leaders like Dubinsky and Hillman became enthusiastic supporters of the NRA

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and, by extension, the New Deal. Some “right-wing” Socialists even began to argue that the NRA promoted cooperation, rational economic planning, and democratic control of industry under government direction—the antithesis of cutthroat capitalism.31 Indeed, some moderate Socialists were already toying with support for the New Deal. In one famous incident at a union rally in October 1933, Abraham Cahan, powerful editor of the Forward, praised the New Deal as a manifestation of the Socialist program and invited Roosevelt to join the party. Following Cahan’s lead, the leading Yiddish and Socialist newspaper began tentatively to regard Roosevelt as a friend of labor in thrall to capitalism and reactionary forces in his own party. On the one hand, the Forward believed, Roosevelt’s immediate reforms “opened the way for true Socialist reforms in the future” and demonstrated that the US was “turning its back to individualist capitalism” and that Socialism was no longer a dirty word. On the other hand, as long as Roosevelt remained within the framework of a bourgeois party, his reforms would have only limited and temporary effect.32 One might have inferred from these arguments the need for a labor party, loosely allied with Roosevelt but independent enough to pressure him from the left. And, indeed, the success of what the Forward called “semi-Left” campaigns within and outside the major parties in the 1934 elections gave hope that an independent labor party might yet arise on the national level.33 In 1935, the New Deal did turn left and incorporate many of the Socialists’ demands. The Forward enthusiastically greeted the passage of the Social Security Act and the National Labor Relations Act, and FDR’s proposal for a sharply progressive estate tax. Indeed, with FDR enacting much of the Socialists’ traditional “immediate” program, Roosevelt was simply the leading exemplar of what the Forward perceived as a general convergence of liberal and Socialist thought. Between 1933 and 1936, the newspaper periodically pointed to admissions by leading liberals and progressives that “the present capitalist system is bankrupt and must be changed.” Support by Catholic bishops, cabinet secretaries, major-party politicians, AFL leaders, and liberal intellectuals for government regulation and planning vindicated views that the Socialists had long advocated and proved that although the Socialist Party was weak, Socialist ideas had permeated American society and politics. Within the administration itself, Left battled Right, with the Left seeking to promote “greater social justice” by making the New Deal permanent and pushing for further reform of the economic system.34 The process noted by the Forward has been described in retrospect by the historian Howard Brick as a “fusion of liberal and social democratic dispositions” into a “post-capitalist perspective” among some prominent American

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intellectuals. Postcapitalism carried both descriptive and prescriptive connotations. Its adherents believed that classical capitalism, characterized by inviolable private property and the free market, had become obsolete, even that it had already ceased to exist—an observation lent credibility by the general economic collapse of the Great Depression. What would replace the old system was not yet clear—it could be Italian- or German-style fascism or Soviet-style Communism—but postcapitalists retained an allegiance to liberal democracy, and hoped for a social state that would promote an egalitarian society within a liberal democratic framework.35 Two influential postcapitalist intellectuals who later played active roles in the Liberal Party were Adolf A. Berle Jr. and Charles Abrams. As a professor at Columbia Law School, Berle achieved notoriety when he teamed up with the economist Gardner Means to study the emerging corporate structure of American capitalism. Berle and Means posited a growing separation of ownership from control, and a steady concentration of power and wealth into the hands of an oligarchy of corporate managers. They argued that these oligarchs rigged the system to give themselves the advantage over ordinary people, and that only government intervention could stave off the emerging “industrial feudalism,” restore popular control, defend the public interest, and provide a modicum of security to most citizens. The Modern Corporation and Private Property (1932) received rave reviews in the liberal press and won Berle comparisons with Adam Smith and Karl Marx as an economic theorist. Turning from theory to political activity as an original member of FDR’s “brain trust,” Berle advocated more government planning and regulation, without which, he believed, the economy was “headed for a smashup.” After the election, Berle played an eclectic role as adviser to various agencies, drafter of legislation, and ideological advocate for a strong New Deal. 36 Abrams similarly espoused a postcapitalist viewpoint, and like Berle became deeply involved in local politics in the 1930s, especially around the issues of housing and racial discrimination. A Greenwich Village bohemian and successful corporate attorney and real estate speculator, the Vilnaborn Abrams devoted much of his time to civic affairs. Like Berle, Abrams believed that corporate forms of power and wealth were in the process of superseding personal forms, and he particularly lamented the “subordination” of urban development “to the market.” As a democratic counterweight to private power, he advocated state planning for healthy, egalitarian cities, and public housing to ensure an adequate supply of quality affordable housing. Abrams drafted the law that called the New York City Housing Authority into being, and he served as the authority’s counsel from 1934 to 1937.

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At the same time, he criticized New Deal housing programs for subsidizing private gain and socializing losses.37 Meanwhile, the ascension of Fiorello La Guardia to the mayoralty in 1933 made it impossible to regard the Democratic Party as the unambiguous political vehicle of the New Deal in New York. In 1933, La Guardia was still a nominal Republican, but in the lame-duck Congress in the opening days of Roosevelt’s presidency he had been an outspoken friend of the president’s program. Because sections of the Democratic Party, in particular Tammany Hall, failed to back the president wholeheartedly, New York’s New Deal coalition intersected the two major parties. It also included numerous independents, and eventually Socialists and Communists.38 At the same time, La Guardia captured the lion’s share of reform and progressive support in 1933, partly through the maneuvering of Berle, who after the election became city chamberlain and served as liaison between the city and national administrations.39 Some Socialists, including much of the staff of the City Affairs C ­ ommittee, began meanwhile to defect to the La Guardia camp. Moreover, La Guardia sometimes turned to Socialists to fill important positions in his administration. CAC director Paul Blanshard became commissioner of accounts (later, investigations), a kind of powerful inspector general, who with the mayor’s backing worked to root out corruption and waste throughout the city government. Other Socialists tapped by La Guardia included the former alderman Baruch Charney Vladeck to the new housing authority; former judge Jacob Panken as justice of the domestic relations court; and the attorney S. John Block to the city charter revision commission. The mayor even named Charles Solomon, his Socialist opponent in the 1933 mayoral race, to the magistrates’ court. Radicals did not always agree with the mayor—as when he instituted early austerity measures or turned to a sales tax to raise revenue. But it was hard to ignore his progressive leanings. Above all, La Guardia seemed to embody Feigenbaum’s call for a “new point of view” of “social responsibility” in government.40 Ironically, even as Socialist ideas seemed to gain credence in wider circles than ever before, the right wing of the party, known as the Old Guard, increasingly suspected that the Socialist Party itself was becoming an obsolete political liability. (Cahan referred to the party as a “second mortgage.”) Bitter factional battles fueled this suspicion, as the party’s Left gained control. The party finally split following its convention in May 1936, most of the Old Guard leaving to form the Social Democratic Federation (SDF). Not exactly a party, the SDF still hoped to provide the nucleus for a broad-based labor party. In New York State, the SDF went ahead and formed the People’s

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Party to contest elections. Significantly, the Right took most of the New York Socialist infrastructure, including the Forward, with it. The ILGWU left the party orbit too, with Dubinsky resigning from the party in April, even before the convention.41 The SDF remained ambivalent about Roosevelt and the New Deal, but some elements of the Socialist Right were already becoming enthusiastic supporters. The Forward, in particular, perceived the emergence of two sharply antagonistic camps vying for control of the government. The progressive/ liberal/Socialist/working-class camp valued democracy, equality, and social solidarity. The opposing conservative camp held capitalist values: individualism, competition, and inequality. As the 1936 elections approached, Socialists had no choice but to take their place in the progressive camp. But if FDR was the leader of the progressive bloc, the Democratic Party, dominated by white supremacists, big-city machines, and old-line conservatives, was not part of that camp. Thus, the Forward sought to distinguish sharply between Roosevelt and the Democratic Party. The newspaper may have exaggerated Roosevelt’s differences with his party, but its rhetoric stemmed from a deeply held conviction in the necessity of independent labor political action. The Old Guard Socialists aimed not only to reelect President Roosevelt and Governor Lehman in 1936, but to consolidate and extend the New Deal with greater social reforms. The Democratic Party could not be a vehicle for radical reform, so a new party was needed.42

The American Labor Party It was probably hatters’ union president Max Zaritsky who came up with the idea to create an independent party out of the New York branch of the Congress of Industrial Organizations’ (CIO’s) Labor’s Non-Partisan League to back Roosevelt and Lehman in the upcoming elections. He suggested it to Sidney Hillman and David Dubinsky on the train as the three were returning to New York after a meeting in Washington, DC. With Roosevelt worried about his prospects for reelection and eager to shore up his left flank, Hillman was able to secure his approval. As Dubinsky recalled, a small group of labor leaders and Socialists “known to be sympathetic to Roosevelt” accordingly met at the Brevoort Hotel to discuss the plan. In addition to Dubinsky, those present included Antonini and Isidore Nagler of the ILGWU, Hillman and Louis Hollander of the ACWA, Zaritsky of the hatters, Vladeck and Alexander Kahn of the Forward, and Louis Waldman of the SDF. Nagler came up with the name for the new party, perhaps recalling the old American Labor Party that had existed in New York in the early 1920s. After negotiations, the

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SDF and some labor leaders outside of the Jewish garment unions also came on board.43 The plan took advantage of an unusual feature in New York election law that allowed candidates to run under the banner of more than one party. The votes that a candidate received on multiple ballot lines would be combined to give the candidate his total vote. This made it possible for radical supporters of the New Deal to support the president, the governor, and the mayor without joining either of the major parties. Moreover, a winning candidate could not help but be aware of exactly how many votes his left-labor supporters had delivered, thus giving them leverage in pressing their demands.44 Using this sort of political fusion strategy, the American Labor Party played an influential role in New York’s complicated New Deal coalition. Democratic bosses such as state chairman James Farley and Bronx county leader Ed Flynn were understandably wary of the idea for a new labor party, which threatened to dilute their own claim on the New Deal franchise and to unleash a new and potentially uncontrollable political force. But under Roosevelt’s orders, they had no choice but to go along. In order to get on the ballot, the ALP had to collect a certain number of signatures, including a minimum from each county in the state. This was a daunting task for a fledgling party dependent on labor unions whose presence was concentrated in a few cities. But with the reluctant aid of the Democrats, and the help of the railroad brotherhoods, it was accomplished.45 In the meantime, the ALP established a structure and adopted a program. While the flamboyant Antonini, manager of the powerful Local 89, ILGWU, became the party’s state chairman and chief “platform man,” the hatters’ Alex Rose became its chief strategist as party secretary.46 As the union historian Donald Robinson put it, Rose was a “tall, sparse, bespectacled man” who looked “more like a college professor than a union leader.” Another journalist thought he looked like a “benevolent hawk.” He had been born in Warsaw in 1898 to the family of a prosperous tanner and come to the United States in 1913 in the hope of attending medical school. When war broke out and aid from his father ceased, the young Rose went to work in a millinery shop and joined the union. On his way back from World War I service in the Jewish Legion, Rose stopped in England, where, he later recalled, he was impressed with the relatively pragmatic and nondogmatic British Labour Party. Renewing his activity in the union, he led the struggle to oust the Communists from the leadership of Local 24. Elected the local’s secretary-treasurer in 1923, he also stared down gangsters, once receiving a death threat from Legs Diamond himself. In 1934, he helped Zaritsky engineer the merger of the two rival hatmakers’ unions.47

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By the mid-1930s, Rose was thus known as an “implacable anti-Communist” who nevertheless believed in independent labor political action. He soon also gained renown as a strategic genius. This reputation followed him for the rest of his life, and even beyond, among those who thought he “brought practicality to the politics of idealism.” His detractors, on the other hand, believed that he took practicality to the point of cynicism, and viewed him as the ALP’s “Farley” (not a compliment among reform-minded observers). La Guardia regarded him as a “Tammany Hallnik” at heart. But no one disagreed with Dubinsky’s assessment that “Alex was a born political strategist. In the most difficult situations, he knew how to play the party’s cards to maximum advantage, even when the cards added up to a bust.” Starting out in the 1930s as the ALP’s chief strategist, by the mid-1960s, Rose was the Liberal Party’s undisputed boss.48 Though resolutely nonideological and without a transcendent vision for the transformation of society, the ALP’s declaration of principles and program nevertheless reflected a social democratic outlook and included many of the specific proposals espoused in previous campaigns by the Socialist Party, as well as by good-government and social reformers. Calling for the defense and expansion of the New Deal, the party’s declaration of principles picked up on Roosevelt’s critique of “economic royalists.” It posited a conflict between “two camps,” with Roosevelt as the leader of the “people’s camp” against that of the “Tories . . . reactionaries . . . exploiters.”49 The immediate task for the American Labor Party was to help reelect Roosevelt and Lehman. Using the slogan “Don’t be a SCAB at the Ballot Box,” affiliated unions did most of the work of mobilizing voters. Prominent liberals and reformers called for a vote for FDR on the ALP line, as did important members of the La Guardia administration and finally the mayor himself. Rallies took place in various parts of the city, culminating in a monster rally at Madison Square Garden, where the crowds inside and outside, variously estimated between thirty thousand and two hundred thousand, listened to speeches by party leaders and liberal politicians.50 Speaking for many Old Guard Socialists and to its immigrant Jewish constituency, the Forward enthusiastically backed the ALP campaign. The newspaper worked hard to convince its core constituency that they should abandon their habit of voting the Socialist Party ticket. But the sell really wasn’t that difficult. In fact, the leaders were simply following the rank and file in their admiration for Roosevelt. Reporting to Cahan on a meeting of the Forward Association, Forward counsel Alexander Kahn wrote, “All worries that it would be awkward for the Forward to support Roosevelt and Lehman

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Figure 1.  ILGWU members learn how to vote, 1936. The posters on the wall call on them to vote for Franklin D. Roosevelt for president and Herbert Lehman for governor on the American Labor Party ticket. Kheel Center, Cornell University.

are gone. The sentiment among Labor, Socialist, and Jewish circles is beyond description. The situation has changed so radically that it would be awkward for the Forward not to support them.”51 Indeed, the results on Election Day were gratifying to the leaders of the ALP, setting a pattern for the next several election cycles. The party amassed 274,925 votes statewide, 4.9 percent of the total. But 238,845 (8.6 percent) came in New York City, and in the Bronx and Brooklyn the ALP won over 12 percent of the ballots cast. The ALP vote was especially heavy in workingclass Jewish districts, in some of which the ALP supplanted the Republicans as the second party. In races over the next five years, the Jewish vote for the ALP ranged from 19 percent to almost 41 percent. To a lesser degree, Italians, too, voted for the ALP, especially as a vehicle for ethnic politicians such as La Guardia and East Harlem congressman Vito Marcantonio. Some Democrats already feared that the ALP was more a threat to their party than an adjunct to it. Conservative Tammany foot soldiers lamented the growing influence of what they thought of as Farley’s “Frankenstein.”52

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Coming off the success of the 1936 campaign, the question was whether the ALP had simply been a means to gather votes for the president’s reelection or whether it was to be a permanent party. From the start, ALP literature had appealed to workers to build “a party of your very own for the years to come.” Dubinsky, Zaritsky, Rose, Antonini, and the SDF were all solidly for a permanent, even a national, labor party. Hillman, on the other hand, was wary of a party that would be independent of the president and the CIO. Nevertheless, by early 1937 the party claimed over two hundred affiliated unions and forty-seven “permanent headquarters,” which hosted a wide variety of activities, including lectures, social events, youth clubs, and women’s auxiliaries. Its “second objective,” it confirmed, after reelecting FDR and Lehman, was the “creation of a permanent political organization independent of all other political parties and dedicated to the service of the labor movement.”53 The next big test of the American Labor Party came in the mayoral election of 1937, in which La Guardia would contend for a second term. From the beginning, the ALP seemed like a natural ally—even a political home— for the mayor, whose tenuous ties to the Republican Party were increasingly frayed as he emerged as New York’s premier New Dealer. Indeed, the ALP became a central component of the mayor’s reelection effort. Behind the scenes, it lobbied Roosevelt for an endorsement of La Guardia and worked to head off a run by New Deal senator Robert Wagner. Publicly, the ALP ran a vigorous campaign on the mayor’s behalf. Election Day returns proved even more gratifying than they had a year earlier. The ALP had collected 482,790 votes for La Guardia, or 21.6 percent of the vote. This was more than a third of the mayor’s total vote and more than his margin of victory. The ALP emerged as the second party in the Bronx, and the first party in some Bronx and Brooklyn districts.54 Analysts gave the American Labor Party much of the credit for La Guardia’s resounding victory, with Rose the party’s “guiding genius.” The big losers were the Democratic machines. As one reporter put it, “When the Democratic leaders crawled out from the wreck of Tammany Hall yesterday, they were appalled to discover a burly stranger gloating over the debris. It was the American Labor Party.” With pro–New Deal Republicans running against anti–New Deal Democrats, Antonini proclaimed the old parties largely “meaningless,” and party leaders spoke boldly of a national political realignment. The beneficiary of a national labor party, it was assumed, would be La Guardia, who had enrolled as an ALP voter.55 The ALP also elected a number of officials of its own. On the new city council, it was poised to play an especially central role. The new council,

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supplanting the board of aldermen, was elected according to a system of preferential balloting in which voters indicated their choices in order of preference. The result was a politically divided body in which the Democrats held only half the seats. With the president of the council, Newbold Morris, elected citywide, casting the deciding vote, the ALP-Republican-Fusion forces could name the majority leader and organize the council if they could hold together. They did, and the ALP’s Vladeck took the post, proclaiming that “real democracy means not just political democracy, but also social and economic democracy.”56 As an issue-oriented year-round party, not just an electoral vehicle, the ALP also served as a permanent lobby to defend and extend the New Deal. It backed the president on his ill-fated court reform plan, supported the Wagner-Steagall housing bill and the Black-Connery wages and hours bill, opposed cuts to the WPA, endorsed child labor and labor relations acts in New York State, and called for a rise in the state minimum wage. Rose once again enunciated a pragmatic philosophy, telling the ALP state committee, “We must not try to solve every international problem that appears on the horizon or be concerned with problems of the distant future with so-called historical perspective. We must be a party . . . concerned with the immediate problems which concern the great majority of workers and citizens.” Accordingly, the ALP at first generally steered clear of international issues, even the Spanish Civil War, though it did back a boycott of goods from Japan and the fascist countries.57 But the ALP’s early success masked internal differences that soon tore the party apart. Ironically, the anti-Communist social democrats who founded the ALP soon found themselves in the same party as their left-wing opponents. In accordance with the international Communist movement’s new Popular Front line, the American Communist Party (CP) gave up its revolutionary stance and adopted a program of progressive reform and alliance with liberals, becoming strong supporters of the New Deal and President Roosevelt. The ALP seemed a perfect vehicle for Popular Front politics, and by the end of 1936, as the historian Harvey Klehr notes, state CP chair Israel Amter was calling the “building of the American Labor Party . . . a central task” for Communists. Over the next couple of years, Communists were increasingly active and influential in ALP affairs, despite an official ban on their membership. But as long as they behaved themselves and backed essentially the same positions and candidates as the party leadership, the dominant trade unionists tolerated, and even publicly denied, their presence.58 The era of relative factional calm was shattered on August 23, 1939, when, as the teachers’ union activist Ben Davidson later remembered, news of the

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Hitler-Stalin Pact “like lightning . . . lit up the air.” After some momentary confusion, the Communist Party got behind the pact and repudiated the Popular Front. Michael Gold excoriated liberals who questioned the Soviet-Nazi alliance as “thieves, . . . fascists, . . . . prostitutes, . . . mental cripples, . . . social traitors and renegades.” Most significantly for the American Labor Party, the Communist attitude toward FDR reversed itself. The CP now labeled Roosevelt an imperialist warmonger, a member of the “reactionary camp” and student of the “Hitlerian art.” Thus, as the 1940 election approached, the Communist Party opposed the president’s reelection. Calling for an independent labor party that would rally anti-interventionist forces, the CP did not abandon the ALP, but instead sought to turn it from its original purpose.59 The ALP state leadership now finally undertook to oust the Communists. What followed was a four-year struggle for control over the party, in which every primary was bitterly contested and the party’s stance toward the Soviet Union and the Communist Party became the overriding issue. The Right, with its base in the ILGWU, the millinery union, the SDF, and the Forward, struck first at an October 4 meeting at which eight hundred delegates adopted a resolution condemning the German-Soviet alliance and calling for aid to the Western allies short of direct US involvement in the war. Rose set the tone for the decidedly anti-Stalinist crowd, explaining that part of the meeting’s point was precisely to smoke out the Communists within the ALP. “Tonight the mask is off,” Rose proclaimed. Those who voted against the resolution would “no longer be considered members of the party.” (In reality, since the party was organized under New York State election law, there was virtually no way to regulate who joined.) When the Communist Irving Potash of the furriers’ union sought to defend the Soviet invasion of Poland, he was greeted with boos and shouts of “Heil Hitler.” Afterward, though, the Daily Worker, while denying that the CP had any role in the ALP, charged that the ALP leadership had lost the support of the party rank and file.60 Subsequent events bore out the analysis of both sides to some degree. As a litmus test, the anti-pact resolution served to identify pro-Communist elements as they came forward to defend the Soviet alliance with Germany. On the other hand, it did indeed turn out, as the Worker said, that the Left had substantial rank-and-file support. ALP clubs across the boroughs adopted resolutions repudiating the position of the state leadership. After months of struggle, the Left gained control of the Manhattan organization.61 The civil war continued through 1940, culminating in the state committee meeting that nominated a presidential candidate that fall. Convened in Utica on September 14, the gathering precipitated another brawl—­literally— between Right and Left. The Left introduced a resolution condemning

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Roosevelt as the chief enemy of the labor movement. The ensuing tumultuous meeting, at which, according to the Daily Worker, “chairs were hurled, fists flew, blackjacks came into play,” had to move twice, once under police order after complaints from neighbors. The decisive vote finally came at two o’clock in the morning—442 for Roosevelt, 234 for no nomination, 11 for the Socialist Norman Thomas—a “dubious” and “smelly” victory for Roosevelt, said the Daily Worker.62 The ALP Right campaigned as enthusiastically for Roosevelt as ever, supporting his foreign and defense policies and still hoping for further social reform.63 But from the time of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, the ALP was in a permanent state of civil war, with both sides just as determined to gain control. The enmity survived the period of the pact, and existed independently of positions on specific issues—even when the “Left” reversed course and outflanked the “Right” from the right by opposing a national labor party and wartime strikes. Factional maneuvering continued for the next three years, though it was temporarily muted by the confluence of Left and Right positions on the war after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, and by Hillman’s unrelated temporary departure from the party during the 1942 campaign. The Right, nevertheless, remained convinced that the ALP Left was a mask for the Communist Party, and sought to remind voters of the Left’s opposition to Roosevelt and preparedness in 1940. Eleanor Roosevelt lent her support, proclaiming that the Right’s “stand on foreign affairs has always been my own,” and adding, “I do not wish to be controlled in this country by an American group that, in turn, is controlled by Russia and Russia’s interests.”64 Indeed, stark differences remained between the factions, though they did not always line up as one might think. With the Popular Front line reasserted during the war, the Communists took a gung-ho stance, often confounding labels of Right and Left. As Congressman Marcantonio, one of the leaders of the pro-Soviet Left, put it, “Every aspect of our program must stand the test of the question, ‘Will it help to win the war?’ ” This meant, among other things, that the Communists and their allies now opposed a nationwide labor party and supported a no-strike pledge by the unions. When Dubinsky, Rose, and their allies opposed the War Labor Board’s “Little Steel Formula” for wage stabilization and tacitly supported a strike by miners, the Left protested. Likewise, when the Right made moves to finally get a labor party started nationwide, the Left expressed its opposition, preferring to work for the president through the Democratic Party and Hillman’s CIO-PAC.65 One incident, especially, served as a reminder of how shallow the wartime Popular Front unity was, at least within the confines of the New York Jewish

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Left. In February 1943 came the startling revelation that Henryk Erlich and Victor Alter, two top leaders of the Jewish Labor Bund in Poland who had been arrested by the Soviets at the beginning of the war, had been murdered by the Stalin regime. The anti-Communist wing of the Jewish labor movement in New York, many of whose members had been Bundists in their youths, reacted furiously. Of course, no one outside Communist circles believed the outlandish charges against Erlich and Alter, and some compared them to the radical martyrs Sacco and Vanzetti. But the Communists defended “the execution of enemies of the Soviet Union,” and accused those who questioned the executions of carrying “out the orders of Hitlerism.” The clash over the murder of Erlich and Alter became an issue in the ALP primaries in 1943 and 1944.66 By that time, Antonini had stepped down as party chair, to be replaced by the Teachers College professor and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) leader George Counts. Born in 1889, Counts was a Kansas farm boy and former college football player who received a doctorate from the University of Chicago, joining the faculty of Teachers College in 1927. A Socialist, Counts viewed the public school as an important promoter of democracy and equality. Fluent in Russian, he took an interest in Soviet education, and visited the Soviet Union twice. He became active in the AFT, and by the end of the decade had grown disillusioned with Soviet rigidity and authoritarianism, emerging as an adamant opponent of Stalinism. The AFT’s 1939 convention elected Counts president of the union, his candidacy bolstered by the announcement of the Hitler-Stalin Pact on the third day of the convention. As president he carried out a purge of CP-led locals. Counts’s ascension to the chair of the ALP helped set three important patterns for the future history of the Liberal Party: the preference for a native-born, gentile (preferably Anglo-Saxon and Protestant) intellectual as party chair; the noticeable presence of Teachers College faculty and disciples of the radical educational philosopher John Dewey; and the significant role played by veterans of the AFT’s factional fights.67 In August 1943, the Left and Right faced off in elections to the ALP county committees, each of which had several thousand members. Even at this grassroots level, the struggle concerned geopolitics and personal rivalries between Hillman and Dubinsky. Each side sought to associate itself with Roosevelt and portray itself as the most consistent fighter against fascism. Thus, the Left called on voters to make the ALP the “win-the-war” party by ousting the “clique” of “embittered Social Democrats” and “red baiters” who sought to damage the US war effort by violating the no-strike pledge, calling for a national third party, and defending Erlich and Alter. In the eyes

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of the ALP Left, Dubinsky, Rose, and their associates were doing the work, perhaps even the bidding, of Hitler and Goebbels. The Right, for its part, portrayed the contest as one not between Left and Right but between the Communist Party and the ALP itself. Rose expressed exasperation at the shifting nature of the Left’s stance on the antifascist struggle. The Russian people were lucky, he exclaimed sarcastically, that there had been only one Marcantonio in Congress to vote against preparedness measures and aid to the Allies in 1939 and 1940. The August primaries shifted momentum to the Left, which took control of the Brooklyn organization after a protracted legal battle.68 Shortly after the August 1943 primaries, Hillman, who had in the meantime returned to the party, announced that the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America would throw itself into the April 1944 elections for state committee if the current leadership did not agree to a plan he proposed that would give unions—including Left-led unions—more control over the party apparatus. This boded ill for the Right, which rejected the plan, since an alliance of the ACWA and the Left, which had endorsed the Hillman plan, was likely to win.69 With prospects thus dim for a victory, the Right debated what to do. Dubinsky was now ready to surrender and abandon the ALP. Even if the Right should win, some argued, there would just be more bitter primaries and party paralysis. At the end of the year, activists met to decide how to proceed. Rose presented the “unanimous” opinion of the leadership that the jig was up and that it was useless to contend another primary. But some wanted to continue the fight. Ben Davidson, the teachers’ union activist, who had not played a leading role up to then, spoke up. “I want to propose,” he later recalled saying, “that we go into the primaries, but for a purpose . . . and that is, for the purpose of . . . laying the basis for a new political party . . . and rais[ing] the battle cry of democracy against Communist totalitarianism.” As Davidson remembered it, Dubinsky then changed his mind, saying, “This man Davidson has an idea. And I think we ought to think about it.” The meeting recessed for a week, and then decided to contest the primaries.70 Rose invited Davidson to become executive director of the ALP for the primary fight, and then of the new party that would be founded after the split. Born in 1900 in Pittsburgh to Jewish immigrant parents from Lithuania, Davidson graduated from Columbia University and attended law school for one year. Discouraged from a career as a labor lawyer, he found his way to Fall River, Massachusetts, where he went to work in the mills and enrolled in the union and the Socialist Party. After coming to New York to become a teacher, he joined the Communist Party in 1925. For a time, Davidson

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directed the party’s Workers’ School, but he lost that position in 1928 as a follower of ousted party general-secretary Jay Lovestone. Returning to the public schools, be became active in the teachers’ union, where he and his Lovestoneite comrades argued against the expulsion of the orthodox Communists. But, he later recalled, he soon found it impossible to work in the “lynch atmosphere” of the Communist-dominated meetings. In 1939, he managed George Counts’s campaign to become president of the AFT, and finally joined the anti-Communist Teachers’ Guild in 1940. Davidson worried that his own Communist past might be used against the new party, but Rose thought that past might in fact be useful. Davidson remained director of the Liberal Party for the next three decades.71 Approaching the March 28 primary, the Right and Left issued flyers that looked almost identical, sporting large photographs of Roosevelt, though they of course made contradictory arguments. The Right once again reminded voters that the Left, unlike the Right, had been inconsistent in its support of Roosevelt, La Guardia, and the New Deal. It warned that Hillman’s reorganization plan would mean that union leaders could buy votes to dominate the party. It challenged the Communists to stand on their own record, rather than try to capture another party. The Left, in contrast, called for unity and condemned “name-calling.” It predicted that the Hillman plan would broaden the party. The Communist issue, it said, was a “red herring.”72 With the election approaching, the national administration watched unhappily as events in the ALP unfolded. Within the administration, Adolf Berle and Eleanor Roosevelt favored the Right. But FDR was more interested in keeping a lid on the conflict. In February, the president himself called Dubinsky in to express his displeasure at the impending schism. When Dubinsky arrived, Roosevelt was not in the room, but a clipping of a New York Post editorial opposing a split was on the desk. Dubinsky explained the Right’s position and left thinking Roosevelt was in agreement. He and Rose started to negotiate with Roosevelt aide Sam Rosenman over a letter for the president to sign saying that he would not accept ALP support if the Left controlled the party. But, to Dubinsky’s surprise, Roosevelt also met with Hillman four days later and also agreed with him. What FDR did do is get Hillman to pledge that there would be no Communists in top party spots or among candidates for public office. Also caught in the crossfire, La Guardia, too, made a last-ditch and halfhearted attempt to broker a compromise. Meeting with Dubinsky and Hillman, he proposed that seats on the state executive committee be divided up, and that no Communists should be on the slate. According to the mayor’s plan, there would be no direct proportionate representation of the unions.

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La Guardia lamented the factional struggle and the personal rivalry between the two labor leaders, and then announced that he would not personally work to see that his plan was implemented. Hillman accepted the mayor’s proposal, but Dubinsky angrily called it a “confused plan” by which La Guardia had avoided “his obligation as a prominent member of the ALP” to help broker the dispute. As the lawyer Dean Alfange, who had been the ALP’s candidate for governor in 1942, put it, “We had every right to expect that Mayor La Guardia would take a firm position on our side. Instead he has taken a firm position on the fence.” There would be no compromise.73 On primary day, the Communist-Hillman coalition crushed the state leadership, capturing 620 of 750 seats on the state executive committee. The Left seized the Right’s last bastion in the Bronx, giving it complete control of the party in New York City. An angry Dubinsky, preparing to quit the party, lashed out: “Mr. Hillman can act as a front for the Communists; I never did and never will.” The Daily Worker joked that “Dubinsky’s blood pressure Rose as the Counts came in.” At-large liberals such as those at the New Republic and the Nation regretted the split and appealed for unity, as did Hillman. But several prominent liberals turned down his offer of the party chair. The conservative Journal-American predicted that if the liberals formed a new party, the Communists would capture it in turn, as surely as Communism had followed on social democracy in Russia.74 In the end, Dubinsky remembered later, “We were not heartbroken, because the important thing in our view was to be rid of them. . . . Even if we had prevailed in the primary, that would not have been the end of it.”75

Ch a p ter 2

“Fighting Liberals” at the Polls

The Liberal Party founding convention’s most important order of business was to nominate Franklin D. Roosevelt for a fourth term as president. As the lights dimmed, a spotlight illuminated Samuel Shore, a vice president of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, who rose to place the president’s name in nomination. Flanked by “two American flags and several portraits” of the president, according to the New York Times, Shore depicted Roosevelt at his most radical by referencing the president’s populist acceptance speech at the 1936 Democratic convention, in which he had welcomed the “hate” of what he termed “economic royalists.” When Roosevelt was nominated, the Forward reported, the delegates “sprang up as if an electric current had passed through everyone’s body.” Those on the floor blew horns and noisemakers while those in the balcony tossed confetti. The band played the martial “Over There” and FDR’s jaunty theme song, “Happy Days Are Here Again,” and the delegates ­snake-danced around the hall—just like at a real American party convention.1 The party’s first task was to establish itself as a real player in New York politics. In order to do this it needed to convince voters to defect from the ALP, from the Democrats, and from the Republicans, and vote on its line. As the city and state’s complicated New Deal coalition fractured at the end of World War II, the Liberals thus sought to identify themselves as the most consistent supporters of the New Deal’s “fighting liberalism,” and as the 36

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Left’s most consistent opponents of Communism, and as a pragmatic alternative to sectarian leftism. They built an unusual structure in mainstream US politics in that it connected their mass base—in the unions and district clubs, and among Jews, Italians, African Americans, Puerto Ricans, and others—to a leadership that included leading progressive intellectuals. For a time, the Liberal Party of New York harbored aspirations to become the seed of a national political realignment, an idea that seemed to be in the air at the time of its founding, but first it faced the prosaic tasks of gaining ballot status and overtaking the ALP. Neither of these was easily accomplished.

The New Party Having lost the March 1944 primary, the ALP “Right” immediately seceded. The secessionists remained enthusiastic supporters of President Roosevelt, but what would be the vehicle for their support now that they had lost the ALP? David Dubinsky announced that he would vote for FDR even if he had to do so on the Democratic line. Some argued for a “Liberal-Labor Committee” to work with the Democrats, to save the president the embarrassment of choosing between the ALP and its former leadership. But others on the former ALP Right pushed for a new party. An Erie County activist wrote to Dubinsky, “We WILL NOT vote on the ‘Democratic’ line (as a matter of principle),” and threatened to skip the presidential race altogether. It took only a week for a meeting of constituent groups to call for a new party. The prospect of operating without their Popular Frontist rivals came as a relief to the Right’s leaders. As Rose wrote in a private letter to a supporter, “We are going ahead with the formation of a new political party that will have no primary fights, will have no Communist left-wing.”2 The new party needed a name that expressed both its values and its intended constituency. The Forward noted that the terms “Socialist,” “Labor,” and “Democratic” were already being used by parties on the New York State ballot and therefore were legally unavailable. It further argued that the word “progressive,” although used often by the former ALP Right to describe themselves and their allies, was discredited by its association with the isolationist Wisconsin Progressives. Soon, “liberal” emerged as the favorite even before the official founding convention. The term had several advantages: (1) it indicated that, unlike its predecessor, the new party would not be strictly a labor party, though the garment unions remained its main base of support; (2) the “liberal” label was one that had become associated with the political space at the intersection of reformism and radicalism, and so could accommodate the political identities of a wide range of party supporters;

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(3) Franklin Roosevelt had succeeded in linking the term to his New Deal, in whose mantle the new party hoped to wrap itself; and (4) in the political parlance of the day, the “liberals” were those members of the New Deal coalition who hoped to push aggressively for social reform. “Liberals” thus differentiated themselves from the more conservative elements in the coalition, including big-city machines like Tammany Hall.3 After the founding convention, the Liberal Party also adopted an emblem. Suggestions considered by the committee included an “aeroplane” to symbolize progress; the “outline of the US and the Western Hemisphere on a globe”; a lighthouse; a phoenix; and the Statue of Liberty. Pearl Willen, the chair of the Name and Emblem Committee, favored the Liberty Bell as a “traditional American symbol” that could be easily rendered on a small scale. Interestingly, while the American-born Willen favored the Liberty Bell for its resonance with American tradition, the Eastern European–born manager of the Yiddish Forward, Alexander Kahn, objected that “a bell signified quite another thing to Jews, and therefore, should be avoided.” (He was, perhaps, alluding to collective Jewish memories of Easter pogroms accompanied by the sound of church bells.) He favored the Statue of Liberty, but was overruled, and the Liberty Bell logo became a familiar sight to New York voters over the next half century—on buttons, flyers, and, most importantly, the party’s ballot line.4 Not everyone welcomed the new Liberal Party. The Communist Party condemned the Liberals for, among other things, calling for independent political action and realignment on the national level. Daily Worker editor Louis Budenz called the Liberals “evil”—in league with “reactionary forces that threaten peace and democracy.”5 The Socialist leader Norman Thomas, meanwhile, scoffed at both the Liberals and the ALP, who despite their deep antagonisms supported the same candidates and had virtually the same program. Roosevelt, Thomas pointed out, hadn’t provided any liberal leadership or policies for years. Thomas reiterated the Socialist Party’s call for a broad “Commonwealth Party,” but clearly doubted that the Liberals could serve as its nucleus.6 Although the Liberal Party sought to downplay the issue of class in its name and logo, it was nevertheless very much a labor party. Its institutional mainstays were the ILGWU, led by Dubinsky, and the United Hatters, Cap, and Millinery Workers International Union, led by Alex Rose. Many other unions also affiliated with the party’s Trade Union Council. Not only did these unions provide much of the cash that kept the party going, but they also provided a true mass base. The thousands who turned out for Liberal rallies were mostly union members. Many of the party’s rank-and-file

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members worked through party clubs in their union locals. By 1948, the party claimed 150 affiliated and 50 cooperating unions, with a membership of half a million.7 Another, perhaps less obvious, base of support came from the Teachers College of Columbia University. Many members of the faculty were under the influence of their colleague John Dewey, who posited a strong social role for the school. Some also shared Dewey’s left-liberal or radical politics and believed that education should help build a new, more democratic and egalitarian social order. Several Teachers College educators saw the labor movement as the heart of modern social liberalism and the key to a mass political movement. They were therefore happy in the role ascribed to them by the unionist Meyer Winokur, that of giving “force to liberal ideas” and teaching “the workers the need for political action.” The Liberal Party provided these professors an opportunity to do just that. Teachers College faculty members such as John Childs, George Counts, William Kilpatrick, Roma Gans, and John Dewey himself offered public support to the new party, and Childs and Counts even served as party chairs.8 Childs was elected chair at the founding convention. A self-described “indigenous American, native son of one of ‘those typical Western prairie states,’ ” the Wisconsin-born Childs provided a stark contrast with the Yiddish-accented trade union leaders who acted as party strongmen. Indeed, while Dubinsky and Rose really ran the show for the party’s first decades, its chair was always a gentile intellectual—the more “indigenous” and “American” in appearance and speech the better. Handsome, possessed of a “strong and winning personality,” and an excellent orator with a preacher’s background, Childs fit the bill perfectly.9 Childs’s political and intellectual background also suited him to leadership in the Liberal Party. A former YMCA missionary, he had worked closely with John Dewey at Teachers College, first as a student and then as a faculty member. Childs elaborated a theory of education he called “experimentalism,” based on Dewey’s pragmatism and connected closely to a left-liberal political worldview. He believed that education should encourage the development of individual capacities but also recognize that individuals lived in a social context. Moreover, “both democracy and education,” Childs wrote, “demand that the anarchy of the present competitive profit economy be supplanted by a planning society in which production is democratically controlled for the good of all.” During the Depression, Childs engaged more overtly in political activity and became active in the American Federation of Teachers, where he opposed the New York local’s pro-Communist leadership. Through his involvement in the labor movement, Childs met Dubinsky,

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and came to admire him. Taking a partial leave from his position at Teachers College, Childs served about two and a half years as party chair.10 Although its founding came as a result of internal divisions in the ALP, the Liberal Party arose at a time when many people, even Roosevelt himself, were flirting with the idea of a “realignment” of the US political system that would regroup all progressives into one party and all conservatives into another. The Liberals were all for this. Accordingly, the party welcomed not only liberal Democrats disgusted with their party’s white supremacist and machine wings, but also so-called Willkie Republicans—liberal, internationalist followers of the 1940 Republican standard-bearer. Indeed, some Liberals even hoped to attract Wendell Willkie himself to the cause.11 Talk of attracting disaffected Democrats and Republicans reflected party leaders’ impatience with sectarian ideological politics. The whole enterprise represented, after all, their effort to make an impact on mainstream politics primarily through a “balance of power” strategy of offering or withholding support from mainstream politicians. The Liberal Party realized, as party chair John Childs explained, that they would necessarily be engaging in “coalition politics,” and that this would necessitate compromise and “confidential negotiations” with other political leaders. The executive committee early on designated Alex Rose as the Liberals’ chief negotiator. But they also understood that there was a difference between “negotiations” and “commitment.” If Rose was to carry out the former, only duly constituted party bodies could decide on the latter. There would be, Childs recalled, “no secret deals.”12 Nevertheless, Socialism remained an important animating force, lurking right beneath the party’s centrist surface. As the Communist Daily Worker noted scornfully, many in the party’s leadership came from the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), the Jewish Socialist Verband, the New Leader, and the Forward, all of which represented the Socialist Party’s former “right wing.”13 The SDF, led by the former ALP city councilman Louis Goldberg, endorsed the new party but opposed Dubinsky and Rose’s balance-of-power approach, demanding more internal democracy and a policy, as Goldberg put it, of seeking to take power, not balance it. The SDF and its organ, the New Leader, wanted a party that would run its own candidates as a matter of course, backing progressive major-party candidates such as FDR and Senator Robert Wagner only as exceptions.14 The Forward, meanwhile, considered the Liberal Party to be the latest political expression of the American Socialist tradition, and insisted that anyone wishing to vote for Roosevelt and at the same time to vote “in the spirit of the Socialist ideal” could do both by voting on the Liberal line.15

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The organization of a youth division had been one of Ben Davidson’s conditions for taking the job of executive director, and in the fall of 1944, the Young Liberals held their founding convention, guided by the journalist Dorothy Norman. Young Liberals came from the city’s high schools, colleges, unions, fraternal organizations, and neighborhoods. By the following year, there were 374 dues-paying Young Liberals. As often happens with youth movements, it was sometimes hard to get the Young Liberals to toe the party line. The writer Alice Beal Parsons reported to Rose that she had met some at a meeting who professed admiration for the Soviet Union and supported the postwar pastoralization of Germany in opposition to the Liberal Party position. Others at the same meeting sympathized with Trotskyism. But with little autonomy, there wasn’t much likelihood of a youth rebellion within the party. In 1948, the Brooklyn College Young Liberals billed themselves as a “non-communist left organization,” opposing universal military training, supporting the Marshall Plan, and advocating a strong United Nations. Young Liberals also helped out in campaigns, and even worked with the party’s city council delegation on issues of concern to students—such as ­discounted public transportation fares.16 According to Davidson, Childs in particular “believed very strongly in the idea of women being involved” in the party leadership and helped to recruit several female vice chairs, including his Teachers College colleague Roma Gans, as well as the former WPA official Grace Gosselin and Dorothy Norman. Another vice chair, Pearl Willen, headed the official Women’s Division, which sponsored activities ranging from clothing drives for refugee relief to a tea with the actor Helen Gahagan Douglas, then running for Congress in California. The Women’s Division also held lecture series on current issues and offered a radio program on WEVD. In the local clubs, women often took over issues related to their presumed roles as housewives, including the cost of living and childcare. For example, in 1947, Bronx Liberal Party women led a campaign to reestablish wartime price controls. They sent a delegation of three to meet with the city commissioner of markets, surveyed housewives on their problems, organized local rallies, and circulated a petition to Congress.17 In its early years, the Liberal Party fostered an active club life. Clubs were formed both in unions, where members were often immigrant garment workers, and in neighborhoods, where they were more likely to be young American-born, college-educated adults. The party sank its deepest roots in working- and middle-class Jewish neighborhoods, especially in the Bronx and Brooklyn, and the local leadership was mostly Jewish. By 1948, the party claimed to have a club in every assembly district in Manhattan and Brooklyn,

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and in all but one each in Queens and the Bronx. Staten Island had a countywide organization. All told, the clubs claimed to have enrolled twenty to twenty-five thousand dues-paying members.18 Although its base of support was clearly in the Jewish community, the Liberal Party also made efforts to organize among African Americans and Puerto Ricans. Clubs in such unions as the ILGWU dressmakers’ Local 22, which had many Black and Latino members, helped in these efforts, as did anti-Communist Black labor activists such as the ILGWU’s Frank Crosswaith and Maida Springer, and Benjamin McLaurin of the Sleeping Car Porters. In the neighborhoods, the Liberal Party relied on activists such as Cora Jones, a retired domestic worker and leader of Liberal Party clubs in Harlem’s Eleventh and Sixteenth Assembly Districts, where she organized actions in support of a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission. In contrast, Encarnacion Armas, the Liberals’ main organizer in the Latino community, argued that Puerto Ricans, as US citizens, faced little real discrimination, suffering mainly from lack of English. Nevertheless, in addition to social events such as a children’s birthday party for Lincoln, complete with a piñata and a talk by Ben Davidson on the late president, the party sponsored a rally against the “rent gouging” of Puerto Ricans in the Bronx. The Liberal Party’s success in organizing in the African American and Puerto Rican communities was limited, but where clubs were not predominantly Jewish, they were likely to be mainly Black or Latino.19

“Let Your Vote Count Twice” There was no doubt, of course, that the Liberal Party would back Roosevelt for a fourth term in 1944. At the founding convention in May, the party had enthusiastically thrown its support to the president and his presumed running mate, Vice President Henry Wallace, who was something of a hero among progressives. Wallace had solidified his status as chief defender of the waning New Deal in May 1942 with his famous “Century of the Common Man” speech, in which he defined the war against Nazism and Japanese imperialism as a chapter in a long “people’s revolution” that began with the Old Testament prophets and continued through the American, French, and Russian Revolutions, the abolition of slavery, the struggle for universal literacy, and the rise of the labor movement. The aims of the war included not only peace but also democracy, racial equality, universal prosperity, and social justice. An explicit response to Henry Luce’s conservative vision of an “American Century,” Wallace’s speech became, according to the New Leader, “a rallying cry for social liberals everywhere.”20

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But if Wallace had become a hero to left New Dealers, more conservative Democrats demanded his ouster. After some intense infighting that continued right through the convention that summer, the party regulars won out over the liberals and Wallace was dumped from the ticket in favor of Senator Harry Truman, who had a reliable New Deal voting record but no history of “fighting liberalism.”21 Like many liberals across the country, the Liberal Party was deeply dismayed at Wallace’s ouster. Forced to request that Wallace decline his previous nomination by the Liberals, Rose assured the vice president of the party’s “sincere devotion and deep regret . . . over the turn of events at the Chicago Convention.” He continued, “As far as we are concerned, we will continue to look up to you as a great leader of the liberal thought in our nation, and we hope to continue our close and friendly association with you.”22 The Liberal Party nevertheless enthusiastically threw itself into its first campaign, with three goals: to reelect the president, to garner more votes than the ALP for their common statewide ticket, and to gain recognition from the White House as the true voice of labor liberalism in New York. The struggle for the third of these aims began immediately. Liberals in the administration, including Eleanor Roosevelt and Wallace, had looked on anxiously, worried that the political differences and personal rivalries between Dubinsky and Sidney Hillman would damage the president’s chances in his home state. Now the two leaders each wrote a lengthy letter laying his side’s case before Mrs. Roosevelt. Dubinsky reminded her of her own unfortunate experiences with Communists in such Popular Front organizations as the American Youth Congress, and argued that the ALP was now a Communist front, Hillman’s fig leaf notwithstanding. The Liberals scored a coup when Eleanor Roosevelt spoke at a party dinner forum in August. But the first lady remained skeptical of the sectarian squabbles among her husband’s supporters— in praising her hosts, she also noted, “The trouble with liberals is that we too often quarrel among ourselves.”23 The Liberal Party faced a number of obstacles, but it also had some advantages. The difficulties included its late start, lack of name recognition, and position on Row F of the ballot—behind not only the Democrats, Republicans, and ALP, but the Socialist and Industrial Government Parties as well. It was aided, however, by institutional support from the ILGWU, which provided the new party with some $50,000 and supplied it with thousands of buttons, flyers, and special editions of the union newspaper, Justice. Altogether, the Liberal Party spent an estimated $200,000 on the campaign, about three times the ALP’s budget. Flyers targeted particular constituencies, such as union members and women. Advertisements appeared in the English-,

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Yiddish-, and Italian-language press. Radio broadcasts featured prominent figures attacking Republican candidate Thomas Dewey’s record as governor of New York.24 The Liberal and American Labor Parties made similar appeals to voters, as each sought to associate itself with FDR. Like the ALP, the Liberal Party suggested that a vote on its line would “count . . . twice”—once to reelect the president, and a second time to build a permanent party with progressive principles. Unlike the Democratic Party, the Liberals proclaimed, they harbored no opponents of the Wagner Act, supporters of the poll tax, or mobbacked machines. Unlike the Republican Party they favored the people over big business. And unlike the ALP, the Liberals had been with the president all the way since 1933. This was something of an exaggeration since it had taken some of the former Socialists in the Liberal Party a few years longer than that to join up in the New Deal coalition. But the main point was that, despite its profession of love for FDR, the ALP Left had in fact opposed him as a “war monger” in 1940. The Liberals, by implication, were the truest and most consistent antifascists.25 A high point of the campaign came when Wallace appeared together with Truman at a Liberal Madison Square Garden rally, their only joint appearance of the campaign. On the night of the event, Wallace attempted to upstage his replacement by arriving late, but Dubinsky tracked him down and arranged for the two men to walk down the aisle arm-in-arm. As even the Daily Worker reported, “The audience rose as one man and cheered its head off.” The program also featured prominent speakers and entertainers, but Wallace was clearly the star of the show. Addressing twenty thousand supporters, Wallace further cemented his status as a liberal hero by lambasting the moderate Dewey as a well-meaning but naive captive of the Republican reactionaries. The progressive daily PM gave extensive coverage to Wallace’s remarks, but barely mentioned Truman at all. Even Truman lauded Wallace, though Wallace did not return the favor. The meeting lasted over three hours.26 When the dust settled, election returns showed the power of New York’s third parties. Together, the ALP and the upstart Liberal Party had polled over eight hundred thousand votes for Roosevelt. In the city, the Liberal vote came close to that of the ALP.27 Liberal leaders were pleased with the results. For a party that had not even existed six months earlier, the Liberal Party had competed well. Dubinsky crowed to the Forward, “I imagine that the ALP commissars who so triumphantly proclaimed only a week ago that the Liberal Party would have to close its doors at ten after nine on election night— I imagine that these people feel more depressed by the great success of the

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Figure 2.  Liberal Party leaders John Childs, Alex Rose, and David Dubinsky, with the party’s vice-presidential candidate, Harry S. Truman, 1944. Kheel Center, Cornell University.

Liberal Party than even the Republicans in their defeat.”28 The next steps, party leaders figured, were to strengthen the local clubs, begin to lobby for a legislative program, and plan for a national political realignment. In the meantime, the Liberals foresaw for themselves “a splendid opportunity to play a constructive and decisive role in the coming municipal and gubernatorial campaigns.”29

Gaining a Foothold Toward the end of Fiorello La Guardia’s third term in office, the crusading mayor’s reform administration seemed to be running out of steam. During the war, La Guardia himself was often distracted by his other job as federal director of civil defense, leaving the city administration in the hands of his sometime protégé, city council president Newbold Morris. Even so, the mayor hinted that he might run again, but the odds were stacked way against him. He had been an enrolled Laborite for eight years, and his friends in the Republican Party had long since soured on him. So had the Liberals. The

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New Leader sought to explain why “labor and liberals oppose La Guardia” by accusing him of “truculence,” having a “domineering attitude,” and being “insufferable,” “devious,” and “smug.” It expressed opposition to La Guardia’s sales tax, and charged him with being an arbitrary boss to city employees. But none of this was new, and none of it had gotten in the way of liberal support before. The real reason why the New Leader and others in the Liberal Party resented the mayor was that they believed that the most prominent ALP member had helped deliver the party to Hillman and the Communists the year before. Now, with only the possibility of backing from what was left of the ALP, La Guardia would not be able to mount a fourth campaign.30 The Liberals therefore looked for a candidate to lead the ticket in their first local race. Behind the scenes, Dubinsky and Rose initially hoped that Wendell Willkie would help initiate a national political realignment by accepting the Liberal nomination for mayor in 1945. In Davidson’s words, Willkie was an “intelligent and able person” with “charisma.” After his defeat in 1940, he had moved left, especially as an advocate of a “one world” foreign policy. The Republican Party had shunted him to the margins, excluding him even from its 1944 convention, so he needed a new political vehicle. A Liberal delegation met with Willkie in May 1944 to broach the idea with him. The former presidential candidate responded favorably to the overture, growing more enthusiastic about the prospect over subsequent months. But his sudden death in October 1944 took him out of the running.31 The Liberals thus still had to find a suitable candidate in their first truly independent campaign. For several months they negotiated with the Democrats for a common ticket, but once the Democrats leaned toward former Brooklyn district attorney William O’Dwyer, who had ties to the ALP and whom Rose thought too close to the bosses and, possibly, the mob, the Liberals opened negotiations with the Republican Party. Newbold Morris, a liberal Republican with impeccable reform credentials and a reputation for callowness, approached Dubinsky to gauge the Liberals’ support. But it seemed that Morris’s own party was reluctant to nominate him. Nor were the Republicans enthusiastic about Comptroller Joseph McGoldrick, a Liberal favorite. When McGoldrick bowed out of the race, he urged Judge Jonah Goldstein on both the Republicans and Liberals. Running out of time and fearing they would not be able to field a slate, the Liberals adopted Goldstein as their candidate, and won approval from Governor Dewey and the Republicans.32 The process by which Goldstein captured the Liberal nomination was a rather murky one involving what Rose called a “referendum” but was really an informal sounding of rank-and-file preferences. In the end, the leadership made the decisions, ratified by a citywide conference. The party had at that

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point not yet achieved ballot status in the state, and thus did not have a legally recognized nominating procedure. But even after it did, real decision-making power remained centralized in the hands of an inner core of influentials. Despite the leaders’ protestations that their process of informal consultation was open and democratic, the party continued to be run from the top down.33 Jonah Goldstein, the Republican-Liberal candidate for mayor, was, in fact, neither a Republican nor a capital-L Liberal, but a disgruntled Tammany Democrat. Although he was said to be an “intrepid campaigner,” it was only with some effort that campaign literature could describe him as a “fighting liberal,” a characterization that was becoming the standard for left New Dealers. The son of immigrants, he was best known as an avid worker for neighborhood and Jewish philanthropies, including the Grand Street Boys’ Association, of which he was president. Nevertheless, Goldstein did have some liberal credentials: Early in his career, he had been an aide to Al Smith, and his law firm was the first to hire a female attorney and had also hired two Black lawyers. When one of them, Francis Rivers (later a judge), was denied membership in the bar association, Goldstein quit the organization. Finally, Goldstein had bucked Tammany to win a full term on the court of general sessions after he had been dumped from the ticket.34 Along with Goldstein, the joint Republican-Liberal-Fusion ticket was supposed to include Morris as a candidate for reelection to his current post as president of the city council, and McGoldrick, running for a fourth term. But it seems that no one had consulted Morris, who angrily declined the nomination. Instead he blasted the ticket as one that included a “discarded Tammany candidate for mayor.”35 At La Guardia’s urging, Morris finally announced his own candidacy for mayor on the “No Deal Party” ticket on August 5, ten days before the deadline for filing petitions to get on the ballot. Many hostile observers saw Morris as a spoiler intended to take away votes from Goldstein, and took to calling Morris and his running mates the “LaGuardia spite ticket,” or the “No Everything Party.” Goldstein called the No Deal Party a “one-man deal.” And Alex Rose angrily proclaimed, “The cause of good government is being betrayed by some of its former supporters. Newbold Morris has long served as the Mayor’s errand boy but this latest assignment is the most ignominious chore he has ever undertaken.” In Rose’s convoluted analysis, La Guardia backed Morris as a “subterfuge” to elect O’Dwyer.36 Nevertheless, the Liberals kicked off the official campaign with a mass Garden rally on September 26. In his own address, Goldstein laid out a program that was considerably less bold than that of the sponsoring Liberals. But he did propose a Four Freedoms doctrine for the city: freedom from

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rackets, freedom from graft and corruption, freedom from underworld control, and freedom from boss domination. After noting the Communist rally that had cheered O’Dwyer’s name the week before, the judge argued that this was a purely municipal campaign, with no room for national issues. Goldstein inveighed against the “unholy combination” of “an aggressive Tammany underworld” and its “new unprincipled allies.” Besides good government, he outlined a six-point program for “jobs, more jobs, steady jobs, well-paid jobs.”37 But the campaign did not go well. For one thing, Jonah Goldstein turned out not to be a dynamic-enough candidate. Second, at the beginning of the post–La Guardia era, municipal reform forces were badly divided. The Citizens Union endorsed Goldstein. But Samuel Seabury, dean of goodgovernment New York, immediately announced that he would not support the “sham Fusion” ticket headed by a Tammanyite. Seabury and the prominent reformer C. C. Burlingham remained neutral in the race, but others, including La Guardia himself, openly backed Morris. The New York Post, the English-language newspaper closest to the Liberal Party, endorsed Morris, as did the New York Times. Even some party members defected. The World-Telegram did endorse the Liberal ticket, but even then it complained, “We would have preferred to see the Liberal Party nominate for Mayor an outstanding independent candidate who had no former Tammany ties.”38 At the beginning of the post-FDR era, New York’s complicated New Deal coalition fractured as well. The Liberal Party felt compelled to advertise in the Post that “Judge Jonah J. Goldstein is a Roosevelt Democrat.” But both regular Democrats and the ALP backed O’Dwyer. The Liberals tried unsuccessfully to convince President Truman to remain neutral. Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace, Truman’s rival and Liberal hero, weighed in on O’Dwyer’s behalf as well, praising O’Dwyer for having “fought bigotry and oppression with courage and effectiveness.” Sidney Hillman backed O’Dwyer, as did the CIO and the AFL Central Trades and Labor Council. PM backed O’Dwyer, before switching at the last minute to Morris. When Senator Robert Wagner endorsed O’Dwyer, he flatly contradicted the Liberals’ contention that the race was purely local in character. Summing up one of the main arguments of pro-O’Dwyer liberals, Wagner proclaimed the mayoral election “the first round in the battle for post-war progress.”39 Dubinsky made an especially mighty effort to win over Eleanor Roosevelt for the Republican-Liberal ticket with a lengthy exchange of letters in which he laid out the Liberal position that the campaign was about local issues and the international struggle against Communism but had nothing to do with state or national politics. He pointed out to Mrs. Roosevelt that Goldstein

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was in the first instance the Liberal candidate, not that of the Republicans, that he was really a Democrat anyway, and that FDR himself had crossed party lines to support La Guardia in 1941. But Mrs. Roosevelt remained unconvinced. It was a mistake to back Goldstein, she told Dubinsky, “just because you never really want to agree with the American Labor Party.” It did not matter that the Liberals had nominated Goldstein first—he would be beholden to the Republicans and his election would strengthen Governor Dewey. Goldstein could not be compared with La Guardia. Further, wrote the first lady of American liberalism, “I know quite well that there are forces in New York City back of O’Dwyer which are not good forces. I do not think they are any worse than the Republican forces. Neither party has a corner on gangsters or corrupt politicians.” Finally, she said, an alliance with Hillman would be better for fighting Communism.40 The tricky alliances that arose during the campaign could be uncomfortable for all involved. The Communists accused the Liberals of cooperating with Republicans and Coughlinites in support of Goldstein. The Liberals accused the Communists, rightly, of a close alliance with Tammany.41 In truth, the three candidates differed little on the issues, and all painted themselves as New Dealers, so the campaign was fought on the basis of personalities, local political alignments, and the issue of corruption.42 It being New York, there were ethnic, religious, and racial overtones to the campaign as well. After Senator Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi threatened Jews with “liquidation” and “deportation” for supporting antidiscrimination measures in Congress, and referred to Italians as “dagos,” expressing hostility to the Mississippian became a means by which the mayoral candidates could demonstrate their antiracist credentials and court Black and Jewish votes. Goldstein used a Brooklyn anti-Bilbo rally attended mainly by African Americans to call for a city commission to enforce the recently passed state Ives-Quinn antidiscrimination law. The commission’s first task, promised Goldstein, would be to root out discriminatory practices in city agencies. When he threw out the first ball at the Negro World Series at Yankee Stadium, Goldstein attributed to baseball an “American spirit of fairness and democracy,” and decried racial discrimination in the sport. He wrote the word “discrimination” on the ball, tossed it in, and invited the players to “sock it.” (The first batter promptly hit a double.)43 Jews were the Liberal Party’s natural constituency, but they had to be actively courted as well. Goldstein was the first Jew to head a major-party municipal ticket since consolidation, and his candidacy could have continued the process of ethnic succession that had begun under La Guardia. But at a time when antisemitism in the United States was at its peak, Goldstein felt

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compelled to make a statement about his religion early in the race: “I want no one to vote for me because of my religion. I want no one to vote against me because of my religion. Religion has no place in politics any more than politics in religion.” Rumor had it that O’Dwyer forces were whispering that it was not a good time for Jews to vote for a Jewish mayor, an attitude shared by some Jews but one that the Liberal Party activist Rabbi Israel Goldstein (no relation to the candidate) called “self-debasing [and] contemptible.”44 On the other side, O’Dwyer supporters complained of a “whisper campaign” labeling O’Dwyer a bad Catholic for his association with the ALP Left. Ironically, given the church’s often outspoken anti-Communism, Fr. Sean Reid, a Carmelite priest, charged that red baiting was aimed at preventing Catholics from gaining positions of power in the city: “Every time a member of the Catholic faith dares to aspire to public office you find the whisperers ready to spread the story that he is not a good churchman. . . . Then comes the cry about Reds and Communism.”45 After what various observers called an “elaborate, windy . . . [,] vituperative,” and “vitriolic” campaign “almost entirely consumed in personal attacks,” O’Dwyer won a smashing victory. Indeed, he won a majority of the vote in the three-way race. With Goldstein and Morris splitting the antiTammany vote, some observers blamed the Democratic victory on the splintering of the reform coalition. The Liberal Party blamed La Guardia directly for sponsoring Morris’s candidacy. “After twelve years of good government, Tammany is back in power,” the Liberals noted. “A large part of the responsibility for the failure of the good government forces must be borne by Mayor La Guardia, who at the last moment injected a third ticket, which confused the issue.” But the Herald-Tribune pointed out that the forces that had elected La Guardia three times had split three ways, not two, in this election, with the ALP behind O’Dwyer.46 The big losers were Dewey and the Republicans—and the Liberals. Despite outspending the ALP, the Liberals received less than half the ALP’s vote. Although the ALP vote had fallen compared to previous elections, and O’Dwyer would have won even without it, the Laborites could at least claim to be on the winning side. Moreover, two Communists and two proCommunist ALPers had been elected to the city council. The Liberals, on the other hand, had received only a quarter of their original target of five hundred thousand votes, and less than half their total for Roosevelt the year before. It was, as one reporter put it, “a great disappointment to the Liberals in this their first trial as a separate political entity.”47 Below the disappointing top of the ticket, there were some rays of light for the Liberal Party. The election for the council was especially important

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for the new party because the city’s unusual system of preferential balloting (also called proportional representation, or PR) gave it its best opportunity to elect its own members to public office. According to the complicated procedure first used for council elections in 1937, voters marked a separate paper ballot with their choices for council in order of preference. Then an even more complicated formula for apportioning votes was used to elect a variable number of candidates from each borough to the council. Designed to ensure minority representation, PR yielded a very accurate representation of voters’ preferences, despite a high number of spoiled ballots. It also achieved its purpose of encouraging a diverse legislative body. In the 1945 election, the Democrats won a majority of seats, with fourteen of twenty-three, but the remainder of the places went to a diverse group, with three Republicans, two American Laborites, two Communists, and two Liberals.48 In Manhattan, the Liberals nominated Benjamin McLaurin, a Socialist and official of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. McLaurin’s candidacy reflected the quality of the party’s local standard bearers and its ties to anti-Communist African American radical circles, especially those close to A. Philip Randolph. But the failure of the McLaurin campaign also illustrated the limitations imposed by the Liberal Party’s anti-Communism and its strategy of presenting McLaurin as a Harlem-based challenger to Communist councilman Benjamin Davis rather than as an at-large contender for the votes of the entire Manhattan electorate. Although McLaurin called for improvements in housing, schools, recreation, markets, and social services for the “400,000 Negroes” of Manhattan, the progressive message of the campaign was muddied by its narrow emphasis on Davis’s Communist Party affiliation. Moreover, it seems that the Liberals failed to mobilize a strong white vote for their candidate in this borough-wide race, or to convince most Black voters to break with the outspoken incumbent. In the end, McLaurin placed twelfth after the first count of the ballots, and was eventually eliminated.49 On the other hand, the one bright spot for the Liberal Party in the 1945 election was the election of the Liberals Louis Goldberg of Brooklyn and Ira Palestin of the Bronx to the council. They thus became the Liberal Party’s first elected officials. The New York Post called Palestin, a graduate of City College and Columbia University Law School, a “public spirited” real estate attorney “of wide experience and progressive ideas.”50 Goldberg was the better known of the two—a veteran of Socialist and American Labor Party politics, having already served two years on the council for the ALP. An immigrant from Ukraine, he had achieved some renown as a radical lawyer. In 1919, Goldberg was arrested for speaking in Yiddish at a street meeting, in violation of a police edict prohibiting languages other than English at

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outdoor rallies. His case established the right to open-air meetings in foreign languages. More than most Liberal Party politicians, Goldberg remained firmly embedded in the world of Socialist politics, as national chair of the Social Democratic Federation. In 1949, when a columnist for the Herald-Tribune contrasted the alien Marx to the American Whitman, Goldberg leapt to Marx’s defense. He argued in a letter to the editor that Communists were not true Marxists, but Bakuninist or Leninist advocates of “force, violence, terror and dictatorship.” Marx, on the other hand, was a democrat who preferred peaceful change if possible. However revisionist or social democratic in tone, this defense of Marx was undoubtedly unusual for a politician seeking reelection at the beginning of the McCarthy period.51 But despite the election of Goldberg and Palestin, the results of the 1945 campaign were disappointing indeed. Alex Rose was forced to admit that while the Liberal leadership had hoped that Goldstein would become a “symbol” of antimachine politics, the judge had failed to “symbolize our high standards of political consistency and could not withstand the diabolical machinations of Fiorello H. La Guardia.”52 But the problem went beyond the mayoral candidate, and seemed to necessitate a reappraisal of the party’s very mission. Childs reported to the state executive committee that the “very disappointing” results had brought “diminished prestige” and “financial deficit.” The committee appointed a commission to explore how the Liberal Party could be made “an indispensable instrumentality of American democracy.” But the basic question was whether or not the Liberal Party should even continue. At a hearing that lasted well into the evening, the commission heard the opinions of intellectuals, trade unionists, and club members. The decision, ultimately, was to soldier on, but the corollary to “be careful not to sacrifice our principles in the choice of candidates” sometimes proved hard to maintain.53 The decision to continue was ratified by a gratifyingly enthusiastic 1,500 people at the party’s second annual dinner on June 5, 1946. Later, Liberal dinners served as important fundraisers for the party, but in the early years the dinners did not even break even. Nevertheless, they were serious and enlightening affairs, with first-rate speakers—including candidates for president, governor, and senator; US senators from other states; prominent intellectuals; and important labor leaders. On the dais sat party candidates, state officers, county chairs, labor leaders, liberal intellectuals, and civil rights figures. In 1946, speakers called for a new national party, and most must have thought the featured guest, the liberal Republican senator Wayne Morse, half right when he proclaimed, “The future of the liberal movement is in the Republican Party. The Democratic Party has had great liberals but the

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trouble is they are all dead.” Liberal Party dinners compared especially well with Democratic and Republican events, which were characterized more by heavy drinking than by intellectual stimulation.54 Once the decision was made to continue as a party, the 1946 elections took on great importance for the Liberals. New York State election law dictated that a party had to receive a minimum of fifty thousand votes for its gubernatorial candidate in order to secure a regular spot on the ballot in all elections in the state for the next four years. Since its founding, the Liberal Party had had to secure thousands of petition signatures for each candidate it sought to place on the ballot. The Liberals hoped to emerge from the 1946 elections as a legally recognized party in New York. The 1946 elections would also determine whether the liberal New Deal coalition could regain its momentum after the war. The Liberal Party complained that a bipartisan conservative bloc had stymied progressive national legislation. The Liberal program called for a revitalization and extension of the New Deal, stressing the threat of economic insecurity caused by boomand-bust business cycles, but also emphasizing the evils posed by concentrations of wealth and power. Collective economic security, according to the Liberals, was the key to individual freedom. Accordingly, the program called for, among other things, a “democratic system of national economic budgeting and planning” and progressive taxes to “recover or prevent excessive profits and excessive individual incomes,” as well as an expanded safety net.55 The Liberal Party opened its state convention a week after the annual dinner. The more than six hundred delegates heard original New Deal braintruster Adolf A. Berle Jr. differ both with the party line, which called for a new party on the national level, and with Senator Morse’s message of the previous week, which saw the Republican Party as the liberal party of the future. Berle, by contrast, viewed the Democrats as the only viable vehicle of liberalism on the national level. “In all frankness,” he told those assembled, “I believe the main hope of being fruitful lies in endeavoring to find a field of common action with the Democratic Party and in supporting President Truman [against] . . . the Republican party, which at the moment seems hellbent for reaction.”56 Some in the crowd, especially the Socialists of the SDF, clearly found Berle’s dismissal of independent political action rather disappointing. But the Liberal leadership wanted to fuse with the Democrats on the statewide ticket, and the Democrats wanted Liberal support. The Democrats also wanted ALP backing, and Mayor O’Dwyer worked hard to broker a deal. He conferred with Rose for three-hours over dinner, and met later with other Liberals. Rose praised O’Dwyer, prompting rumors that the mayor was

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moving to break with the ALP and with Tammany. But O’Dwyer also spoke with the ALP.57 The most important sticking points were the candidates for governor and US senator. Ultimately all sides agreed on former governor Hebert Lehman for senator, and Senator James Mead for governor. Both were solid New Dealers and proven vote getters. As PM described them, Mead was “big” and “bluff,” a former railroad worker who offered a stark contrast to the “157 pounds of bombast” that was Governor Thomas Dewey. Lehman, on the other hand, had a rather dull public persona, but was nevertheless widely viewed as “a man of . . . affability and kindness” and “an administrator of . . . genius and integrity.” Having led a progressive state administration during the Depression, he remained something of a hero among local New Dealers. Likewise, as the first Jewish governor of New York and a contributor to many Jewish causes, Lehman remained popular among Jewish voters. His opponent was State Senator Irving Ives, whose liberal Republican credentials included sponsorship of the Ives-Quinn antidiscrimination law. Unlike Dewey, according to PM, Ives exuded “warmth, friendliness, a real respect for other people and faith in the good will of ordinary guys.” He promised to give Lehman a run for his money, though the former governor reportedly had a hard time taking him seriously.58 As the campaign heated up, Commerce Secretary Henry Wallace gave a speech at a September 12 Defeat Dewey rally sponsored by Citizens’ PAC and the Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions. Like his “Century of the Common Man” speech four years earlier, Wallace’s “Way to Peace” speech caused a sensation. But unlike the earlier talk, “The Way to Peace” divided liberals and widened the rift between Wallace and his former admirers on the anti-Communist Left. Although Truman had apparently approved the text, it contradicted the administration’s hard-line policy toward the Soviet Union by painting US-Soviet coexistence as a life-or-death issue. Although Wallace named an end to racism and xenophobia as the main “price of peace,” he also seemed to call for recognition of a Soviet sphere of influence—in violation of the one-world position professed by most American liberals. Many in the pro-Soviet crowd booed Wallace’s attempts to be evenhanded by criticizing Soviet society, but after some hesitation the Communist Party fell in line with Soviet praise for the speech. Anti-Soviet elements in the administration were livid, and Truman fired the liberal icon a week later.59 The Wallace controversy created particular problems for the DemocraticAmerican Labor-Liberal ticket in New York. At the Liberal Party’s rally for the Mead-Lehman ticket, Mrs. Roosevelt chided her hosts and defended Wallace:

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“I think that fundamentally Henry Wallace wants what the President, the Secretary of State and every one of us wants. . . . What we really want, I feel, is to find a way in which our American policy can be so formulated that we can get on with the rest of the world.” Pounding on the lectern, she called for liberals to focus on “the things on which we all agree,” to thunderous applause from the 1,500 in the hall. But while the ALP quickly endorsed Wallace’s position as the “Roosevelt program of unity and friendship with the Soviet Union,” the Liberal and Democratic Parties took the opposite stance. Childs issued a statement sharply distancing the Liberal Party from its “old friend and co-worker,” accusing Wallace of endorsing a double standard in reserving harsh criticism for Britain and the United States while excusing Russia’s “vast territorial and political expansion” and its “total suppression of political and personal liberties.” Wallace, Childs said, had “forfeited . . . the support of democratic liberals who are for one world, not two worlds.”60 Caught in the middle, Mead and Lehman faced the problem of alienating one or another of their backers. At the Liberal rally, they avoided the issue altogether. Mead called for a “war against poverty, ignorance, exploitation and persecution.” He called the campaign a battle between the “American way of life and the reactionary way of life,” and blasted the “building lobby” for seeing “nothing un-American in slums and juvenile delinquency” but railing “about socialism, communism and un-Americanism” in the Wagner housing bill. Lehman called for the building of a democratic world order and for comprehensive social legislation at home.61 Nevertheless, running for the Senate, Lehman felt it necessary to enunciate a foreign policy position and respond to Republican charges that the Democrats were soft on Communism. In a sharp exchange, Lehman accused the Republicans of bringing out “an assortment of defrosted herrings, shaded all the way from pale pink to deepest red.” It was “accepted Republican practice,” he said, “to call the advocates of any liberal cause ‘Communists’ or ‘fellow travelers’ at the very least.” At the same time, the former governor was forced to proclaim, “I repudiate all Communist support, and I do not want any Communist votes. I say that with all the force that lies in my being.” In a major foreign policy address, Lehman indicated his support for both the UN and the Truman administration’s position. At the same time, he expressed his hope for a “full and clear understanding” with the USSR, and rejected what he called Ives’s belligerent program of peace through threat of retaliation.62 In the end, the results were decidedly mixed for the Liberals. Mead and Lehman both lost. And they each received barely 180,000 votes on the Liberal line, compared to the 300,000 to 500,000 that the Liberal leadership had predicted—and to the more than 400,000 cast on the ALP line. Party

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members were in no mood to celebrate; on election night, a reporter found only David Dubinsky playing pinochle with a journalist at Liberal headquarters at the Hotel Claridge. On the other hand, the liberal dailies PM and the Post argued that the small parties had held their own while the Democratic vote had dropped. The Democrats would need the small parties to regain power. Since Democrats blamed their defeat in part on the ALP-Communist albatross, this left the Liberals as their only viable partners in future elections. Most importantly, the Liberals had secured more than enough votes for Mead to make them a legally recognized party in New York State.63 Below the top of the ticket, the Liberals had a choice of running their own candidate, supporting a sympathetic liberal from one of the major parties, or going with the lesser of the presented evils. In Upper Manhattan’s Twenty-First Congressional District, the Liberal Party backed a member of the second category in a race with important implications for the future of New York politics. There, a young Republican lawyer and war veteran named Jacob Javits, who had grown up partly in the area, saw an opening in a threeway race and approached Alex Rose, whom he had met during the Goldstein mayoral campaign. Rose, who lived in the district, was amenable to backing Javits over the Tammany Democratic and ALP candidates. The local Liberal Club was also supportive. A bald, dapper bachelor, Javits was a decidedly liberal Republican who had much in common with the leaders and members of the Liberal Party. The son of East European Jewish immigrants, he had grown up on the Lower East Side and in Brownsville and Washington Heights. He had even dabbled in youthful Socialism before embarking on a successful career as a corporate lawyer. He joined the Republican Party out of revulsion to Tammany Hall and the southern white supremacists in the national Democratic Party, but supported Roosevelt and the New Deal. PM reported that Javits went “down the line with the progressives” on such issues as a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission, a higher minimum wage, improved Social Security and unemployment insurance, aid to education, and a strong UN. A member of the liberal American Veterans Committee, he ran, like many in his generation, as a “new man.” PM gave Javits its highest compliment when it endorsed him as a “fighting liberal.”64 Javits was elected. The Washington Heights Liberal Club stumped hard for him and ultimately supplied him with 9,842 votes—more than his narrow 6,131-vote margin of victory. The Forward celebrated his victory as a “consistent liberal,” and the Post commented happily, “You can’t prove a conservative trend by Javits.” In reality, Javits proved a cautious liberal in Congress, not always going as far as the Liberals might like (he opposed national health

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insurance, for example, preferring a government-subsidized system of local for-profit and nonprofit insurers), but he opposed deregulation of rents and the Taft-Hartley labor bill, and backed public housing. His victory over Tammany and ALP opposition was a proud moment for the Liberal Party.65 Nationally, though, the election was a disaster not only for Democrats but for liberals. Many liberal congressional stalwarts went down in defeat. The Republicans captured both houses, and the Eightieth Congress would be the most conservative in a decade and a half.66 In 1947, the Liberals faced a number of challenges to their ability to function. Early in the year, they weighed in on two bills in the state legislature that sought to limit the influence of New York’s small parties. They allied with the ALP, the Communists, the Socialists, and others to beat back an attempt to raise the vote threshold for a party to receive a permanent line on the ballot. But the Liberals broke with their left-wing rivals to support the Wilson-Pekula Act, which banned candidates from running in primaries of parties in which they were not enrolled, unless the relevant party committee permitted them to do so. Aimed primarily at the ALP congressman Vito Marcantonio, who regularly entered and won both Democratic and Republican primaries, Wilson-Pekula was strenuously opposed by the ALP and the Communist Party, as well as by Marcantonio and Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, another “well-known party primary raider,” as one journalist put it. Ever vigilant against a repeat of their ALP experience, Liberal Party leaders undoubtedly thought that Wilson-Pekula would help them ward off raids on their own primaries.67 But with the Liberal Party’s city council representation at stake, a referendum on the abolition of proportional representation was the most important issue facing the party during that off-year election. Opponents had been gunning for PR since the year after it was put into effect, but the Communist council victories of 1945 spelled its demise. The conservative WorldTelegram expressed the views of many when it opined that “well-organized, extreme-left minorities” had learned how to manipulate the system to their advantage. Robert Moses even contended hyperbolically that the system had been an important tool in both Hitler’s rise to power and the impending Communist takeover in Germany. “Here in New York,” wrote the powerful commissioner with more justification, “proportional representation on the council . . . has produced a preposterous minority with no cohesive bond running all the way from conservatives to extreme radicals. It has encouraged irresponsible splinter representation.”68 The movement to abolish PR gained support from conservative forces as well as from the major party machines. American Legion posts, the five

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county Democratic machines, and Republican ward heelers all worked for abolition. Tammany law committee chair Abraham Kaplan repeated the argument that the abolition of PR was the only way to rid the council of Communists. The Times, the Daily News, and most of the city’s other newspapers agreed. The clinching argument against PR was simply that it was very difficult and sometimes frustrating for voters to use. The unwieldy paper ballots were unpopular with the public.69 Not surprisingly, the Liberal Party fought to retain the system that had enabled it to elect two members of the city council. (Indeed, the party had previously called for the system’s extension to the “election of other city and state officials.”) The Liberals were joined in this struggle by the Communist and American Labor Parties, somewhat uncomfortably, and, more congenially, by most reformers, including the Citizens Union, the League of Women Voters, the Herald-Tribune, Samuel Seabury, and Newbold Morris. Blaming the Democratic machine and “certain ultra-conservative forces” for the move to abolish PR, the Liberals argued that without the cumbersome system, there would be one-party rule in the city. They pointed out that without preferential balloting, the Democrats would have swept the council elections in 1945, even though they had gotten less than half the vote. And not only did PR lead to multiparty representation, but it also led to a better class of candidate from all parties. Moreover, it focused attention on the issues, kept interest in council elections high, and made debate within the council more lively. Better voter education would solve the technical difficulties. Speaking on a Liberal Party radio show, Seabury even claimed that the late President Roosevelt had privately expressed a preference for PR. Special attention needed to be given to the argument that PR benefited the Communists. Councilman Palestin pointed out that the Communists had gotten only the number of seats their votes had entitled them to. But there was no need for hysteria, he said: the Communist vote would decline as public regard for the USSR dissipated. In any case, the councilman contended, the idea that a system that encouraged minority parties was somehow akin to the Soviet one-party system was absurd. The Liberals further argued that the Communists could be defeated only by a combination of an affirmative program for solving social problems and the cultivation of “an awareness and alertness” among the electorate. In the meantime, they pleaded with voters not to “throw out the baby with the dirty water.”70 But on a rainy Election Day, a surprising number of voters for an off-year election handed the Liberals and their allies another resounding defeat, passing Proposition 4 to abolish proportional representation by a vote of 935,276

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(61.5 percent) to 586,151 (38.5 percent). The anti-PR vote was heaviest in the conservative boroughs of Queens and Staten Island, but it carried Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx as well. Henceforth, the council would have twenty-five members elected from the city’s state senatorial districts, making it unlikely that the Liberals would keep their representation.71

Berle as Chair In 1947, Adolf Berle replaced John Childs as party chair, an event that signaled the Liberals’ move away from the idea of a national third party, since Berle was already on record as favoring the Democrats nationally. Landing Berle for the job was quite a coup for the Liberals. Not only was Berle, like Childs, a progressive intellectual of high standing and Protestant extraction, but as a former close adviser to both FDR and La Guardia, he symbolized the heady days of the New Deal and embodied the link between nationaland local-level reform. Moreover, Berle gave Liberals political credibility and access to the halls of power, since he still had the occasional ear of President Truman, top leaders of the Democratic Party, and other high-level leaders both domestic and foreign. Berle also had energy to burn. “Small and quick,” in the words of one observer, “he walks like a wrestler about the ring. . . . He talks at a lightning-like rate. It seems his mind works too fast for his tongue, that he fears life will be too short for him to say—and do—all the things he wants to do.”72 Berle also brought intellectual heft to the party chairmanship. As a Columbia professor of corporate law, he had achieved some notoriety when he teamed up with the economist Gardner Means to study the emerging corporate structure of US capitalism. Berle and Means posited a growing separation of corporate ownership from control, and a steady concentration of power and wealth into the hands of a handful of oligarchic corporate managers. These oligarchs rigged the system to give themselves the advantage over ordinary people. Only government intervention, Berle and Means argued, could stave off the emerging “industrial feudalism,” restoring popular control, defending the public interest, and providing a modicum of security to most citizens. Their book, The Modern Corporation and Private Property (1932), received rave reviews in the liberal press and won Berle comparisons to Adam Smith and Karl Marx as an economic theorist.73 Given Berle’s intellectual cachet and long experience in the halls of power, the Liberals’ attraction for him may have seemed less clear. As he wrote in his diary, “Last night I accepted the Chairmanship of the Liberal Party. Under any dead reckoning, this is foolish. I could sit here and maintain technical

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status as a Democrat, get occasional plush appointments from the State Department, and grow old with dignity and leisure.” He concluded, “But the political wilderness has some attractions.” For one thing, he saw the Liberals as having a “clear monopoly” on ideas. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans had any at all, and the ALP had to clear its thoughts with the Communist Party, and thus indirectly with Moscow. Without an official portfolio for the first time in over a decade, Berle hoped that his leadership of the Liberal Party would give him a congenial and very public perch from which to continue to influence policy. Moreover, he wrote, “campaigning is a favorite amusement of mine. It has in it . . . the combined qualities of having a ticket in a lottery, listening to great music, being at a Revival meeting, and joining the Army, and it does for America something of what carnival does for Brazil.” Later he wrote, with obvious satisfaction, “I still have a little to say, though not much, about who gets elected in the state of New York.”74 Berle also brought with him a reputation as an “imperious, brusque, arrogant snob,” according to his biographer, a trait that might have been on display when he wrote of meeting with a “bunch of children from the liberal Young Voters’ League” who had come to urge the party to not be “merely anti-Russian.” He lectured them about the need for the Liberals to work closely with the Democrats on the national level, and told the “two girls and five boys” about his recent meetings with the president. “There is no reason,” he wrote, “why they should not see how the game is played and how little mystery there is in it.” Nevertheless, his old boss La Guardia saw a “faint ray of hope” in Berle’s selection as chair: “Seldom in the history of American politics has any party had such a scholarly, experienced, competent leader.”75 On the eve of the 1948 presidential election, the Liberal Party thus had strong intellectual leadership and a well-organized base. It had the attention of local politicians, and figured in speculation concerning a national third party. But although it had gained a position on the New York ballot and had elected two councilmen in New York City, it had yet to achieve a major electoral breakthrough or overtake its main rival. Over the next three years, however, the party would work hard in the atmosphere of an intensifying Cold War to marginalize the ALP and its Communist allies.

Ch a p ter 3

New Deal Legacy at the Crossroads

As US liberalism began to divide into hostile camps with the onset of the Cold War, the Liberal Party found itself in an ambiguous position. On the one hand, it had established a formal structure and gained recognition as an official party under New York election law. On the other hand, it had yet to achieve any major electoral victories, or even to differentiate itself clearly in voters’ minds from the American Labor Party, let alone overtake its left-wing rival. But in 1948 and 1949, it did all those things. In 1948, after some vacillation, it firmly committed itself to the national anti-Communist Fair Deal coalition led by President Harry Truman, against the Communist-backed third-party movement led by its former hero, Henry Wallace. The following year, it scored several victories on the local and state levels, besting the ALP and proving that both Democrats and Republicans needed to take it seriously as a political force. In so doing, however, the Liberal Party surrendered any lingering hopes of forming the basis for a new national progressive party, and settled uneasily into the balance-of-power strategy that remained its stock and trade for the long term.

Wallace, Truman, and Realignment Going into the 1948 presidential election, the Liberal Party, like liberals nationally, was not all that fond of Harry S. Truman. He had, after all, 61

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displaced the liberal icon Wallace from the ticket in 1944, and his main associations were with party regulars, not New Deal liberals. Some viewed him as a “provincial clubhouse hack,” and his early appointments, many of which went to conservatives, did little to allay fears that he would move the Democratic Party and the administration to the right. He did not fit the bill of a “fighting liberal” like Wallace had.1 Truman’s early actions as president teased liberals, alternately attracting them and pushing them away. In the fall of 1945, the president cheered progressives by endorsing a comprehensive and liberal “reconversion policy” based on FDR’s Economic Bill of Rights, with an emphasis on full employment and expanded Social Security. But then he failed to push his ambitious program through Congress. Only a vastly weakened full employment bill passed. Truman failed to break a filibuster on a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission, and vacillated on anti-poll-tax legislation. Moreover, his relations with the labor movement worsened, reaching a nadir in 1946 when he threatened to conscript striking railroad workers to keep the trains running. Nor were liberals happy with Truman’s foreign policy: he seemed to do little for the displaced persons in Europe, or for Jewish Palestine; he was too open to enlisting ex-Nazis in the rivalry with the USSR; and he called for universal military training.2 Meanwhile, Henry Wallace remained a liberal hero—for a time. After Wallace was dumped from the ticket in 1944, Roosevelt nominated him to be secretary of commerce and promptly left for Yalta. When conservatives in the Senate sought to block Wallace’s confirmation, the Liberal Party joined other progressives around the country in campaigning once again for the former vice president. A Liberal rally drew two thousand to hear speeches calling for government planning for full employment and social justice. Wallace, the meeting resolved, was a “symbol of aspirations” of “abundance, security, and deeper democracy”—and, in Congressman Emanuel Celler’s radical words, of “human rights above property rights.” Liberal Party speakers used the occasion to call for political realignment around a new party. The Democratic Party, said Dean Alfange, could not be an “instrument of progressive liberalism.” Alfange proclaimed “Mr. Wallace would do better” by leading a movement for a genuine third party made up of liberals from the two old parties, “both of which are now hopelessly afflicted with cerebral paralysis and a bad case of heart trouble.” The Wall Street Journal believed that the ALP and the Liberal Party (which it saw as not that different from one another) were “grooming” Wallace for a presidential run in 1948.3 But in 1946, the Liberals fell out of love with Wallace. In June, Dubinsky already called him the “darling of the fellow travelers,” ironically in part

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because of his declared opposition to a third-party effort. Especially after the “Way to Peace” speech that fall, Wallace became a polarizing figure among liberals, as they divided into pro- and anti-Soviet camps. Adolf Berle now pronounced Wallace the “front man” for the Communists and fellow travelers behind the newly formed Progressive Citizens of America (PCA). John Childs still hoped for a viable progressive alternative to Truman, but thought that Wallace was hurting the cause of a third party on the national level “by the irresponsible line he has adopted on foreign policy and his obstinate insistence on a united front with the Communists.” He fretted, “Because of the failure of Henry Wallace, the labor-liberal forces may be compelled to choose in the critical national election of next year between a Truman on the one hand and a Bricker, a Taft, or a Dewey on the other. . . . Literally, that is a choice of the lesser evil, certainly not a choice of the greater good.”4 From its founding, the Liberal Party had sought a national political realignment that would gather liberals and democratic leftists in one camp and conservatives in another. The New York party saw itself officially as the nucleus of a new national party that would help accomplish that task. In a pamphlet published by the party, Childs argued that only a new party could meet the needs of a postwar world by recognizing the “need for a transformed economy” that utilized science and technology for human well-being, eliminated the boom-and-bust business cycle by centralized planning, and supplemented “private enterprise with social enterprise.” In world affairs, a new party would work with “labor and democratic Socialist forces” in other countries, as well as with nationalist groups in the colonial world, to break free of the false choice between “Soviet imperialist totalitarianism” and “royalist, landlord, clerical Fascism.” A new party would have to be rooted in labor but draw also from a broad base beyond blue-collar workers. Childs proposed the New York Liberal Party as a model of political cooperation between labor and liberal intellectuals.5 But the pronouncements of the party and its leaders often contained quite a bit of ambiguity. Would the Democratic Party become the kind of liberal-labor party symbolized by Roosevelt, Wallace, and the New Deal, or would a new party arise? Early on, Dubinsky told an ILGWU convention that he thought the creation of the Liberal Party might “stimulate a movement along such lines in other states,” but even then it was not clear whether it would do that by serving as a model of independent action or as a prod pushing the Democrats to the left. Another point of ambiguity concerned the elements central to the future liberal-labor alignment: would it chiefly depend on bringing in internationalist “Willkie Republicans,” as Dubinsky and Rose often seemed to hope, or on a convergence of such

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left-liberal and radical groups as the Socialist Party, the Social Democratic Federation, the Union for Democratic Action, CIO-PAC, the National Citizens’ PAC, the Wisconsin Progressive Party, and “Commonwealth” groups in Illinois and Michigan? Dubinsky himself later recalled that the only time he really thought a national third party was possible was when he was negotiating with Willkie in 1944 for a mayoral race the following year. “The national third party project died with” Willkie in October 1944, Dubinsky opined. But if that is what Dubinsky thought at the time, he kept it to himself. In fact, in June 1946 he called for a national party to give labor a political home and to punish Truman and congressional Democrats for their failure to defend labor rights.6 Accordingly, the Liberal Party participated in the National Educational Committee for a New Party (NECNP), led by A. Philip Randolph from 1945 to 1947. Encouraged by the Labour Party victory in Britain, and by the Canadian Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, the labor and civil rights leader envisioned a new party that would have a forthright civil rights program, support economic planning, work to strengthen labor laws, and call for the socialization of banking, transportation, electric utilities, and large monopolies. Truman’s clashes with labor in 1946 strengthened Randolph’s resolve, as he called once again for a “new, victorious political party of the common people, based on a democratically planned economy.”7 The NECNP elaborated on Randolph’s comments in a lengthy and detailed statement that drew on the work of “postcapitalists” such as Berle, who believed that capitalism had entered a new phase of monopoly development that stymied efforts at democratic control and combined the worst aspects of collectivism and private property. What was needed was an equally radical countermovement that would reestablish the spirit of “free enterprise” partly by supporting small business, but also by redefining free enterprise as “democratic public ownership” of monopoly industries. Only government planning could bring full employment, the rational use of public resources, and a just distribution of wealth and income. In foreign policy, the new-party advocates saw a need to limit the sovereign right to make war, and supported strong international measures to control atomic energy and move toward disarmament. They opposed Western imperialism, but also angrily lashed out at Communists and some liberals who supported the concept of “spheres of influence.” Unlike the movement for a third party slowly coalescing around Henry Wallace, the NECNP reserved its harshest critique for the USSR. The NECNP’s tentative program was thus very much in keeping with that of New York’s Liberal Party, and in fact the party was the NECNP’s largest affiliate.8

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But the NECNP was a remarkably tentative and hesitant movement. It repeatedly stressed that it was not itself a party or even an organizing committee for a party, but a committee dedicated to educating the public about the need to form such a party.9 Anti-Communism both spurred the NECNP’s formation and ultimately stalled its work. In 1945, Randolph wrote privately that the anti-Stalinist Left needed to organize a broad party before the Communists preempted it with an effort of their own. But at that time the Communist Party opposed a third party, sticking to its wartime policy of alliance with the Democrats. It castigated Randolph’s committee as a “disruptive movement” motivated by a “typical Trotzkyite anti-Soviet phobia.” But by the middle of 1947, when the Soviet line shifted and the PCA appeared to be evolving into a new party, enthusiasm on the anti-Soviet Left for such an undertaking waned. The concern that the Communists would organize a third party now led some NECNP supporters to pull back. So did a renewed respect for Truman after he vetoed the Taft-Hartley Act.10 Pushed by Berle, who clearly favored Truman, the Liberal Party began to swing away from the third-party idea, at least for 1948. At the July 1947 meeting of the state committee, Rose called the nascent third party a “Molotov cocktail” that was “inspired by the frustration of Henry A. Wallace and conspired by the soviet subservient American Communists” to punish Truman for his foreign policy. While it was still too early to declare the party for Truman, Rose said, he himself supported the president on both labor issues and foreign policy. The Liberal Party still favored a new national party someday, but such a party would have to come from the “grassroots.” Berle pressed the argument that the third party hatched on “13th Street, at Communist headquarters” would result in the victory of the “most reactionary wing of the Republican Party.”11 By the time that Wallace announced that he would seek the presidency at the head of a new progressive party, the Liberal Party was dead set against that strategy. Its support for Truman was not unshakeable, however, and there would be more twists and turns ahead. An early referendum on Wallace’s third party came in February 1948, in a special election for Congress in the Bronx. The Twenty-Fourth Congressional District was a working-class area whose better sections, according to journalists, consisted of “four- and five-story walkups, ill-kept, unclean, poorly lighted.” Its population was perhaps 40 percent Jewish, 25 percent Black and Puerto Rican, and inclined toward the left. When Bronx County Democratic boss Ed Flynn rebuffed Liberal Party overtures and told a delegation headed by Berle and Rose that he thought the party should disappear, a four-way

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race took shape, pitting the Democratic, Republican, Liberal, and American Labor Parties against each other. With the Republican hardly figuring in the race, and the other candidates agreeing on most domestic issues, the campaign centered on the question of who would be the more assertive progressive in Congress, and on foreign policy issues such as the Marshall Plan and the future of Palestine. The campaign was hard fought in English, Yiddish, and Spanish. Sound trucks crisscrossed the district. But the ALP candidate, former assemblyman Leo Isacson, attracted the most support from outside the district. Thousands of volunteers from left-wing union locals and ALP and Communist Party branches flooded the district, “Daily Workers sticking out of their pockets,” according to the World-Telegram. At a rally at Hunt’s Point Palace, Henry Wallace himself accused Truman of “talk[ing] Jewish and act[ing] Arab.” A vote for Isacson, Wallace argued, was a vote against the Truman policy of support for “kings, reactionaries and Fascists all around the world” and alliance with “feudal lords of the Arab world.”12 The election took place on an unusually warm day for February, as the winter’s accumulated snow melted to reveal the trash on the dirty streets. The Herald-Tribune observed that Isacson campaigned with “tremendous vigor” and the help of a “well-oiled machine” staffed by American Youth for Democracy and PCA youth who plastered the district with buttons and posters. The usually efficient Flynn machine, on other hand, failed to perform. By the end of the day, Isacson had emerged victorious, with a resounding 55 percent of the vote. Flynn was said to be shocked by the results. But the PCA’s Beanie Baldwin said the vote showed “proof that the people demand a new party led by Henry Wallace.” PM concurred. This “first test of Henry Wallace’s third party strength,” it said, gave a “tremendous boost for the Wallace movement.”13 Dead set against a Wallace-led third party, the Liberals nudged ever closer to Truman. Throughout 1947, the president had been seeking an opening to his left by taking a more assertive stance against the conservative Congress. Aside from his veto of Taft-Hartley, he signed a housing and rent regulation bill he nevertheless criticized as too weak, and vetoed measures to weaken Social Security. In addition, Truman appointed a presidential commission on civil rights, including several Liberal Party members and friends. In October 1947, the commission issued its report, recommending antilynching legislation, the enforcement of voting rights, desegregation of the armed forces and interstate transportation, and withholding of federal funds from those who discriminated.14

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In January 1948, after Wallace had committed himself to an independent campaign, Berle visited Truman on behalf of the Liberal Party. In a report to the Liberal Policy Committee, Berle argued that Truman had adopted a liberal program and was trying to bring his administration along. The Liberal Party endorsed Truman’s anti-inflation program, and began to plan a joint campaign with the Democrats.15 In the spring, however, Liberal support for Truman was shaken by administration waffling on the issue of Palestine partition. Berle called the administration’s stance “a shattering blow at this country’s moral position,” and Max Zaritsky of the hatmakers’ union thought that Truman had “completely lost” the support of workers, and not just of Jews. In an official statement, the Liberal Party called the administration’s Palestine policy a “shocking reversal” and a “shattering blow at the United Nations, the long-suffering Palestine Jewry, and the moral position of the United States.”16 Moreover, many liberals still thought him a weak leader and candidate. Casting about for a better standard-bearer, some settled on General Dwight D. Eisenhower, though his political leanings were in truth somewhat vague. In March, the Liberal Party Policy Committee unanimously backed Eisenhower, calling on party units to discuss the endorsement and report before the state committee was to meet in April. Berle, previously Truman’s biggest supporter in the party, averred that Eisenhower, “as the candidate of Democratic and Liberal forces, can unite the greatest number of Americans at this time.” Moreover, he said, “We have a fair idea of his view on ERP, labor, and other things and those views are satisfactory.” Dubinsky, Davidson, and the Bronx County organization supported Eisenhower as well. Through spring 1948, Liberal Party leaders continued to speak out for Eisenhower.17 But by summer, the Liberals reversed themselves once again, and returned to the Truman camp. Part of the reason was that Truman continued to take measures to shore up his left flank, measures such as issuing an executive order desegregating the armed forces. At the Democratic convention in July, the president gave an electrifying progressive speech, promising action on civil rights, price controls, housing, and the repeal of Taft-Hartley. At that convention, the Democratic Party adopted a strong pro-civil-rights plank after another electrifying speech by Minneapolis mayor Hubert Humphrey prompted a walkout by southern white supremacists. The Liberals could now feel that the national Democratic Party had at least temporarily become the realigned progressive party they had been hoping for. Without Humphrey’s civil rights plank, reports claimed, the Liberal Party would have sat out the election. As it was, the Liberal Party convention on September 1 formally nominated the president for reelection.18

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With the president trailing Republican New York governor Thomas Dewey, and with a strong Wallace campaign likely to eat into Truman’s vote in New York, the state’s Democratic Party all but gave up on the top of the ticket. But the Liberals saw an opportunity to make themselves essential to the president and, with the aid of an $84,000 subsidy from the ILGWU, enthusiastically threw themselves into the campaign. In fact, the campaign’s highlight was Truman’s campaign swing through New York, which included an appearance in the Garment District, an unprecedented stop in Harlem, and the Liberal Party’s Madison Square Garden rally on October 28. The rally drew more than sixteen thousand people and featured a star-studded lineup of speakers and entertainers. The speakers all appealed to the New Deal and attacked the Republican record in the state and nation. The main attraction, unlike in 1944, was Truman himself. The president delivered a spirited defense of New Deal liberalism and an attack on the Republican record under both the presidency of Hebert Hoover and the Eightieth Congress. “We have come to pledge once more our faith in liberal government,” the president said, “and to place in firm control of our national affairs those who believe with all their hearts in the principles of Franklin D. Roosevelt.” Although he momentarily forgot who his hosts were and called for a large vote on the Democratic line, Truman tailored his message to appeal to his liberal audience. He called for a raise in the minimum wage, expansion of Social Security, national health insurance, federal aid to education, low-cost housing, price controls, and strong support for the new State of Israel.19 Overall, the Liberal leaders were pleased with their showing in the 1948 election. True, Truman lost New York to Dewey, the Liberal tally of just over two hundred thousand had fallen short of predictions, and the ALP vote for Wallace had vastly exceeded the Liberal vote. But the Liberals could plausibly claim that they had almost single-handedly carried the Truman campaign in the state. Dubinsky felt that the Madison Square Garden rally was a “decisive event” in the national victory, and Truman himself told Dubinsky and Rose that the rally was a “highlight of the whole campaign.” Berle reported to national Democratic chairman Howard McGrath that with only tepid support for the president coming from Democratic organizations, “the Liberal Party carried all the campaign during the early weeks, and the bulk of it at the end—except in Brooklyn.” The local machines looked out for their own interests, argued Berle, even if it meant undermining a sitting Democratic president. This was why an independent group like the Liberal Party was necessary in the state.20 Berle’s analysis of election results provided grounds for optimism: Democrats had done well if they ran as liberals, but less well when running to the

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right. Moreover, liberal local candidates had run ahead of Truman. In New York, the Liberals had shown that they could attract upward of three hundred thousand votes and, with Democratic county machines divided and in some cases disloyal, that they played a necessary independent role. The two most important conclusions, according to Berle, were that “the question as to what the national liberal party of the future will be is settled for the time being. It will be the Democratic Party: third party notions are out”; and that the Liberal Party should “spearhead a movement for a non-partisan liberal government of the city of New York,” cooperating with liberal Republicans against O’Dwyer and the Democratic organizations.21

“Social Justice” and “Straight Government” In 1949, the Liberal Party set out to prove that it could beat both the Democratic machine and the ALP Left on the local level. The Liberal Party’s 1949 slogan—“Support the Fair Deal in the nation; Abolish the raw deal in the city”—expressed its desire to link its support for an expanded social security state with its opposition to the corruption of the urban machine. As Berle put it, the people “want social justice and they want straight government.” Indeed, he argued, the two were inseparable since “a crooked machine mixed up with social legislation becomes the worst kind of racket.”22 With this slogan the Liberal Party finally achieved electoral success. By the end of the year, the party had surpassed the ALP and shown that it was indispensable to Democrats on the state level and to Republicans in the city. The year began, once again, with a special election for Congress—this time in the Twentieth Congressional District on the West Side of Manhattan. The Twentieth stretched from 26th Street to 116th Street, west of Eighth and Columbus Avenues, and, according to the Times, ranged “economically from middle class down.” Perhaps a bit more than half its inhabitants were Jewish, with the Jews concentrated in the northern end of the district. The district’s southern end in Hell’s Kitchen was still predominantly Irish. A small but growing number of Puerto Ricans resided in the district, which also included a sliver of African American Harlem. The Herald-Tribune described the Twentieth as including “practically all the elements of this city . . . to some degree[: t]he rich and poor, races and religions, every occupation and intellectual persuasion.” Depending on where one looked, one could argue, as did the Herald-Tribune, that the Twentieth was “by long habit, a Democratic district, where Tammany feels a special privilege” or, as did the WorldTelegram, that it had at least in part “always . . . rallied strongly to the name of Roosevelt.”23

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Urged on by Rose, in fact, Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. announced his candidacy for the seat, and when the Democrats denied him their nomination, the Liberal Party became his chief vehicle. The Democrats nominated the reliable Judge Benjamin Shalleck, while the ALP backed the left-wing educator Annette T. Rubinstein. The insurance executive William McIntyre represented the Republicans. The Liberal, Democratic, and ALP candidates all claimed the mantle of FDR, and argued above all about who would be the fighting liberal who would work actively to break the Republican-Dixiecrat stronghold on Congress. The contest revolved secondarily around questions of political culture: Tammany members asked who had earned the nomination by service to the party. They declared a preference for homegrown candidates who could claim deep roots in the district. Liberals, by contrast, emphasized positions on the issues. But they also hoped for an articulate candidate with a strong personality and national stature. 24 At thirty-four, FDR Jr. seemed to be such a candidate. Six feet four inches tall, athletic, and handsome, he closely resembled his father in features, manner, and speech. Although a bit of a playboy, he was a World War II veteran with a distinguished war record, and had already begun to make a name for himself as a liberal activist of national stature. The New York Post spoke for many liberals when it argued that FDR Jr.’s, presence turned the race into an event with real “meaning.” Roosevelt, the Post editorialized, represented “the modern, progressive forces in the Democratic Party” and “the spirit of fighting liberalism, which is democracy’s only valid answer to the totalitarian challenge in our city and in our world. . . . His triumph would inspire liberals throughout the U.S.” Despite the similarity of views on specific issues, the contrast with the regular Democratic candidate was stark: “Tammany, decrepit and dissolute, is desperately striving to imitate the gaudy vigor of its corrupt youth,” the Post wrote.25 This time, it was the Liberal Party that pulled out all the stops, bringing in armies of canvassers from Liberal clubs and unions across the city. Over a thousand Liberal Party members took part, with four or five canvassers per election district. Special efforts were made to reach African American, Puerto Rican, and immigrant voters. The party claimed responsibility for amassing nearly half of the twenty-six thousand signatures collected to get Roosevelt an additional ballot line under the Four Freedoms Party label. The other campaigns attempted to fight back, and in the weeks leading up to the election, the West Side was in what the political reporter Warren Moscow called “a state bordering on bedlam.” Tammany ordered election district captains from other areas into the Twentieth, and the Communist and American Labor Parties mobilized hundreds of volunteers, holding as many as twenty

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meetings each night. But when the dust settled, Roosevelt had won a convincing victory with just over half of the 80,872 votes cast.26 The big winners were clearly Roosevelt, the Liberal Party, and Alex Rose, who gained a reputation as a political strategic genius. Tammany and the ALP emerged as losers. Roosevelt himself seemed destined for big things, the governor’s mansion or the White House. As Roosevelt’s chief sponsors, the Liberals, in the words of the Herald-Tribune, had “out-organized and outcampaigned Tammany” and thus “gained the greatest stature of their short life.” Other observers concurred. The Liberal Party now seemed an indispensable part of any reform movement in New York. As Roosevelt himself said in alluding to alleged mob influence on the Democratic Party, “When we have a situation . . . where a Costello can tell a Roosevelt that he can’t run on the Democratic ticket, I, as a Democrat, thank God for the Liberal Party.”27 After the contest in the Twentieth, the Post expressed the hope that the coalition of the Liberal Party, dissident Democrats, and independent liberals could hold together for the November elections.28 But the Liberal Party was divided. While the choice of Roosevelt Jr. in the by-election had been easy, the choice in the mayoral race was difficult, exposing fault lines within the party between intellectuals and trade unionists. While the former constituted a good-government faction within the party and were often willing to fuse with Republicans around a suitable local candidate, many of the latter believed, as Adolf Berle put it, “that Republicans are essentially an invention of the devil who yearn to break up unionism via the Taft-Hartley Act.”29 Moreover, some Liberal Party trade unionists admired Mayor O’Dwyer’s labor record enough to support him, but many party intellectuals detested the mayor as a creature of the machine. Some Liberal leaders clearly hoped that O’Dwyer would not run and that the Democrats would nominate a candidate worthy of Liberal endorsement. A few party members pushed for an independent ticket. Berle represented the faction commonly referred to as “liberals,” “intellectuals,” or “good government supporters.” At the annual Liberal Party dinner on May 25, well before the party had taken a position in the race, he presented several themes that later became standards in the Liberal campaign. The O’Dwyer administration, he argued, was too beholden to the political bosses to govern effectively. Moreover, progressive Democratic presidents were elected and policies adopted “over the dead body of the local city Democrats.” Berle later elaborated on the theme of Tammany treachery toward national Democratic candidates and liberal policy. Not only had Tammany, and by association O’Dwyer, opposed FDR in 1932

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and 1936, according to Berle, but “these are the people that knifed Truman and the Fair Deal. . . . These are the people that knifed Lehman in 1946 and gave us Taft-Hartley, weakened rent control, and let loose inflation.” So adamant was Berle in his opposition to fusion with O’Dwyer or any other organization Democrat that he threatened to run himself to block such a move.30 That spring, a struggle over who would become the new president of Queens College fed many liberals’ mistrust of O’Dwyer. Since liberals, Jews, and academics dominated one side of the debate, while the other was made up largely of conservative Catholics and machine politicians, the conflict also revealed the social bases of the city’s political alignments. One candidate for the post, Bryn Hovde, then president of the New School for Social Research, was also an activist in liberal causes, arousing the opposition of a group of conservative Queens citizens. A firestorm erupted when O’Dwyer intervened, telling members of the board of higher education that the new president “must be satisfactory to the people of Queens,” and implying that Hovde would not fit the bill. On one side, the Knights of Columbus and the Brooklyn Tablet came to O’Dwyer’s defense and opposed Hovde as a “political innocent” and dupe of the Communists. On the other side stood a broad spectrum of groups, including both anti-Communist and Popular Frontist liberals, who argued for academic freedom and autonomy. The Liberal Party, led by Queens party chief Mark Starr, played a prominent role in the coalition, and its members’ involvement pushed them into opposition to O’Dwyer.31 Party-affiliated labor leaders participated in the Queens College struggle, but many nevertheless saw the mayor as having a pro-labor record, particularly in regard to the mediation of private-sector disputes and amiable relations with the Transit Workers Union. In the eyes of one observer, “O’Dwyer could hardly have done more for the unionist cause had he been a labor or Socialist mayor on the European model.” If O’Dwyer chose not to seek reelection, these labor Liberals hoped for a progressive Democratic candidate. They regarded fusion with the GOP as an anathema. Rose was said by some to be in the pro-O’Dwyer camp.32 Some, especially those close to the Social Democratic Federation, favored an independent slate, preferably one headed by Dubinsky or Berle. Councilman Louis Goldberg argued that building a party required independent action and that cross-endorsements should be “exceptions and not the rule.” The managing editor of the New Leader wrote to Davidson to express his frustration: “People are beginning to question why we exist as an ‘independent’ party since we rarely act like one.”33

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After vacillating all spring and into the summer, O’Dwyer finally threw his hat in the ring, sending the Liberals into intensive negotiations with the Republicans and Fusionists. The talks went slowly. Liberal and Republican “points of view and interests are diametrically opposed,” wrote Berle to C. C. Burlingham. “The Liberals as a group dislike and distrust the Republicans and all they represent; and the Republicans return the compliment.” The Liberals’ favorite was now Newbold Morris, with whom they had made up after the vituperative campaign of 1945. But many Republicans regarded his liberalism and nonpartisanship with suspicion, and were reluctant to accept him as a candidate. Finally, though, the Liberals had their way, and both parties agreed to back Morris.34 Tall, handsome, charming, articulate, and aristocratic in manner and speech, Newbold Morris came from an old and prominent New York family. He had served under La Guardia as assistant corporation counsel before being elected first to the board of aldermen and then to the presidency of the city council. Well regarded for his absolute integrity and sincerity, Morris was also often derided for his penchant for speaking like a Boy Scout. Some, such as Eleanor Roosevelt, doubted he would be tough enough to handle the mayoralty; she suggested that in “dealing with a machine like Tammany Hall he would be a babe in the woods.” Morris was also a very liberal Republican. Pro-labor and pro–civil rights, he had voted against tax breaks for the segregated Stuyvesant Town project, defended the right of the franchise bus line workers to bargain collectively, and opposed Taft-Hartley. Despite his Republican affiliation, he had called for national political realignment, and supported FDR in 1944 and the Democratic-ALP-Liberal statewide ticket in 1946.35 In backing Morris, Liberal leaders hoped to distinguish the party’s ticket from that of the Democrats, as well as to retain the support of liberal intellectuals who did not like O’Dwyer. In this race, though, the Liberal Party found it harder to rally the entire Fair Deal coalition to its cause than it had in the Roosevelt by-election. Some segments of the movement did come on board. The ILGWU endorsed Morris, of course. So did the Citizens Union and the liberal Americans for Democratic Action. Individual endorsements came from the labor leader Rose Schneiderman and the civil rights activists Mary McLeod Bethune and Guy Brewer. The Post gave Morris its ultimate compliment, calling him a “fighting liberal.”36 But not all progressives agreed that Morris was the one to lead the fight. In fact, many preferred O’Dwyer. A number of prominent liberals, including Eleanor Roosevelt, President Truman, and FDR Jr., endorsed the mayor. As Mrs. Roosevelt wrote to Dubinsky, whatever faults the mayor might have,

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his record was “on the whole . . . not bad.” But most embarrassing for the Liberals, some party-affiliated labor leaders bolted to back O’Dwyer. Most prominent among them were Max Zaritsky, president of Alex Rose’s millinery union, who called the mayor “New York’s number one liberal,” and Luigi Antonini, vice president of the ILGWU and president of its powerful Italian-language Local 89.37 Meanwhile, the ALP decided to run the fiery congressman from East Harlem, Vito Marcantonio. An independent campaign was consistent both with the Communist Party’s renewed commitment to independent radical campaigns and with Marcantonio’s view that the ALP should reject fusion and go it alone. Moreover, even if the Labor Party had wanted to fuse with one of the major parties, it would have been unable to do so, since Democratic and Republican Party leaders had begun to bar their candidates from accepting cross-endorsements from the ALP.38 Just as FDR Jr., Shalleck, and Rubinstein had battled for FDR’s mantle in the spring, so Morris and Marcantonio fought over La Guardia’s legacy in the fall. Marcantonio had begun his political career as La Guardia’s protégé, and even as the congressman had moved steadily left, La Guardia had stuck by him, regarding him almost as a son. But Morris, too, had been a close associate of La Guardia, even if their relationship had been a bit more complicated, with La Guardia alternately promoting and demeaning him. Morris had the enthusiastic backing of Marie La Guardia, the mayor’s widow, who averred that Fiorello had always warned against underestimating Morris.39 Perhaps because the lines of political demarcation were so unclear, substantive differences on the issues were also hard to identify during the campaign. O’Dwyer ran first of all on his record, but also strove to associate his own reelection with the fate of the New Deal and Fair Deal, terming the municipal contest a “dress rehearsal” for the coming showdown between “progressive forces” and the “forces of reaction.” But Morris, too, attempted to articulate a liberal vision for the city, one that tied good government to social concerns, and that downplayed the connection between local and national races. “We’re running because we want to help New York recapture its soul,” he proclaimed. “We can only have that with clean government, imaginative government, the kind of government that is appealing every day to the people and their higher instincts, their better instincts to make this city more important and the capital city of the world.”40 But Morris and his supporters focused mainly on the issue of corruption and political bossism. Indeed, they declared, the mayor had “succumbed to his master’s voice” and turned the city over to the racketeer Frank Costello. Despite its liberal rhetoric, Morris and the Liberals charged, the O’Dwyer

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administration had in fact been “costly and illiberal,” lax on rent control, weak on transit, and, above all, tolerant of rampant corruption. When O’Dwyer pleaded that he had made the life of the city “richer,” Marie La Guardia asked, “Richer for whom? Frank Costello, the snow removal contractors, the Tammany favorites in the exempt and provisional jobs, his county bosses?” Berle pointed out that twelve high-ranking officials in the O’Dwyer administration had left under a cloud.41 The Liberal Party mostly ignored Marcantonio, though its leaders discussed the possibility of releasing photographs it had acquired of him in the company of “known racketeers and prostitutes.”42 The lack of clear-cut issues or political alignments hindered the Morris campaign. The candidate was forced to walk a tightrope between his Liberal and Republican sponsors, refusing to back either party’s Senate candidate. Supporters complained of a lack of energy and focus. Gus Tyler, political operative for the ILGWU, wrote to Jacob Javits, Morris’s campaign chairman, that the campaign had “set nobody on fire.” One rank-and-file Americans for Democratic Action member wondered whether Morris was not a “Republican real estate wolf in sheep’s clothing.”43 On Election Day, with the Democratic organization vote united and the liberal vote divided three ways, O’Dwyer beat Morris decisively, receiving 49 percent of the vote. But despite Morris’s loss, the Liberal Party came out ahead. Morris had received over 372,000 votes on Row D, 14.4 percent of the vote. Not only was this a significant chunk of the electorate, but it was a slightly bigger chunk than had voted on the ALP’s Row C. Morris himself believed that the Liberals had worked much harder for him than had the Republicans. Most of all, the Liberals could boast that they had guaranteed New York a liberal administration, no matter who won, just as the ILGWU organ, Justice, had predicted at the start of the fall campaign when it wrote that the “Liberal Party already has made it pretty certain that our city should have a clean, liberal and non-partisan government, irrespective of party affiliation, after the votes are counted in November.” Pundits now saw the Liberal Party as a crucial part of any fusion coalition.44 Just as the mayoral race was getting underway, New Deal senator Robert F. Wagner resigned his seat because of ill health, setting up a special election in the fall. Governor Dewey appointed fellow Republican John Foster Dulles to the seat, and Dulles became the GOP candidate to serve the remainder of Wagner’s term. Among Democrats and Liberals, there was only one seriously considered candidate—former governor and liberal icon Herbert Lehman. But although he clearly wanted the job, Lehman hesitated for months to enter the race, partly because of his relatively advanced age (he

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was seventy-one) and partly because he had been stung by the loss in his race for the Senate three years earlier. Convincing Lehman to run was another feather in the Liberals’ 1949 cap.45 The Liberal Party expressed its “unanimous feeling” for Lehman even before Wagner resigned. A symbol of the New Deal in New York, the former governor was an old friend of some of the key Liberal leaders and institutions. In particular, he had a close relationship with Dubinsky and the ILGWU, having personally lent the union money when it was threatened with bankruptcy during the early years of the Depression. On more than one occasion, Lehman had served as a rather sympathetic mediator in labor disputes within the garment industry. He also had a good working relationship with the millinery union and was wildly popular among liberal Jewish voters.46 But that spring and summer, Lehman became involved in not one but two controversies with the Catholic Church and New York archbishop Francis Cardinal Spellman. The first controversy concerned the ban that had been placed on the liberal magazine The Nation in New York City’s high schools after the journal’s publication of a series of articles with an anti-Catholic bias. Once again, the overlapping liberal and Jewish communities lined up against Catholics in hearings before the board of education. The poet and liberal activist Archibald MacLeish organized a committee of prominent individuals to oppose the ban, and Lehman signed on. Although Lehman later explained that he had not meant to take sides, but simply to call for an open hearing on the issue, he was seen to have stood with the anti-Catholic bloc.47 At almost the same time, Lehman became caught up in a second controversy with the Church. On June 23, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote a column opposing government aid to private and parochial schools, of whatever denomination, on the grounds that such aid would violate the principle of separation of church and state. A month later, Cardinal Spellman reacted furiously with a letter to the Times accusing Mrs. Roosevelt of a history of anti-Catholic prejudice and a callousness toward the sacrifices made by Catholic youth in the recent war. Lehman came to Mrs. Roosevelt’s defense, noting, by implication as a Jew, that he had never seen in the former first lady any hint of racial or religious prejudice.48 The taint of anti-Catholicism threatened to derail Lehman’s candidacy for the Senate, and if it weren’t for the efforts of the Liberal Party, the governor might have bowed out of the race altogether. Democratic county and state leaders cooled noticeably toward Lehman and backed away from him, possibly even at the direct request of Cardinal Spellman. Only when the rift between Spellman and Roosevelt was publicly mended, after interventions

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by Mayor O’Dwyer, Ed Flynn, President Truman, and perhaps the Vatican itself, did they return to the Lehman camp. In the meantime, Rose, Dubinsky, and Berle continued to pressure Lehman to enter the race, as did kindred organizations such as the ADA and the ILGWU. The Liberal Party once again told Democratic leaders that there was no other Democrat they would back, and that if they wanted Liberal support they had better nominate Lehman.49 Lehman’s consent to run, and his nomination by the Democrats and Liberals, set up a stark contest between “progressive liberalism” and “Bourbonism and reaction,” in the words of the labor leader George Meany. The former governor ran mainly on his unmistakably liberal record and general philosophy of government. When he spoke about the current race, he saw it as a struggle against “reaction, stark reaction.” He said, “The issue is whether we are going to maintain an advance in the life of a humane government in the interests of all the people of the country . . . or whether we are going to be willing to turn back the clock of progress.” He defended the concept of social welfare and the idea of active government.50 Dulles, on the other hand, ran an aggressive campaign marked by vituperative red-baiting and ethnic innuendo. He charged that Lehman had worked happily with Communists in his recent role as head of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, and had benefited from the support of the American Labor Party, and even the Communist Party itself, in past races as well as the current one. Dulles’s campaign also had ethnic and religious overtones. His supporters saw him as the real “American” candidate and implied that his opponents were un-American not just in their ideas, but in their racial makeup as well. Dewey called for a “holy crusade” for Dulles. In a remark that became infamous, the candidate himself told an upstate audience, “If you could see the kind of people in New York City making up this bloc that is voting for my opponent. . . . If you could see them with your own eyes, I know that you would be out, every last man and woman of you, on election day.” A widely publicized flyer called for a vote for “the all-American team” against Rose, Dubinsky, and Lehman. But Dulles denied any ethnic or religious implication, and when the Democrat criticized his remarks, he accused Lehman of “smearing” him and dragging race and religion into the campaign.51 Despite Dulles’s attacks, and the likelihood that many normally Democratic Catholic voters “cut” Lehman and voted for Dulles along with O’Dwyer, Lehman won the tough race. His margin was just over 200,000 votes, and his total included some 416,000 on the Liberal Party’s Row D. The Liberals could thus boast not only of convincing Lehman to stay in the race, but also of providing him with his margin of victory. Lehman acknowledged

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the Liberal role with an early election night call to Rose and Dubinsky. Years later, he told an interviewer, “I think that the Liberal Party here in New York has rendered a real service. Frankly, in many ways my philosophy is much nearer that of the Liberal party than that of the Democratic party.”52 Although it professed anti-Tammany rhetoric, the Liberal Party was not above cooperating with the machine when it offered an attractive common candidate, especially if the Liberals felt that they could call the shots. The 1949 contest for the Manhattan borough presidency was one such occasion in which the Liberal Party preempted the process, in this case by unilaterally declaring its support for Robert F. Wagner Jr. and daring the Democrats to follow suit. The Democrats were happy to oblige, and Wagner cruised to victory. The Liberals once again got credit for being the minor-party tail wagging a major-party dog. They had “virtually drafted” Wagner, wrote the Daily News, and had “taken over the direction” of his career, as they had that of FDR Jr.53 Meanwhile, in the highest-profile city council race, the Liberals fused with both the Democrats and the Republicans to defeat African American Communist city councilman Benjamin Davis. This was the first election after the end of proportional representation, which meant that Davis would for the first time be forced to run in a district that included part of Harlem. The Democratic-Republican-Liberal coalition put up the Black journalist Earl Brown, a Harvard graduate and former professional baseball player. The Harlem Democratic leader J. Raymond Jones recalled that Brown was “one of my own boys,” but also a difficult candidate who could not write or deliver a speech on his own, and who gambled on horses and cards. When Marcantonio tried to buy Brown’s criminal record from the local police precinct, Jones had to pay off the police and get Mayor O’Dwyer to intercede to block Marcantonio’s move. And when Brown did not show proper gratitude toward Jones, he earned the leader’s lasting antipathy. With little support from the major parties, then, Brown depended on help from the Liberal Party, friendly unions, A. Philip Randolph, and the civil rights activist Channing Tobias. In the end, the race turned out to be something of a laugher, with Brown garnering almost three-quarters of the vote, and the Liberal Party could once again boast about having been one of the few organizations to work hard on the winner’s behalf.54 Pauli Murray was another impressive Liberal candidate for the council that year. A civil rights activist, attorney, and poet, Murray had briefly been associated with the dissident Communist Lovestoneite group, together with Ben Davidson. She was also a former staff person for the Workers Defense League and the American Jewish Congress.

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A gender-nonconforming lesbian, she ran under the innocuous feminine reform slogan “Good government is good housekeeping.” Despite endorsements from ADA, the Post, the Times, and the Citizens Union, Murray lost decisively. But she had entered the race hoping to raise the visibility of Black women in politics. In this she succeeded, paving the way, in her judgment, for Congresswoman Shirley Chisolm’s later victories in the same area.55

At the Grassroots In March 1949, the Liberal Party claimed 14,702 dues-paying members, the majority of them in Brooklyn and the Bronx, and all but 992 of them in New York City. Over a third were in trade union clubs, but most were in neighborhood and assembly district units. There were twenty-four clubs in Manhattan, including two Puerto Rican groups and a club at Stuyvesant Town; twenty-eight clubs in Brooklyn; ten in Queens; and nineteen in the Bronx, where there were special groups devoted to Spanish speakers, young voters, and garment pressers and cutters. Like those of other parties, many of the clubs had their own headquarters in storefronts or lofts, where they held social events, lectures, legal clinics for tenants, and blood drives. On the grassroots level, the Liberal Party fought for tenants’ rights, more libraries and playgrounds, and better bus service. The clubs also mobilized members to work for the party’s electoral and issue campaigns.56 At the end of the 1940s, the Liberal Party made a special effort to recruit Puerto Rican members. The party hired Encarnación Armas, whose husband was an editor of the Spanish daily La prensa, as an organizer in the Spanish-speaking community. Armas took a decidedly unmilitant and assimilationist approach to the problems of Puerto Ricans in New York. While the ALP emphasized discrimination, she wrote, “I am convinced . . . that anyone who is not capable of exercising his rights, should not be permitted to do so.” The newcomers’ main problem, she argued, was their lack of English and vocational skills. The most important demand that the Liberal Party could make on their behalf was therefore better education and training opportunities. The Liberal Party, she wrote, “emphasizes . . . that the solution to the Puerto Ricans’ problems lie in their rapid assimilation, through special schools, into the true American way of life.” Of course, there were social needs—in housing, education, health care, and child care facilities with bilingual staffs, as well as jobs, better wages, parks, and playgrounds—but these were shared by everyone. The Liberal Party favored a referendum on the status of Puerto Rico.57

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Armas worked to create a Spanish-speaking constituency for the party by helping people deal with rent issues, organizing classes, distributing donated clothes, arranging for jobs, and helping families send their children to summer camps. She helped organize several Puerto Rican clubs, a couple of which claimed substantial membership. The Puerto Rican club in the Bronx had 56 members who gathered for a social every Saturday night and a meeting once a month. The East Harlem Puerto Rican club grew to a membership of 356. Twenty members in Brooklyn were in the process of forming a club. Still, organizing in the Spanish-speaking community did not come naturally to the Liberal Party’s leadership. Walter Kirschenbaum wrote optimistically about organizing efforts in the Bronx: “We shall exploit their economic and social and cultural life and give them genuine assistance politically, culturally and socially.” But it is hard to imagine party leaders using this kind of paternalistic language to speak about the Jewish immigrant community from which most of them had sprung.58 The Young Liberals maintained an active presence on many of the city’s college campuses, seeking to unite “forward-looking, progressive, nonCommunist college students” in the interest of “furthering the cause of liberalism.” Groups were active at the city colleges, especially at Brooklyn. There, the Young Liberals consciously set out to counter the “Communist Front” groups that, as chapter leader Leonard Polisar reported, then “dominate[d] campus.” At the beginning of the spring 1949 semester, Polisar could boast, “Our group was considered last term as the outstanding non-Communist political group on campus—surpassing SLID, AVC, SDA, Young Democrats, Young Republicans, and every other political group on campus.” In the 1948–49 school year, the Brooklyn Young Liberals sponsored forums and lectures on such topics as the national election, national health insurance, the Atlantic Pact, and the “philosophy of liberalism”; worked with the Workers Defense League on rallies against slave labor around the world; and participated in a debate with a Communist representative on the question, “The Communist Party: Friend or Foe of American Liberalism.” For the most part, student members of the Young Liberals reflected the demographic strengths of the Liberal Party as a whole—from working-class and middle-class families, they mostly attended the city colleges, and almost all were Jewish.59 The Young Liberals on campus put much of their energy that year into a campaign for a discounted transit fare for students at the municipal colleges after the regular fare was raised to ten cents. Calling the higher fare an added “tuition fee” for commuting students, and pointing out that students in the city’s high schools had reduced fares, the Young Liberals gathered

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petition signatures at City, Brooklyn, Queens, and Hunter Colleges. They sponsored demonstrations at City and Brooklyn, winning endorsements from a long list of campus groups, from the Eugene Debs Society to the Young Republicans.60 Outside New York City, local organizations reflected a variety of concerns, but most were closely tied to the labor movement. In Buffalo, for example, Robert Hoffman headed an active Liberal organization. A frequent candidate for mayor and other offices, Hoffman was a native Buffalonian, a graduate of New York University, a longtime public employee, and a trade unionist. He was also an old-time Socialist, who remained a member of the SDF. Running for mayor in 1945, he took advantage of his associations in Socialist circles by collecting endorsements from Socialist mayors Daniel Hoan (Milwaukee) and Jasper McLevy (Bridgeport, Connecticut), as well as Frank Crosswaith, Reinhold Niebuhr, August Claessens, Alexander Kahn, Morris Waldman, and M. J. Coldwell, a Canadian Commonwealth Federation member of the Canadian parliament. In Buffalo, the local Liberal program called for measures against racial discrimination, and for the right to strike and picket; municipal ownership of the city’s concrete and asphalt plant, the power plant, a milk bottling facility, and public transit; the construction of public markets and public housing; improved sanitation and public health services; better food in the municipal hospital; better pay for teachers and firefighters; improvements to schools, libraries, the zoo, and the museum; the right of municipal employees to organize and bargain collectively; and the annexation by the city of surrounding areas.61 In smaller cities, too, the Liberal Party was aligned with labor and with good-government forces. In Olean, for example, the party supported a pay raise for city employees, and demanded the rehiring of eight school cafeteria workers fired in a labor dispute. Olean party chair John Cooper argued for national health insurance in a public debate with a representative of the local medical association. And according to the Rome Daily Sentinel, the party in Rome included “young veterans and political graybeards, professional men and trade unionists, represent[ing] the type of progressive and aggressive citizens that can bring back good government to Rome.” Party chair Alice Tully, executive secretary of the public housing authority and wife of the head of the local Building Trades Council, was described in the local press as “a descendant of a long line of Lincoln Republicans.” But she had joined the Liberal Party, she said, because “it seemed to me that the Republican Party had deserted the ideas of Lincoln, its founder.” In 1947, Rome Liberals backed Republican former mayor Arthur Tedd for election to his old post as a good-government candidate.62

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Good People for the Right Positions Almost from the start, the Liberal Party functioned as a clearinghouse for jobs for its members—though not without a certain ambivalence on the part of some of the leadership. On the outs with city hall and Albany, and with only two lowly city councilmembers of its own, the party at first had little to offer in the way of positions with the city or state. The federal outlook seemed a little more promising. The first Liberal to get a patronage job was probably Isidor Lazarus, recommended by Alex Rose to Senator Wagner in 1944 for a job in the Justice Department. But when in 1948 Dean Alfange requested that Berle speak with Truman about naming Alfange secretary of labor, Berle refused because he did not want it to appear as if the party were trading its support for jobs. Berle reported after the election that there was “talk of reliance on federal patronage,” but that he did not see much forthcoming. And indeed, Alex Rose’s 1949 attempt to win an appointment for Bronx party chair and former municipal court judge Matthew Levy to the federal bench failed.63 But neither the lack of high-level government patronage nor Berle’s reluctance to help Alfange meant that the Liberals looked askance at honest job seekers. Rose believed that “every appointment made enhances the standing of the Party to which the appointee belongs.” There was nothing wrong with winning jobs and influence for one’s people—as long as the applicants were qualified, honest, and progressive. Indeed, the Liberal Party appealed to young people on the basis of both idealism and practicality, explicitly embracing “personal ambitions” as a legitimate motivation for political work if they were combined with the desire to do good. Thus, in discussing the party’s appeal to young people, Davidson wrote, The appeal of the major parties is that they offer better opportunities for patronage. The appeal of the radical, sectarian party emphasizes working for Utopia. The Liberal Party says to the young person—we want you to work with us in fighting realistically, for a better world which means helping to solve the crucial immediate problems. . . . For those of you who have legitimate personal ambitions, we declare, that as we grow in strength, we can help you fulfill them on the basis of your serving a worthy cause rather than the cause of a narrow and sometimes even sordid political machine. Just as Berle laid down the rule that jobs were not to be a quid pro quo for party support, Davidson sometimes insisted that they should not be payoffs for party loyalty. But he was inconsistent in applying that rule. Thus, when

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one party stalwart wrote to Davidson, “Frankly speaking, I believe that the party owes this to me,” Davidson replied curtly, “I think you know that the Liberal Party appreciates its members, including yourself, who on the basis of convictions, agree with the principles and aims of the party, and work actively in behalf of such. Our deep respect of such individuals, including yourself, is that we know that such are doing it solely on the basis of their being convinced of the justice of the cause. It is . . . obvious that the party could not pay back to individuals, or reward them, on the basis of their adherence to, or activity on behalf of the party.”64 But when the Liberal Party regional organizer wanted a job as director of the Albany Veterans’ Hospital dental lab, or when the Monroe County chair had his eye on a post administering ROTC programs, Davidson asked Rose to recommend them to Senator Lehman for the good of the party. In interceding for one Queens lawyer for a job in the US Postal Transport Service, Davidson wrote to Rose, “There is so little that is done for Queens County members in any way that it would be good if we could help in a worthwhile case and let the news get around in proper fashion. It would have a good effect on morale and do justice to the justified ambitions of the individual.” Pauli Murray was recommended for a “special guardianship,” a tried-and-true reward for loyal party lawyers. Representatives Javits and Roosevelt hired Liberals as district secretaries.65 In those early years, an important source of patronage was in the network of unions and other organizations allied with the Liberals. The ILGWU and its locals were especially rich sources of positions. So Davidson vouched for the chair of the Young Liberals, who was hoping for a summer job with the ILGWU. He wrote to his former mentor, Jay Lovestone, recommending the chair of the Twelfth Assembly District Liberal Club for a job at the Free Trade Union Committee, and to Morris Novick, director of radio station WFDR, for another member. Davidson wrote an especially warm letter recommending fellow Lovestoneite Simon Beagle for the job of culture director at the ILGWU’s summer resort, Unity House.66 Finally, some efforts were purely personal. Davidson managed to get his brother-in-law a job as bookkeeper at the ILGWU, and sought an engineer’s position with the Manhattan borough president for the son of a Liberal activist. On another occasion, Davidson wrote to George Counts and John Childs on behalf of a friend of ILGWU Local 62 manager Louis Stulberg who wanted to get into Teachers College despite mediocre grades.67 The Liberal Party thus emerged from the 1940s in good shape. It had grateful friends in Washington, and if it hadn’t yet helped elect a governor or New

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York City mayor, it seemed only a matter of time before it would. It had a firm base in segments of the labor movement and in the Jewish community, a youth wing, and outreach efforts among the growing numbers of Puerto Ricans and African Americans. It even had active chapters in a number of small upstate cities and towns. On the local level, it had established itself as a necessary part of any anti-Tammany reform coalition (even as it worked to get jobs for its members), and on the national level it played a significant role in the constellation of Cold War liberalism. On all levels, the Liberal Party also endeavored to inject, or perhaps maintain, an element of social democracy in that liberalism.

Ch a p ter 4

A “Year-Round Party”

In its early years, the Liberal Party aspired to be more than just an electoral vehicle or a source of patronage for its members. Rather, it intended, as executive director Ben Davidson often put it, to be a “year-round party” that would be, in the words of the Forward, a “party of ongoing issues and policies” that organized for the extension of the New Deal, furtherance of civil rights, and construction of a world order of peace and stability.1 In its comprehensive worldview, it more resembled the radical movements to which many of its members had once belonged than it did the Democratic and Republican Parties that it hoped to influence. It thus helped to inject a more ideological tone into mainstream New York politics than existed in most parts of the United States, even as it tried uneasily at times to maintain a balance between ideological commitment and pragmatic maneuvering. Like its predecessor and rival, the American Labor Party, the Liberal Party helped institute and maintain New York’s social democratic polity. But unlike the ALP, it sought to divorce that social democracy, along with racial equality, from support for the Soviet dictatorship. During the red scare of the late 1940s and early 1950s, it thus also sought, not always successfully, to find a third way between absolute civil libertarianism and McCarthyism. Such a party needed a program, and the Liberal Party could draw on its stable of prominent intellectuals and progressive activists to write one and bring it before the public. The party’s first program, which the Forward 85

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called the “best, most serious, and most sensible” of any radical party ever in the United States, put forth its social democratic vision. It stressed the need for a “high level of production and employment” and an “economy of abundance.” But it saw growth not as an end in itself, but as a prerequisite for more thoroughgoing social reforms. Taking a page from the traditional Socialist program, the Liberals called for democratic “planning and control” of the economy “in the interest of all.” Looking forward to the “reduction of economic power in private hands,” and “the reduction of inequalities in income,” they supported continued price controls; a major public works program to employ returning veterans and those displaced from war industries; expanded public enterprise; the retention of war plants in government hands, or their lease to cooperative enterprises; more progressive taxation; extensive consumer and producer cooperatives; improved social security, including universal health insurance; a large program of public housing; federal aid to education; and a strong National Economic Council with the fiscal tools to “direct and plan” the economy, and the power to break up monopolies and create public enterprises along the lines of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The program demanded civil rights legislation to institute a ban on racial discrimination in housing, employment, education, and other sectors; desegregation of the armed forces; antilynching legislation; and an end to the poll tax and white primaries. The Liberal Party also supported legislation to bar discrimination on the basis of sex.2 In international affairs, the Liberal platform called for the construction of a wide-ranging and effective “system of international security.” An expanded United Nations, transformed into a permanent and powerful international organization, would be the basis for the new global order. Ultimately, it would become a “democratic world federation.” In the meantime, the Liberal Party condemned attempts to reestablish the British Empire after the war, along with Soviet intentions to carve out an exclusive sphere of influence, American plans to create a network of air and naval bases in other countries, and a general Western willingness to rehabilitate useful former fascists. In taking a stand against spheres of influence and nationalist rivalries, the program presciently predicted that “smaller nations, forced to become satellites of their big neighbors, would strive to regain their national independence, thus provoking acts of suppression.”3 The following year, the Liberal Party adopted a detailed sixty-nine-page municipal program. The program envisioned a far-reaching social democratic polity in one municipality. Among other things, it called for a $2.7 billion slum clearance and housing program; an “integrated program of vocational and cultural education” to prepare children for work, citizenship, and

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even leisure; an extension of the city’s Health Insurance Program, known as HIP, to all public employees and other low- and middle-income workers; expanded public hospitals and health centers; improved parks and recreation programs; an expanded public program of social casework, including social workers in schools; an emphasis on prevention of juvenile crime, rather than punishment; the creation of a city Anti-Discrimination Committee; an end to discrimination in city agencies and contractors; training in “race relations and democracy” for school personnel, parents, and students; the elimination of racial bias from textbooks and the teaching of the history of minority groups; an end to “attempts to impose an irresponsible censorship over plays and magazines by administrative or legislative decrees”; protection from retaliation for city employees who criticized supervisors; the discussion of controversial issues on WNYC; more spaces for street meetings; strict price regulations; a Consumers Bureau to protect against fraud; the city purchase of Staten Island Edison as a “yardstick” to measure the benefits of public ownership of utilities; ultimate municipalization of utilities; and the right of civil servants to unions and collective bargaining. All this would be financed by progressive taxes on the local, state, and national levels.4 The adoption of a program was not an empty exercise. In its early years the Liberal Party took its programs very seriously, continuing to adopt long and detailed documents on local, state, national, and international issues. These platforms would become the basis for party action, and would be circulated among elected officials. The party printed its municipal platform in an attractive pamphlet, which it advertised in the city’s newspapers. As Mark Starr, ILGWU education director and chair of the Queens County Liberal organization, put it, “No one can consider himself really a member of the Liberal Party unless he has studied the platform and program of the Liberal Party.”5

Cold War Social Democracy Although it operated only in New York State, the Liberal Party nevertheless adopted a foreign policy. Like many American liberals, the party harbored the hope that a new international order would arise from the wreckage of World War II, one that would prevent future wars and extend the New Deal worldwide. Party members held a range of opinions on how this could be achieved, but all agreed that at the very least there needed to be a strong United Nations with both police and social welfare functions. Most importantly, the party warned against a revival of British imperialism and a Soviet assertion of a “sphere of influence.” In an open letter to Roosevelt in

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December 1944, the party expressed concern that individual Allied powers had already begun to jockey for position in the postwar world. In particular, it seemed to the Liberals that the Soviet Union was working to create a sphere of influence in Poland and Eastern Europe, while the British hoped to achieve parity by establishing dominance in Greece, Italy, and Spain. The party feared that the United States, too, would succumb to “powerful imperialistic pressures . . . already discernible in our midst” and be drawn into a policy of “spheres of influence, military alliances, and imperialism.” The vaccine for such a danger would be the establishment of a robust UN, a return to the Atlantic Charter as a base of action, and support for a democratic Europe with a mixed economy and powerful liberal and labor movements. The letter also called for aid to China and an independent India.6 Unlike some other American liberals at the end of the war, the Liberal Party was thus as deeply suspicious of Soviet expansionism as it was of Western imperialism. This suspicion stemmed for many Liberals from their previous experiences battling Communists in the 1920s and 1930s. For many of the old Yiddish-speaking social democrats, the wartime Soviet arrest and murder of the Polish Jewish Socialist leaders Victor Alter and Henryk Erlich only confirmed the brutal and untrustworthy nature of the Soviet regime. In 1944–45, Liberal Party pronouncements balanced attacks on Russian expansionism with warnings against British and American imperialism. But this balance became harder to maintain as the incipient Cold War turned into a deep freeze.7 In the meantime, though, the Liberal Party pushed for a strong permanent, democratic, and socially oriented United Nations that would “go beyond” the agreement on a world organization concluded at Dumbarton Oaks. In an open letter to delegates to the founding meeting of the UN in San Francisco in spring 1945, the Liberals advocated strengthening the General Assembly in order to give small nations more power in relation to the great powers in the Security Council; submission of all nations to “the authority of a common international law”; independence for colonized nations and self-determination for the “colored peoples of the world”; economic and cultural organization to raise global standards of living; a statement of human rights and liberties; gradual general disarmament policed by an international organization; and cooperative and collective security, rather than unilateral action. When the new UN charter was adopted, the Liberal Party hailed it as an improvement over the Dumbarton Oaks draft, but called for even more “democratization” and “guarantees to dependent peoples.” The Liberals reiterated their calls for the United States to resist great-power spheres of influence, and to support only “democratic and progressive forces,” not

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“reactionary” ones in Europe and Asia. Despite the charter’s imperfections, the party believed it should be ratified.8 In the fall of 1946, the Liberal Party continued to warn that Soviet, British, and American expansionism could endanger peace. The party criticized the Truman administration for favoring Nazis and other “neo-fascist, clerical, and monarchist groups merely because they are anti-Communists,” and urged support for Socialists in Germany and elsewhere. But with the temperature dropping in the Cold War, the party also condemned Truman for allowing the Soviet partition of Germany. On the other hand, the Liberals supported the administration’s Baruch Plan for an international agency to supervise atomic weapons because it ruled out a big-power veto over sanctions (which Russia wanted), and provided for international inspections (which Russia resisted). Finally, the Liberal Party saw a need for a “fighting liberalism” committed to the “social reconstruction” of Europe along democratic, nonimperial lines. This would include rebuilding Europe’s productive capacity on the basis of TVA-like social planning. “American internationalism,” a party statement warned, “will not be considered genuine by the rest of the world unless we are ready to use our vast resources and technological skill for the advancement of world standards of living.”9 The Liberals also resisted the domestic implications of a permanent war footing. In early 1945, the Liberal Party worked with the Workers Defense League and others in opposition to proposals to establish a peacetime draft and compulsory military training, which it considered provocative toward the United States’ allies in the current war and likely to disrupt efforts to establish a system of collective security. Although the party did not rule out the possibility that such a draft would become necessary should collective efforts fail, it denied that conscription would have the benefits claimed for it by its proponents. Physical education, health services, and better nutrition, the Liberals argued, would more effectively guard the health of America’s youth than would military training, which reinforced inequality and racial prejudice, “inculcate[d] habits of uncritical obedience” harmful to democratic citizenship, and created “a large class of professional officers whose relation to our democratic institutions would be dubious at best.”10 In the winter and spring of 1947, liberals faced difficult decisions on matters of foreign affairs, as the middle ground started to give way. When the president enunciated the Truman Doctrine on the containment of Communism and urged greater US involvement in Greece and Turkey to replace the departing British, liberals divided. Like other anti-Communist liberals, the Liberal Party supported the president, though it demanded “adequate guarantees” of democracy in Greece, and still argued that “militant support of

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social democracies is the most effective antidote to Communism.” Davidson later recalled that Greece had a “despotic monarchical military government,” so there were serious discussions within the party on what position to take. But a consensus emerged that the issue was larger than Greece; it was a “life and death matter, for all democracy and for Western Europe.” The question was, what was more threatening: Soviet imperialism or a local Greek dictatorship? The Liberals thought Soviet imperialism, and therefore backed Truman. As Berle put it, the “social system of Europe was due for a complete overhaul,” but “conquest” had to be opposed.11 The European Reconstruction Plan, known as the Marshall Plan, was an easier call. When it was enunciated that June, anti-Communist liberals received it enthusiastically as just the kind of constructive and socially conscious program they had been advocating. At first the Communist Party and its allies were not sure how to react, since the plan promised aid to the Soviet Union as well as the rest of Europe. But when the Soviets made clear their opposition, the American Communists and allied progressives followed suit. Support for the Marshall Plan became a kind of litmus test for anti-­ Communist liberals and social democrats, starkly differentiating them from the pro-Soviet Left.12 With the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, the Liberal Party supported Truman’s interventionist policy, seeing important principles involved in Korea—not just fighting Communist aggression, but also a strong UN and the idea of collective security. Even before hostilities broke out, Berle had urged Liberals to support an arms buildup and “stand-by mobilization.” In November, with the war well underway, the party chair told the state committee that Korea, through its North Korean and Chinese proxies, represented Kremlin “aggression, net and naked.” He compared the state of affairs to that of 1939, and called for sacrifice and unity as the country went “substantially on a war footing.” (Two years later, Berle called for the US to help repel any Chinese attack on Indochina.)13 After some brief hesitation based on a reluctance to criticize the British Labour government, and on internal Jewish divisions, the Liberal Party came to play both public and private roles in the push for a Jewish state. In September 1947, the party issued a public statement calling on the United States to support the pending UN plan to create a Jewish state in a partitioned Palestine. It saw such a plan as necessary to end conflict in the region, a “tragic sequel to one of the greatest tragedies in history, the massacre of Jews by the Nazi regime,” and expressed the hope for an end to “the sterile warfare between the two great Semitic races, Arabs and Jews, both of whom have contributed vitally to world civilization.” Privately, party chair Berle used

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his diplomatic contacts to influence the UN vote on partition. Urged on by party vice chair Harry Uviller, who informed him that Haiti was prepared vote no, Berle personally lobbied the president of Haiti, successfully urging a yes vote, as a “magnanimous gesture from a nation representing [the] Negro cause to [the] oppressed Jewish race.” Berle later lobbied the Truman administration for recognition of the Jewish state once it was founded.14 During the early Cold War, issues related to civil liberties linked foreign affairs and domestic policy. The Liberal Party devoted much energy to the fight against Communism, a fight that sometimes led it to strange bedfellows. On the international level, the party issued a statement protesting the trial of Hungarian cardinal József Mindszenty, calling it an “official lynching,” and comparing it unfavorably to the much fairer Smith Act trial of Communist leaders in the US. Liberals participated in the second annual Loyalty Day Parade on May 1, 1949. In recommending participation, John MacCauley, the party’s Manhattan director, realized that there might be some qualms about participation in such an event, but he downplayed them: “I am aware of certain dangerous antecedents. I know that the terms ‘loyalty,’ ‘Americanism,’ etc. have in some instances been so negative in their meaning as to go begging for definition and that in some instances such expressions harbor un-American, anti-Semitic leanings. There is no such danger in connection with this parade.” Davidson concurred: the parade organizers, he wrote, had been “quite friendly to us,” and taking part would be a “good entrée for the trade unions.”15 The Liberals also devoted much energy to beating back the Communist influence in progressive movements and organizations on the local level. In the Bronx, for example, party director Walter Kirschenbaum worked with civil rights groups on the issue of police brutality and to “prevent any Stuyvesant Town situations from arising,” but in his reports to Davidson he often seemed most interested in the fight to rid the Bronx NAACP chapter of Communists and fellow travelers. In internal correspondence, party organizers and candidates were warned to keep away from groups such as the National Lawyers Guild and the New York State Council for Legislative Action, deemed to be Communist fronts. Even Liberal action on issues that had long been of interest to the party, such as rent control, was now encouraged explicitly to preempt “Communist-controlled” groups like the New York Tenants’ Council from dominating the field.16 But Liberals were divided on the issue of whether, as Davidson wrote, “those who would destroy civil liberties” had forfeited their rights to enjoy civil liberties themselves.17 Like many anti-Communist liberals, the party tried to walk a fine line, taking a principled and often militant stand against

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Communism, while opposing what it saw as illegitimate attacks on civil liberties and academic freedom, of the sort embodied by Senator Joseph McCarthy. This tension colored the party’s internal debates (sometimes literally staged as debates in party clubs and the Committee-at-Large), as well as its political alliances and endorsements. Most of the leadership believed that the American Communists and their fellow travelers abetted, wittingly or unwittingly, the Soviets in carrying out their designs. As Rose put it, “Americans have learned that Communists in our country are Soviet citizens by conviction and American citizens for convenience.” The Liberals thus backed measures to oust Communists from the government bureaucracy and other positions of authority. According to Berle, the government had a “right to know the connections, record and loyalties of the men who work in it.” And, Liberals such as the attorney Morris Ernst argued, the Communist Party was not simply a party, but “a secret conspiracy leading toward illegal acts.” The Smith Act trials of leading Communists were thus legitimate so long as they focused on those acts, and not on the defendants’ ideas or speech.18 At the same time, Liberals opposed what they viewed as McCarthyite hysteria that associated civil rights and labor militancy with subversion and used anti-Communism as a partisan club. With their own radical backgrounds, they sought to distinguish orthodox Communist subservience to Moscow from honestly held heterodox ideas. The Liberals thus worked to protect the civil liberties of radicals and progressives outside the Communist Party. In one instance the party defended a Trotskyist veteran dismissed from his job at the Newark VA hospital by explaining that “his party is not an agency of a foreign government, nor does it constitute a menace to the security of the United States.” Liberals also opposed federal legislation to control “subversion,” such as the unsuccessful Mundt-Nixon bill of 1948 (though party chair Berle supported it in amended form), and the successful McCarran Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950. Still, George Counts recommended against working together with Communists in defense of civil liberties, just as one would not want to work with mobsters to fight illegal wiretaps. At one point, he privately urged a number of participants to withdraw from an upcoming conference sponsored by the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee on the grounds that the ECLC was a Communist front.19 The Liberals also opposed an outright ban on Communist activities. Rather, they supported measures that would prevent what they saw as Communist subterfuge of the kind they had experienced in their unions and the American Labor Party. Even as he accused Communists of being agents of an alien power, Rose preferred exposure to a ban: “Lest anyone get the idea

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I am a fanatic on the subject, let me assure you that I am opposed to outlawing the Communist Party. . . . I would like to see the Communist Party exist legally and openly, but its underground [in the ALP and fronts] exposed and morally outlawed. I am for the extradition of Communists from all hidden spots into the open space of Union Square.” As friendly witnesses before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Berle and Morris Ernst opposed legislation to outlaw the Communist Party. Rather, Ernst supported laws that would strip the “nightshirts” from Communist-influenced groups, including measures that would require disclosure of membership, contributors, and tax information. Berle called for tighter regulation of visas to enter the country and for more power for the attorney general under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.20 The Liberal Party took a particularly hawkish view on Communists in education. This was an especially salient issue locally in the spring of 1949, when New York State adopted the Feinberg law barring teacher membership in subversive organizations, a measure that led to a purge of Communist teachers. Liberals debated whether the Feinberg law included enough safeguards of the rights of the accused, but generally accepted the principle of barring Communists from the schools. As George Counts put it, “Academic freedom is the right of a qualified scholar to pursue the truth and publish his findings without coercion. . . . There is a corollary: that he not be controlled.” Since the Communist Party was not a political party but a “conspiratorial group loyal to a foreign state,” argued Counts, “the Communist is not protected by academic freedom. . . . He has forfeited his right by subservience to exterior authority.” Nevertheless, Counts believed that the effort to identify subversive teachers “must be pursued carefully by experts in ideological matters, with every safeguard for the possibly innocent.”21 The Liberal Party attempted to act on its complex understanding of the issue of Communists in the schools, but its nuanced position was difficult to get across in the polarized atmosphere. A couple of incidents involved Queens College, where, in 1947, a controversy erupted over a move to ban the pro-Communist American Youth for Democracy. In that instance, the party defended professors who had spoken against the ban. The Liberals further opposed a city council bill that would have barred “teachers and civil service employees who are subversive, or associate with such, or have literature of such, or oppose the American economic system,” calling it a product of “hysteria” and danger to “genuine liberals and progressives.” Five years later, the party came to the defense of member Harold Lenz when the Queens College dean came under attack for speaking, on behalf of the party itself,

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against a board of education ban on the use of school buildings by organizations associated with the Communist Party.22 Not all of the threats to civil liberties involved attacks on Communists. The Liberal Party joined the ALP, the pro-Communist Teachers’ Union, the anti-Communist Teachers’ Guild, the American Jewish Congress, and others in seeing a threat to free expression in Catholic demands that the Nation magazine be banned from school libraries following a series of articles by Paul Blanshard, the old ALP activist then beginning his career as a professional anti-Catholic, attacking the church for its position on a variety of issues. Berle personally wrote to Mayor O’Dwyer urging that the ban be lifted. Berle had opposed bans of Catholic literature, he told the mayor, but so too did he oppose the exclusion of publications objectionable to Catholics.23 Civil liberties were closely connected to civil rights, and as issues of racial equality became central to the definition of liberalism in the postwar era, the Liberal Party participated in efforts to ban racial discrimination in employment and housing, pass a federal antilynching law, and introduce the “history and contributions of minority groups” to the school curricula.24 In 1945, for example, as the movement for a federal Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) stalled and civil rights advocates turned their attention to the states, the party threw whatever weight it had behind the pioneering IvesQuinn bill to ban employment discrimination in New York. The bill arose from the Committee on Discrimination in Employment appointed in 1941 by Democratic governor Herbert Lehman, and the follow-up Temporary Commission against Discrimination (TCAD) appointed by Republican governor Thomas Dewey mainly in order to stall more drastic action. But TCAD came back with stronger recommendations than expected, including one for a permanent state FEPC with subpoena and enforcement power. Upstate Republican assemblyman Irving Ives and New York City Democratic senator Elmer Quinn promptly introduced bills in the state legislature to create such a commission. The debate over the bill pitted liberal groups, especially from the city, against business interests and some upstate and suburban conservatives. Supporters included civil rights groups, Jewish organizations, some trade unions and the state AFL and CIO, and liberals like the Liberal and American Labor Parties. Opposition came from local business groups, as well as the New York State Bar Association, the railroad brotherhoods, and a few craft unions. Many Republicans, including Dewey, supported the bill, but some conservatives opposed it. The most prominent opponent was Robert Moses, who argued that the bill would mean “the end of honest compensation, and the death knell of selection and advancement on the basis of talent.”25

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The Liberal Party, on the other hand, pushed for as strong a bill as possible. Party spokespersons linked antidiscrimination efforts to the New Deal, the war effort, the fight against “totalitarianism,” and general principles of democracy and egalitarianism. Dorothy Norman argued that the bill was a step “toward economic security on a level with political security,” and that “unless democracy can be militant in this direction, we will simply play into the hands of those people who uphold, or fall back on, totalitarian doctrines.”26 Rose wrote to Ives and Quinn, urging them to resist all efforts to “cripple” or “emasculate” the bill. The party also called on the bill’s sponsors to lower the exemption on small businesses from six employees to four, arguing that a higher exemption would mean that most would not be covered at all. They proposed regulating promotion, not just hiring, practices; lowering the threshold of evidence needed for a finding of discrimination; and eliminating the exemption of educational, humanitarian, fraternal, and religious groups from the law’s provisions. Norman’s suggestion that anyone, not just directly aggrieved parties, be allowed to bring complaints showed up in a letter from the Liberal-allied ILGWU Cloak Joint Board to Ives. On behalf of the party, Norman also called for a state commission to propose laws banning discrimination in education, housing, and health care, as well as employment.27 The Liberals worked on their own and with the New York Metropolitan Council on Fair Employment Practices to campaign for the law. Representatives of the Liberal Party, the Young Liberals, and the Trade Union Council spoke out at a series of hearings in New York City and Albany. The party also sent multiple letters to all legislators urging a yes vote. It called on Governor Dewey and Mayor La Guardia to support the bill as well, putting so much pressure on Dewey that the governor reacted angrily. Party clubs followed through with petition drives and letters to legislators, and the party reached out to the public for support through its radio broadcasts and through neighborhood forums.28 The climax of the legislative battle came at an extra hearing in Albany called by opponents of the bill to stall its passage. The move backfired, however, when proponents outnumbered opponents eight to one during twelve hours of testimony. Liberal Albany representative John Braun called it the “most impressive hearing or public meeting of any kind I have ever attended.” It was still going strong at 11:00 p.m. when Braun went home. The Liberal Party sent a ten-person delegation headed by former New York State comptroller Joseph V. O’Leary, who once again linked the bill to the war effort, defined as a fight against racism. The testimony of another member of the delegation, African American Trade Union Council member Thomas Young

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of Local 32B of the building service workers’ union, provided a dramatic and moving statement of identification of the war with antiracist struggle when he revealed that his own godson had been killed in action in Italy the previous week, fighting for a “democratic world.” Antidiscriminatory legislation, Young declared, would complete the victory of democracy at home.29 In the end, the vote was a lopsided 132–9 in the assembly and 49–6 in the senate. Dewey signed the bill into law. Once Ives-Quinn became law in New York, the Liberal Party went to work to extend it to the rest of the country. Davidson sat on the executive committee of A. Philip Randolph’s National Council for a Permanent FEPC, alongside Benjamin McLaurin. Davidson also claimed that the party had brought out the majority of the crowd at Randolph’s February 1946 FEPC rally at Madison Square Garden. The party sent a lengthy memorandum to the US Senate Committee on Labor and Education detailing the provisions of the New York law and pointing out that it had been a bipartisan effort. The Liberals argued that even though a number of states had or were about to pass similar laws, federal legislation was necessary, for several reasons: (1) the Chamber of Commerce’s argument that Ives-Quinn put New York at an economic disadvantage vis-à-vis other states was actually an argument for national legislation, (2) such legislation was necessary on constitutional grounds, (3) the war effort mandated equality, and (4) antidiscrimination laws would demonstrate the nation’s “sincerity” in dealing with minorities. The Liberal Party specifically opposed halfway measures that would have mandated only educational efforts against discrimination. Instead, what was needed was a ban on discriminatory behavior.30 In another attempt to tie the Ives-Quinn law to the national effort for fairemployment legislation, the New York Liberal Party wrote to the governors of all of the other forty-seven states, urging the passage of similar legislation. Most of the twenty-five replies were positive, though the governors of Montana and Nevada denied that there was any discrimination in their states. Civil rights advocates found the survey to be useful intelligence while working to pass legislation on a national level and in the states.31 Housing was another front in the struggle against racial discrimination. The battle to integrate Stuyvesant Town, for example, arose in 1943, even before the party’s founding, when the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company signed an agreement with the city to build a massive middle-income housing project on the East Side of Manhattan. Intended to meet the anticipated demand for housing for veterans and their families, the project would comprise thirty-five thirteen-story buildings and would house 24,315 people. In accordance with recently passed state laws, MetLife would receive a large

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tax abatement. The city would help clear the area, assemble the planned seventy-two-acre superblock, and provide tax exemptions. Profits would remain in the hands of MetLife. Soon the company announced that Blacks would be barred from Stuyvesant Town, because, as a company spokesman put it, “Negroes and whites don’t mix” and the presence of African Americans would depress property values. Mayor La Guardia criticized the company’s decision but backed the project anyway. Robert Moses went further, insisting that as a private development, Stuyvesant Town had the right to pick its own tenants. In the end, the board of estimate approved the contract, with only city council president Newbold Morris and Manhattan borough president Edgar Nathan, both liberal Republicans, voting nay.32 In the subsequent decades-long struggle to integrate Stuyvesant Town, the Liberal Party housing expert Charles Abrams was a main protagonist. The Vilna-born Abrams was a lawyer, real estate speculator, and bohemian Greenwich Village radical, married to an artist. In the 1930s, he had drafted the law that established the New York City Housing Authority and served as the authority’s chief counsel. As a policy intellectual, Abrams believed strongly in active governmental urban planning and in public housing. But he opposed programs that he felt socialized risk while privatizing profits. Stuyvesant Town seemed to Abrams just such a program, with the city and state assuming many of the costs, and MetLife reaping all the benefit. Racial segregation, the failure to plan adequately for displaced tenement dwellers, and the lack of a democratic and egalitarian vision of community, Abrams argued, would all further limit the project’s public benefit.33 Abrams was active from the start. He drafted a city ordinance that would have barred discrimination in projects organized under the state redevelopment companies law, providing for jail terms for violators. Another bill before the council would have made discrimination illegal retroactively. But the compromise bill that passed lacked provisions for prison time and covered only future projects, leaving Stuyvesant Town unaffected. Abrams then acted as one of the attorneys for a suit that argued that discrimination was unconstitutional in publicly assisted projects, but that suit was dismissed because no one had yet been discriminated against. So in 1946, Abrams prompted another suit, this time by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of prospective Black tenants. Abrams joined the case as an attorney, arguing that racial discrimination in a government-assisted project violated the Fourteenth Amendment, and also that the project represented a “dangerous crossbreed” of government aid without government supervision. Unfortunately, by 1949, the suit and appeals failed. The Liberal Party condemned

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the court decisions. By that time, too, Liberals were also active in the Town and Village Tenants’ Committee to End Discrimination in Stuyvesant Town, a grassroots group of Stuyvesant Town tenants.34 The Liberals often followed Abrams’s intellectual and strategic lead in supporting legislation on the local, state, and federal levels to ban housing discrimination. On the state level, for example, they drafted bills to be introduced by sympathetic Democrats in 1951 to expand antidiscrimination laws to cover even already-existing projects (such as Stuyvesant Town) that had been aided by the state or city. And in 1957, the party pushed legislative leaders in Albany for a ban on discrimination in rentals and sales of houses in “developments of ten houses or more.” In supporting the Sharkey-IsaacsBrown antidiscrimination bill in the New York City Council, the Liberal Party Trade Union Council urged that no exclusion be made for co-ops. On the federal level, the Liberals called for passage of the Metcalf-Baker bill banning discrimination in “private multiple dwellings and single-family units of ten or more.”35 The Liberal Party consistently worked to strengthen the State Commission against Discrimination (SCAD), of which Abrams later became chair. When the Republican legislature attempted to cut SCAD’s budget while Abrams headed it, the Liberals fought not only to maintain funding but to further empower the commission by making membership full-time, enabling it to set up local councils throughout the state, carry out studies of racial issues, and, most importantly, initiate investigations and enforce judgments rather than wait for complaints to be filed. In Abrams’s farsighted analysis, with the mass migration of African Americans northward, the question of racial equality was no longer primarily a southern one, but one national in scope. Unfortunately, white resistance was also nationalized, and as they had following Reconstruction, northern and southern whites reconciled to turn back advances toward full civil rights. The battle over SCAD was one front in that battle and therefore had wider significance than it might have seemed.36 Behind the scenes, tensions sometimes demonstrated the difficulty of walking the thin line between social idealism and political pragmatism, as the Liberal Party always tried to do. Abrams, for example, criticized the party’s lack of a strong response to the weak national Democratic platform on civil rights during the 1956 election. He complained that Berle and others believed that the Liberal platform needed to correspond with the Democratic platform so as not to create problems for their common presidential candidate, Adlai Stevenson. But, he pointed out, other liberal organizations and leaders, such as Americans for Democratic Action, Herbert Lehman, and Walter Reuther, had indeed condemned the weakness of the Democratic

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civil rights plank. Stevenson would have adjusted to his supporters’ differing views, just as he had to adjust to racist Democratic platforms in the southern states. The Liberal Party had erred, Abrams contended, certainly morally but also politically, by giving up the opportunity to show itself to be different from the larger party.37 On another occasion, however, Abrams found himself on the receiving end of criticism that foreshadowed the controversies over “political correctness” at the turn of the twenty-first century. Encarnación Armas, the Puerto Rican party activist, took Abrams to task—through Davidson—for his ­language in a speech in which he referred to “Puerto Rican citizens.” The implication that they were anything other than American citizens, Armas argued, would give offense to Puerto Ricans, as would Abrams’s linking them to “menial labor” and his touching on the issue of birth control. Abrams defended himself: “When I am decapitated it will be not because I committed a crime, but because I spelled Negro with a small ‘n’ or used the word ‘menial’ or didn’t say ‘American citizens from Puerto Rico’ instead of ‘Puerto Rican citizens.’ ” The meanings of words change, he contended, and what gave offense now might not later. He noted that he himself opposed birth control, but complained that it was now forbidden to even mention it. “And so,” he said, “the minority question goes—gradually eliminating frank and fair discussion because the proprieties continually diminish the area in which constructive discussion can function normally.”38 In addition to civil rights, Abrams was a leading liberal voice on housing policy. Indeed, the creation and retention of affordable housing was a perennial issue in New York. Liberals, including those in the Liberal Party, worked especially to retain some form of rent regulation, but also to use public resources to construct more housing on a large scale. The danger in largescale projects, however, and too often the reality, was that more units would be destroyed than built, and more people displaced than rehoused. On this issue, too, Abrams played an important role in formulating Liberal positions. Federal rent control had come to New York in 1943 as an emergency wartime measure after a campaign by tenant advocates. The Liberals supported the indefinite continuation of wartime rent control, but in 1947 Congress began to phase out the federal program by enacting a provision allowing 15 percent increases when agreed to by landlords and tenants for leases extending beyond the eight months that congressional Republicans expected would be rent regulation’s last. The Liberal Party responded quickly, demanding that the state amend its own law to “provide that the maximum rental payable shall be the maximum . . . under Federal regulations, not withstanding any ‘voluntary’ increases”; increase judicial power to grant stays

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of eviction; and support “more non-subsidized public housing.” Liberal city council members Louis Goldberg and Ira Palestin introduced bills to create a “City-Wide Tenants Bureau” to advise tenants of their rights, and called on Mayor O’Dwyer to use WNYC, the city’s radio station, to educate tenants on the new law. Party clubs held street rallies and offered legal clinics and educational forums as well.39 State regulation replaced the federal program in 1950. Political battles occurred, not only over the original state legislation, but over a 1951 commission report that recommended a formula for rent increases more favorable to landlords, and over renewals of the law in 1953 and 1955. Issues concerned under what conditions and how much landlords could raise rents, as well as the ease with which they could evict tenants. Real estate interests, of course, favored provisions that would allow “hardship” rent raises, higher fixed rates of return on investment, vacancy and luxury decontrol, raises for renovations, and so on. Tenant groups fought not only to keep the principle of control, but also to keep raises to a minimum and to strictly limit evictions.40 For the Liberal Party, rent control became a core issue throughout the 1950s, as it was for many New York progressives. In the early Cold War context, however, and particularly in the midst of the Korean War, the Liberals differed from ALP- and Communist-allied groups in appealing to a “national emergency” and “national mobilization” similar to that of World War II to justify stricter controls. Beginning in 1949, the Liberal Party entered the debate in several ways, fashioning bills to be introduced by friendly legislators from the major parties, testifying at hearings, lobbying legislators, and holding well-attended legislative conferences where party housing experts such as Abrams could educate officeholders to the Liberal point of view. Generally speaking, the Liberals sought to make it harder to raise rents, and to limit the amounts they could be raised.41 The Liberal Party also got involved in grassroots organizing. Liberal county organizations and clubs held rallies and petition drives in the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Schenectady, and Monroe County. They pressured local town and county councils to intercede with the legislature in favor of control. In Stuyvesant Town, Herman Weinkrantz, the Liberal district leader, led the formation of the Stuyvesant Town Joint Tenants and Organizations Committee to fight rent increases. The group brought together twelve organizations, including local Liberal, Democratic, and Republican clubs, as well as branches of Americans for Democratic Action, the Workmen’s Circle, and the American Veterans’ Committee. But although the coalition held talks with the ALP club, it excluded it from membership, so as not to “convert this serious issue into a subversive vehicle.” When all

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else failed, Liberal clubs held clinics to assist tenants with legal problems, and in one case, the party office got Abrams himself to consult with a group of veterans in danger of eviction.42 Abrams actually believed that rent control was a necessary evil only so long as the supply of affordable housing was inadequate, and so the Liberal Party also sought to increase that supply. The party pushed for more public and cooperative housing, lobbying not only the legislature but also the unions that built some of the cooperative housing. In one case, Bronx Liberal director Walter Kirschenbaum testified before the City Planning Commission in favor of a proposed housing project in the Throggs Neck section of the Bronx, where local homeowners were putting up resistance. “If public housing is stopped in an East Bronx community,” Kirschenbaum argued, “there will be precedent to stop it elsewhere. Any attempt to keep low-income groups bottled up in slums—any attempt to cease building middle-income homes—any attempt to keep public housing from being erected, must be repudiated by every responsible citizen of this community and by every member of this commission.” Later in the decade, the Liberal Party supported a bill making it possible to sell public housing to “limitedprofit corporations” to enable people to stay in apartments as their income increased.43 But dislocation of tenants, many of them poor and many of them members of minority groups, was a regular feature of large-scale housing projects. Under the influence of Abrams, this bothered the Liberal Party. “There is no point in clearing a slum if all you do is crowd the tenants into worse slums,” Abrams told Copal Mintz, the chair of the party’s legislative committee. Nevertheless, this was a concern that could be overcome if a project promised more middle- or low-income housing. Following Abrams’s lead, the party had no objection to programs of massive slum clearance and rebuilding. On the contrary, the 1945 Liberal legislative program proclaimed, “Experience has clearly shown that ‘private enterprise,’ unaided by government, cannot supply decent homes to those in the lower income brackets.” The party thus favored a large bond issue to finance low- and medium-income housing, as long as there were strong provisions for relocation, including rehabilitation of alternative housing. The projects envisioned would include both public housing and middle-income cooperatives.44 The party therefore reacted to proposed projects on a case-by-case basis. Along with the CIO and the Jewish Labor Committee, for example, it lobbied for the Seward Park Coop project on the Lower East Side, despite complaints by some critics that existing cheap housing was being destroyed. On the other hand, the Liberals called for revisiting plans for the redevelopment

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at Lincoln Square, partly on the grounds that while it gave a public subsidy to a sectarian institution in Fordham University, it did not provide for enough housing or improvements to the local public high school.45 Along with housing, public transportation was a perennial New York issue, with nothing so heated as debates over the seemingly sacrosanct fivecent transit fare. The problem was that the fare was not bringing in enough revenue to fund the system. So in 1947, Mayor O’Dwyer moved to hold the referendum required for a hike. The contentiousness of the issue was indicated by the preparations for hearings to be held on the question. With three hundred speakers expected over three days, fifty patrolmen, five sergeants, a captain, and six detectives were on hand to police the crowd, and a Bellevue Hospital emergency station was set up in the city hall rotunda. O’Dwyer now endorsed the arguments of supporters of a fare hike, including the Citizens Budget Commission and Citizens Union, as well as real estate and business interests. They pointed out that the system lost money with each rider. Altogether, the losses were unsustainable. Opponents, including the Liberals, called it a cost shift from the wealthy to the poor, and noted that other city services were not expected to pay for themselves. For a short time, though it continued to insist on a referendum, the Liberal Party muted its opposition to a hike, pending O’Dwyer’s attempt to tie the higher fare to increased aid from the state. But when aid was not forthcoming, it reverted to vocal opposition.46 The debate over the fare hike dragged on into 1948, as the mayor astutely lined up union support. Finally, the state legislature passed a bill enabling the mayor to bypass a referendum. The Liberal Party continued to oppose a raise, but though it was a popular battle, it was a losing one. Even after the fare was raised, the party continued to fight rearguard actions. Council members Goldberg and Palestin, for example, cooperated with the Young Liberals on a bill to reintroduce a five-cent reduced fare for college students.47 More broadly, as liberals began to think about what the country would look like after the war, the issue of full employment loomed large in their thoughts. The Liberal Party, like other liberals, feared that the end of the war would bring a return to Depression conditions, and widespread unemployment, they reasoned, would lead to resurgent fascism and racism. Full employment thus seemed to hold the key to any progress toward social justice. But full employment during the war, noted one party statement, had been achieved only because twenty million workers were involved in war production and another ten million were in the armed forces. Collective planning was needed to ensure that these millions would be reabsorbed into a peacetime economy. The “ultimate responsibility for employment,” the

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party proclaimed, “must rest with the national community, not with individual workers.” Government, not private enterprise, would have to prevent mass unemployment and guarantee stability and peace.48 For the Liberals, however, a fiscal policy for full employment meant more than just countercyclical spending to promote growth. Rather, it involved democratic planning for socially desirable ends. On the federal level, the Liberal Party urged lawmakers to pass the Murray full employment bill, calling for a National Economic Council and a fiscal policy for full employment. But the Liberals went beyond that, supporting the creation of a National Finance Corporation to fund development priorities and regional TVA-like projects. The party also supported national health insurance and federal aid to education.49 Similarly, on the state level, the party program called for a State Economic Council and an Enterprise Finance Corporation. The State Economic Council would plan and coordinate economic development projects, organizing public corporations to “undertake enterprises” when “private business or existing public agencies” failed to do so. The Enterprise Finance Corporation would “make loans and guarantee banks’ loans” to “reliable entrepreneurs” for “socially desirable productive business” on the condition of decent working conditions, the absence of racial discrimination, and a limit on profits and compensation. Given the lack of national legislation, the Liberal Party called on the state to provide health insurance and extend Social Security and unemployment insurance to agricultural workers, domestic workers, and employees of nonprofit enterprises.50 But often, the Liberal Party, like the rest of the labor movement, seemed to be fighting at best to defend gains previously won. As the Taft-Hartley Act made its way through Congress in 1947, for example, the Liberals took notice and action. The measure’s ban on industry-wide collective bargaining was a special threat to the ILGWU and other unions in the fractured garment industry, where such arrangements were an absolute necessity. So despite the bill’s anti-Communist provisions, Dubinsky attacked it as a great aid in the Communist “recruiting drive” out to destroy the accomplishments of “democratic forces of American unionism.” The Liberal Trade Union Council fought Taft-Hartley, presenting one hundred thousand signatures on a petition predicting that the law would “be a denial of the fundamental rights of American workers and [would] impair sound labor-management relationships,” and demanding that President Truman veto the bill. When he did indeed veto the bill, the party sent him a congratulatory telegram. And when Congress overrode that veto, the Liberal Party vowed to join Rose’s hatters’ union in a court challenge to the law, with Berle to act as counsel.51

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The close Liberal connection to the labor movement naturally pushed the party to focus on the needs of producers. But as Americans’ identity as consumers became more central to their identities as citizens after World War II, consumerism became more central to politics. And in fact the Liberal Party’s core labor unions had always prided themselves on taking into account their members’ needs not just as producers but more broadly as people with needs in housing, medical care, recreation, and other areas of life. So it is not surprising that the party responded by taking a strong stand for consumer protection. The Liberals took the lead in drafting legislation to establish an independent State Consumer Protection Commission with wide-ranging educational and regulatory responsibilities. As Berle argued, “The never ending raids upon the pockets of our citizens by industries and distributors have long demonstrated the dire need for a state agency to protect the consumer.” The bill never passed, but Governor Averill Harriman did create the position of consumer counsel, which during his administration was filled by the consumer activist and Liberal Persia Campbell.52 The construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway and the giant Niagara power plant were twin issues that are now thought of primarily in environmental terms, when they are remembered at all. In the 1950s, however, they were caught up in debates not only over consumer interests, but also over the relative merits of public versus private development and ownership, as well as the powers of the states versus the federal government. In fact, the idea of a massive shipping canal that would further link the Great Lakes to the Atlantic went back to the 1890s, gaining credence during World War II and the early Cold War as a defense measure. But while presidents and local residents supported a development project, Congress continually scuttled the idea at the behest of the railroads, which feared that a seaway would damage their business.53 The heated debates over the projects concerned both practical and ideological considerations. Proponents of the seaway and power project, including TVA chair David Lilienthal and the British socialist R. H. S. Crossman, hoped to use the TVA as a model, seeing it as a salutary use of public funds and power to do what private companies could not or would not do to promote economic development, eradicate poverty, improve living conditions, and increase social equality. They especially liked the idea of a public power company that would serve as a means of measuring costs, prices, and profits of private industry. Specifically, they argued that the seaway and power project would drive down electricity costs, open up trade, and improve national defense, and would provide popular leverage against special interests that monopolized shipping and power production. Opponents pointed to costs

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and the problems that harsh winters would pose to navigation, but also warned that such public authorities smacked of socialism and endangered free enterprise.54 The Liberal Party platform called for putting natural resources to work for the good of the many rather than private profit. Not surprisingly, the party enthusiastically endorsed the “extension of the ‘TVA idea’ to include the establishment of a . . . St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Authority, and similar authorities wherever warranted in the great river valleys of this nation.” The Liberals tussled on the issue with Governor Dewey, who wanted to limit federal involvement and separate the seaway from the power plant, and some New York City Democrats such as Mayor Vincent Impellitteri, who feared that a seaway would harm city shipping. Through two allied legislators, the party introduced a resolution in the state legislature petitioning for federal funding for a joint project. The Liberals were especially concerned that power generated from the plant be distributed to municipalities, cooperatives, and direct consumers, and not be handed over to private interests, invoking national security to back up their demands.55 The Liberal Party’s concern for consumers further combined with its general distrust of private enterprise and favorable view of public ownership in its opposition to the sale of three city-owned power plants to Consolidated Edison, the city’s largest private power supplier. Proponents of the plan included not only industry groups but some good-government groups as well. They argued that the cost to the city for modernization of the plants, which supplied power for the subways, was prohibitive. The Liberal Party led the fight against the plan, which, it countered, would lead to higher energy costs and therefore higher transit fares. The party saw the publicly owned plants as TVA-style “yardsticks” by which the true costs of generating energy by the private utilities could be measured. Although the Transit Workers Union, which stood to lose members in the deal, also opposed it, and though the Liberals had some influence in the second administration of Robert Wagner Jr.—who had been elected mayor in 1953 and reelected with Liberal support four years later—they lost this battle, and the plants were sold. Davidson attributed the loss to the influence on the mayor of his aide Charles Preusse, who was close to Con Ed (and, in fact, joined a law firm representing the utility after leaving public office).56

Liberals on the City Council A political party needs people in office to put its programs into effect, and for four years, from 1946 through 1949, the Liberal Party had two—New

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York City Council members Louis Goldberg and Ira Palestin. In regard to its council delegation, too, the Liberals were a year-round party. They supplied Goldberg and Palestin with a secretary and helped them develop positions on various issues. The council’s Liberals took consistently progressive positions and, despite sectarian animosities, frequently voted with the left bloc consisting of two Communists and two Laborites, joined by the liberal Republicans Stanley Isaacs, often, and Genevieve Earle, sometimes. The councilmen worked with the Liberal experts on housing (Charles Abrams and Marian Greenberg) and education (Rebecca Simonson, Abraham Lefkowitz, David Kaplan), as well as with the party Municipal Affairs Committee, with an aim to draft “comprehensive resolutions, giving an overall approach to a problem as against the piecemeal approach that is so often taken.”57 The five-cent transit fare was one issue that came to a head at this time, and one that the council weighed in on. The Liberal council members viewed a fare increase as a regressive tax on “those who can least afford to bear it,” estimating that a ten-cent fare would increase the burden on the poor by anywhere from thirty to sixty dollars a year. Along with the leftists, Isaacs, and some Democrats, Palestin and Goldberg thus opposed a resolution for a compromise eight-cent fare. Goldberg and Palestin introduced their own resolution, arguing that since “realty interests,” “centrally located business,” and “persons of moderate income” had all benefited from mass transit, the burden of funding transit should be spread beyond the ridership. As Mayor O’Dwyer began to maneuver for a fare hike, the issue became whether the board of estimate could raise the fare without a referendum. Goldberg and Palestin resisted to the end, even as many Democrats fell in line behind the mayor.58 Likewise, when it came to housing, Goldberg and Palestin called for a maximal program of low- and middle-income housing. Concluding that “the history of 100 years has demonstrated the unaided private industry cannot solve our ever present slum conditions,” they introduced resolutions urging the city to borrow up to its full debt limit to build thirty-five thousand unsubsidized and twelve thousand subsidized units. Then they demanded investigations into why the state and the city had dragged their feet on housing construction. They supported rent regulation and proposed that the city set up counseling centers to assist tenants with the complicated 1947 federal rent regulation law.59 In education, Goldberg and Palestin introduced an omnibus resolution based on the premise that “the continued stability and progressive welfare of our life as a democratic community are based upon an alert, informed citizenry”—and that the public schools played a key role in building that

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citizenry. The resolution called for a committee to review recommendations to revamp the educational system by reducing class sizes, hiring more teachers at higher salaries, providing more social services in the schools, enhancing parental involvement, and educating about minority cultures. Recommendations for higher education included better communication among students, faculty, and administrators in city colleges; expansion of the City University to accommodate veterans; fairer promotional standards for professors; and democratic procedures for faculties to make appointments and promotions and elect chairs. The resolution also called for the abolition of the custodial contract system, a reform that continues to elude school authorities.60 Issues such as the transit fare, housing, and education were closely connected to questions of finance. The Liberal Party platform had recognized the need for new revenue if the party’s ambitious plans for slum clearance and expanded services were to be carried out, and the Liberal councilmen picked up the theme. The city needed revenue, they argued, for “full social welfare and educational services consonant with what the daily life of an enlightened, progressive municipality should be.” They made a particular issue of what they saw as Governor Dewey’s hording of surplus funds that could have been used to alleviate urban housing shortages and maintain cheap public transit. The party and its council delegation called for repeal of recent state tax cuts, and “restoration of the 50 per cent income, the emergency business franchise, and the unincorporated business taxes.” They also repeatedly criticized O’Dwyer for his readiness to resort to regressive taxes rather than pressure the state for more aid. Palestin and Goldberg believed that if the city had more power to raise necessary taxes, it would be able to solve many of its fiscal as well as social problems. “It’s a sorry state of affairs,” said Palestin, “that the greatest city in the world has to go hat in hand to the Legislature each year pleading for the right to impose necessary taxes on its citizens.” Specifically, Goldberg and Palestin called for a city income tax to replace regressive sales and real estate taxes.61 Generally, Goldberg and Palestin opposed any proposals to raise revenue through what they considered regressive means. But occasionally, principles clashed so that the party needed to decide on its policy priorities. For example, the party convened a conference in early 1946 to discuss housing issues. After some debate, the approximately five hundred delegates from AFL and CIO unions, fraternal groups, cooperatives, veterans’ groups, tenant leagues, civic and community bodies, Liberal Party clubs, women’s groups, and housing organizations passed a resolution in favor of a 1 percent sales tax to be used to help support an extensive housing program. Palestin remarked, “The

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sales tax is bad but the slums are worse,” and called on Liberals to view realistically the problem of financing the expensive reforms they favored.62 The Liberal councilmen also emerged as early critics of Robert Moses. But although Palestin called Moses’s proposed highway through Van Cortlandt Park a “crime against the people,” their critique had little to do with Jane Jacobs’s later opposition to Moses’s large-scale building program. Rather, they objected to his “grandiose plan for beautifying the city for the benefit of the economic elite.” The problem lay especially in the financing that they felt profited the wealthy and hurt the poor. As Goldberg put it, “In park and road building and administration he appears almost radical. In matters involving social conflicts, such as upon whom should fall the burden of taxation, or for whose benefit government should be run, he takes on the aspect of an ‘economic royalist.’ ” Goldberg further blamed Moses’s influence on O’Dwyer for the mayor’s failure to fight against Dewey’s regressive tax plans.63 The Liberals also criticized Moses for overstepping the bounds of his office, and for attempting to bring more and more projects under his control. Goldberg and Palestin voted with their leftist colleagues against a plan to turn a proposed Columbus Circle garage over to Moses’s Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA). Likewise, they opposed a plan to give the TBTA jurisdiction over the new Madison Square Garden and its associated parking garages. When Moses wrote in a report as city construction coordinator that “almost a billion dollars worth of post-war construction projects” would be lost without a hike in the subway fare, Goldberg and Palestin introduced a resolution calling for his dismissal for including “propaganda for a subway fare increase” in an official report, and for supporting an increase in the sales tax and the construction of a bus terminal west of Eighth Avenue. The resolution censured Moses for considering “his position as one of undisputed power and . . . resent[ing] the expression of opinion by the City Council and its members.” The resolution failed.64 The Liberals opposed the TBTA takeover of Madison Square Garden. Together with Isaacs, Goldberg prepared a report that recalled the history of the TBTA: intended to build a bridge, it steadily took authority—and revenue—from more and more projects, including bridges, tunnels, and roads. The particular problem was that Madison Square Garden had nothing to do with the proper activities of the TBTA. The more general problem was that the city was giving away control over its “streets, highways, bridges, and tunnels.” The councilmen insisted that this was not an attack on any individual, but rather an objection to “Frankenstein government” of unaccountable autonomous authorities.65

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On this issue, the Liberals sided with the council’s left bloc, but the debate brought out the problematic role of the Communist Benjamin Davis, who in opposing aid to Madison Square Garden linked the question of racism with that of support for the Soviet regime. In one breath, he charged the Garden with racial discrimination for not allowing Black and white basketball teams on the same court, and with political discrimination for not consenting to host the seventeenth annual Lenin memorial meeting. The debate immediately became sidetracked onto the issue of Communism, stifling real discussion of either the inappropriate delegation of power to governmental authorities or public subsidies for organizations that engaged in racial discrimination.66 The city council kept itself busy not only with passing local ordinances, but with debating questions over which it had no jurisdiction. Some of these questions directly affected the city but were in the hands of the state. Others had to do with the state of the world beyond New York. During their time in office, Palestin and Goldberg introduced resolutions ranging from one calling for a study of the feasibility of a trucking terminal in the Garment District to one welcoming a representative of the Israeli labor federation, the Histadrut, to the city. The Liberals supported unanimous resolutions of the council for Negro History Week, a permanent FEPC, open immigration and independence for Palestine, the establishment of state professional schools, a condemnation of the racist Mississippi congressman John Rankin, censure of the British Labour foreign minister Ernest Bevin for saying that Americans were for open Jewish immigration to Palestine because they didn’t want the Jews coming to New York, a call for an American Crusade to End Lynching Day, and the admission of five hundred thousand Jewish displaced persons to the United States.67 On most substantive local issues, the Liberals voted with the Laborites and Communists, and often with Stanley Isaacs as well. This was true of Palestin’s tax policy bills as well as a bill introduced by Brooklyn’s Communist councilman, Peter Cacchione, to utilize the Sheepshead Bay Maritime Training Station for housing. On occasion the Liberals took a stronger antimachine stance than did the left bloc, as when Palestin and Goldberg voted against the Tammanyite Murray Stand for city clerk while the ALP and Communist council members, still in alliance with the machine, voted for him. Likewise, Goldberg and Palestin voted against the mayor’s proposed budget in 1947, while the left bloc voted in favor of it.68 Goldberg and Palestin broke with the left bloc, however, on symbolic issues relating to the intensifying Cold War. So they voted with the majority, for example, in support of the Marshall Plan, and to protest the arrest

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of Cardinal Mindszenty in Hungary. They also voted with the majority to congratulate Archbishop Spellman on his election to the College of Cardinals, while Davis and Cacchione dissented. But neither Goldberg nor Palestin would go so far as to endorse a planned May 1 Loyalty Day parade or to recommend a day off for city workers who attended, abstaining on resolutions to do those things.69 The Liberal city council members attempted to defend civil liberties, without whitewashing the less savory aspects of Communist activity. Goldberg, who was more embedded than Palestin in the sectarian battles of the Left, joined Norman Thomas and other radicals to call for a criminal investigation of the Communist Party’s involvement in the murders or disappearance of the party defector Juliet Stuart Poyntz, the anarchist Carlo Tresca, and the Russian exile Leon Trotsky. On the other hand, Palestin introduced a resolution to protest a board of education plan to ban organizations found by the board or superintendent to be “subversive.” Palestin’s resolution explicitly condemned Communism, along with Nazism and fascism, as a “subversive doctrine.” Moreover, it identified American Youth for Democracy, an organization active in the schools, as a Communist front and called for its exposure as such—thereby, of course, making it impossible for the Communist and ALP council members to support the resolution. But Palestin also argued that “the assumption of power and exclusive discretion on the part of the Board of Education to determine what is and what is not subversive of American democracy . . . is in itself violative of the democratic principles of freedom of speech and equality of opportunity,” and furthermore that “the widest measure of freedom of speech and discussion of all doctrines, including subversive doctrines, not leading to a breach of the peace and not constituting a present danger to the existence of our government, is a lesser evil than is the exclusive right of an administrative body to deny the use of public property to those voicing disagreeable sentiments.” His stand was in stark contrast to that of some of his council colleagues who demanded that the deans of Hunter, City, and Queens Colleges be fired for allowing American Youth for Democracy to function on campus.70 In a series of votes, the Liberals along with the rest of their colleagues had opportunities to pass judgment on the legitimacy of Communist representation on the council itself. The first came right at the start of the council term, when Goldberg and Palestin joined with the majority to seat ALP representative Michael Quill, turning down a challenge to his election because, as head of the transit workers’ union, he bargained with the city on behalf of his members. A more direct example took place following the death of Cacchione in 1947. According to statute, a deceased member’s party had the right to

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name his successor, and the Communists sought to give Cacchione’s seat to Simon Gerson, its local policy expert. But opponents tried to block this move on the grounds that the Communist Party did not have ballot status and was therefore not recognized as a legally constituted party under state law. Palestin and Goldberg divided on the issue. Goldberg led the fight against seating Gerson, arguing not only the technical merits but also that the Communists “set Negro against white and Jew against Catholic and Protestant.” Palestin insisted, on the other hand, that “the fact remains that 75,000 Brooklyn voters who chose Cacchione do have a right to be represented.” Gerson was not seated. Finally, after Benjamin Davis was convicted with other Communist leaders of violation of the Smith Act, the council voted to expel him with barely a month left in his term. Goldberg abstained during the vote, arguing that Davis should get a proper hearing before he was expelled. Palestin absented himself from the vote, having believed all along that “Davis should remain in the city council until voted out.”71 With the end of proportional representation on the city council, the Liberal Party lost its council delegation. But it continued to see itself as a yearround, issues-oriented party, different in that respect from the Democrats and Republicans. At the same time, it was in the business of electing people to office, whether people of its own or members of other parties. The Liberals had more success with the latter, even as they used their leverage to move major-party politicians in their direction.

Ch a p ter 5

Cold War Liberalism in City, State, and Nation

By the early 1950s, the Liberal Party had a stable and hierarchical structure that incorporated the main party constituencies. Building on its successes in 1949 in electing a congressman, helping to elect a senator, and showing itself to be a vital part of any fusion campaign in New York City, it also continued at the beginning of the new decade to establish itself as a credible power in New York politics. The party showed that it could even on occasion elect a citywide official on its own, and that without it the Democrats could not win a statewide race. It demonstrated that it could mobilize its base to attract hundreds of thousands of votes on its line, both for its own candidates and for major-party candidates it endorsed. And as it would throughout its history, it struggled to establish the right balance between ideological commitment and pragmatic politics. Formally, the party was ruled by its elected county committees, an elected state committee, and a statewide executive committee. In reality, the so-called Policy Committee, an amorphous body of two or three dozen party leaders, some of whom held formal party offices and some of whom were simply co-opted onto the committee, called the shots. A variety of groups, including trade unionists, intellectuals, and local activists, had representation on the Policy Committee, which, as member Ed Morrison put it, was designed “so as to be able to say that we were broader than we actually were.” The party’s undisputed top leaders—Alex Rose, David Dubinsky, and whoever 112

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was the current party chair—used the Policy Committee as a sounding board when developing positions on issues or candidates. But despite the presence of some strong-willed individuals and occasional dissent, the committee seldom disputed the line set down by Rose.1 One important arm of the party was its Trade Union Council, established in 1945. Units of the ILGWU and the hatters’ union, of course, formed the largest blocs within the council, but at various times it also brought together representatives from other unions, from kosher butchers to musicians, as well as the Negro Labor Council. At the end of the 1950s, the Trade Union Council even incorporated the left-wing furriers’ joint board, previously shunned for its Communist associations. The council helped individual union members to get jobs, resolve immigration issues, and deal with other legal problems. But mostly it did political work—lobbying for pro-labor and civil rights legislation, and participating in campaigns by raising money and turning out members to vote and to work.2 Assembly district or union local clubs formed the base of the party. Some did little more than sit around and play cards, but others were very active. Like their Democratic and Republican counterparts, Liberal clubs had hours in which constituents could consult with volunteer lawyers on problems of housing, Social Security, relief, citizenship, and the like. They spearheaded local campaigns for improvements in bus service and subway stations, and, of course, they mobilized for election campaigns. Perhaps more than their counterparts in the other parties, Liberal clubs educated their members on the burning issues of the day—from the local to the international. The West Side Liberal Club, for example, heard talks titled “The Real Facts about Slave Labor in the USSR,” “The Crisis in Controls . . . Prices, Wages, Rackets,” “Religious Liberty in the Public Schools,” “After Stalin, What?,” “Racial Discrimination in Our Midst,” and “Israel in the Middle East.” Speakers included the sociologist Daniel Bell, the Socialist Norman Thomas, and the Korean ambassador to Japan. The club also had an active calendar of social events.3 The Dressmakers’ Liberal Party Club in ILGWU Local 22, which was headed by Liberal vice chair Charles Zimmerman, was especially active. The club’s thousand or so members enjoyed social events such as square dances, theater outings, film showings, excursions, and boat rides. But they also heard talks on current issues, and took classes in unemployment law and “advanced political action.” And, of course, they mobilized for political work—canvassing, sending out mailings, and making phone calls during election campaigns. Zimmerman explained the importance of political mobilization in light of antilabor moves in Congress: “We should strive to

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organize political stewards, educate them and they in turn should bring the political message to the worker in the shops.”4 Despite efforts to expand the party’s base, its chief constituency was Jewish. Party director Ben Davidson reported proudly on the opening of party clubs in Harlem, East Harlem, and Bedford-Stuyvesant, and worked with leaders of ILGWU Locals 48 and 89 to form “Columbus Clubs” in Italian neighborhoods. But a rough tally of the Bronx County executive committee shows fifty-six Jews, two Italians, two Hispanics, one African American, and four whose ethnicity cannot be determined. The ILGWU’s political director, Gus Tyler, estimated in mid-decade that support for the party ran at about 65 percent in locals that were still heavily Jewish, but only 20 percent in predominantly Black and Puerto Rican locals. In Jewish districts in the Bronx and Brooklyn, the party vote could reach 10–15 percent.5 And despite all the activity, there was already nervousness that the party’s base was aging and shrinking. Party activists argued that more needed to be done to attract “young, better educated” people. To this end, the party organized Young Voters’ Leagues, Young Liberal chapters, and college branches, all of which carried out activities geared to the sensibilities of their own constituencies. On campus, the Liberals had chapters at Brooklyn and City Colleges, where they were both rivals and allies of other anti-Communist liberal student groups, such as the Student League for Industrial Democracy and Students for Democratic Action.6

“D Stands for Decency” In 1950, New Yorkers expected to elect a US senator and a governor. The Liberal Party’s national program that year called for increased school aid, improvements in Social Security, stricter federal rent control, more money for lower- and middle-income housing, the repeal of Taft-Hartley, a permanent federal civil rights commission, laws against discrimination in housing and jobs, antilynching legislation, banning of poll taxes and all-white primaries, statehood for Alaska and Hawaii, self-determination for the people of Puerto Rico, and the admission of 405,000 displaced persons over four years. On the state level, the party criticized Governor Dewey for cuts to relief payments, a new disability law that put most of the funding burden on employees rather than employers, and what they saw as his failures to fund schools adequately.7 The Liberals also carried on a feud with Mayor O’Dwyer, who resented the party’s support for his main opponent in the previous year’s election. When the Bronx Liberal director testified at a board of estimate meeting,

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criticizing recent raises for the mayor and other officials and calling for more money for teachers, civil servants, and relief recipients instead, O’Dwyer blurted out angrily, “What party are you representing—the Liberal Party or the Communist Party? You’re talking just like a Communist.” The two continued to bicker until O’Dwyer concluded, “I just don’t like you guys.” In addition to the salary issue, the Liberals’ differences with O’Dwyer centered on questions of vice and corruption. In 1950, while the mayor proposed the legalization of some forms of gambling because prohibitions against them were too difficult to enforce, the Liberal Party opposed such a move, because, as party chairman Adolf Berle argued, “the same kind of pressures will gather around legalized gambling that now gather around illegal gambling. The opening of legalized gambling offices would merely result in large amounts of money being taken away from the public.”8 The feud with the mayor complicated the outlook for a Democratic-Liberal alliance in the upcoming elections. The mayor told Democratic state leaders that he would not support any candidate who also had Liberal backing. While some observers believed he was bluffing, he told friends that he would sooner support Dewey than a “Dubinsky Democrat.” When O’Dwyer spoke at the hatters’ union convention, he shook hands with outgoing president Max Zaritsky, who had supported him in the 1949 election, but snubbed Alex Rose, the union’s new chief.9 The Liberals felt particular pressure that year to fuse with the Democrats because their main electoral priority was the reelection of Herbert Lehman to the US Senate. The party and its leaders had long been close to Lehman, and they had helped elect him in a special election the year before. As one ILGWU campaign manual put it, Lehman was a “founder of the great Smith-Roosevelt-Lehman tradition of good government and social progress in New York State.” In his first year as a senator, he did not disappoint the admirers of that tradition. As the same manual argued, Lehman had already established himself as a Senate “leader in the battles for liberalized displaced persons legislation, FEPC, fair labor legislation, anti-inflationary controls, civil rights, civil liberties and other measures for social advance.” The Liberal leaders did not want to do anything that would complicate Lehman’s chances of reelection, and the senator himself pressured them to support the Democratic ticket.10 If Lehman’s reelection was an obvious priority, the choice of a gubernatorial candidate to head a joint Democratic-Liberal ticket was less clear cut. The long list of possible candidates included state Democratic Party chair Paul Fitzpatrick, first-term congressman Franklin Roosevelt Jr., former postmaster general and Democratic chair James Farley, Ambassador Averell

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Harriman, Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan, and Judges Ferdinand Pecora, Charles Froessel, James McNally, Thomas Corcoran, and Michael Walsh. For a time, Oscar Ewing, a progressive fixture of the Truman administration as head of the Federal Security Administration (a forerunner of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare), seemed to be the Liberals’ preferred candidate, as both Rose and Dubinsky invited him to speak at their unions’ conventions. But Ewing pulled out of the race in June. Rose signaled that all of the potential candidates were acceptable except Farley, who was too conservative.11 In July, O’Dwyer and Rose shook hands and, as the Liberal leader put it, “renew[ed] an old friendship,” but the following month the mayor’s surprise resignation threw the election into turmoil. It set up a special election for mayor, to be run simultaneously with the statewide polls. The Liberal Party made clear that it still preferred an alliance with the Democrats, but now warned that it would run its own slate if the two parties could not agree on a “united, outstanding, clear-cut progressive slate of candidates for United States Senator, Governor and Mayor that will capture the imagination of the people, win their confidence, command their loyalty and make them feel that our democracy can function securely in time of crisis.” The Liberals held open the possibility of backing a Republican for mayor, as they had done in the previous two elections, especially if that Republican was Congressman Jacob Javits. But Manhattan Republican leader Thomas Curran was against any such coalition, and the idea does not seem to have gone far.12 Ferdinand Pecora emerged as the Democratic frontrunner for mayor, favored by the Liberals and included on Manhattan Tammany boss Carmine DeSapio’s short list. Born in Sicily, the son of a poor shoemaker and convert to Protestantism, Pecora arrived in the United States at the age of four in 1886. After early dalliances with Bryan populism and Roosevelt progressivism, he found his way to Tammany Hall, but remained untouched by the scandals of the 1920s. Pecora’s progressive credentials came mainly from his role as chief counsel to the Senate committee investigating the 1929 stock market crash. In those hearings, during which he became something of a celebrity, Pecora confronted the titans of Wall Street, including J. P. Morgan himself, helping to expose industry malfeasance and paving the way for New Deal reforms. In 1934, Roosevelt appointed him to the Securities and Exchange Commission, but he quit after six months to accept an appointment to the New York State Supreme Court. As far as the Liberals were concerned, Pecora’s term as president of the National Lawyers Guild, during which he fought the pro-Communist faction, was an additional credential, as was the fact that Pecora was a card-playing friend of Dubinsky.13

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Rose entered into negotiations with DeSapio and Fitzpatrick on a joint state and city ticket. The Liberals wanted Lehman and Pecora, and were willing to compromise on the gubernatorial candidate. The candidate that emerged was Representative Walter Lynch of the Bronx, a former magistrate and a five-term member of Congress with a solid liberal record. One internal campaign document summed up his positions: anti-Taft-Hartley, pro-FEPC, and antitotalitarian “in all its forms.” Lynch was nevertheless a product of the Bronx machine and hardly an inspired choice. Davidson later admitted that the Liberals backed him unenthusiastically and only after some arm-twisting by Lehman. Though some rank-and-file party members resisted, the Liberal leadership put the best face on the choice. At the Liberal convention, a Brooklyn delegate nominated Berle for governor, complaining that acceptance of Lynch was a “very high” price to pay for support of Lehman. Berle, however, stuck with the party line. “When someone asks you who Lynch is,” he urged, “tell them he is the outstanding Congressman from New York.”14 In endorsing the Democrats, the Liberals clearly realized they had some explaining to do after accusing their new partners of corruption a year earlier. Defending Pecora against those Liberals who saw his selection as a sellout to DeSapio, Dubinsky countered that Pecora’s joint nomination was a “complete Liberal party victory,” and Berle resorted to the usual Liberal appeal to pragmatic idealism: “The time comes in politics . . . when merely saving our souls is not enough. Our job is to save the public as well.” Davidson followed up in a letter to Post editor James Wechsler, a close party friend, pointing out that the Liberal Party had liked Pecora for a long time and had considered him as a candidate on a number of occasions. Although Rose did not dictate nominations because he was not a boss, Davidson contended, he had helped ensure that the Democrats nominated a progressive candidate by threatening an independent campaign. The mayoralty had been discussed at “many, many meetings of the Liberal Party’s Policy Committee,” he said, “and . . . the conclusions were always unanimous” for Pecora. If anything, the Liberals had forced Pecora on the Democrats.15 Both reformers and Democrats were divided on the mayoral race. Acting mayor Vincent Impellitteri, jilted by the Democrats, announced an independent run on the Experience Party line, attracting some support from within the Democratic machines. The Republicans, meanwhile, nominated state industrial commissioner and former La Guardia aide Edward Corsi, who won the endorsement of Marie La Guardia, the mayor’s widow. She, the Reverend Donald Harrington, and Rabbi Edward Klein formed Liberals for Corsi. Corsi’s manager charged that in endorsing Pecora, Tammany

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had turned the Liberal Party into a “tiger cub.” But Pecora gained the most endorsements, including those of the aged reformer Judge Samuel Seabury as well as the Citizens Union, the Fusion Party, the AFL and CIO, and Americans for Democratic Action, which proclaimed that “never before in this century has the Democratic Party offered our city a mayoralty candidate of comparable stature.” The American Labor Party put up Paul Ross, a former O’Dwyer aide.16 Pecora’s campaign stressed his humble origins and his record as a champion of banking regulation. Campaigning on a platform of social progressivism and good government, he proclaimed that government “is for all the people rather than for the protection of the interests of the propertied and the economically privileged.” And he promised to be the “persistent, the implacable foe of corruption and racketeering on all levels.” He called for federal price controls, better teacher pay, more school construction, an “independent commission” to oversee the police to avoid recurrent scandals, and the repeal of Taft-Hartley. He promised to deal with city employees as human beings worthy of a decent standard of living, but also to root out Communist teachers from the schools.17 Impellitteri and Corsi each attempted to position himself as the true reform candidate. The acting mayor portrayed himself as unbossed and unbought, telling voters that he had turned down a deal that would have given him a judgeship in exchange for dropping out of the race. He got some labor support, as well as that of conservative Democrats who rejected, as one renegade Tammany district leader put it to the New York Times, a “deal which enabled a splinter party [the Liberal party], dominated by [David] Dubinsky, [Alex] Rose & Co., to dictate the nomination.” Meanwhile, Corsi presented himself as the most steadfast opponent of vice and corruption. He also appealed directly to Liberal Party voters to reject their party as a sellout to Tammany. The acting mayor, the Republican, and the American Laborite all painted Pecora as the candidate of the powerful crime and vice boss Frank Costello, through DeSapio.18 The Liberals responded by charging that Pecora’s opponents were in league with the “forces of reaction,” Impellitteri through O’Dwyer and a faction of Tammany Hall, and Corsi through Dewey, whose candidate he was accused of being. The Liberals further attacked Impellitteri as a spoiler in cahoots with the GOP. The need of the day, proclaimed Berle, was to counter the “reactionaries, Roosevelt-haters, the Christian Fronters, the antiSemites,” who were perhaps behind the other candidates. Meanwhile, the ILGWU staff worked to dig up dirt on Impellitteri. They found that he had served as attorney for the notorious gangster Jacob “Gurrah” Shapiro, and

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that as a member of the Democratic-ALP ticket in 1945, he had spoken at an ALP rally announced in the Daily Worker. Murray Baron, the Manhattan Liberal leader, also sought to smear Corsi with the fellow-traveler brush by asking pointedly why he failed to speak out against the Communist-friendly congressman Vito Marcantonio. (The Corsi campaign responded by pointing out that Corsi was in fact on the campaign committee of Marcantonio’s opponent.)19 In the senatorial race, Lehman positioned himself as both a staunch antiCommunist internationalist and a fighting liberal. He called for an excess profits tax to finance the Korean War, which he saw as necessary to counter Communist aggression. But he also argued that the war should not hold up progress on a litany of liberal causes, from civil rights to health security and “power development.” He warned “against those who, under the cover of protecting our institutions against communism, seek only to establish their own control of our institutions and erase the progress made by the American people under the administrations of Roosevelt and Truman.” Lehman’s campaign was aided by a leaked letter in which his opponent, Lt. Governor Joseph Hanley, seemed to indicate that he had been promised a job as a reward for dropping out of the race for governor when Dewey, who had announced he would not run for reelection, changed his mind.20 In the gubernatorial race, Lynch charged that the state’s pioneering IvesQuinn antidiscrimination law was being undermined by a lack of enforcement. It had become a trap for victims of discrimination who brought their cases to the State Commission against Discrimination only to see them languish. In addition to charging Dewey with being antilabor, he also accused the governor, who had risen to prominence by prosecuting gangsters, of commuting Lucky Luciano’s sentence at the behest of Frank Costello, and of tolerating gambling upstate if not in New York City. During the campaign, Lynch voted in Congress to override Truman’s veto of the McCarran Communist Control Act. Dewey, for his part, ran on his record, emphasizing its liberal elements, such as his spending on infrastructure, public colleges, and public health. He accused the Democrats of bowing to “a few bosses in the C.I.O. and in the un-Liberal party.”21 With the help of a pledge of $100,000 from the ILGWU, the Liberal Party campaigned hard for its ticket, especially Pecora. The candidates often appeared at Liberal rallies, the largest of which took place at Carnegie Hall. There, the enthusiastic crowd heard speeches by New Dealer Harold Ickes, who recalled his work with Pecora in the Bull Moose campaign of 1912, and autoworker union president Walter Reuther, who called for a fight against “forces of reaction” on the left and the right. Pecora, Lynch, and Lehman

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also spoke, with Pecora promising “efficient, clean and economical” government, and Lynch calling for a minimum wage hike. The low points of the campaign came in several incidents in which Liberal meetings or clubs were attacked, allegedly by Impellitteri supporters.22

Ousting Red Vito With the ouster of the Communist Benjamin Davis from the city council the previous year, Liberals turned their attention to the unfinished business of defeating the charismatic fellow-traveling congressman from East Harlem, ALP state chair Vito Marcantonio. The Liberals had plenty of company in their desire to get rid of Marcantonio. Tammany Hall declared the congressman’s defeat its “first order of business.” Republicans and some independent reform-oriented Democrats also wanted him gone. Moreover, Marcantonio seemed vulnerable. Outside of his East Harlem stronghold, where he continued to have strong support among his Italian, Puerto Rican, and African American base, the district included Yorkville, among whose more conservative Central European and Irish inhabitants he was not as popular. The Wilson-Pekula law, prohibiting candidates from entering the primaries of parties in which they were not enrolled, meant that Marcantonio could not win the Democratic and Republican lines as he had in the past, but would have to run on the ALP line alone. And against the backdrop of the Korean War, which broke out in the summer of 1950, the ALP was increasingly isolated. In the meantime, the Liberal Party had been building a presence in East Harlem, claiming a club there with 250 members, in an effort, said the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr in a letter to Davidson, to “build up a political force against Marcantonio.” In 1948, Marcantonio had survived only because the Republican and Democratic candidates had split the vote.23 The key to his defeat in 1950 was thus the construction of a viable coalition of the Democratic, Republican, and Liberal Parties. DeSapio and Curran negotiated through the spring in search of a joint candidate. Though the major party leaders recognized that a coalition candidate should be acceptable to the Liberals as well, independent reformers and the Liberal Party were for the most part relegated to the sidelines, vocally urging the nomination of a high-quality progressive. Those mentioned included Thomas Murphy, one of the prosecutors of the Alger Hiss case (the Times argued without irony that Murphy’s nomination “would make Communism the chief issue,” as if there had been any other issue); Jonathan Bingham, a leader of Americans for Democratic Action; former congressman James Lanzetta; and the unsuccessful 1948 Republican-Liberal challenger John Ellis. But agreement

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proved difficult to reach, with some potential candidates rejected for being too liberal, and others for not being liberal enough. When Curran publicly floated the name of Edith (Mrs. Wendell) Willkie, DeSapio countered testily that Eleanor Roosevelt might be a better choice.24 Finally, the coalition partners settled on former state senator James Donovan, a Democrat acceptable to both Republicans and Liberals. A World War I  veteran, Donovan had attended MIT and graduated from Harvard and Columbia Law School. He immediately announced that Communism was the issue, because “the public has made this the issue.” The Liberals were fine with Donovan’s anti-Communism, but they must have been a little perturbed by the candidate’s constant denial that he was a liberal at all. The Times noted his “conservative leanings,” while Donovan called himself a “moderate.” Curran put it more colorfully, but perhaps more disturbingly for a party that saw itself as the most devoted heir to the New Deal: “He is progressive and liberal without being a New Deal suckling.”25 The Times observed that the campaign was high in “vituperation and rancor,” expressed in English, Italian, and Spanish. Looking on from the neighboring borough, the Bronx Young Liberals hoped that their standard-bearer would take the high, liberal road: “Might we suggest that Mr. Donovan in his campaign enter into a rigorous fight for the Fair Deal program. . . . The workers for Joe Stalin’s boy Marcantonio, are hoping that Donovan will run on a strictly Anti-Communist program so they can heap the typical lies on him, but under the leadership of the Liberal Party the coalition candidate will take a positive stand. This is the only way to beat the Commie stooge, Marcantonio.” Donovan did, in fact, indicate his support for public housing and hospitals, and for social welfare measures, but for the most part he focused on characterizing his opponent as a “red echo,” accusing him of disrespecting the pope and opposing Marshall Plan aid for Italy. The Democrat called for outlawing the Communist Party and jailing its leaders. Nevertheless, Manhattan Liberal leader Murray Baron argued, “A victory for Donovan is a victory for progressive and American democracy.” The Liberals sent a letter, signed by party chair Berle, to “every enrolled voter,” charging that the incumbent had “consistently voted in a way to favor the Kremlin dictators” and urging “non-Communist enrollee[s] in the American Labor Party” to “drop that party like a hot coal” as un-American and antilabor.26 Marcantonio responded in kind, calling Donovan a “Sutton Place Dixiecrat” and accusing him of antisemitism and fascist associations. With help from the Communist Party, Marcantonio’s campaign was well funded and well staffed. His rallies were better attended and his supporters more enthusiastic. He continued to appeal on ethnic and class grounds, highlighting his

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common identity with the voters of his district. Among other things, the ALP congressman confidently predicted that “this campaign will mark the end of the Liberal party, which now has become the tail of the Democratic donkey.”27 When the dust settled, it was Marcantonio’s career that came to an end, and the ALP’s existence as a viable political force that was threatened. Nevertheless, the outcome proved mixed for the Liberals. The Liberal line provided Donovan with just over five thousand votes, a small percentage of his total vote and well below his margin of victory, so the party had little leverage over him. Moreover, once Donovan was in Congress, his voting record was hardly progressive. Indeed, the Liberals came to agree with Marcantonio that their erstwhile candidate voted “against the people” on a number of issues. In subsequent years, the Liberal Party opposed his reelection.28 In other local races, results were similarly mixed for the Liberal Party. At Baron’s urging, the Liberals backed Republican Elmer Carter, a member of the governor’s State Committee against Discrimination, against Adam Clayton Powell, citing Powell’s opposition to the Marshall Plan and the Korean War. They did this despite an internal ILGWU report noting that Carter was not particularly popular among Harlem union members and recommending instead an independent candidate in order to build the party. As the report predicted, Powell won big.29 On the other hand, the Liberals’ own Matthew Levy was elected to the state supreme court in Manhattan and the Bronx on the Democratic and Liberal tickets. He enlisted his old Socialist network for support during the campaign, and, gratifyingly, named Liberals to positions as law secretary and confidential attendant.30 The results at the top of the ticket were also a mixed bag. Pecora, who turned out to be a poor campaigner and well past his prime as a liberal hero, and Lynch both fell to the incumbents. But the Liberals’ top priority—the reelection of Lehman—had been achieved, and, even better, the 312,000 votes he received on line D provided his margin of victory. Moreover, the Liberals had overtaken the ALP and would henceforth own Row C. Dubinsky doubted that Mayor Impellitteri would amount to much anyway.31 Writing in the New Leader, Davidson took stock of the party’s successes and explained its approach. The Liberal Party, he offered, “has maintained from the outset that the fight for social, political and economic democracy must be waged against reaction on the right—including economic royalists and race-baiters—and against reaction on the so-called left—those who, while parading as saviors of mankind, stand for totalitarian despotism and enslavement.” It could claim credit for Lehman’s election and reelection, and its support of Javits and FDR Jr. in victory, and Morris and Pecora in defeat,

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showed that it played an important independent role in backing liberals irrespective of party labels. The Liberal Party, Davidson argued, was the only “genuine third-party movement” left, since the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party and the Wisconsin Progressive Party had ceased to exist as independent parties. Unlike what was left of the Socialist Party, the Liberals measured success not only by maintaining principles but also by achieving “practical results.” Finally, Davidson crowed that with its defeat of Marcantonio and capture of Row C on the ballot, the Liberal Party had overtaken that “shoddy tool of Moscow,” the ALP.32

“H*A*L*L*E*Y Is Their Current Spelling for Liberalism” In addition to Communism, organized crime and political corruption were major issues of the day, in New York and across the country. Locally, concern focused on Frank Costello, a gangster who had risen to prominence in the underworld during the Prohibition era and had reputedly played an important role in modernizing organized crime and putting it on a business footing. Called the “prime minister” of an alleged national crime syndicate, Costello had close relations with Tammany Hall, reportedly controlling a majority of its district leaders. Since the early 1940s, New York politicians regularly accused each other of being too close to him. Costello and his political connections became prime subjects of the Senate Crime Investigating Committee that toured the country holding hearings in 1950–51, under the leadership of Tennessee Democrat Estes Kefauver.33 The Kefauver Committee arrived in New York in mid-March 1951 for over a week of spectacular televised hearings. Millions watched the proceedings live, as the committee’s chief counsel, a New York lawyer named Rudolph Halley, picked apart star witnesses, including Costello and former mayor O’Dwyer, recalled for the occasion from his post as ambassador to Mexico. Coached by Ferdinand Pecora, Halley was an incisive cross-examiner. The drama was heightened by the fact that since Costello’s attorney had demanded that the mobster’s face not be shown on TV, the cameras focused on his nervous, fidgety hands, to sinister effect. By the end of the hearings, Halley seemed to have demonstrated the close link between Costello and O’Dwyer, as well as the pervasive corruption in the O’Dwyer administration.34 The Liberal Party saw in the testimony justification of its own opposition to O’Dwyer in the most recent mayoral races. It hailed the Kefauver Committee hearings, and called for a “political earthquake” to oust the corrupt Democratic and Republican political machines from power. Inevitably, corruption

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and crime became central issues in the 1951 special election to fill the post of city council president vacated by newly elected mayor Impellitteri.35 At the beginning of the year, the Liberals saw an opportunity to at least help elect their first citywide official. They toyed with the idea of running an independent candidate, but also made overtures to the Republicans for fusion behind either Newbold Morris or Jacob Javits. But the Republicans balked. They refused Morris outright and dragged their feet on Javits, uncomfortable at an alliance with the Liberal Party but hoping to stall long enough that the Liberals would be forced to nominate someone else and take the blame for scuttling the fusion effort. Though Javits was tempted by the opportunity to move up to higher office and back to New York, he dropped out of the race when it became clear that a coalition was not in the offing.36 Meanwhile, Halley presented himself as a willing candidate. Born in Harrison, New York, of German and Austrian Jewish background, Halley had come to the city with his mother after his dentist father died. A self-described “young man in a hurry,” he had graduated from high school at fourteen, finished his undergraduate degree at Columbia at nineteen, and earned a law degree before he was old enough to take the bar exam. Halley had been law secretary to a federal judge, assistant US attorney, and assistant counsel to the Truman war fraud investigation committee, before being named chief counsel for the Kefauver Committee. Married and divorced twice, the thirtyeight-year-old drew comparisons to La Guardia, though at five feet seven inches, he was slightly taller. His role in the televised Kefauver hearings had made him the best-known potential candidate. The Liberal Party nominated Halley at the end of May, on the condition that he not take the Democratic nomination, all but daring the Republicans to join in supporting him. Outmaneuvered, GOP leaders tried for over a month to persuade the Liberals to join in a draft of Javits, but, sensing the possibility of victory on their own, the Liberals stuck with Halley.37 Not surprisingly, Halley turned his campaign into a crusade against crime and corruption. He laid out the case for his candidacy at the Liberal Party dinner in June, proclaiming that “the price of good government is eternal vigilance.” He told the audience, “New York has suffered from the fix since 1942, when Costello made Mike Kennedy leader of Tammany, and 1943 when Bill O’Dwyer found Kennedy sitting in Costello’s apartment drinking cocktails.” As mayor, O’Dwyer had capitulated to “the fix,” but the televised Kefauver hearings had uncovered “the local Democratic machine submerged up to its neck in the slime of corruption and gangster domination.” Since the

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Figure 3.  Banners across Seventh Avenue in New York’s Garment District call for the election of Rudolph Halley as president of the city council, 1951. Running solely on the Liberal line, Halley won. Kheel Center, Cornell University.

local Democratic bosses had refused to clean house, a nonpartisan campaign was needed. The Kefauver Committee had shown that such nonpartisanship in the interest of good government was possible.38 Halley continued to hammer home his anticorruption theme throughout the campaign, tying it to social reform more broadly. “We have a Gestapo. We have a GPU. We have an NKVD,” he declared. “We have a secret police as

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sinister as any in the world. It is the crime syndicate headed by Frank Costello and abetted by the weak and venal politicians.” He called for the strengthening of civil service laws, the elimination of political appointments in the schools and among city inspectors, structures to eliminate police corruption, and an investigation of O’Dwyer’s campaign financing. He also proposed to fight juvenile delinquency through more social welfare and recreation programs, take steps against job and housing discrimination, name more Spanish- and Italian-speaking housing inspectors, fight police brutality, build new housing and provide better health services, and consider a city income tax instead of a regressive sales tax. He believed that the police had a right to unionize, but not to strike. On TV with the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and Rabbi Israel Goldstein, Halley characterized his campaign as a “moral crusade against immoral politics.” He warned that the underworld was raising money across the country to defeat him.39 Although Halley’s opponents had the advantage of major-party backing, they were thrown on their heels by the Liberals’ aggressive campaign. Acting city council president Joseph Sharkey, a product of the Brooklyn Democratic machine, attacked Halley for “nightly repetitious reviling of our great city on screen and air,” and for his “television makeup kit.” He attempted to smear the insurgent as an antisemite for having served as attorney for the racist right-wing broadcaster George Richards in a case before the FCC. Halley countered that the charge was a diversion from the real issues, and that he himself was Jewish. At one point, Sharkey tried to turn the tables by posing insinuating questions: “When will you tell the public about yourself and [gangster] Longie Zwillman?” “What were the connections of you and your law firm with the liquor industry prior to and while serving as counsel to the Kefauver committee?” “Did you serve other powerful interests while acting as counsel for the Kefauver committee?” Halley easily parried that he had never had any relationship, direct or indirect, with Zwillman or the liquor industry, and that “the only ‘powerful interest’ I served while counsel to the Kefauver committee was the people of the United States.” (The left-wing Compass alleged that Halley had represented the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad while Zwillman, for three months, had owned bonds in the company.)40 The Republican candidate was the conservative Queens congressman Henry Latham. Attacking from the right, he tried to make hay out of Halley’s links to the Liberal Party, which he called a “Liberal-Socialist group.” Latham charged that Halley’s supporters were a “motley bloc of disciplined voters” controlled by “Dictator Dubinsky,” and called explicitly for the Liberal Party’s “destruction.” He tried to tar Halley with the Tammany Hall brush through his links with Pecora, and accused him of pulling his punches

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during the crime hearings. But as the contest drew to a close, Latham was reduced to muttering that all Halley talked about was “crime, crime, crime, crime, as if that were the only issue.”41 Davidson recalled Halley as an “indefatigable” and charismatic campaigner, both in person and on television, where he appeared regularly. He appealed to housewives who had watched the crime hearings in great numbers, and energized young people, who came out to volunteer in the campaign. Liberal and reform luminaries including Marie La Guardia backed him, and he won the support of the Citizens Union, the Times, the Post, the Brooklyn Eagle, and the Forward, which called on Jewish voters to turn back the “libel” that Halley was an antisemite. Although Socialist Party leader Norman Thomas complained privately that Rose had “repudiated any Socialist endorsement of Halley . . . because he feared the red charge,” the Socialists announced that they were backing Halley and the Liberal Party because both were against corruption and against totalitarianism of Right and Left.42 As Election Day approached, Berle and Rose were optimistic that Halley would win, and they were not disappointed. Taking 39 percent of the total vote, Halley received over 580,000 votes on the Liberal line alone (he also had the Fusion line and an independent line). The Liberals got much of the credit for the victory, and the triumphant candidate appeared alongside Berle, Rose, Dubinsky, and Newbold Morris in front of the youthful crowd at the Algonquin Hotel on election night. “In ’53 we will take the city back for its own citizens,” proclaimed Berle. “We have been called a splinter party, but we have shown them that the splinter is as big as the great oak.” Indeed, many observers saw Halley as a strong candidate for the mayoralty in 1953, perhaps even the frontrunner, and recognized the Liberal Party’s newly enhanced importance. The party saw the Halley victory as one of honesty and integrity in government, as well as social reform, and Rose pointed to it as an example of positive labor political action.43 The victory boosted Liberal morale. An ILGWU staffer reported that a meeting of the Local 22 Liberal Club featured “beaming faces” and “waves of enthusiasm”: “H*A*L*L*E*Y is their current spelling for Liberalism, for faith in their City.” Sol Levin, a member of the Local 23’s executive committee and a Liberal poll watcher, wrote to Dubinsky that Halley’s election had improved his health, which had not been good. Other union and party activists reported that garment firms were looking to advertise in the Liberal Digest. At a Liberal victory luncheon for two thousand, Dubinsky and Berle all but endorsed Halley for mayor.44 The Liberals did, of course, reap material benefits from Halley’s election. Liberals were named to his staff as assistant counsel, and as research,

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legislative, and administrative assistants. And over the next two years, the activist council president sought out the opinion of Liberal leaders, though of course he “made up his own mind,” as Davidson later insisted. In any case, Halley and the party were often of the same mind on such issues as the transfer of the city’s subway system to a new transit authority (they were against it), rent control (for), and public funding for elections (for).45

Stevenson and Sparkman President Truman’s announcement at the end of March 1952 that he would not seek reelection left the Democratic field wide open in the months leading up to the convention. Liberals, both in the Liberal Party and outside it, focused on four candidates: Averell Harriman, wealthy businessman and New Deal/Fair Deal official; Senator Estes Kefauver, a southern liberal who had made a name for himself with his investigation of organized crime; Senator Paul Douglas, who shared a background with many Liberal leaders in the Socialist Party; and the frontrunner, Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois. Stevenson, who later achieved the status of a liberal icon, was in truth perhaps the least liberal of the four, with a weak record on civil rights and a preference for amending Taft-Hartley, not repealing it outright. Nevertheless, some Liberals favored him as the strongest candidate. Party chair Berle preferred Douglas. Others backed Harriman, a New Yorker who lobbied the party actively for support. Berle, however, recorded in his diary that the “general sense” at a meeting of the state executive committee was that Stevenson or Douglas would be best but Kefauver would be better than Harriman, because the latter was too closely identified with the unpopular Truman.46 The Liberal Party sent a delegation of observers, including Berle, Rose, and Dubinsky, to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago at the end of July. There they lobbied for their favorites, though Douglas told Berle when he arrived that he was not a candidate and that Stevenson would be the nominee. Observing Stevenson, the New York Liberals, like many small-l liberals throughout the country, were impressed perhaps more by his style than by his positions on issues. As Berle remarked after Stevenson’s acceptance speech, “It was great comfort to have a literate man talking again.” Davidson recalled that the Liberals were “delighted” by Stevenson’s nomination.47 But the Democrats’ weak stand on civil rights, culminating in their nomination of Alabama senator John Sparkman as Stevenson’s running mate, proved something of a sticking point. First, a group of progressive Democrats, led by Congressman Franklin Roosevelt Jr. and backed by Americans for Democratic Action and Kefauver, pushed for a strong civil rights plank

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in the party platform. They also tried unsuccessfully to force some southern states’ delegations to sign a “loyalty oath” pledging that they would support the party’s nominee in the fall (and not bolt as they had four years before). The militancy of the “Young Turks” on civil rights irked Berle, who feared that their unwillingness to compromise would harm the ticket. The inclusion on that ticket of Sparkman bothered some liberals and angered others. Sparkman was a southern “populist liberal” with a generally progressive voting record who nevertheless defended racial segregation. Berle told Stevenson that he personally would support Sparkman, but warned that the southerner might be a hard sell to “the Negro group and the Liberals who supported them,” including labor leaders like Dubinsky who had many Black members in their unions. And indeed, Dubinsky and Walter White of the NAACP were both very angry at Sparkman’s nomination, with Dubinsky threatening to withhold the Liberal line from Stevenson. “I was trying to exercise a moderating influence,” Berle noted in his diary, “Walter White the other kind of influence, and generally we were having a bad time of it.”48 Berle warned Stevenson that he would have to work hard to win the wholehearted support of New York Liberals. Perhaps predictably, of the party leaders, the sleeping-car porters union official Benjamin McLaurin was the most upset at Sparkman’s selection. At an unofficial “convention” of six hundred county, club, and union delegates called for August 6 to make a recommendation to the state committee for a formal nomination, McLaurin led a heated debate over the Democrats’ failures on civil rights. But with nowhere else to go, and with party leaders Berle, Rose, and, by now, Dubinsky arguing for an endorsement of Stevenson, the convention overwhelmingly backed the national Democratic ticket. Berle expressed satisfaction at the result “despite opposition from some of the extremists.” But Dubinsky and others privately endeavored to mollify McLaurin, as the Black trade unionist continued to express his disappointment not only in Stevenson but also in the Liberal Party for not showing leadership on the question. Teachers College professor Roma Gans commented to Dubinsky that McLaurin “seemed very upset and very unlike himself.” And McLaurin wrote to the ILGWU president, “I appreciate, deeply, your interest in this problem but I do not believe that you can truthfully see my own convictions in a matter that contains such high principles as the fight for the right to be included in an America that we consider our own and enjoy after so many long, long years of suffering and sacrifice.” Nevertheless, he stopped short of an open break with the party or its candidates, and Dubinsky privately touted an ILGWU poll of Harlem voters showing that Sparkman was not much of a drag on the ticket after all.49

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At the end of the month, the Liberal state committee convened to officially designate Stevenson and Sparkman as the party’s candidates. Berle had earlier told Stevenson, “Later during the campaign, you may have to give us a little personal help,” and the Illinois governor began to provide that help with a lengthy address to the meeting. His speech was characteristically witty and urbane, though somewhat vague on particulars. He sympathized with the Liberals, he told them, for being attacked from left and right, but the real issue was whether the country would move forward or backward. He denounced Joe McCarthy and his followers as “men who seemingly believe that we can confound the Kremlin by frightening ourselves to death.” On the crucial issue of civil rights, he proclaimed, “The Federal Government has a direct responsibility to maintain the progress by helping to secure equal rights for all our people,” and announced that he supported the strong Humphrey civil rights bill before Congress.50 Dubinsky called Stevenson a “skillful charmer,” and the Liberals responded by nominating him, with McLaurin making the seconding speech. In accepting his own nomination, Sparkman in part obliged the Liberals by stating that “we should do whatever is necessary to safeguard the rights of all.” He must have ruined it for many, however, when he added that employers whose actions would be regulated by a fair employment practices law were among those whose rights he wanted to defend.51 During the campaign, the Liberals “worked our heads off ” for Stevenson, as Davidson later recalled. Indeed, the Liberals sometimes outworked apathetic regular Democrats in the losing battle against the popular war hero Dwight Eisenhower, coordinating their activities with the “Stevenson Democrats” who later became the nucleus of a reform movement in their party. When a Liberal Party broadcast appealed for volunteers, party members struggled to handle the deluge of calls. Local 22 members staffed sound trucks, canvassed neighborhoods, and distributed seventy-five thousand buttons. About five hundred ILGWU people greeted Stevenson at Grand Central Station, and others did so during a triumphal visit to Harlem. Rose himself made the case for Stevenson as a man with “strength of character” and integrity, one who eschewed political expediency. Painting the governor in the Liberals’ own self-image, he told members of his hatters’ union that the candidate was “idealistic but not at all romantic or effete.” Choosing Sparkman, far from a weakness, showed he was able to conciliate opposing forces. In any case, Rose warned, there was no choice, since Eisenhower had allied himself with reactionary forces in the Republican Party.52

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A Liberal for the Senate The other big contest that year was for the Senate seat held by the Republican Irving Ives. Ives was a moderate liberal who had sponsored the state’s advanced antidiscrimination law while a member of the state legislature. Some reformers hoped that the Liberal Party would back Ives in his quest for reelection, warning that the party otherwise risked becoming a “tail to the Democratic kite.” But the Liberals feared that support for a Republican running statewide would hurt the national ticket they shared with the Democrats. Besides, Davidson pointed out, the party disagreed with Ives on too many issues, including Taft-Hartley, the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway, rent control, and tax policy. Hoping, therefore, to fuse with the Democrats, the Liberals would have preferred Manhattan borough president Robert F. Wagner Jr. or a reluctant Harriman. The Liberals made it clear they would not get behind the frontrunner, affable Brooklyn borough president John Cashmore, who was thoroughly steeped in machine politics.53 The Liberal opposition to Cashmore hardened as the Democrats convened their state convention at the same time that the Liberals held theirs. Fearing that lack of Liberal support would sink the Democratic candidate, whoever he was, Democratic state leader Paul Fitzpatrick pressured Cashmore, Wagner, and Peter Crotty of Buffalo to drop out so that a compromise candidate could be found. Wagner and Crotty agreed, but Cashmore, who came into the convention with a majority of delegates, refused. Neither Stevenson nor the national party would intervene, and so Cashmore won the nomination. The conservative Journal-American called this a “heartening development” that would put the “splinter socialist Liberal Party” in its place.54 In response, the Liberal Party named Teachers College professor George Counts, a former state chair of the ALP, as what was assumed to be a provisional candidate pending a Democratic change of heart. Rank-and-file sentiment within the party, however, favored an independent race. So when the Democrats stuck with Cashmore, Counts reluctantly became a real candidate, aiming to provide voters with a liberal alternative and to strengthen the Stevenson-Sparkman ticket.55 An appealing personality, Counts in fact proved a spirited campaigner. Placing himself squarely in the mainstream of the American liberal tradition, he called himself a “cross between a Jeffersonian Democrat and a Lincolnian Republican,” and told a reporter that he had voted for Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, James Cox, Robert LaFollette, Al Smith, Norman Thomas, FDR, and Truman. He further stated that he ate a chocolate bar

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every day for lunch and planned to campaign four days a week, maintain his teaching load two days a week, and rest on Sundays. The press liked his rumpled-professor persona, as did the liberal student groups to whom he spoke.56 Moreover, he articulated the Liberal program better than anyone else on the ticket could. Like many liberals in the postwar era, Counts believed that the most important immediate task was to create a “stable economy capable of bringing opportunity, security and well-being to all.” But, anticipating themes later stressed by the early New Left, he argued that this would provide just the material basis for the real goal of liberalism, which was “a rich and good life for the individual, for the development of a civilization of true beauty and grandeur.” On the immediate issues of the day, Counts called for the repeal of Taft-Hartley, the extension of civil rights laws, and the use of oil revenues from federal tidelands for education.57 Counts was also a veteran anti-Communist who had helped drive the Communists out of the American Federation of Teachers. On the international level, fighting Communism, he said, meant strengthening the UN to unite the “free world” in an effort to “halt and turn back the imperialistic ambitions and aggressions of the Kremlin and world communism.” He therefore supported the administration’s policy in Korea. Internally, it meant a balancing act between rooting out subversion and defending civil liberties. The American Communist Party, argued Counts, had demonstrated “long ago that its first loyalty is to Moscow.” As a “conspiratorial group loyal to a foreign state,” that it “must be crushed is readily granted.” Communist teachers, for example, should be rooted out of the schools because they had given up their freedom of thought in favor of “subservience to exterior authority.” But to fight Communism, he asserted, one must have the knowledge and discernment to distinguish between “a Communist, a Communist fellow traveler, a plain hungry man, an unhappy man, a forward looking man, and a saint,” and not follow “the tawdry and dangerous quackery of such men as McCarthy.” Not every critic was a Communist. An affirmative program was necessary to create a just society that did not provide hospitable ground for Communist recruitment.58 Counts attracted the support of a number of liberal luminaries. New York Post publisher Dorothy Schiff headed an Independent Citizens Committee that included Rudolph Halley, the philosophers Sidney Hook and Horace Kallen, the Reverend Donald Harrington of the Community Church, the Commentary editor Elliot Cohen, the columnist Max Lerner, Helen Hall of Henry Street Settlement, the poet W. H. Auden, and Ashley Totten of the sleeping car porters. Americans for Democratic Action also backed Counts. Only Counts, argued the Citizens Committee, had the “high liberal principles, the

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independence, and the lofty qualifications” necessary for a senator. “There is only one real liberal, there is only one real independent candidate for the U.S. Senate,” it proclaimed.59 In local congressional races, the Liberals stuck with their incumbents, though not without some hesitation. They had no problem with Javits, and Rose served as treasurer of the Trade Union Committee for Javits’s reelection. But they had become somewhat disillusioned with FDR Jr., unhappy with his chummy relationship with DeSapio, his support of Rudolph Halley’s Democratic opponent in the previous year’s special election, and his vote for a loan to the Franco regime in Spain. Likewise, the Liberals were unhappy with James Donovan for his relative conservatism. Nevertheless, they eventually came around and endorsed the Democratic incumbents. Donovan was presumably the beneficiary of a special ILGWU effort that mobilized 291 volunteers from nine locals working out of the Liberal club on East 116th Street, as well as from the Harlem Labor Center on West 125th Street, where they helped the sacrificial Liberal candidate against Adam Clayton Powell.60 The Liberal Party often ran local candidates even in elections in which they had no chance of winning, partly to make the “party’s positions known,” as ILGWU official David Wells recalled, and partly to help mobilize for the top of the ticket. Those were Wells’s missions in his race for Congress in 1952 against the incumbent Democrat, Sidney Fine, in the Bronx. Wells had joined the Liberal Party while at the University of Rochester, and through party connections had recently landed a job in the political department of the ILGWU, a job he kept for the next four decades. Although he received some support from the union and the party, his was mostly a do-it-yourself campaign. (Wells recalled an incident in which a policeman wanted to stop him from posting a flyer but relented when he found out Wells was the candidate.) And though the person who answered the phone for the incumbent when Wells called to concede asked incredulously, “Who are you?” the Liberal did tally over twenty-one thousand votes.61 Although Stevenson lost not only the national election but New York State as well, and Counts came in third, the Liberals had reason to be happy with the results. They had provided Stevenson with nearly four hundred thousand votes statewide, and Counts had run ahead of the national ticket, especially in the city, where he got over 12 percent of the vote. The Liberals saw this as a sign that many Democratic voters sought to punish their own party for its nomination of Cashmore. In fact, the Liberal vote was up all over the city, and as Berle watched the returns come in at party headquarters he optimistically predicted that this would make the party an important player in the following year’s city elections and in the state as a whole. A number

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of observers concurred. “What this means,” concluded the Buffalo Evening News, “is that the Liberals have just about put themselves in position to dictate to the Democrats, at least negatively. . . . [I]n any normal election, the refusal of the Liberals to endorse any Democratic candidate is enough practically to guarantee his defeat.”62 At the beginning of 1953, the Liberal Party helped turn back a statewide threat to the political power of the labor movement and, not incidentally, to the very existence of the party itself. A bill introduced by upstate Republican senator Austin Erwin and Brooklyn Democratic assemblyman Anthony Travia would have severely restricted the ability of unions to make political expenditures. According to an analysis by the ILGWU’s Gus Tyler, the bill not only would have made it illegal for a union to contribute to a candidate or party, but would have also forbidden “solicitation” of members for political contributions, except with a vote of the majority of members at a single meeting. Although the law would also have applied to manufacturers’ associations, Tyler complained, this was “like the impartiality of a law that prevents both the rich and the poor from sleeping in the parks.” The Liberals argued that by curtailing labor political activity, the bill would not only favor the wealthy and organized crime but give the Communists ammunition to show that the US was antilabor. In the face of united labor opposition to the bill, which the Liberal Party called worse than the Taft-Hartley Act, Travia withdrew his support and the bill went nowhere.63 By the end of 1952, the Liberal Party had thus demonstrated that it could leverage New York’s electoral system, which allowed minor parties to crossendorse major-party candidates (or to withhold their support), in order to exercise influence well beyond its weight. It could even intervene in the Democratic Party’s selection of a presidential candidate. At the same time, its acquiescence in Stevenson’s selection as his running mate a southern segregationist, exactly the kind of Democrat the Liberal Party proclaimed that it existed to avoid association with, showed the limits of its transactional approach to politics. And, indeed, while the party leadership seems to have enjoyed its behind-the-scenes negotiations and the compromises they entailed, the party rank and file seemed happiest when it could go it alone on a liberal crusade.

Ch a p ter 6

Liberal Crusades and Backroom Deals

After Rudolph Halley’s exciting election to the citywide post of city council president in 1951, the Liberal rank and file was eager for another crusade in the mayoral election of 1953. The leadership, as usual, wasn’t too sure, and looked to fuse with one of the major parties. But when no deal was forthcoming, the rank and file got what it wanted, and Halley ran another independent campaign, this time for mayor. In that election, though, the candidacy of the liberal Democrat Robert Wagner made it difficult for the Liberals to make a clear case that set them apart from the progressive wings of the other parties. This question continued to be a vexing one in subsequent elections, as the Liberals also sometimes found themselves in cahoots even with their ostensible enemies in Tammany Hall. In the meantime, however, they helped elect a governor and continued to play a role in national politics.

Hell-Bent for Halley Even in the middle of the 1952 campaign season, Liberal leaders began to deliberate informally about the upcoming mayoral election. Party chair Adolf Berle predicted optimistically that the Liberal Party would “take over the administration of the City of New York and rescue the city from the worst jam it has been in for many years.” After Election Day, Berle dined with August Heckscher, chief editorial writer of the Herald-Tribune, and Dorothy 135

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Schiff, influential publisher of the liberal Post, who agreed that Congressman Jacob Javits would be the strongest candidate. Berle also lunched with potential candidates Javits and city council president Rudolph Halley. A number of Democrats were rumored to be interested in running, including incumbent mayor Vincent Impellitteri and several New Dealers who might have been acceptable to the Liberals. But the Liberals preferred fusion with the Republicans and good-government forces if that could be arranged, so David Dubinsky met with the Young Republicans to discuss the possibility of coalition. The Nobel Prize–winning diplomat Ralph Bunche, Nelson Rockefeller, and Newbold Morris were all mentioned as potential candidates.1 It seemed like Javits, as a liberal Republican who might be able to bring together a fusion slate, would have the inside track for the Liberal nomination. The party leadership privately supported him well into the spring. Encouraging him to run, Berle told him that he thought Javits could get the backing of the Herald-Tribune and the Post. Berle and Dubinsky agreed that if the congressman challenged Governor Dewey and his “malicious” program, he would be a hero to city voters and would be elected. The two met with Rose to strategize about how to assure Javits the Republican nomination while distancing him from the unpopular GOP at the same time. Javits himself wanted to run, feeling that he had to make a move for higher office or settle for a career in the House of Representatives. But he was reluctant to break with the Republican leadership. Only when he got Dewey’s OK did he firmly commit to a race. But the governor and conservative GOP county leaders still seemed unenthusiastic about a ticket headed by the liberal congressman.2 Halley posed another major obstacle to the Liberal nomination of Javits. The city council president was clearly running for mayor, perhaps from the day he had been elected to his current post. At the hatters’ union convention in June, he put forward a case for an independent campaign, arguing that the Republican label would be a hindrance, not a help, at a time when voters were as fed up with Republican rule in Albany as they were with the Democrats in the city. “We will not get good government,” he proclaimed, “by joining with the forces of corruption and inefficiency in the Democratic party or with the forces of corruption and reaction in the Republican party.” He lashed out at Dewey for cutting housing funds and raising rents. The pitch seemed directed straight at Rose, but the party chief remained noncommittal.3 Not so the Liberal rank and file, who had enthusiastically responded to Halley in 1951 and often preferred an independent crusade to pragmatic fusion. Abe Dolgen, ILGWU official and treasurer of the Queens Liberal

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Party, reported a “general feeling” among members that the party should not nominate even so liberal a Republican as Javits. And Manhattan chair Murray Baron caught an earful from members at an Inwood club meeting. Dr. Maurice Calman, a former Socialist alderman, and the former ALP council candidate Charles Rubinstein both argued that Javits would be forced to defend the indefensible national administration, and that an independent candidate such as Halley could win. Party leaders received anti-Halley letters too, but the bulk of party opinion favored him. At the annual Liberal Party dinner in June, Berle set out to introduce the five potential mayoral candidates present in alphabetical order, starting with Halley, but was forced to give up when Halley’s name was met with what the Times called “prolonged applause and cheers.”4 Responding to rank-and-file opinion, party leaders started to back away from Javits. In late May, Berle complained that the congressman had been talking more like a Republican of late, and worried that it was unclear whether “we would get a Republican or an independent” when Javits was “trying to be both.” He conceded to his diary that “the Liberal Party would go hell-bent for Halley if we opened our hands,” and that “the Republicans are not popular on the street.” Still Javits persisted, though Rose had advised him to drop out of the race and Berle feared an internal revolt if the leadership put forward a fusion slate.5 Nevertheless, at Berle’s insistence and despite Rose’s misgivings, the top Liberal leadership entered into negotiations with their counterparts from the Republican Party and the good-government Citizens Non-Partisan Committee. The talks did not go well, as the GOP representatives rejected Halley out of hand and the Liberals made it clear that Javits was the only Republican they would even consider. Berle told the group that although Liberal sentiment was for Halley, if the Republicans indicated that they would accept Javits, he would work to bring the Liberals around. Unfortunately, the Republicans would not even say whether Javits was acceptable to them, and it began to seem to Berle and Dubinsky that the Republicans were more interested in sticking the Liberals with the blame for scuttling the talks than in finding agreement. With GOP leaders unwilling to commit, and party opinion pressing for an independent campaign, the Liberal leadership decided to give up on fusion. For this they took heat from Republican-leaning reformers, but they nevertheless felt optimistic that they could win on their own.6 The Liberal Party officially nominated Halley for mayor on July 13. To fill out the slate, it tapped Chase Mellen for comptroller and Judge Juvenal Marchisio for president of the city council. Mellen was a disabled veteran of World War I, an investment banker, a former La Guardia administration

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official, and former chair of the Manhattan Republican Party. He had voted for FDR in 1940 and Stevenson in 1952. Mellen thus provided the ticket with aristocratic polish, association with La Guardia, and fusion credentials.7 Marchisio, on the other hand, proved to be a problem. Berle had concluded that he was the “best available” Italian Catholic for the ticket, though the Liberal chairman had been told earlier that the candidate was a “first-class, grade-A dope.” Within weeks, however, it emerged that the judge had associated not only with right-wing Catholic circles but also with a notorious local antisemite, who, in fact, had managed his unsuccessful campaign for Congress. The Post reported that friends who knew him asked, “What’s he doing on the Liberal Party ticket? He’s anything but a Liberal.” And Schiff warned that her newspaper would not support the Liberal ticket if Marchisio remained on it. Pressure mounted for him to withdraw, which he finally did. In his place, the Liberals named Eugene Canudo, a former magistrate and La Guardia administration official.8 Another setback for the Liberal campaign came when Manhattan borough president Robert F. Wagner Jr. decided to challenge Impellitteri in the Democratic primary with the backing of Tammany Hall and Ed Flynn’s Bronx machine. The son of the legendary New Deal senator, Wagner had received enthusiastic backing from the Liberal Party in his previous tries for office, and his entry into this race put the party in the uncomfortable position of opposing one of its favorite big-party politicians. Wagner took similar liberal positions to Halley on most issues. Moreover, Wagner drew support from such New Deal/Fair Deal stalwarts as Herbert Lehman, Averell Harriman, FDR Jr., Adlai Stevenson, and even Harry Truman, making it harder for the Liberals to claim the Roosevelt mantle as their exclusive property. As one letter writer to the Forward asked, “How does Wagner have less of a pedigree than Halley?” Why should progressive voters, he asked by implication, listen to Berle over Lehman, Harriman, and Roosevelt Jr.? The two candidates shared similar constituencies, and while Volunteers in Politics, an outgrowth of the Stevenson campaign, early on endorsed Halley, the New York CIO backed Wagner, as did the Young Democrats. Wagner’s handy defeat of Impellitteri in the Democratic primary, the mayor’s decision to stay in the contest as an independent, and the Republican nomination of attorney and acting postmaster general Harold Riegelman set up a four-way race—five-way if the fading ALP’s Clifford McAvoy is included.9 Halley ran a vigorous race on a platform that combined a New Deal/Fair Deal social program with his trademark anticorruption message. He and his running mates called for more housing and school construction with federal and state aid, new public hospitals, a depoliticized board of education,

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reorganization of the bureaucracy around a strong mayor, and civil service reform. Halley promised that he would run the gangsters Thomas Lucchese, Albert Anastasia, and Mickey Bowers out of town. The Liberal candidates attacked the Democrats for their corruption and inefficiency, and the Republicans as tools of reaction. Halley and his supporters further touted his role as mediator in the continuing Stuyvesant Town dispute, and his opposition to the turnover of the city’s transportation system to the new transit authority. They continued to stress his energetic personality and record as a crime fighter, leading such supporters as Marie La Guardia to compare him to her late husband.10 But Halley also went negative, attempting to capitalize on his reputation as an investigator to tie Wagner and Lawrence Gerosa, Wagner’s candidate for comptroller, to organized crime, however obliquely. He unearthed film footage of bookmaking activity by Costello associates on the streets of New York, charging that the mobsters felt more comfortable on the streets because of Wagner’s victory in the primary. He further charged that as commissioner of the Department of Housing and Buildings, Wagner had tolerated widespread corruption and was playing footsie with the corrupt Queens Democratic machine. And he obtained and publicized files that linked Gerosa to a state insurance bribery investigation.11 But this approach made it difficult for Halley to maintain his unassailable position as a white knight of good government. Some attacks by his opponents were political: Republicans accused Halley of being a “stooge” of Dubinsky, whom they called a “socialist labor czar” with a “remorseless plan to take over our city—lock, stock and barrel.” Impellitteri likewise called Halley a “hypocritical political opportunist . . . just this side of socialism.” This kind of charge was easily turned back. Berle responded, hyperbolically, that Dubinsky was “perhaps the finest man in American politics.” From the other direction, the ALP’s McAvoy called Halley a phony progressive who was ready to raise the transit fare and back antilabor legislation in the guise of anticorruption measures. But more difficult to parry were his opponents’ insinuations that his character was not all it was cracked up to be. Aggrieved at attacks on him, Wagner alleged, with good reason, that despite Halley’s denunciation of the bosses, he had in fact angled with DeSapio for his nod before going it alone out of necessity. In a telegram to Dubinsky, which was then made public, Wagner called Halley a “faker, who has a sense of complete irresponsibility and a total disregard for morality, decency and truthfulness.” Halley also came across as opportunistic and disingenuous when Berle inadvertently revealed that Halley would have reversed his vote in the board of estimate against the transit authority takeover of the subways if doing so

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had been necessary to pass the unpopular but probably necessary measure. Halley’s flamboyant self-righteousness was wearing thin, as some observers painted him as a ratings-driven publicity hound. As one city employee put it, “Impy’s a nice guy, Wagner’s just a guy. But Halley’s a wise guy.”12 By the end of the race, Liberal leaders were no longer confident of victory. At the beginning of the season, they had expected that their candidate would be the sole clear liberal against the relatively conservative Impellitteri. But Wagner’s primary win over the incumbent had changed the dynamics. As Davidson later recalled, “Halley against Impellitteri was one thing. Halley against Wagner was another thing.” The Liberal Party found itself out of step with most liberals outside the party. And one party club in Brooklyn even came out for Wagner. When Davidson spoke to volunteers, he now admitted that victory in the current fight was unlikely, but said that the future of the party was at stake and worth the struggle.13 Downballot, the Liberal Party did not fare much better, though it fielded some impressive candidates. In the surprisingly low-key contest for Manhattan borough president, significant for the fact that all four parties ran African American candidates for the first time, the Liberal nod went to the Reverend James Robinson of the Presbyterian Church of the Master. A Popular Frontist turned anti-Communist, Robinson nevertheless campaigned at a time when his passport had been revoked by the State Department (he later got it back). He stressed uncontroversial good-government issues, but noted that in the circumstances, these had more importance than they might usually. “If a Negro Borough President is successful,” he said, “he will get nationwide and even worldwide attention.” In the city council race in Harlem that year, the Liberals drafted the civil rights and labor activist Ella Baker to run against the incumbent, Earl Brown, who received the backing of both the Democratic and Republican Parties. Like her friend Pauli Murray, Baker had been close to the Lovestoneites, the dissident-Communist-turned-anti-Communist faction from which a number of Liberal leaders emerged. She had also studied and taught at the Socialist Rand School. Although Baker had been active in work against police brutality that year (along with Brown), and although the Citizens Union gave her high marks (as it did also to Brown), she went down to defeat along with the rest of the ticket.14 In the end, Halley came in third, behind the victorious Wagner and the Republican, Harold Riegelman. He garnered nearly half a million votes, the Liberals’ best showing to date, but the results felt like a defeat after hopes had been raised. When Halley sent a congratulatory telegram to Wagner, Berle, in a moment of bad grace, said that it should have gone to DeSapio. The party then entered a period of stock taking. Berle, ambivalent about the

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party’s future, told Dubinsky he thought the 1953 results put the Liberals in a good position, with the Democrats unable to get a majority without them. But when he ran into DeSapio at a party the following June, he mused that while the Liberal Party could not fold, its future was limited. He therefore hoped to meet with DeSapio to discuss the degree to which the Democratic Party would be “hospitable to the idea of a broad coalition.”15

The Liberals Elect a Governor In the meantime, with Governor Dewey set to retire, the Liberals hoped to join with the Democrats in 1954 to take control of the governor’s mansion in Albany. Rose consulted both with Tammany’s DeSapio and with Lehman, leader of the liberal, anti-Tammany wing of the Democratic Party. The leading candidates for governor were Congressman Roosevelt, who had the support of Lehman; Mayor Wagner, backed by DeSapio; and former Mutual Security Administration head Averell Harriman. Publicly, the Liberals insisted that all three were acceptable to them. But behind the scenes they had soured on Roosevelt, whom they now regarded as shallow and irresponsible. FDR Jr. had made no secret of his desire to be governor, but when he approached Berle about the race on election night 1953, Berle gave him the brush-off: “I said I thought he was a young man in a hurry,” Berle wrote in his diary. “I said I didn’t see how I could vote for him without voting for the pimply fellow who sells narcotics behind Washington Irving High School.” In fact, Rose brokered the unity of the Liberals and both Democratic factions behind Harriman, whom the party regarded as the more mature candidate with wider appeal. Eager to run for statewide office, Roosevelt took the nomination for attorney general as a consolation prize.16 During the campaign, Harriman attempted to draw a clear distinction between himself, as liberal standard-bearer, and the Republican nominee, Senator Irving Ives. During his acceptance speech at the Liberal convention, Harriman labeled Ives a “gliberal,” which he defined as a “seasonal liberal,” the word beginning with a g “as in G.O.P.” He specifically criticized Ives’s support of Taft-Hartley and opposition to the St. Lawrence Seaway power project. The Liberals adopted their usual comprehensive program of economic planning, regulation, and redistribution, along with stronger civil rights enforcement. Liberal leaders met with Harriman to go over the program, and the candidate embraced some of the party’s proposals, such as the creation of a state consumer counsel and advisory committee. But when Harriman came under fire for being in thrall to the Liberals’ tax proposals,

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he backed away from them. He was running on the Democratic platform, he said, and the Liberals understood that.17 In the race for attorney general, the Liberal Party backed Roosevelt along with the rest of the Democratic ticket. The party, of course, had close ties to Roosevelt. But it also had a warm relationship with his Republican opponent, Jacob Javits. Javits, who represented the congressional district neighboring Roosevelt’s, ran an aggressive campaign aimed at eating into the Democrat’s support in the city, while taking advantage of a big Republican vote upstate. The Republican especially hammered Roosevelt on his lackluster record in the House, stressing his high rate of absenteeism. Moreover, Javits’s liberal credentials were almost as good as Roosevelt’s, and he criticized the Democrat for “run[ning] away from the civil rights fight in Congress” by absenting himself from crucial votes. Javits further dismissed FDR Jr. as a “stooge for Tammany Hall.”18 The Liberal Party played an important role in the campaign, sometimes as the target of conservative gibes. At a Liberal rally at Manhattan Center, 7,500 garment workers and others (3,500 inside and an additional 4,000 who milled about outside) applauded enthusiastically as the liberal icon Adlai Stevenson went after Ives with his customary wit, linking him to President Eisenhower and, especially, Vice President Richard Nixon, whom liberals generally despised. One positive by-product of the campaign and the alliance with DeSapio was a mending of fences with Mayor Wagner, who declared at the rally that it felt good to be on the same side as Dubinsky again. On the other hand, Dubinsky felt obliged to complain to an old Republican friend, Newbold Morris, that a Republican speaker at a Garment District rally had called the Liberal leaders “dictators” and “political prostitutes.” Morris responded that he had told the speaker to back off, but he also sang the praises of Ives and Javits as reformers and liberals.19 Harriman had an excellent progressive résumé, but he turned out to be a far-from-excellent campaigner. From the start of the race, the DemocraticLiberal coalition expected a resounding victory. On the eve of the election, DeSapio predicted a pro-Harriman margin of as many as 500,000 votes. The Liberals remained optimistic as well that the vote on their line might reach 450,000. But on election night, they watched anxiously as an early lead dwindled with an influx of Republican ballots from upstate. By morning, Harriman clung to a 9,000-vote lead, adjusted to 11,000 in the final tally, or just two-tenths of 1 percent.20 At least Harriman had won. Roosevelt, on the other hand, went down to a resounding defeat, conceding by 3:00 a.m. on election night. An analysis by the ILGWU showed that Javits had received an abnormally large vote in

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New York City for a Republican, running well ahead of Ives. Although he had lost to Roosevelt in most Jewish districts, he was “tremendously popular” in those areas and had cut well into the normal Democratic and Liberal vote. Roosevelt also did badly in Irish, Italian, and other white non-Jewish areas. It was Javits’s strength in the city that had enabled his victory.21 If Harriman’s close call had a silver lining for the Liberals, it was that the more than 260,000 votes he had received on their line had more than provided him with his margin of victory. Given that and Rose’s role in promoting Harriman’s candidacy to begin with, some observers expected the Liberals to play an important role in the new state administration alongside DeSapio. Although other observers noted that the Liberal vote had fallen despite the party’s energetic campaign for a favorite candidate, rumors that the party might fold proved unfounded when instead it announced a membership drive.22 If the Liberals worried that DeSapio’s elevation to the position of Harriman’s secretary of state meant that they would be frozen out of state jobs, they needn’t have. For the first time, the party had helped elect a governor of New York State, and they got their due reward in the form of positions and influence. Liberal Party stalwarts were named assistant counsel to the governor, and to posts on the state tax commission (former councilman Ira Palestin), the mediation board, and the workmen’s compensation board. When Harriman had trouble finding a Democrat to oversee technological and nuclear development in the state, he asked the Liberals for a recommendation. They suggested Dr. James B. Kelley, a former physics and engineering professor at Hofstra University and chair of the Nassau County Liberal Party, and he became “special assistant on technical research” to the commissioner of commerce. As Harriman’s consumer affairs adviser, Persia Campbell led an aggressive campaign against bait-and-switch marketing, excessive interest rates, and chemical food additives, though action against “fraudulent repairmen” was blocked by the electricians’ union.23 One other minor point of gratification for the Liberal Party was that the ALP’s gubernatorial vote fell below fifty thousand, which meant that it lost its ballot line and for all intents and purposes went out of business. In truth, the ALP’s dismal results in the mayoral election of the previous year had doomed it. Marcantonio blamed McAvoy’s poor showing in the 1953 election on the Communists, who he believed had sabotaged the campaign by sending signals that they approved of a vote for Halley. The former congressman was also receiving letters from friends in and out of state that the Communist Party was manipulatively undermining independent efforts by the ALP and national Progressive Party. Believing that the ALP could no longer be an

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effective political force, Marcantonio not only resigned as party chair but left the party altogether. Finally deserted by its largest union allies, by the Communist Party, and by diehards like Marcantonio, the ALP dissolved officially in 1956.24 Indeed, the annual Liberal Party dinner in May 1955 became a victory celebration and lovefest between the Liberals and the Democrats. The governor spoke, and the chair of the Democratic state committee sent a message hailing the parties’ “common victory.” DeSapio sat on the dais—as secretary of state, not county leader, it was assured—and was hailed by Berle as being “among the finest of ‘our allies.’ ” One observer noted “a certain yearning for past years of loneliness when the party stood apart in the field of practical politics as the anti-Communist remnant of Roosevelt’s New Deal and in opposition to Tammany.” But Wagner’s statement that he had forgotten the unpleasant details of the 1953 mayoral race, when the party had opposed him, called the attention of the 1,700 present to the future, when, it was thought, Wagner might run for senator.25 The Liberal appointee with the highest profile in Harriman’s cabinet was probably Charles Abrams, the party’s longtime housing expert. As state rent administrator, Abrams took an activist role, touring the state and defending rent control. In the legislature, he helped beat back a Republican plan to curtail regulation. As one admiring journalist wrote, “It was [when the threat to rent regulation became apparent] that Mr. Abrams really went into action. He issued press releases sizzling with warnings of impending disaster. He appeared on radio and TV. He sounded the alert via recorded broadcasts all over the state and with wires to mayors of threatened cities.” Another admirer observed that “the trouble with Charlie Abrams is that he doesn’t know how to compromise. Instead of making deals on rent control he knocked the professional politicians off balance by acting like the game was on the level and things should be decided on their merits.” He also pressured county and city governments to retain regulation on the local level as long as it was necessary.26 Abrams took stands on other housing issues as well. He lambasted the Federal Housing Administration for promoting segregation and for neglecting “housing for Negroes,” attacked restrictive suburbs, and called for a regional approach to housing. Abrams was also a vocal opponent of urban renewal projects that displaced the urban poor, opposing an ambitious plan to rebuild the Upper West Side of Manhattan and arguing for more development on the less dense outskirts of the city. He sought to tighten regulations on the commercial use of residential apartments, which he believed led to higher rents. Republican leaders lashed out at Abrams as a “zealot” working to

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“advance socialistic ideas,” but Democrats defended him. Abrams remained at his housing job for less than a year before he was named chair of the State Commission against Discrimination, in which position he continued to lock horns with Republican lawmakers.27 On another front, from the early months of the Harriman administration the Liberal Party battled with Robert Moses over the shape of the Niagara/ St. Lawrence project. In pushing their own plan for the direct distribution of low-cost energy to local governments and cooperatives, the Liberals made what the Post called a “frontal attack” on Moses, who was chair of the state power authority, and whom Berle accused of being the “economic dictator” of the state. They also opposed Moses’s plan to add highways to the project. Their concerns were borne out when Moses signed deals, first with Alcoa and then with Reynolds, for major shares of St. Lawrence Power. The Liberal Party led a coalition of unions, consumer groups, and others against these contracts, but lost the local battle when Harriman sided with Moses.28 The Liberals fared somewhat better with a federal bill to enable the New York State Power Authority to utilize the US share of Niagara water for the generation of power. The federal bill, which superseded state law, was a compromise between those such as Moses who wanted to sell much of the electricity to private industrial interests, and those such as the Liberal Party who wanted to privilege local governments and consumer cooperatives. The party supported the bill that ultimately passed in the summer of 1957, though it was sponsored in the House by the Liberals’ local nemesis, the Bronx Democratic boss Charles Buckley. It mandated that half of the power go to state and local governments or to rural cooperatives, and an additional 10 percent to Pennsylvania and Ohio.29 Adolf Berle stepped down as party chair in July 1955, a move he had been considering for some time. In his valedictory speech to the state committee, he claimed success in reaching his goals after seven years of leadership: he had helped disassociate liberalism from Communism after the 1948 Wallace debacle, and helped defeat McCarthyism. Soon, he predicted, “Communists and McCarthyites will both be consigned to the political cracked pottery from which they came.” During his watch, Berle proclaimed, the Liberal Party had pushed a reluctant New York Democratic Party toward liberalism and ethical politics with the ascension of Lehman, Harriman, and Wagner. Although Berle had always seen the Democratic Party as the primary vehicle for progressive politics on the national level, he called on the Liberal Party to continue to incubate new ideas and help infuse them into the mainstream. The ambitious agenda for the immediate future, he hoped, would include

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the eradication of slums. Rose announced that a nine-member committee would search for “a new intellectual leader.”30 Although one of Berle’s rationales for resigning was that a younger person would be able to broaden the party’s base and infuse it with new energy, the Liberals turned instead to the sixty-five-year-old party veteran George Counts. Counts was nominated officially by his Teachers College colleague and old friend John Childs, a nomination that the Forward presciently reported would “be unanimously approved this evening.” A former president of the American Federation of Teachers and chair of the American Labor Party, and Liberal Party candidate for senator in 1952, Counts was hardly a new face. Indeed, he promised that the party would continue on its course of fighting Communism and forcing the large parties to heed its counsel. The Liberal Party would not disband, Counts declared, and indeed would undertake a new membership drive.31 The question of whether the Liberal Party should disband arose intermittently throughout the 1950s and early 1960s. The party beat back several attempts to legislate it out of existence by either banning cross-endorsements of candidates altogether or limiting the Liberals’ ability to manipulate their ticket through candidate replacements. These proposals came from Republican lawmakers, but some in the GOP opposed them because they saw alliance with the Liberals as useful in city elections. Democrats, on the other hand, pointed to the same recent nominations as Berle to suggest that it was time for the Liberal Party to give up the ghost and for its members to enroll as Democrats. To this, Berle replied that Liberals could not in good conscience join the party of Walker, Impellitteri, and O’Dwyer. And Rose remarked, “Every time somebody offers us an opportunity to merge with another political party . . . don’t think that it always means a sign of affection. There are times when it means they would rather have us inside their party without influence than outside with influence.” But in low moments such as after the disappointing defeat of Halley in 1953, or, conversely, in moments when the Liberal mission of providing a conscience to the Democratic Party seemed to have been accomplished, the Liberal leadership itself sometimes debated the party’s viability. Each time, though, they decided to soldier on.32 In an effort to expand its influence by engaging young, highly educated professionals alongside its trade union base, the Liberal Party formed the Committee at Large in 1955. The committee initially came under the patrician leadership of two former Republicans: Chase Mellen and Stuart Scheftel. Scheftel was a journalist and businessman who was the grandson of Isidor and Ida Straus, co-owners of Macy’s who went down with the Titanic, and the husband of the actress Geraldine Fitzgerald. Starting with 130 members,

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the committee responded to what its leaders called “an unfilled desire and need in New York for political education.” Its first event was a luncheon forum at the Hotel Astor on US foreign policy. Over the years, members heard talks by prominent politicians, including Hubert Humphrey, Estes Kefauver, and Helen Gahagan Douglas, union leaders such as Al Shanker of the teachers’ union, journalists such as Louis Fischer, and many others.33

Stevenson Again As the presidential election approached in 1956, the Liberal Party’s early neutrality between the top Democratic contenders—Adlai Stevenson, Averell Harriman, and Estes Kefauver—evolved into support for Stevenson. Each of the candidates had supporters within the party, and each dutifully trooped through New York to consult with Rose. (Kefauver hardly sounded convincing when he insisted that his lunch with Rose was a purely social one between old friends.) But at the hatters’ convention in June, Dubinsky called on Harriman to withdraw. Harriman responded the next day at the same convention by tossing his hat, given to him two years earlier by the union, toward the convention floor and formally entering the race. But after that, the Liberal leaders were neutral for Stevenson, though Rose did broker an agreement with Harriman supporter DeSapio to keep the race civil.34 A Liberal delegation consisting of Dubinsky, Rose, Davidson, Berle, and Murray Baron played an unofficial but important role at the Democratic National Convention in August. After Dubinsky and Rose made a point of attending a labor reception for Stevenson, but not the one for Harriman, Rose helped to pave the way for Stevenson’s nomination by convincing Kefauver to pull out. The Liberals then lobbied against the selection of Senator John F. Kennedy for vice president, and in favor of Kefauver, with Rose reminding Stevenson that Kefauver had stepped aside for him. Stevenson agreed to open the vice presidential nomination to the floor. Once the Democrats named the ticket of Stevenson and Kefauver, the Liberals could enthusiastically pledge to do likewise at their convention the following month. (Also at the convention, the Liberals brokered a meeting between Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, who had recently defected from the GOP and faced a tough fight for reelection, with labor leaders including Walter Reuther of the autoworkers.)35 In the meantime, everyone in New York was waiting to hear whether Senator Herbert Lehman would run for reelection. The Liberals and many Democrats hoped he would, but toward the end of August, the old liberal warhorse announced his retirement. Mayor Wagner was the obvious

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candidate to replace Lehman, but he was reluctant to enter the race for his father’s old Senate seat. Rose met with the mayor for an hour at Gracie Mansion to convince him to run, with Lehman, Stevenson, Harriman, and DeSapio following suit. The Liberals happily added Wagner to their slate, assuming, as the Democrats did, that he would aid Stevenson in November.36 The race for the Republican nod was more contested, but the frontrunner was the Liberals’ old friend Attorney General Jacob Javits. He ran into some trouble when Bella Dodd, the former Communist teachers’ union leader turned anti-Communist informer, claimed in secret congressional testimony that Javits had consulted with her concerning the ALP nomination for Congress in 1946. She further charged that he had socialized with several Communists in San Francisco during the founding conference of the UN. Javits believed that the charges had surfaced in retaliation for his votes against the Mundt-Nixon and McCarran Acts, and in an effort by conservatives to block his nomination. Testimony by Murray Baron seemed to give the charges more credence when the Manhattan Liberal chair said that Javits had flirted with the ALP as late as his 1948 reelection contest. Rose came to Javits’s rescue, however, by issuing a statement recalling that as a young veteran contemplating a political career, Javits had naively inquired about getting ALP support, but backed away when Rose set him straight about the party’s Communist leanings. The Liberals opposed Javits currently because of his (ironic) alliance with Nixon, but opposed “smear tactics” and, in any case, had always known him to be a “clear-cut anti-Communist.”37 Stevenson’s acceptance speech at the September 11 Liberal nominating convention set the tone for the campaign. The crowd of 3,800 that was packed into the City Center auditorium interrupted the candidate thirtyseven times with applause or laughter at his witty jokes. Another 1,500 listened over loudspeakers in the street outside, and still others listened in on radio or watched on TV. The former Illinois governor praised the Liberals as “idealists” who had “spent a lifetime in the battle for decency and for democracy.” He criticized the Eisenhower administration for its confusion in foreign policy, and called for the restoration of America’s role as a “bearer of hope and freedom to oppressed peoples everywhere in the world,” something the current “business oriented” administration could not do. This restoration was, in fact, the “mission of liberalism in our day,” and it would involve a much stronger stand on civil rights and desegregation than Eisenhower was willing to take. Stevenson went after Vice President Nixon for his hypocrisy in running away from his previous record, and liberal Republicans like Javits for falling into the generally conservative line of the GOP. Kefauver followed up by stressing the Democrats’ positive record on labor issues.38

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In truth, little separated Wagner and Javits ideologically, a fact that the Wall Street Journal complained made conservatives feel “disenfranchised.” Wagner accused Javits of being a “past-tense” liberal who had grown comfortable with Nixon and did not take a strong-enough stand for leveraging federal aid to force quicker progress on desegregation of schools. The Democrat-Liberal called for ratification of the international convention on genocide, more refugee relief, and enhancements to Social Security. Javits responded by implying that Wagner was a “party hack” and accusing him of not being a strong leader willing to make tough decisions. The problem for Wagner was that Javits appealed to many normally Democratic or Liberal voters. When Javits showed up to campaign in the Garment District, according to the Times, he got a “friendly reception” and a thousand people stopped to listen to his defense of the administration.39 By late October, it was clear that neither the Stevenson nor the Wagner campaign was gaining much traction. White voters seemed content to stand pat with the current administration, some African American voters preferred to vote for a Republican to keep power out of the hands of the Dixiecrats in Congress, and some New York City residents were angry at Wagner for matters ranging from parking tickets to urban renewal dislocations. In the end, the president won a resounding victory, carrying New York State by a million and a half votes. Javits won by a smaller, but still comfortable, margin. Democrats were gloomy, and some hoped that the defeat would force a dissolution of the Liberal Party. But despite drawing fewer votes than they had in 1952, the Liberals tried to put a positive spin on the results: They had garnered more votes statewide than in the nonpresidential year of 1954, and without their support Stevenson would not even have carried New York City. Moreover, they had provided the margins of victory for enough state legislators to prevent a Republican supermajority that would have had serious repercussions for rent control. As important for the future of the party, though this was left unsaid, was their reconciliation with the mayor.40

With Tammany for Wagner for Mayor In 1957, Mayor Wagner was up for reelection, and there was little doubt that he would receive Liberal support. As the new mayoral campaign approached, Rose met with Wagner several times to work out the terms of their collaboration. The Liberals were not enthusiastic about Wagner’s running mates, city council president Abe Stark, a member of the Brooklyn Democratic machine, and conservative comptroller Lawrence Gerosa. The mayor’s friendly relations with DeSapio didn’t please the Liberals either. But

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Wagner made clear that the ticket would remain as it was, and, with DeSapio an inevitable part of the package as well, the Liberals relented. Though some party members objected to absenteeism, tax hikes, padded patronage rolls, and what one termed “a stench of corruption within” the municipal administration, Rose easily quelled the “unorganized” opposition at the Liberal nominating convention in July. Wagner gave “a liberal interpretation to the needs of the people,” Rose argued, and there was “nothing wrong with coalition even if we have to compromise from time to time.” At the recommendation of Rose and the Policy Committee, the convention nominated not only Wagner, but also Stark and Gerosa.41 The Republicans chose the “hotel man” Robert Christenberry, a former chair of the State Athletic Commission, to run against the incumbent. Christenberry promised to raise the issues of stagnant city population, loss of industrial jobs, and rising crime. He slammed the Liberal Party for what he termed a “deal” that “abandoned any pretense of independence from Tammany Hall,” especially since the party had preferred Stark over Caroline Simon, a popular reformer who was the Republican candidate for city council president. But it was a dull campaign. Neither candidate, complained one observer, was “a spectacular campaigner, nor is either an accomplished showman, as were Fiorello H. LaGuardia and James J. Walker. Both are speech readers who seldom depart from prepared texts. Their faces are relatively expressionless and they abjure gestures.” The low-budget campaigns— the Democrats spending $300,000, and the Republicans and Liberals $75,000 each, a fraction of what had been spent four years earlier—failed to inject much more excitement.42 With the mayor a virtual shoe-in against a weak opponent, the Liberals had the luxury of declaring their independence even as they joined the Wagner bandwagon. The party nominated independent candidates for most city council seats, and much of its campaign budget went to support them. And Liberals often criticized Wagner for his ties to the Democratic organization in the same breath as they praised him for his progressive views. His top appointments had been excellent, they argued, but at the lower levels throughout city government, “undesirable individuals” had crept in at the behest of the bosses. As Rose told the Bronx County Liberal Committee, the party was not offering Wagner a “blank check.” Rather, it wanted to “tone up the Wagner administration and give it new vitality and strength.” In Rose’s analysis, since Christenberry was not a viable candidate, the real contest was between the Democratic Wagner vote and the Liberal Wagner vote. A large vote on the Liberal line would push the administration in a more independent direction.43

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During the campaign, the Liberals won recognition from their candidate in ways both real and symbolic. At a Liberal luncheon-rally at the Hotel Commodore, for example, the crowd of 1,200 heard Dubinsky and law professor and party vice chair Paul Hays call for passage of a city bill to ban discrimination in private housing. When Wagner got up to speak, he departed from his prepared remarks to endorse the bill as well. On another occasion, as the mayor campaigned on the Lower East Side with the local Democratic councilman, he allowed a contingent of “uninvited” Liberals to join the procession with their placards supporting the councilman’s Liberal challenger.44 On Election Day, Wagner won in a landslide, as had been expected. After declaring victory at 9:20 p.m., the mayor headed over from Democratic headquarters to greet the two hundred members of the Liberal Party at the Hotel Claridge. Although the Liberal vote of approximately 219,000 was less than a quarter of Wagner’s plurality over Christenberry, and although none of the independent Liberals made it to the council, at least one observer believed that it “appeared to make Democratic candidates more dependent than ever on Liberal endorsements to win the state.” Wagner apparently believed that as well.45 The Liberals elected a second mayor in 1957, when Vincent Corsall, a popular high school science teacher and dissident Democrat running on the Liberal line, beat out his big-party opponents to become mayor of upstate Oswego. His single two-year term was tumultuous on both the political and the personal levels. The son of Italian immigrants, Corsall was president of the local teachers’ union and secretary of the Oswego Federation of Labor. He was also “house father” of the Delta Kappa Kappa fraternity house at Oswego State, and students from the college worked on his campaign, which was capped by a parade that led to the frat house. One of his platform planks was the election, rather than appointment, of the city board of education. The sitting board responded by suspending him from his teaching job. He became something of a cause célèbre—locally, where his students briefly went on strike and their angry parents descended on a board meeting; statewide, where teachers’ unionists lauded his fight against “despotisms great and small”; and nationally, where he was written up sympathetically in Life magazine. The embattled mayor won both his right to teach and a referendum to make the school board an elected body. Personal challenges came with the death of his foster son in a gas station brawl, and his own arrest on a morals charge in a New York City subway restroom. His friends believed he was framed by underworld elements for his anticorruption campaign, and he was acquitted of the charge. (He later won a suit against New York City

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for false arrest.) Campaigning against police corruption, Corsall lost his bid for reelection in 1959.46 On the state level, going into the 1958 elections, the Liberal Party adopted a program that stood on “four fundamental pillars”: the abolition of economic insecurity and poverty, the end of discrimination and segregation, “a program of confidence for our youth,” and a “Magna Charta for our senior citizens.” Specifically, it called for increased foreign aid and support for human rights and the “national aspirations of Asian and African countries”; stronger civil rights legislation and enforcement; a massive federal housing program; economic planning; more consumer protection laws; and federal and state aid to education. The party’s efforts gained it an endorsement from liberal elder statesman Herbert Lehman, who, at his eightieth-birthday party, said it had had “an important influence in raising the standards of candidates for public office” in New York. Conversely, it became a frequent target of Republican leaders, one of whom accused it of being “phony” and “totalitarian.” The party’s top priorities in 1958 were the reelection of Governor Harriman (called by the Republican assembly speaker a “captive of the Liberal Party”) and the selection of a strong candidate for that year’s Senate race.47 With the renomination of Harriman a foregone conclusion in both the Democratic and Liberal Parties, most early attention focused on the Senate race. In the spring, the Liberals were said by one observer to be “tossing potential hats into the ring like confetti.” Some Liberals, especially some trade unionists, toyed with the idea of supporting the Republican incumbent, Irving Ives, who had a generally liberal record and who had helped soften some provisions of the hated Taft-Hartley law. But the Policy Committee resolved to find a common candidate with the Democrats. For a time, the Liberals touted Ralph Bunche as such a candidate, but this was rejected not only by the Democrats but by Bunche himself. They then floated the idea of drafting the popular newsman Edward R. Murrow, another trial balloon that failed to inflate.48 With both the Democratic and Liberal nominations to be decided at state conventions at the end of August, the race devolved into a three-way struggle between conservative Democrats behind former national and state party chair James Farley, machine elements led by Manhattan county boss Carmine DeSapio, and liberals, termed “eggheads” and “crusading New Deal elements” by their critics. Thomas Finletter emerged as the favorite candidate of the latter. The sixty-four-year-old Finletter, a former secretary of the air force in the Truman administration, had headed the 1956 Stevenson campaign in New York and was a leader in the state’s incipient Democratic reform movement. The Liberal Party liked Finletter too, with

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Alex Rose calling him “a man of great integrity and exceptional qualification.” Indeed, the Liberals put intense pressure on some Democratic leaders, including Harriman and Wagner, to get in line behind Finletter. Going into the Democrats’ convention, Finletter would have seemed a formidable candidate, with the support of Harriman, Wagner, Lehman, and Eleanor Roosevelt. But DeSapio preferred the respected Manhattan DA Frank Hogan and showed no inclination to back down. Some suggested Wagner as a compromise candidate acceptable to all factions, but Wagner did not want to run, and the Liberals, while they would have backed him, preferred that he not vacate the mayor’s office, because if he did, council president Abe Stark would take his place. Another compromise candidate was Thomas Murray, a former member of the Atomic Energy Commission.49 In local races, where nominations would be decided by direct primaries rather than party conventions, most attention focused on the Sixteenth Congressional District in Upper Manhattan. There, DeSapio and the Democratic organization sought to punish the flamboyant incumbent Adam Clayton Powell Jr. for endorsing Eisenhower and the Republican ticket two years earlier. The Liberals disliked Powell for his earlier flirtations with the Communists as well as for what they perceived as his demagoguery and his interference in their internal affairs, and were eager to go along. The Democrats and Liberals would have liked a top-tier candidate like Thurgood Marshall, but the civil rights lawyer declined, saying that he and Powell “stood for the same things.” The Liberals also suggested Roy Wilkins, A. Philip Randolph, or the Reverend James Robinson, but to no avail. Ultimately, anti-Powell forces convinced a reluctant Earl Brown, a city councilman and longtime critic of Powell, to run.50 During the campaign, Brown simply could not match Powell’s star power. Randolph backed Powell, as did Martin Luther King Jr. Dizzy Gillespie provided entertainment at Powell rallies. The Democratic boss J. Raymond Jones, who disliked Brown personally, came out of retirement to help the congressman’s reelection effort. Jones and Powell painted Brown as a tool of “downtown” whites, and called the councilman “Look Down Brown,” because, Jones said, “of his penchant for not looking anyone directly in the eye.” Both the Republican and Communist Parties lined up behind the incumbent. Brown, for his part, got the backing of Eleanor Roosevelt and the tennis champion Althea Gibson, but he turned out to be a weak, unenergetic candidate. He accused Powell of being “all talk” and no action, and tried to convince voters that he would be a more effective legislator. But while Brown spoke slowly and methodically to polite audiences, Powell mesmerized large crowds at boisterous rallies. Despite his indictment for tax fraud

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at the beginning of the campaign, Powell defeated Brown handily in the Democratic primary by a three-to-one margin.51 Powell also made an effort to win the Liberal nomination through a writein campaign, and he had the support of at least a few local party members. But the congressman also resorted to underhanded means of persuasion, sending a letter to Liberal enrollees over Randolph’s name urging them “to prove our manhood, womanhood and our appreciation to Adam C. Powell” by voting against “errand boys for Carmine DeSapio.” The letter also included a sample credential from something called the “IMGWU.” Randolph protested that the letter was unethical and that he had not authorized his signature, and he resigned as chair of the Independent People’s Committee for the Re-election of Adam C. Powell. In any case, though Powell complained that his write-in votes had not been counted, Brown won the Liberal primary and remained on the ballot for the general election. The Liberals would have liked him to wage an active campaign as their candidate, but in an awkward press interview at Liberal Party headquarters, Brown declined to do so.52 Meanwhile, the nomination for Senate was still up for grabs going into the Democratic convention. Rose journeyed to Buffalo, ostensibly on union business, and met with Democratic leaders in an effort to work out a compromise. But talks collapsed amid much recrimination, and DeSapio was able to push through the nomination of Frank Hogan. This was a resounding victory for the Manhattan Democratic boss, and a stinging defeat for liberal forces. The same evening, with Rose back in New York City, the Liberals defiantly nominated Finletter.53 The Liberals now had to decide whether to continue their independent campaign or accede to the Democratic choice of Hogan. As was often the case, many rank-and-file activists would have liked the party to run under its own banner. As Maurice Calman put it to heavy applause at a reconvened state committee meeting, “We don’t have to spit in our own faces by endorsing Hogan. We are not a rubber stamp. We are a Liberal party composed of Liberals or we are nothing. If this party is to continue to exist we must put up our own independent candidate.” The difference this time was that the party leadership, angry at the way things had gone down in Buffalo, seemed to agree. They met with Finletter to try to persuade him to stay in the race, and Rose threatened to nominate Berle if Finletter refused. Hogan would be a “dead duck,” Rose predicted, if the Liberal Party went it alone.54 But the Liberals ultimately backed down and endorsed Hogan. When Finletter bowed out of the race, it was the Liberals’ turn to come under pressure from Harriman and Lehman to back the Democratic nominee. They met

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with Hogan and demanded that he fill out a detailed questionnaire concerning his positions on a number of issues. Canceling an appearance before the Nassau County Democratic Party, Hogan composed his answers carefully. He was, he said, opposed to “right-to-work” laws, for raising and extending coverage of the minimum wage, for a “reservoir of public works programs” to maintain full employment, for more low- and moderate-income housing, for stronger and more vigorous enforcement of civil rights laws, and so on. Rose pronounced himself “greatly impressed.” Party leaders also pointed out that while the Republican nominee, Representative Kenneth Keating (Ives had pulled out of the race because of ill health), had a decent record on civil rights issues, his positions on labor and housing were conservative. After the Policy Committee recommended Hogan’s nomination, the state committee glumly fell into line.55 To save face and avoid the impression that it had surrendered to DeSapio, the Liberal Party refused to nominate the Democrats’ choice for state attorney general, Erie County Democratic chairman Peter Crotty. Instead they named Edward Goodell, a Washington Heights lawyer long associated with the Liberal and American Labor Parties and active in civic causes. Goodell ran a vigorous campaign as what he himself called a “symbol of protest against machine politics,” defending Harriman, calling for the merger of the New York City Transit Authority and Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority to keep fares down, and denouncing the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor as a “reactionary” who opposed civil rights legislation.56 In the gubernatorial race, Harriman defended his liberal record, and also defended strong rent regulations against the threat posed by the Republican legislature. The Republican candidate, Nelson Rockefeller, in turn, accused the governor of allying with the bosses, and his administration of “complacency, political expediency and drift.” Rockefeller made vague promises of economic and infrastructure development, while Harriman and his Liberal allies sought to tie him to the more conservative national Republican platform. As George Counts put it in a radio broadcast, Rockefeller “fear[ed] to be challenged to defend the indefensible policies of the Republican Administration in Washington and the vituperative and demagogic language of President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon in this campaign.” The Liberals campaigned actively for Harriman, their effort culminating in a Garment District rally attended by some twenty thousand. Even so, it was hard to work up much animosity toward a liberal Republican like Rockefeller. On the eve of the election, Berle conceded that both candidates were “first rate,” and Dubinsky, too, avoided personal criticism because the ILGWU had good relations with the Republican.57

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Although all sides predicted big victories, Rockefeller won surprisingly easily. A natural campaigner, he outshone the notoriously wooden Harriman. Moreover, his liberal approach appealed to some normally Democratic voters, especially among Jews and African Americans. Despite the behindthe-scenes efforts by Liberal leaders to win over the New York Post, the progressive newspaper revoked its endorsement of the governor, angry at his insinuation that Rockefeller was anti-Israel. Finally, Democratic disunity over the senatorial nomination cast a pall over the campaign. In the end, both Harriman and Hogan went down in defeat. The only Democrat to survive in statewide office was Comptroller Arthur Levitt.58 The results were clearly a disaster for the Democrats, and especially for DeSapio, who took much of the blame for the loss. The big winner was the liberal wing of the Republican Party, which now controlled both the state GOP and the state government. The results for the Liberal Party were, as usual, a bit more ambiguous. Its only independent candidate, Goodell, had won about 5 percent of the vote, 9 percent in New York City, a decent showing. And although Rose could not claim that Goodell’s votes had cost Crotty the election, he could assert that Liberal votes had won the election for Levitt. The Liberal line had supplied Harriman with just over 205,000 votes, not a great showing but actually a couple thousand more than in the previous election. All in all, Rose could claim plausibly that the Democrats could not win without Liberal support. In defeat, Harriman urged the Liberal Party faithful to keep up the fight for “liberal government” in New York, and they wasted little time in organizing for 1960, when Rose expected New York to be a crucial battleground in the presidential election.59

The Reform Democrats When, in April 1959, George Counts stepped down as chair of the Liberal Party, ostensibly temporarily, to take a teaching job out of state, Paul R. Hays became acting chair. He was elected to the position in his own right the following year. Hays, a party vice chair since 1955, was a distinguished professor of law at Columbia University. Born in Iowa, he had grown up in New York and attended Columbia College and Law School. He worked for the National Recovery Administration and the Resettlement Administration during the New Deal before returning to teach at his alma mater. An expert on labor law, he served as a mediator in many local industries, gaining a reputation for his pro-labor views. He was also active in anti-Communist liberal circles, especially in Americans for Democratic Action and the American Committee for Cultural Freedom, whose Commission on Academic Freedom he

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chaired. Hays very much fit the profile of a Liberal Party chair—a gentile intellectual and academic connected with Columbia University, as had been all the previous chairs.60 Until 1954, voters throughout New York State needed to register anew before each election. Parties and other interested observers anxiously scrutinized annual registration figures for portents of electoral strength in the fall. Perhaps for this reason, the Liberal Party was initially wary of “permanent personal registration,” a measure that on the face of it would seem to make it easier for more people to take part in the political system. But when permanent registration was first proposed in 1949, the party’s Trade Union Council argued, to the contrary, that it would decrease electoral participation. Moreover, the proposed system discriminated in favor of homeowners and against those who were more transient, especially the poor living in boarding houses and residential hotels. The party reversed itself only in 1952, when the proposal included the necessity of renewing party affiliation each year, even if personal registration was permanent. From then on, the Liberals supported the measure, which was enacted in New York City in 1956. Permanent personal registration became automatic statewide in 1967.61 The emergence of a reform movement within the Democratic Party in the late 1950s presented a challenge to the Liberal Party. The Reform Democratic movement arose when some who had been active in the Stevenson campaigns formed local clubs, which in 1958 coalesced in the Committee for Democratic Voters under the leadership of the liberal elders Herbert Lehman and Eleanor Roosevelt. Like those in previous reform movements, the new reformers were for good, clean government. Unlike some of their predecessors, however, they supported an expansion of the New Deal welfare state, the civil rights movement, and other social reforms. Their political appeal was thus similar to that of the Liberals. Socially, the Reform Democrats were heavily Jewish, like the Liberals, but they were more likely to be young, highly educated professionals rather than garment workers or union officials. The Reform Democratic clubs thus attracted the kind of people whom the Liberals needed in order to remain a going concern.62 Relations between the Liberal Party and the new reformers were somewhat ambivalent. Sometimes the Liberals allied with the insurgent Democrats in primaries and general elections, and some Liberals, such as Henry Stern, had close relations with them. Sometimes the party itself served as a vehicle for “new middle-class” reform efforts, as when a Brooklyn College sociology professor ran an antimachine race for city council in the

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gentrifying neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights. “But for the most part,” recalled Ed Morrison, “our relationship was a very competitive one.” And as Robert Novak, writing for the Wall Street Journal, put it, “Labor regards the reform movement as a rival for political influence. This is particularly true of the Liberal Party. . . . Although arrayed against the machine in the past, the Liberals have collaborated with Tammany Hall against the reformers in Congressional and legislative races.”63 The question many young professionals interested in liberal politics must have asked themselves, as Morrison recalled, was, “During the Stevenson period, why wouldn’t you join the reformed Democrats?” Answering his own question, he said, “Why would you join the Liberal Party, unless you saw it as a way of being able to get a job?” Morrison himself had been an active Young Liberal in high school, but out of law school he was unhappily working as an adjuster for an insurance company when Davidson offered him a job working for the party. He also did legal work for the ILGWU and Rose’s hatters’ union. Likewise, as an undergraduate, Henry Stern had volunteered in the Halley campaign of 1951. Returning to the city after graduating from Harvard Law School, he visited a predominantly Irish Democratic club in Inwood, but felt unwelcome as a young Jewish lawyer. His dentist had a client who knew about an opening for a clerk for Liberal judge Matthew Levy, “and of course part of it was that I would be active in the Liberal Party, which I was happy to do anyway since I had been a member at City College.” Stern went to work for Levy. Herb Rubin, who was a little older than Stern and Morrison, in fact entered politics as a Queens Reform Democrat, running an insurgent campaign for Congress in 1960. But when his wife, Rose, was offered a post as assistant district attorney, she was interviewed by Ben Davidson and told that she would be a Liberal appointee and should reregister as a Liberal. Herbert did as well.64 The younger activists brought different political attitudes into the party. They were less ideological—less likely to have a Socialist background, but also less stridently anti-Communist—than the party founders. (There were some exceptions, such as Eldon Clingan and Gerald Coleman of the hatters’ union, who did have ties with the Socialist movement.) As Morrison recalled, there were old ALP people and Socialist sectarians in the party, but “there were not many and these very soon died out.”65 By the end of the 1950s, the Liberals had lost their share of the statehouse, but had made up with city hall. They were on the outs nationally, but were poised to help the Democrats return to the White House. The new Reform

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Democrats seemed to be potential allies within the Democratic Party, but also threatened to steal the Liberals’ thunder. All in all, as they entered the 1960s, the Liberals were firmly ensconced as a fixture in New York politics. But like liberals throughout the country, the Liberal Party would face many difficult challenges, from right and left, in the tumultuous decade ahead.

Ch a p ter 7

New Frontiers

At the beginning of the 1960s, the Liberal Party was at the height of its influence, punching above its weight in presidential elections and playing a leading role in rebranding Mayor Robert Wagner as a reformer. It stuck to its traditional social democratic stance. But both the demography and the politics of New York were changing around it, and the party had difficulty adjusting itself to the new realities. Not only was its accustomed base shrinking, but it faced rivals on the left in the Reform Democrats, and on the right in the form of a new Conservative Party, modeled explicitly on the Liberals but ready to battle it for Row C on the ballot. For a time, though, the dangers facing the party were obscured by its successes. Going into the 1960 presidential election, Liberal sentiment was divided between Adlai Stevenson, making his third run for the office, and Senators John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey. But with JFK actively courting the party leadership since the year before, Alex Rose leaned in the Massachusetts senator’s direction from the start. Rose and, to a much lesser extent, David Dubinsky played an unusually active role in the Democratic selection process through the convention, working behind the scenes to smooth over factional and personal disputes among liberal Democrats. Once Kennedy won his party’s nomination, the Liberals worked hard on his behalf in New York, spurred on by a particular dislike for Vice President Richard Nixon, the

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Figure 4.  A  sound truck urges voters to enroll as Liberal Party members. Into the 1960s, the party had a mass following drawn largely from the garment unions. Kheel Center, Cornell University.

Republican nominee. Even as they gave what turned out to be crucial backing to the national Democratic ticket, however, the Liberals helped elect a Republican to the state’s highest court. They came out of the 1960 contests strengthened.1 Party leaders Rose and Dubinsky were won over to Kennedy early, although many in the labor movement had doubts about the young senator. In the summer of 1959, Kennedy invited the New Yorkers to breakfast at his house in Georgetown, and early in 1960, he followed up by asking Rose for an audience with the Liberals’ Policy Committee. He spent two hours with the committee, impressing those present. Rose and AFL-CIO counsel Arthur Goldberg conferred that February while in Florida for a meeting of the executive committee of the labor federation. When the labor leaders voted to remain neutral until after the nominating conventions, Rose and Goldberg dissented, seeing JFK as the strongest candidate and his nomination as a potential rebuke to corrupt Teamsters Union chief Jimmy Hoffa, who actively opposed Kennedy. Hoping for labor input in the nominating

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process, Rose and Goldberg got AFL-CIO head George Meany’s approval to work quietly for their candidate as long as they made clear they were not speaking for the federation.2 Fearing that if too much vitriol was spilled during the primary campaign it would damage the Democratic ticket in November, Rose and Goldberg assumed the role of behind-the-scenes referees in an effort to keep the debate civil. Convinced that Kennedy and Humphrey would need each other in the general election campaign, the duo pressed the Kennedy camp to avoid personal attacks on Humphrey for his lack of military service during World War II, and the Humphrey campaign to renounce anti-Catholic rhetoric. After JFK won the Wisconsin primary, his brother and campaign chief, Robert Kennedy, met with Rose and Goldberg and asked that they help persuade Humphrey to withdraw from the race, but they demurred, arguing that Kennedy would be in a stronger position if he showed he could win in a heavily Protestant state like West Virginia, whose primary was approaching. At a subsequent meeting, a relieved Humphrey, who believed that the labor leaders had come to tell him to quit, happily consented to avoid inflammatory language.3 Kennedy continued to consult with Rose throughout the spring and met with the Policy Committee in June. Adopting a strong liberal stance, the senator explicitly assigned the Liberal Party a role in the “birth of [a] new liberalism,” offering that “the Liberal party helps to keep the oldest party in the world—the Democratic party—young, vigorous, creative and liberal.” In response, party chair Paul Hays told reporters, “If Senator Kennedy is nominated by the Democratic party, I feel sure the Liberal party will support him in the election.” Kennedy also told the Liberals that he expected to win the nomination without much southern support, a statement that caused a minor flap as the Kennedy camp was forced to explain that this was a factual analysis and not a repudiation of an entire region.4 In Los Angeles, at the Democratic convention from July 11 through 15, Rose and Goldberg were joined on the AFL-CIO’s official liaison committee by the autoworkers’ Walter Reuther and the electrical workers’ Joseph Keenan. All were Kennedy backers, and they worked hard to smooth over friction between JFK and Stevenson. Along with Hays, they secured from Kennedy a pledge to name the former Democratic standard-bearer to an important foreign policy post in the campaign and the future administration. But they were unsuccessful in getting the nominee to name Humphrey as his running mate, a lost cause after Humphrey came out for Stevenson in a last-ditch stop-Kennedy move. Instead, Kennedy told the delegation that he had selected Lyndon Johnson, a choice that perturbed many labor people and liberals. Indeed, Rose joined Reuther and Meany in opposing Johnson.

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But Goldberg called Dubinsky at his summer home in Hampton Bays, Long Island, and Dubinsky worked the phones to convince them to go along.5 Back in New York, the Liberal Party campaigned enthusiastically for Kennedy. In giving the Democrat its official nod, the party also gave him its highest compliment, proclaiming him a “fighting liberal in the tradition of Roosevelt, Truman and Stevenson.” Kennedy responded in kind with a speech to two thousand attendees at the party’s gala dinner. Calling for a “liberal spirit of daring and doing,” he argued that “only liberalism can repair our national power, restore our national purpose, and liberate our national energies.” A month later, the senator followed up with a wild visit to New York during which he was greeted by large and jubilant crowds. At a Garment District rally that dwarfed a similar gathering for Nixon, the vociferous audience drowned out Dubinsky with shouts of “We want Kennedy,” as the union chief tried to introduce the candidate. Shaking his finger at the assembly, Dubinsky sputtered, “You’ll get Kennedy,” happily declaring the event to be “the greatest demonstration I have witnessed in my life.” In a speech vetted by the ILGWU, Kennedy appealed to the tradition of Al Smith, FDR, and Hebert Lehman, and to the immigrant heritage of the workers. Accusing the Republicans of trying to dress up “the Republican wolf [to] look like a liberal lamb,” he called for a new health care program for the elderly, more aid for housing and education, a stepped-up fight for civil rights, and the eradication of poverty.6 Meanwhile, Johnson also worked to build his relationship with the Liberals, speaking in October to four hundred members of the party’s Trade Union Council. He was assisted by Dubinsky, who introduced him by saying, “Of course it is known that some people believe that the north is liberal and the south is reactionary and that [when] we have to elect a president and a vice president, they prefer that they should all be from the north. . . . I am one of those who believes that the south is a part of the United States.” Just as FDR chose Garner to run with, Dubinsky argued, so Kennedy had chosen LBJ, who in any case was more forthcoming than Vice President Nixon when it came to issues like the minimum wage. But Johnson got more than mere acceptance. In a stirring speech, he told the delegates, I am not familiar with all the views of the Liberal party . . . but these things I do know: Your party is against sweatshops, and I am against sweatshops. Your party believes that all people should be equal before the law, and I do. Your party is for housing . . . education . . . Social Security, and I have voted for them every time.

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According to one observer, Johnson’s “emotional oratory plainly captured the audience.”7 Although Donald Harrington later recalled that some Liberals initially reacted negatively to Kennedy’s Catholicism, the Liberal Party countered the arguments of some evangelical Protestants that a Roman Catholic could not be an independent actor as president. The Liberal intervention came in the form of a statement written by the theologians Reinhold Niebuhr and John Bennett, both professors at Union Theological Seminary and both vice presidents of the Liberal Party. They specifically accused a group called Citizens for Religious Freedom, which had the support of the popular preacher Norman Vincent Peale, of having “loosed the floodgates of religious bigotry” by their attacks on Kennedy. Arguing that the conservative group’s real motive was to “thwart the civil rights and economic policies” that Kennedy stood for, they characterized its anti-Kennedy statements as “bigotry clothed in the respectability of apparently rational argument.” In response, the Reverend Daniel Poling, an organizer of Citizens for Religious Freedom, accused Niebuhr and Bennett of political motives “as leaders of a committed political party.”8 While it campaigned actively for the national Democratic ticket, the Liberal Party broke ranks with some of its usual allies in state and local races. In several cases, including the high-profile statewide election for a seat on the court of appeals, New York’s highest court, the Liberals endorsed Republicans. In that instance, the party won praise from the New York Times for showing independence in backing a Republican for the first time in a contested statewide race. But it found itself accused of anti-Italianism by Representative Alfred Santangelo for not supporting the Democrat Henry Ughetta, and for seeking to destroy the career of Carmine DeSapio. (The Liberals had also passed over Santangelo in his reelection bid, alleging that he was antilabor.) When Santangelo leveled his charge at a luncheon of the Federation of Italian-American Democratic Organizations, the Liberal leader Isidore Siegeltuch, who was present, stood up and shouted, “I don’t like what you said. . . . We have supported practically every Democratic candidate and if we go out of line sometimes you have no right to make these aspersions you just made.” Party leaders angrily denied any bias, pointing out that they had endorsed many Italian Americans for other offices.9 In the highest-profile district race that year, the Liberals broke with their sometime allies in the Reform Democratic movement to support the machine-backed incumbent. In that contest on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the insurgent district leader William F. Ryan challenged Representative Ludwig Teller for the Democratic nomination. Ryan received

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the support of the Committee for Democratic Voters (CDV) and its leaders, Eleanor Roosevelt, Herbert Lehman, and Thomas Finletter, but not the Liberals. Rose explained that Teller had a “consistently good voting record,” and had “the capacity to clarify issues for his fellow legislators.” This was a congressional election, Rose argued, and not a “district leadership contest,” so Teller’s Tammany ties were immaterial. Finletter, however, accused the Liberals of having a “narrow view” of the race, and Ryan argued that “it’s one thing to vote for the right thing and another to make an all-out fight for it.” In other words, Teller was no “fighting liberal” of the sort the Liberal Party claimed to promote. The Liberals also came under censure from Americans for Democratic Action for not backing several of its preferred candidates, including Ryan, who had won the primary, in the fall.10 If some of the Liberals’ endorsements cast their progressive utility in doubt (Eleanor Roosevelt told one audience, “If the reform movement does a good job, there will be no need for the Liberal Party”), in one case they flexed their muscles on behalf of the liberal agenda. The party withheld its backing from four Democratic state legislators who had voted to lengthen residency requirements for state relief. At least one of the four had needed Liberal support to win two years earlier, and all four quickly knuckled under: according to the Times, they “sought out Liberal leaders and pleaded for a second chance.” Saying that they hadn’t known that their votes could be seen as antiminority, they signed “written statements promising to reconsider their position if similar legislation came up again.”11 Throughout the 1960 campaign, New York’s politicians jockeyed for position in the upcoming city and state elections to be held over the next two years. The Liberals seemed key, and they benefited from the efforts of Governor Nelson Rockefeller and Mayor Robert Wagner to court them. Rockefeller and Republican legislative leaders, for example, got behind a bill that did away with the requirement that parties elect two representatives from each election district to legally constitute a county committee with power to name candidates. This was a requirement that a small party like the Liberals had a hard time meeting in sparsely populated upstate counties, putting its very existence in jeopardy in much of the state. The new law enabled parties to elect county committees at large and to set their size. According to some observers, the Liberals agreed in return not to back Democrats against incumbent Republican lawmakers from New York City, though others denied there was such an obvious quid pro quo.12 Still, the Liberals seemed to be flirting heavily with the Republicans and Rockefeller. They gave the governor credit for a number of positive developments, such as more aid to education and to New York City. They also

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praised him for his unsuccessful proposal to strengthen antidiscrimination laws, and for his veto of the bill to increase residency requirements for relief. Reading the tea leaves, the Times noted that Rockefeller and former party chair Berle had worked together at various times, that the governor had helped fund a recent ILGWU housing project, and that Dubinsky and Rose often socialized with Rockefeller and Jacob Javits. It certainly did not hurt the relationship that Rockefeller reappointed the party stalwart Ira Palestin to the state tax commission.13 Meanwhile, Wagner was under pressure from Reform Democrats to decisively repudiate DeSapio, and from Republicans who saw in the Democratic split an opportunity to defeat the mayor if they could fuse with the Liberals. In response, Wagner made his own overtures to Liberal leaders, lunching in April with Rose and Dubinsky and agreeing to coordinate efforts at the upcoming Democratic convention. The mayor also had patronage to dispense, and he named the Brooklyn Liberal secretary Abraham Roth to the city court bench.14 On election night, Rose told the five hundred Liberals gathered at the Hotel Commodore that they had made the difference in carrying the state for JFK, as well as for Republican judge Sydney Foster. Neutral observers agreed the party’s hand had been strengthened, with its four-hundred-thousand-plus votes for the president-elect providing his margin of victory. The party’s main reward in the short run was a federal judgeship for Paul Hays. According to Ed Morrison, this was all Rose wanted, in part to remove Hays from his party post. As Morrison recalled, Rose met with Robert Kennedy at the Hotel Astor: Suddenly the door is thrust open and in comes Bob and he bounds, you know, he doesn’t walk, he’s jumping from one area of the restaurant to the other. He’s traveling at such a fast rate you can’t keep up with it with your eyes, and he swings his leg over one of the chairs and sits down and says, “OK, Alex, I’m ready for you.” So [Rose] says, “What do you mean, you’re ready for me?” [Kennedy] says, “I’ve got some good news for you and I’ve got some bad news for you, what do you want?” Alex looks at him and he says, “With you, I have to have the bad news first, so I’ll be able to survive for the good news.” So, Kennedy looks at him and says, “All right. The bad news is that the committee met. . . . The committee met and they reviewed Paul Hays, and although they find Paul Hays to be a remarkable man, he’s never practiced law, so how do you put him into the district court? We can’t put him into the district court because he has no experience. Alex, you

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have to deal with that as a fact, that’s the way it is.” So Alex looks at me and he says, “That’s the bad, now what’s the good news?” [Kennedy] says, “The good news is that the committee has decided to have him appointed to the court of appeals.” Dubinsky also convinced Meany to go along with the appointment of Goldberg as secretary of labor. Before he took up his post, the Liberal Party’s Trade Union Council and Committee at Large gave the labor lawyer a congratulatory luncheon, at which Dubinsky, Rose, and Hays spoke, along with Charles Zimmerman, Stuart Scheftel, and Walter Reuther.15

Wagner Runs against His Own Record In 1961, the political news was dominated by a multisided factional battle among what was left of Tammany Hall under DeSapio, Wagner, and the Reform Democrats led by Lehman. That year’s mayoral contest saw Wagner’s reinvention as a reformer, but the turmoil in the Democratic Party seemed for much of the year to put his reelection in doubt, opening up an opportunity for the Republicans to seize control of city hall. The Liberal Party thus found itself in an enviable situation, courted by Republican leaders eager for fusion, as well as by Wagner and other Democrats. The Liberals chose to side with the incumbent, and his victory, following the Liberals’ strong showing the year before, further enhanced their position in New York politics. The Wagner-DeSapio rift came as the mayor was deciding whether to run for a third term. Although he retained the support of the majority of voters, he was vulnerable to charges that his lack of energy and decisiveness was harming the city. Although few doubted his personal integrity or his liberal credentials, some questioned whether machine influence had led to corruption in his administration. With the encouragement of Lehman’s CDV, as well as perhaps of Rose, Wagner thus decided to redefine himself as a passionate fighter against the party bosses, improbably blaming them for many of the city’s ills. In truth, his relations with DeSapio had been tense for several years, stemming from differences between them in the 1956 and 1958 elections. In February 1961, they erupted into a bitter and often personal conflict as Wagner called on DeSapio to quit the leadership of the Manhattan Democratic Party. DeSapio responded by accusing the mayor of hypocrisy in turning against the very organization that had promoted his career in the first place, and charging him with endeavoring to “find a scapegoat, to create a smoke screen” for his own deficiencies. Through the spring, however,

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it was not clear that Wagner would indeed run for reelection, or that the Liberal Party or the Committee for Democratic Voters would support him if he did.16 New York Republicans believed that if they found the right candidate and made the right alliances, they could capitalize on good-government sentiment, whether Wager ran or not. Republican leaders saw the Liberal Party as key to a successful fusion campaign, as the ALP had once been key to La Guardia’s coalition. They thus courted the Liberals in public and private. At a February Lincoln Day dinner, the Manhattan GOP leader Bernard Newman confidently noted that the “next mayor” was present among the many party notables, and also proclaimed, “The Republican Party . . . welcomes the cooperation of all people of liberal persuasion, both with a small ‘l’ and a capital ‘L,’ as well as all other civic and independent groups and rightthinking individuals who believe as we do that the future of New York City must be placed in firm and strong hands. Such a coalition is unbeatable.” In the spring, Governor Rockefeller invited Rose to a series of meetings at his Fifth Avenue apartment to discuss possible candidates.17 As usual, Jacob Javits stood at the center of hopes for a Republican-Liberal fusion campaign. As the only Republican the Liberals were really enthusiastic about, Javits came under tremendous pressure from Rockefeller, Nixon, and others to run. He held back, stating his preference to stay in Washington and his reluctance to get into a race without firmer assurances of Liberal and reform support outside his own party. At one point, in response to a query from Rose, Javits seemed to leave the door just slightly ajar, but by May, he had said definitively no. The GOP ended up with its second choice, New York State attorney general Louis Lefkowitz, another liberal Republican and proven vote getter. Rose’s kind words for Lefkowitz allowed Republican leaders to hope that he might yet gain Liberal backing.18 Even before committing itself to a candidate, the Liberal Party found itself at what the Times called the “center of a major political storm.” Courted by both Wagner and the Republicans, the Liberals were clearly crucial to any reform effort. As a result, they came under attack from the targets of reform. The Liberal Party was, in fact, a big topic of conversation at the dinner of the New York County Democratic Party, where DeSapio called the Liberals a “splinter” group and said of their claims to have helped elect President Kennedy, “Never have so few claimed so much for so little.” Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, having made up with DeSapio but not the Liberals, assented: “We don’t need any Liberal party.”19 As Wagner, true to his image, procrastinated through the spring, the Liberal Party and the CDV continued to reserve judgment on his possible

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candidacy. In Rose’s estimation, Wagner was pro-labor and liberal, and there was “no doubt of [his] honesty.” But his “degree of vigor, efficiency and independence” was in question. Had Wagner been independent in the past? “There were times when he was,” Rose said, “and times he was not. We liked him when he was.” The party’s Policy Committee announced that it could support the mayor, but it was looking for “a new, independent Wagner” ready for “an independent, vigorous and efficient administration.” The test by which the Liberals, and the CDV, would judge the authenticity of the mayor’s independence was whether he would drop city council president Abe Stark and the comptroller, Lawrence Gerosa, from his ticket.20 Wagner finally announced on June 22 that he would indeed run for reelection. In so doing, he attempted to appease conflicting sides by proposing that Gerosa be dropped and Stark run for comptroller instead of city council president. Dumping the conservative Gerosa was not hard for Wagner. The two had been feuding for years, and recently Wagner had publicly called him “a man of limited ability and less knowledge.” Stark, on the other hand, was popular and on good terms with the mayor. But he had ties to the Brooklyn machine and many didn’t consider him mayoral material. Moving Stark to the comptroller’s slot would at least take him out of the line of mayoral succession. Wagner put forward his sanitation commissioner, Paul Screvane, as a candidate for president of the city council.21 If the aim of Wagner’s move was to mollify the Democratic organizations outside of Manhattan, it failed. But if the goal was to solidify the mayor’s standing with reform elements, it succeeded perfectly. The county leaders were not impressed, and Stark refused to go along. Rose and Lehman, however, saw the mayor’s actions as a sufficient show of leadership and independence. Rose predicted that the effort would “make a favorable impression in our ranks.” (Rose often made this kind of understated observation as a way of maintaining the fiction that he was just reporting on developments within the party when he was in fact signaling his own inclinations.) With Stark off the ticket as well, his place was taken by city budget director Abraham Beame. Like Stark, Beame had ties to the Brooklyn machine, but, like Screvane, he also had a reputation as a competent technocrat, and this appealed to both the Liberals and the reformers.22 The way was now clear for the Liberals to nominate Wagner—or nearly so. Stuart Scheftel, the former Republican who was chair of the party’s Committee at Large, had already announced that he would contend for the Liberal mayoral nomination. Scheftel had joined the party after serving as director of press relations for the Senate Crime Investigating Committee and campaign coordinator for Rudolph Halley. Now he proclaimed that “no

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Democrat can ever be a good Mayor because of his relations with political machines.” Although Scheftel indicated that he would withdraw in favor of Javits, former party chair Berle, or the respected Republican-Liberal city councilman Stanley Isaacs, he would not step aside for Lefkowitz. And he remained adamantly unconvinced of Wagner’s conversion to the cause of good government. Scheftel gained the support of Marie La Guardia and, eventually, of Halley’s widow as well, and took his challenge to the party convention.23 The Liberal nominating convention saw fierce debate, though the result was never in doubt. The Policy Committee recommended an endorsement of Wagner. Rose, calling the mayor “Fighting Bob,” spoke on his behalf, as did Hays, Ben Davidson, the ILGWU’s Charles Zimmerman, and the Queens leader Leo Brown. Leona Finestone, a Manhattan party vice chair, nominated Scheftel. Thus began a three-hour debate, during which, the Times reported, “bitterness ran high.” Seymour Graubard, a Liberal who had served on the city charter commission appointed by the state legislature, charged the Wagner administration with waste, corruption, and an unwillingness to tackle difficult problems, though he stopped short of endorsing Scheftel. Scheftel called for a secret ballot, and his supporters complained that the many union delegates could not vote freely as long as their leaders were watching. Their request was denied by a hand vote. Dubinsky offered not to look, and turned his back during the final vote on the nomination, prompting the columnist Murray Kempton to quip that his gesture did not reassure anyone: “Everyone knows Dubinsky has eyes in the back of his head.” In the end, the convention endorsed Wagner by a vote of 378–28. Scheftel vowed to force a primary, but withdrew from the race just before the filing deadline to get on the ballot.24 In addition to the Liberal Party, Wagner picked up the support of a new party formed by the Central Labor Council under the leadership of the electrical workers’ Harry Van Arsdale. At first, relations between the Liberal Party and this rival labor party were frosty. As a matter of fact, Van Arsdale explained that he was forming the new group partly because he was “fed up” with the Liberals, who included “too many middle-class members and lawyers.” Hays responded that a purely labor party was unwise at the moment. But being on the same side in the current election softened attitudes. Only a couple of weeks later, Rose indicated that he welcomed the new party, because “every effort to involve workers in independent political action is good for labor and good for the community as a whole.” The new group, at first called the Freedom Party but eventually called the Brotherhood Party, guaranteed that the mayor would have at least two ballot lines, even if he lost the Democratic primary. The Brotherhood Party vowed to become a

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permanent political fixture, but after playing a significant role in 1961, it faded.25 In the meantime, though, Wagner had to fight a particularly bitter primary featuring a great deal of personal invective. After some searching, four of the five county Democratic organizations found a reluctant champion in State Comptroller Arthur Levitt. Levitt charged that under Wagner, “confusion and uncertainty” and “procrastination and vacillation” characterized city government. Wagner responded by running against what he called the “secret battalion of corruption” whose “master-mind” was DeSapio and whose candidate was Levitt. After the mayor accused Levitt of agreeing to undertake the race in exchange for the promise of a judgeship, Levitt angrily retorted, “The Mayor apparently has no compunction about destroying the personal integrity that his father gave to his name.” But the CDV and Lehman now proclaimed Wagner the “good government” candidate, and Levitt that of the bosses. Late in the race, both sides desperately accused each other of making racist and antisemitic appeals. In the September primary, however, Wagner won a decisive victory, made even more complete by the ouster of DeSapio from his district leadership in Greenwich Village.26 The general election saw a continuation of the same themes, but the mayor clearly had the upper hand. Lefkowitz tried to claim the mantle of La Guardia, appearing with a number of mostly minor La Guardia administration officials. But the Republican struggled to make his case, complaining of the Liberals’ and reformers’ “astonishing decision to make Mayor Wagner a spearhead of reform rather than a target of reform as he should be.” Wagner, for his part, sought to tie Lefkowitz to the Republican regime in Albany, arguing that the attorney general was complicit in the state’s fiscal shortchanging of the city. In the meantime, though, a furious Gerosa decided to challenge the mayor by running as an independent, though he claimed to be the “only Democrat running today.”27 Gerosa’s claim to be the only Democrat in the race hinged on his accusation that the mayor had become a “puppet” of “sinister elements” that included the Liberal Party. He charged not only that the Liberals stood ready to “loot the town in the next four years,” but that they served as a Trojan horse for the Communists, who were known to “creep in as liberals.” In arguing that tax exemptions for the ILGWU’s Penn South housing cooperative hurt taxpaying homeowners, Gerosa once again underscored the difference between the political cultures of the city’s largely Jewish Left and its mainly Catholic Right. State Democratic chair Michael Prendergast perhaps inadvertently did so as well when, in backing Gerosa, he said that Wagner had “sold his political soul” to an “unholy alliance” of Liberals and Reform

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Democrats. Gerosa’s independent conservative campaign was a harbinger of the rise of the Conservative Party the following year.28 Wagner refused to run away from his Liberal supporters. Berle and Davidson sat on the campaign’s steering committee, and Rose emerged as a member of the mayor’s inner circle of advisers. Wagner and Lehman campaigned together, sometimes under the auspices of the Liberal Party, in Jewish neighborhoods such as Coney Island and Brighton Beach, where they were greeted by enthusiastic crowds of pensioners. And at the traditional Liberal rally in the Garment District, Wagner struck a progressive populist note: “A vote for my Republican opponent is a vote for the slumlords party, the sweatshop party, the party of special interests, the party of the privileged few.” In a symbolic gesture unlikely to influence the results, but designed to emphasize his independence, the mayor endorsed two Liberal candidates in long-shot races for Supreme Court judgeships.29 In its own effort to show independence, as well as to get back at Charles Buckley, the Bronx Democratic leader who had long been a thorn in the Liberals’ side, the Liberal Party backed the Republican Joseph Periconi for the open Bronx borough presidency. Periconi was a lawyer, former state senator, and member of the transit authority board. He had support as well from the Brotherhood Party, and, despite his opponent’s argument that the Democratic Party was “more for the people,” Periconi was able to win over many normally Democratic voters.30 One important issue throughout the year was the revision of the city charter. Governor Rockefeller set in motion the effort to revise the charter, hoping to use it to split the Democratic Party and gain an advantage for the Republicans. But it was adopted by Mayor Wagner as part of his own reform campaign, and he appointed a mayoral commission in the spring of 1961 to devise a proposal for the November ballot. Though some reformers thought this too hasty a procedure, most supported the resulting proposal to simplify the document and enhance the power of the mayor against that of the borough presidents. The Citizens Union, the City Club, the CDV, and Americans for Democratic Action all supported the initiative, as did Lefkowitz and, of course, Wagner. Although Seymour Graubard, the Liberal representative on a parallel state commission, angrily charged the mayor with undermining reform’s chances that year by confusing the process, the Liberal Party backed the Wagner commission’s reform plan as well. One issue of importance to the Liberals was that of how minority-party representation would be increased on the city council. (The current council had only one non-Democrat.) The Liberals favored a return to proportional representation, but others proposed to add two at-large seats for each borough, with

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the provision that each party would run, and voters would vote for, one candidate, with the top two vote getters elected. This proposal was put before the voters in a separate referendum from the rest of the charter, and passed.31 The result of the election was another big win for the Liberal Party. Wagner was reelected, and the party claimed credit not only for helping him win, but also for his reinvention as a reformer. One observer pointed out that had the more than 213,000 votes on the Liberal line gone to Lefkowitz instead of Wagner, the Republican would have won. The Liberals also provided the margin of victory for Periconi in the Bronx. And the new charter passed, along with the provision for increasing minority representation through the addition of at-large borough seats, raising Liberals’ hopes that they might be able to return a delegation to the council for the first time in a decade and a half. Rose proclaimed the results a “history-making victory” that would “change the political character of our city for decades to come.”32 In the short run, the election certainly turned around the fortunes of the Liberal Party, giving it a place in city government that it had never had before. Wagner now owed the Democratic machines nothing. He was heavily indebted, on the other hand, to the Liberal Party, and as regulars were purged from the administration, Liberals and Reform Democrats took their places. Top Liberal appointees included Leo Brown, the Queens party chief, who became commissioner of marine and aviation, and the businessman Louis Broido, who was named commissioner of commerce for one dollar a year. Liberals also took important jobs in the office of the new comptroller, Abe Beame, whose father had been a party member. The young lawyer Ed Morrison emerged as an important aide to Rose in the distribution of jobs to Liberal loyalists. As Morrison recalled, Wagner called Alex and said to Alex, “Alex, I’m in desperate need of somebody who’s an attorney to work in the Department of Highways. A lot of the various matters that we’re doing in highways are going south and they’re falling into the hands of DeSapio and his comrades, so what we must do is thwart that, and the only way to do it is with an attorney who has some brains, who will come to work at the Department of Highways.” So Alex then calls Ben and then he calls me and he says to me, “Do you have somebody to recommend?” And I say, “I sure do.” Morrison, like Rose, always insisted that “competence and honesty was [sic] the first criteria.” The party also got positions from Periconi and newly elected Manhattan borough president Edward Dudley, who appointed Henry Stern secretary of the borough of Manhattan, replacing a Democratic

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district leader. But the increase in concern over jobs did not sit well with all party members. Charles Abrams, for one, complained that decisions on judgeships were being made purely for the sake of patronage. If that was the case, he asked, what was the point of the Liberal Party?33 Although New York City was the main story in 1961, the Liberal Party played small roles in some other political dramas elsewhere in the state. In Buffalo, the Liberals backed the Republican Chester Kowal against the incumbent Frank Sedita in a complicated three-man race, in which ethnic allegiances (primarily Polish versus non-Polish) played an important role. In the tiny Long Island village of Port Washington North, candidates on the Liberal line swept local elections by calling for zoning to prohibit the construction of apartment buildings in the village (hardly a liberal position). Also in Nassau County, five former Liberal officials pleaded guilty to charges of having falsified nominating petitions. In Putnam County, several Democrats were elected to the county board with Liberal support. In Yonkers, the Liberal council nominee Mary Van Nes, a mother of six, tried unsuccessfully to withdraw from the race. Telling reporters that she had not read the “hackneyed nothings” written for her by party officials, she announced, “I will sit mute during the campaign and will resign if elected.” Nevertheless, she received an endorsement from “Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt.”34

The Conservative Challenge Unlike the previous two election cycles, the 1962 elections generated little excitement within the Liberal Party, despite high-profile races for governor and US senator. For several years, Governor Rockefeller had been flirting with the party, and observers wondered whether he was angling for the Liberal nomination with a number of liberal policy initiatives in housing, civil rights, education, health care, and workers’ protections. The governor told reporters that he would accept the Liberal nomination if offered, but would not actively campaign for it. The Liberals, for their part, praised the “humanitarian spirit” of Rockefeller’s program, but also complained that it was “ominously silent on many important issues,” such as making state aid for education more equitable to New York City, strengthening rent control, and addressing the problems of unemployment, automation, consumer protection, and planning for transportation. Ultimately, the Liberals declined to support Rockefeller so as not to undermine the Democratic administrations in Washington and New York City, a decision that Rose informed

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the governor of at a private meeting in June. Similar calculations militated against an endorsement of Javits for reelection to the Senate.35 Of course, the Liberal Party could have run its own candidates, thus aiding Rockefeller and Javits without officially endorsing them. Instead it committed itself to backing the Democratic ticket. In contrast to the 1960 presidential contest and the 1961 New York City mayoral race, the Liberals did little to influence the nominating process within the Democratic Party, despite repeated charges by ousted state Democratic chairman Prendergast that the Liberals were out to both dominate and wreck the larger party. The Liberal Party held its nominating convention on September 19, one day after that of the Democrats, and dutifully endorsed the Democratic ticket headed by US Attorney Robert Morgenthau for governor and the attorney James Donovan for senator. The vote for Morgenthau was unanimous. Donovan faced token opposition. Javits’s name was placed in nomination by a delegate who strayed from the script, and Sidney Reitman, Dutchess County party chair, protested that the incumbent senator “at least represents some portion of what we feel we want.” Nevertheless, Donovan, a member of the New York Board of Education who was best known for negotiating the release of the captured U-2 spy Gary Powers earlier that year, was nominated by voice vote in what Davidson later called “one of the three biggest mistakes the Liberal Party ever made.” Neither Morgenthau nor Donovan addressed the convention.36 Like the convention, the campaign was lackluster. Seeking to run up his vote in anticipation of a race for the presidency in two years, Rockefeller campaigned vigorously while attempting to steer a narrow rhetorical course designed to reassure voters on the right and at the same time reach beyond the conservative Republican base. Meanwhile, Morgenthau and Donovan both revealed their limits as campaigners. According to one observer, Morgenthau was “the worst single candidate that ever ran for public office,” a dull speaker with few social graces. During the traditional Liberal campaign tours of the Lower East Side and the Garment District, Morgenthau received a reception the Times described as “cordial but tepid.” Donovan campaigned as a supporter of JFK, but took a more conservative stand on the emerging program of medical care for the elderly than did Javits. Donovan lost Jewish votes when he said on TV that there had been “enough backslapping trips to Israel.” And he lost liberal points by suggesting that “no great wave of [civil rights] legislation is needed,” bringing a rebuke from the president of the state NAACP.37 Perhaps the most interesting development of the 1962 election was the rise of the Conservative Party in New York. The organizers of the new group

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freely and explicitly pointed to the Liberal Party as a model for small-party influence in state politics. But while the Liberals had originally come mainly from outside the two main parties and aimed to pressure both of them in different ways, the Conservatives were mostly Republicans who were disaffected with their party’s liberal local leadership and aimed to push the GOP to the right in the state and nationally. They especially disliked Rockefeller and Javits, as well as Attorney General Lefkowitz and Congressman John Lindsay, all progressive Republicans who symbolized for them the lack of political choice in New York and who they believed had undermined Richard Nixon’s presidential effort in 1960. Now, after several years of consultation, they moved to nominate a ticket headed by the political unknown David Jaquith, president of a steel fabricating company in Onandaga County and member of the Syracuse education commission. Jaquith gained a spot on the ballot, and though no one gave him a chance of influencing the outcome in the current contest, the Republican establishment nervously contemplated the new party’s potential.38 The differences between the Liberal and Conservative Parties mirrored, if imperfectly, the different political cultures of New York Jews and Catholics. Disagreements over church-state issues that had divided the two groups in the 1940s continued into the 1960s, with mostly secular and liberal Jews arguing against state aid to parochial schools, and conservative Catholics arguing in favor of such assistance. This issue formed the backdrop of some choices that the Liberal Party made in congressional races in 1962. The most important pitted against each other two Manhattan incumbents who had been thrown together by redistricting. Though they had opposed him in 1960, the Liberals this time backed the reformer William F. Ryan against Herbert Zelenko, whom they had previously supported, largely on the basis of the two men’s views on federal aid to parochial schools. In Queens, the Liberals dropped the incumbent Democrat James Delaney from their ticket for the same reason. In another Queens district, an assistant national organizer for the Ancient Order of Hibernians, running for Congress, called on voters to “crush” the Liberal Party over the issue.39 Such ethnoreligious divisions were not absolute, of course, as shown by the election of Timothy Costello as chair of the Liberal Party to replace Paul Hays, who had been named to a federal judgeship. Costello fit the mold of all party chairs up to that point, in that he was a non-Jewish academic. Unlike Childs, Berle, Counts, and Hays, however, Costello was a liberal Catholic. A native of Brooklyn, he had been raised by his mother after his father died in the flu epidemic of 1918. He attended Fordham University and earned a PhD in psychology, a subject he taught for twenty years at New York

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University. Long active in the Liberal Party, he served as the party’s chair on Staten Island before becoming state chair.40 In the end, the Republicans won. Rockefeller easily defeated Morgenthau, though his plurality of just over 529,000 votes was perhaps not as overwhelming as he had hoped. The governor ran behind Javits, who carried New York City and won by nearly a million votes. The Liberal line supplied Morgenthau with 242,000 votes, the Liberal Party’s worst showing in a gubernatorial election since its first in 1946. The election proved that if a Democrat could not win a statewide race without Liberal support, neither was that support a guarantee of victory. Even with its obscure candidate, the Conservative Party gained 141,000 votes, or 2.44 percent, winning a permanent spot on the ballot, outpolling the Liberals upstate, and establishing organizations in all counties.41 In a generally dreary year, the Liberal Party also got dragged into a controversy over racial discrimination in the ILGWU and the garment industry. The union stood accused by the NAACP of tolerating, if not exacerbating, the relegation of African American and Puerto Rican workers to lower-skilled jobs and sectors within the industry. That the civil rights organization’s labor secretary and chief accuser, Herbert Hill, was a Jewish former Trotskyist lent the affair some of the bitterness of the classic internecine struggles of the New York Left. But the charges gained more traction when Adam Clayton Powell, as chair of the House Committee on Education and Labor, initiated hearings to investigate them. Powell, of course, was an old adversary of the Liberal Party, and the subcommittee that carried out the hearings was chaired by Herbert Zelenko, who had just been turned down for the Liberal nomination in his reelection fight with William Ryan. So, given the party’s close identification with the ILGWU, the charge by an unnamed party spokesman that the investigation smacked of “political blackmail” by politicians eager to take revenge had the ring of some truth to it. On the other hand, union officials—many of whom were also Liberal Party officers—performed badly on the stand, refusing to acknowledge blatant discrimination in the industry, or to accept that the union could have a role in ending it (strange for a union that prided itself on acting in the broad interests of the working class). A. Philip Randolph came to the defense of Dubinsky, who had testified for a total of more than five hours, and of the union, but the ILGWU’s progressive image was tarnished, and some of the stain rubbed off on the Liberal Party as well.42 With no high-profile elections scheduled, 1963 should have been an “off ” year for the Liberal Party. But the revised city charter that went into effect in January mandated a special election that year to fill two at-large city council

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seats from each borough under the new system that would guarantee representation to minority parties. In practice, each council would from now on include at least five non-Democrats. The system survived a court challenge arguing that it violated the state constitution’s provision that voters had the right to participate in elections for all elective offices in the relevant jurisdictions. (The problem identified by those who brought the suit was that those who voted for the candidate who came in first would have no role in electing the second-place candidate to the second seat.) The Liberal Party saw in the new system an opportunity to elect its own representatives to the council for the first time in nearly twenty years.43 The Liberals initially put their greatest hopes on the races in the Bronx and Brooklyn, where they had garnered their highest vote totals in the past. In the Bronx, the party nominated Howard Molisani, the manager of the large Italian cloakmakers’ Local 48, ILGWU. In Brooklyn, it named the less prominent Aaron Nussbaum, an assistant district attorney. The Liberals were also proud of their designee in Queens, the Reverend Robert Sherard, a Congregationalist minister, member of the Mayor’s Task Force on Youth, and chair of the NAACP chapter in the growing African American community in Corona–East Elmhurst. But although the party hoped he could increase the Liberal tally in Queens, he had little chance of winning.44 As it turned out, it was the Manhattan Liberal, Amos Basel, whom the Times described as “a bold [sic], bespectacled, 52-year-old lawyer,” who attracted the most attention and raised the highest expectations. Basel first gained notice by criticizing the semiannual outdoor Greenwich Village art exposition as an overly commercialized nuisance, and by calling for a ban on the Confederate battle flag, around which anti-civil-rights demonstrators had rallied in the city as well as in the South. But he scored even more points for tangling with Robert Moses over the price of children’s tickets to the 1964 World’s Fair, over which Moses presided. Joined by his Democratic opponent Paul O’Dwyer, Basel helped prompt a council investigation by calling for a steep discount for New York City schoolchildren. As an angry Moses lashed out at “assorted Santa Clauses” who did not understand the fair’s finances, Basel accused the “imperious” construction czar of forgetting that the fair was not his own private business. “Moses thinks he’s God,” quipped the Liberal, “but fortunately he’s only Moses.” Since Basel’s main rival for second place was the Republican Richard Aldrich, a cousin of Governor Rockefeller, the Liberals also tried to paint the race as a referendum on the governor’s policies. But it was his tussle with Moses that gave Basel some momentum going into the polls.45

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But the election proved a disappointment. The Liberal candidates gathered praise and endorsements from the Citizens Union, the New York Times, and a variety of unions and Reform Democrats (as well as from the Communist Party, which they quickly repudiated). But despite Liberal assertions that fed-up voters would turn away from the major parties, the public for the most part viewed the race apathetically. Although the Liberal candidates garnered 207,301 votes all told, none of them came close to second place. Basel managed only some 48,000 votes to Aldrich’s 100,000. Republicans took all five second-place seats.46 At the same time as it contested the council election, the Liberal Party led the struggle to establish a park on over 1,300 acres of land on the Rockaway Peninsula in Breezy Point, Queens. The park would necessitate the condemnation of thousands of vacation and year-round bungalows, mostly owned by Irish Americans, and the blockage of the construction of a large apartment development in the works for the area. Not surprisingly, the plan drew the opposition of local property owners and their representatives, including Congressmen Emanuel Celler and Hugh Carey. The Liberal Party saw a class issue in the fight: “Democracy in recreation,” it argued, “requires the creation of unrestricted public oceanfront resorts within the city in place of exclusive, private sanctuaries for the few.” Both sides saw race as an issue as well. The apartment developer argued that the park was “another cynical move to please do-gooders and minority groups,” while a proponent of the plan countered that opposition “mask[ed] one fear—integration.” Liberal, reform, and civil rights groups lined up behind the park plan, along with Mayors Wagner and, later, Lindsay. In the midst of demonstrations and counterdemonstrations, they prevailed on the city to take the necessary steps to allow condemnation. Eventually, a compromise was found that saved the bungalow community but not the apartment development.47

LBJ and RFK the Liberal Way With the presidential election looming in 1964, the Liberal Party committed early to backing “LBJ all the way.” Indeed, even before the assassination of President Kennedy, the Liberals had drawn close to Johnson, shoring up his liberal credentials and position on the ticket by inviting him to speak at their annual dinner when rumors had it that he was to be dropped by Kennedy. Now that Johnson headed that ticket, Rose, described with great understatement by the Times as a “frequent spokesman” for the Liberal Party, met with him in February and told him that “his war on poverty and his dedicated fight for civil rights may well be the high points of achievements of his

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generation.” Later that spring, Rose and Costello met again with LBJ in the White House and indicated that the party consensus for a full term was so obvious that they hoped to begin the campaign early. Rose and his wife rode with the president to several evening functions that day, while party chair Costello followed in a separate car with the protocol secretary—an indication not only of the Johnson-Liberal alliance but of the party pecking order.48 Speculation regarding who might fill the second spot on the ticket started early. Some argued that the national ticket should be “balanced” by reserving the vice presidency for a Catholic. The Liberal Party was dead set against this. The party condemned any religious test, however informal, arguing that JFK’s election should have “removed religion from politics once and for all.” Although the statement was drafted by Costello, himself a Catholic, it once again revealed the chasm between the political sensibilities of the Liberals, still predominantly Jewish, and those of many New York Catholics. Ultimately, the Liberal Party was more than happy with the selection of an old anti-Communist liberal comrade, Senator Hubert Humphrey, as Johnson’s running mate.49 Even more serious speculation centered on who might challenge incumbent Kenneth Keating for his seat in the US Senate. Keating was a moderate Republican who had won respect from liberals for his progressive stance on civil rights. He even had some support within the Liberal Party, but the party leadership was not satisfied with him. As Ben Davidson wrote to one disgruntled Liberal during the campaign, although Keating was all right on many issues, the party disagreed with “many of his votes on economic and social questions such as housing, education, economic policies and employment, etc.” Indeed, in his first four years in office, Keating had scored only a 55 percent liberal rating as measured by Americans for Democratic Action, whose views were close to those of the Liberal Party. A move to the left in 1963 and 1964 was not enough to sway the Liberal leaders, who wanted both a more consistent progressive and a Democrat who would support the administration.50 Early in the year, when Mayor Wagner made it clear that he would not seek a rematch with Keating, the Liberals announced that they preferred former governor Averell Harriman, now an undersecretary of state, or UN undersecretary general Ralph Bunche. But Harriman was getting on in years and had never proven himself a great vote getter, and Bunche was once again not interested. The Liberals were cool to the only politician actively campaigning early for the job, upstate congressman Sam Stratton, because they did not believe he would poll well in New York City. Among other potential candidates, the Liberals preferred Adlai Stevenson, but would have accepted

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the lawyer Louis Nizer, former ambassador Anthony Akers, or Comptroller Arthur Levitt. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the slain president’s brother, also explored the race, meeting with Rose, but decided not to enter it. Tensions arose between the Liberals, who wanted to put off a choice until after the national Democratic convention, and the Democrats, who wanted to commit to a common ticket early. Wagner met with both sides to smooth over the disagreement. Through it all, the Liberals insisted that they did not want to dictate to the Democrats, but only, as Rose put it, to ensure the nomination of a “highly qualified candidate, well versed in national and world affairs, who can make an important contribution in the Senate.”51 Civil rights issues dominated local concerns in 1964. Angry at the board of education’s foot dragging on integration ten years after the Brown decision, activists planned a one-day student boycott of the schools. The boycott would be organized by Bayard Rustin, who was close to the Liberal Party politically. Not all liberals, or even all African American leaders, were enthusiastic about the boycott, or about the chief sticking point—the idea that wide-scale busing of children would be necessary to achieve significant integration. Some, such as the United Federation of Teachers—close to the Liberal Party organizationally as well as politically—preferred to stress the infusion of massive resources to enable schools to better serve “disadvantaged” students, as well as housing integration, which would presumably lead to integration in local schools. The union angered many protesters when it refused to endorse the boycott, though it did promise to defend teachers who chose to stay away. For its part, the Liberal Party called for more aid to improve schools, but also stronger measures to achieve true integration. While one Liberal quoted in the press worried that busing would simply drive whites out of the system and therefore hurt the cause of integration in the long run, the party’s official position called for “a more flexible program of transportation,” as well as the pairing of schools and siting new schools with an eye toward bringing Black and white students together from surrounding neighborhoods. Meanwhile, the Liberals lobbied against bills in Albany that would have prohibited busing to achieve racial integration, called on Governor Rockefeller to convene a special session of the legislature to appropriate funds for local desegregation efforts, and endorsed the so-called Allen Report, commissioned by state education commissioner James Allen and well received by civil rights activists for its criticisms of the New York City Board of Education and its proposals to push desegregation forward. One party pamphlet concluded, “No means of achieving integration . . . should be overlooked.” In the fall, as white parents mobilized for their own boycott to prevent integration, the Liberal Party

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pressured the board of education, as well as both Senate candidates, not to give into the politics of fear.52 Fear also pervaded debates over rising crime and police brutality. In this context, the Liberal Party joined with the NAACP and the Congress of Racial Equality to support a bill introduced by city councilman Ted Weiss, a Reform Democrat, to create a civilian complaint review board to replace the current system of internal investigation of civilian complaints against the police. Writing to members of the council, the party argued that such a board would “promote healthier relations between the Police Department and all of the people it serves,” and thus “prove helpful within the overall effort of the city to provide just and equal treatment for all of its citizens.” But although the newly reorganized Central Harlem Club warned that “the long hot summer predicted for New York City will be longest and hottest in Harlem,” the party was not prepared for the riots that erupted there and in Brooklyn beginning on July 18. Indeed, the Central Harlem Club did not even meet between June 8 and the end of August. The Liberal Party’s most prominent civil rights activist, James Farmer, worked frantically to stem the violence and to channel the energies and grievances of rioters into constructive channels of protest, while at the same time excoriating the lack of responsiveness of the police and the city government to the needs of the Black community. But the party itself did not react strongly to the unrest.53 The situation was a little different in Rochester, where similar riots broke out on July 24. There, the party county committee met shortly after the riots in an expanded meeting that included some non-party members from the “Negro community.” Some actual rioters had also been invited, but failed to show up. The party decided to publicly scold the mayor, who had expressed shock that such things could happen in his city. His surprise, proclaimed the Liberals, was a “clear admission of ignorance of the real conditions in our community.” They called for immediate measures to improve housing conditions, fight job discrimination, and desegregate the schools. Privately, the upstate organizer Eli Diamond reported to Davidson that the issue had been police brutality, and that the riots had been spontaneous, with no sign of “leftwing (Communist or other Marxist)” instigation (a concern that had reached the highest levels of the national administration). As for the mayor’s claims that Rochester had already taken the lead to fix the problems, Diamond complained, “What has in fact been done in this community is peanuts. And what is most important as we see it is that there is no evidence that the white community has any real sensation of the facts much less a sympathetic awareness of the problems that are daily faced by negro citizens and what frustration too long endured can do to people in terms of demoralization

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and hopelessness.” He further complained that it was impossible to get dissenting views into the local press: “This is Rochester—reverting to type.” Finally, in September, the Monroe County Liberal Party also wrote to Robert Kennedy, by then the Democratic-Liberal candidate for senator, taking him to task for praising the city and local employers as leaders in race relations. The Liberals suggested that their candidate learn the facts.54 Kennedy had reentered the race at the end of July, when Johnson told him that he would not be considered for the vice presidency. He reached out to Rose, but also to many Democratic county leaders, declaring his candidacy only after getting their support, along with that of Mayor Wagner. Although it may seem strange in retrospect, RFK was not then particularly popular among Democratic reformers and progressives. Many saw him as too chummy with the county bosses, while some viewed him as a carpetbagger or remembered his earlier service as counsel for Joseph McCarthy. Nevertheless, he won over most Reform Democrats with the support not only of Wagner but of the reform leader Congressman William Ryan. The Liberals helped pave the way by persuading Wagner to come out for Kennedy and, pushed themselves by LBJ, by announcing on August 9 that they were willing to back RFK in the fall. At the Democratic convention, Kennedy easily beat out Stratton for the nomination.55 The Liberal Policy Committee endorsed Kennedy on August 18, and the convention followed suit two weeks later. As usual, there was much debate at the Liberal convention, though there was little doubt as to the result. Meeting at the Hotel Astor, the five hundred delegates at an open advisory convention argued for two hours, with some supporting Stratton and others backing Keating. But a delegate from Albany claimed to have seen Keating emerging from a limousine festooned with Goldwater streamers, and Murray Barron of Manhattan cried, “Do the Liberals want a man who would even dream of voting for Goldwater? Never!” Rebutting the carpetbagging charge, Costello argued that “in this state, we don’t ask where you come from. New York is more apt to ask what can you do?” The state committee then went into closed session and gave an “overwhelming majority” to Kennedy. For RFK, the Liberal imprimatur was important. As he later wrote to Costello, “In a campaign in which my motives were widely misinterpreted and my devotion to liberal principles often challenged, the Liberal Party time and again helped to clear the air and clarify the real issues.”56 In fact, the Liberals planned an energetic campaign to convince six hundred thousand people to “vote for LBJ and RFK the Liberal way.” With the help of sympathetic labor groups, now including many left-wing unions, such as the hospital workers’ Local 1199, that had not previously allied with

Figure 5.  In 1964, the Liberal Party backed the victorious Democratic ticket: Lyndon Johnson for president, Hubert Humphrey for vice president, and Robert Kennedy for senator. Courtesy of Hake’s Auctions.

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the party, the Liberals carried out a massive voter registration drive and distributed tens of thousands of flyers, buttons, and posters. The Liberals took charge of arranging campaign stops at middle-income and cooperative housing, including Rochdale Village in Queens, the Trump and Warbasse houses in Brooklyn, and Penn South in Manhattan, as well as at garment shops in Queens and Nassau.57 High points of the campaign included addresses by Humphrey and Kennedy at the annual party dinner on September 24, and an overflow rally at Madison Square Garden on October 15 with the president himself. The dinner at the Imperial Ballroom of the Hotel Americana was the largest in years, with 2,500 attending, and a list of speakers that included not only the two candidates but Walter Reuther, Mayor Wagner, and party leaders. An “interlude of humor” was provided by the cartoon artist and humorist Harry Hershfield, the “Jewish Will Rogers.” At the dinner, Kennedy portrayed the contest as “a struggle for the soul of America” and, parodying the Goldwater slogan (“A Choice, Not an Echo”), called for stronger opposition to the Republican agenda than Keating was able to provide: “What this state needs in Washington is a voice,” Kennedy remarked, “not a murmur.” Humphrey gave voice to the anti-Communist liberalism he shared with the Liberal Party: “With these hands we have destroyed Communist influence in American politics, with these hands we have laid the foundations of a good society, dedicated to freedom, justice and equality; with these hands we shall continue under the leadership of Lyndon B. Johnson to the joyous task of building a ‘Great Society’ worthy of our dreams.” Goldwater and his reactionary followers, Humphrey argued, were given to simplistic ideas about complicated realities. They said a “petulant no” to life, while Johnson, Humphrey, and liberals said “yes.” This was the choice before the American people.58 The fear of a Goldwater victory provided momentum for the campaign, adding especially to Keating’s handicap. As Costello expressed it, the election posed an unusually “clear confrontation between the forces of reaction and progress.” Wagner minced no words in telling the Liberals that the Goldwaterites were a “ragtag of home-grown Fascists.” Kennedy ran against Goldwater as well, making much of his opponent’s common party affiliation with the Arizona conservative, and espousing a clear liberal line couched in moralistic terms: “As long as there is plenty, poverty is evil. Government belongs wherever evil needs an adversary and there are people in distress who cannot help themselves.” Even so, Kennedy’s support among liberals and Jews was said to be soft, even within the Liberal Party. (At one table at the party banquet, an observer noted, eight of ten attendees planned to vote for Keating.)59

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The results of the election disappointed the Liberals. Obviously they were happy about Johnson’s landslide over Goldwater, and Kennedy’s convincing victory over Keating. But not only did the vote on Row C not reach 600,000, but it fell significantly short of the 400,000 or so votes tallied in 1960. The Times took note, calling the shortfall a “major surprise” and writing that Liberal leaders appeared “stunned” on election night. What was especially stunning was that the Conservative Party tally for senator was not far behind the Liberal vote for Kennedy. Altogether, the Liberals provided Johnson with 342,000 votes and Kennedy with 284,000, while the Conservative candidate gained 212,000. Davidson was forced to admit that the vote was “not what we expected or what we think our campaign effort merited.” He blamed the disappointing results on “the division among independents and liberals on the Kennedy-Keating issue,” problems with new voting machines in New York City, a concerted effort by some to push for a split Johnson-Keating vote, and, unconvincingly, the Johnson landslide aiding the Democratic Party. Putting a happy spin on the situation, Davidson pointed out that the Liberals had provided the margin of victory in three congressional and several legislative races. He could have added that the mayor of Farmingdale, Long Island, had earlier in the year been reelected unopposed on the Liberal line.60 The Liberal Party’s lackluster performance in 1964 was indicative of great social transformations in New York City that were undermining the party’s base. Even as early as 1950, party activists in the Bronx noticed that members and supporters were moving away to Queens and Long Island, and several years later, an observer noted the aging and passing of the “relatively small group of Jewish Socialist garment workers” who formed its main support. These processes, of Jewish upward and outward mobility and the diminishing of the Jewish working class, only continued in the 1960s. Moreover, the nature of Jewish identity in the city was also changing, becoming more insular, more fearful of crime and demographic change. At least some New York Jews were retreating from the kind of political progressivism that had been the source of the Liberal Party. Meanwhile, the Liberals proved unable to sink real roots into the rising African American and Puerto Rican communities, despite the presence of some Black and Hispanic members drawn mainly from the garment unions. As the party organizer Eldon Clingan recalled, for example, there was no African American participation in the Bronx, and efforts to form Puerto Rican clubs largely failed. The Liberal Party thus began to hollow out, a process that would, however, not become clear for a decade or so.61

Ch a p ter 8

Liberal Victory and Liberalism in Turmoil

In the mid-1960s, the composition of the Liberal Party’s leadership still reflected the party’s roots in the largely Jewish labor and Socialist movements. According to one 1966 study, for example, four of six Manhattan district leaders over the age of forty were former members of the Socialist Party. Another study showed that trade unionists made up over 40 percent of the party Policy Committee and about half of party leaders in general, with the greatest numbers coming from the ILGWU, the teachers’ union, and the hatters. Likewise, the leadership was disproportionately Jewish: the Manhattan county committee was 64 percent Jewish, compared to 44 percent of their Democratic and 28 percent of their Republican counterparts. Some were immigrants, others children of foreign-born parents.1 But changes in New York’s economic, social, and political landscape, on both the city and state levels, indicated that the road ahead might be rocky for the party. By the mid-1960s, the city was hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs, polarizing it into a white-collar corporate town, on the one hand, with a substantial nonunionized, underpaid, or chronically unemployed underclass on the other. A nervous ILGWU tried to keep jobs in the city by depressing wages. Still, the garment workforce—the key to the ILGWU’s and the ­Liberal Party’s power—declined by almost a third between 1950 and 1965.2 The party seemed to be aging along with its base. Eldon Clingan recalled that young people in the party “used to joke that the mortality table is against us,” 187

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and even executive director Ben Davidson lamented that “we could organize a Liberal Party in Florida and California on the basis of our retirees.” Reflecting on his own Italian immigrant background, Angelo Cordaro, director of the western New York region and secretary of the Erie County party, explained that his generation’s formative political experiences differed from those of younger activists: “Americans of this century base their protest on current history, here, while I remember the Savoys, fascism, the Church, Spain, etc. . . . Here, in 1913, I found Eugene V. Debs and HE represented everything that I had dreamed in thought.”3 In truth, with a median age of forty-nine, the party’s activist cadre was not all that old, but, as Cordaro suggested, younger party members had a different political and professional profile than their older colleagues. More were lawyers, academics, or other white-collar professionals, and few had past political affiliations to the left of Americans for Democratic Action. To a great extent they shared a demographic profile with the members of the insurgent Reform Democratic movement. They differed from the Reform Democrats in that they were paradoxically more ideological and more pragmatic, believing the Liberal Party to be both more consistent in its worldview and positions, and better disciplined and less factionalized, than the Democrats. The young Liberals shared with their elders a distrust of the Democratic Party, seeing even the reformers as too close to the machine. But at the same time, the Liberals were less interested in internal party democracy than their Democratic peers. Some also saw an easier path to personal advancement through the smaller Liberal Party. The statement of one—“I just felt that I could do more significant things quicker in the Liberal party”—expresses some of this ambiguity: was he referring to social change or his own professional career? While some young Liberals were very close to the Reform Democrats, others distrusted them.4 The Liberal Party also suffered from the general crisis of liberalism in the 1960s, as issues such as the Vietnam War, African American militancy, and cultural change came to define the political debate and divided liberals among themselves and from their base. Many Americans came to associate liberalism with a whole catalog of ills linked to a decline of common moral values. Most ominously for the party, Jewish liberalism frayed around the edges, as some in the community began to question what they saw as liberal neglect of Jewish interests in an exaggerated concern for the civil rights of others. In places like Canarsie, Brooklyn, Jonathan Rieder found, lower-middle-class Jews and Italians associated liberalism with “profligacy, spinelessness, malevolence, masochism, elitism, fantasy, anarchy, idealism, softness, irresponsibility, and sanctimoniousness,” all under the pressures of

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racial and cultural change. And while Jews did not repudiate liberalism to the extent some others did, many concurred with other white ethnics that Black equality was moving “too fast.” They adopted a defensive posture and many turned their backs on the liberalism they had once supported.5

The Best News since La Guardia By 1965, New York City suffered from a deep sense of malaise, if not outright crisis. A range of urban ills—from pollution to crime and civil disorder— seemed to be intensifying. As middle-class whites left the city, poor African Americans and Puerto Ricans arrived to face persistent poverty arising from discrimination and deindustrialization. Many New Yorkers now believed Mayor Wagner to be too unimaginative and too ineffectual to tackle these urgent problems, or even to manage the city’s fiscal affairs adequately. Publicly, the Liberal Party and Alex Rose stuck with Wagner, with whom they had attained great influence. But with the rank and file sharing the city’s impatience with the mayor, the leadership must have been relieved when on June 10 he announced that he would not run for reelection.6 The Liberals needed a new candidate. The Democratic field was wide open, and 1965 saw the first of what became the new norm of wild multicandidate primaries. The early frontrunner, regarded as Wagner’s favorite, was city council president Paul Screvane, but Liberal leaders regarded him as an “average type,” not a leader, and too close to the organization. Comptroller Abraham Beame was likewise seen as an uninspiring product of the Brooklyn machine, and Queens DA Frank O’Connor as a conservative ally of the Queens regulars. City councilman Paul O’Dwyer, brother of the late former mayor, was an old leftist nemesis of the party, and had little support even among Democrats. Many Liberals, especially in Manhattan, liked the West Side reformer Congressman William F. Ryan, but he, too, seemed like a weak candidate with little chance of winning the Democratic nomination. The danger for the Liberals was that if they committed early to a candidate who ended up losing the Democratic primary, they would be left virtually ticketless in November. The Liberals could also back a Republican—they had, after all, fused with the GOP in the 1945 and 1949 elections. Such a coalition seemed attractive to both sides. Liberal backing would give the Republicans the progressive imprimatur that was absolutely imperative if they hoped to capture the mayoralty in a city where they were a clear minority. And the Liberal Party could expect more influence and patronage in the administration of a Republican in whose election they had played an essential role than in that of a Democrat to whom they were less important.7

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After Senator Jacob Javits once again took his name out of consideration, the leading Republican prospect was Manhattan congressman John Lindsay. Tall and handsome, from an English and Dutch family, and the product of elite prep schools and Yale, Lindsay was in some ways an odd match for the immigrant Jewish trade unionists of the Liberal Party. But as a leader of the liberal wing of his own party, he was in other ways a perfect fit. In Congress since 1958, he had emerged as an outspoken defender of civil liberties and supporter of civil rights, one who also backed federal aid to education, the creation of Medicare, liberalized immigration laws, and expanded federal aid to the arts. As part of a Republican progressive tradition, Lindsay’s reformism had a moralistic element that led him to oppose political machines and stress the importance of ethics in politics. In 1964, he had refused to support the ultraconservative Republican nominee for president, Senator Barry Goldwater.8 Rose apparently had Lindsay in mind even before Wagner pulled out of the race, and the Liberal leader met with Robert Price, Lindsay’s top aide, right after the mayor’s withdrawal announcement. At the meeting, Price later recalled, Rose agreed to back Lindsay in exchange for one-third of all appointed jobs in a Lindsay administration, money for the Liberal campaign on Lindsay’s behalf, and a Liberal on the citywide ticket. Price agreed to these demands. Rose then told Price what the party’s official screening committee would ask the candidate at his interview, and what Lindsay’s answers should be. Price prepped Lindsay accordingly. When Lindsay realized afterward what had happened, he was upset at what he saw as his aide’s unethical actions, but by that time the mission had been accomplished.9 At the interviews, all went as planned. Ryan performed poorly and lost support. Screvane arrived, as Ed Morrison recalled, “on drugs, completely spaced out.” He hedged on a civilian police complaint review board and on whether there could be a Liberal on the ticket, and didn’t go over well. Not surprisingly, on the other hand, Lindsay performed very well. He expressed support for rent control and proportional representation on the city council, called for repeal of Taft-Hartley, and promised to retain the fifteen-cent transit fare. Perhaps most importantly, he stressed his desire to run a true fusion campaign and promised to consider a Liberal and a Democrat for the citywide ticket. Lindsay, recalled Dubinsky, had been “pretty much a stranger,” and a bit too “high hat,” but despite Screvane’s warning that Lindsay was a “Republican fake,” the screening committee recommended Lindsay to the Policy Committee.10 Some Liberals, especially from the ILGWU, expressed their misgivings at the Policy Committee meeting and at the citywide nominating convention

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that followed. At the convention, Luigi Antonini of the large Local 89 opposed the nomination of any Republican, arguing that the election of a Republican mayor would hurt the national Democratic administration and split progressive forces. Lindsay, proclaimed Antonini, was no La Guardia. Louis Nelson of Local 155 agreed: “You’re trying to put a kosher label on this Lindsay. . . . Furriers can take a dog and dye it so it looks like a mink, . . . but you still smell the stink.” But Dubinsky, who the journalist Mary McGrory said “look[ed] rather like an exhausted kewpie doll,” nevertheless gave a rousing speech for Lindsay: “You have 19 people on the policy committee who have no selfish interests and who are self-sacrificing with years of experience, and they come in 18 to one, so you are deciding they are making a mistake. You are smart guys, huh?” Ultimately the convention cast its weighted votes eight hundred to fifty for Lindsay.11 To round out the joint Republican-Liberal ticket, to stress its true fusion nature, and to appeal to dissident Democrats, both parties nominated Liberal state chair Timothy Costello for city council president, and the city housing official Milton Mollen for comptroller. Chair of the Housing and Redevelopment Board under Wagner, Mollen was close to Rose and consulted with him on housing policy. A Jewish Democrat who was willing to run on a Republican-Liberal fusion ticket that hoped to appeal to Jewish voters, Mollen also presented a slight problem in that he was a member of the Wagner administration, which would be a central target of the Lindsay campaign. Lindsay had even entered a report critical of Mollen into the Congressional Record. As Price supposedly put it cynically, “We’ve already got the good government people, now we’ll get the bad government people too.” Just as in 1961, the Liberals would campaign against the record of an administration in which they had played a role.12 Comptroller Abraham Beame won the Democratic primary. As short and unassuming as Lindsay was tall and charismatic, Beame had come up through the Brooklyn machine. An accountant, he had been city budget director as well as comptroller, and he ran on his résumé and reputation for competence. In a year in which party alignments seemed likely to be scrambled, he also emphasized party loyalty in the overwhelmingly Democratic city. If elected, he would be the first Jewish mayor of New York.13 The entry of the witty and urbane journalist William F. Buckley Jr. as candidate of the Conservative Party complicated the race. A big part of the Conservative mission was to overturn New York’s liberal Republican establishment, of which Lindsay was a prominent member. As the historian Timothy J. Sullivan notes, the party thus opposed him on an “almost visceral level.” Buckley attacked Lindsay for “spend[ing] his days . . . stressing

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his acceptability to the leftwardmost party in New York, the Liberal Party.” Running partly as the only authentic Republican in the race, Buckley also reached out to white, working-class, mainly Catholic Democrats angry at their party’s embrace of civil rights and social change. In one controversial speech, Buckley seemed, if not to justify the murder of the civil rights worker Violet Liuzzo, then at least to imply that civil rights workers got what they should have expected, if not what they deserved. Buckley, who was himself Catholic, also got into a tussle with his fellow Catholic Costello over church doctrine. In a speech at Fordham University, Costello implied that a Buckley proposal that “certain chronic welfare cases” be sent out of the city to experimental rehabilitation camps reflected bigoted and anti-Catholic attitudes. “When Mr. Buckley attacks the War on Poverty, when he proposes that we restrict our poor, he is in direct conflict with the teachings of our church and the history of its work in this city,” Costello declared. Buckley responded that to accuse him of anti-Catholicism was laughable. “Perhaps the Liberal Party has become so used to taking over New York political movements that now it proposes to take over entire religions,” he speculated. Buckley got the better of the exchange, as even the New York Times objected to the entrance of religion into the race.14 Lindsay enunciated many of the themes of his campaign in a speech before the Liberal Party annual dinner on October 13. Greeting those in attendance as “veterans . . . of great crusades for economic and social justice,” he reminded them of progressive support for La Guardia and distanced himself from the Republican Party, stressing instead the fusion nature of his race. Picking up on themes urged on him by Rose and Dubinsky, Lindsay warned against the “two Buckleys”—one, Bronx Democratic boss Charles, representing the “dead hand of machine politics” behind Beame, and the other, William, representing “the politics of reaction and knownothingism.” He described New York as a city “in deep trouble,” suffering from a “loss of nerve and self-confidence” and “torn between the desperate aspirations of millions of have-nots and the deepening anxieties of the haves.” Not only were many leaving the city in fear of crime and unrest, but the “great multitudes go through the motions of life.” The answer, argued Lindsay, was to give people a stake in society by making sure there was good health care, housing, schools, and recreation available to all. He called for a “great new community adventure” transcending party lines.15 Lindsay’s attacks on Buckley as a reactionary racist, and perhaps even a harbinger of fascism, were designed partly to appeal to Jewish New Yorkers, who were seen as crucial to victory. According to the Bronx party organizer

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Figure 6.  In 1965, the Liberal Party fused with the Republicans to support Congressman John Lindsay’s successful bid for the New York City mayoralty. Here Lindsay (second from right) poses with Liberal leaders Donald Harrington, David Dubinsky, Timothy Costello, and Alex Rose at the party’s convention. Kheel Center, Cornell University.

Eldon Clingan, “Essentially our vote was a Jewish vote,” and Lindsay was personally popular. “You take Lindsay into a playground or a park in the Bronx, with these old Jewish ladies, and, my God, they think he’s their son,” he recalled. “He just thrilled them in ’65.” Nevertheless, Rose and Price nervously consulted the pollster Lou Harris about fluctuations in Jewish support. Harris advised them that Lindsay should “drag in Buckley early in [the] campaign to bring Jewish votes,” and urged “shaming [the] Jewish conscience” by pointing out the difference between Buckley and himself. The Forward Association voted only narrowly to endorse Lindsay, but at least that meant the Yiddish daily, which still, Dubinsky noted, citing a Times editorial, had “influence . . . on certain circles of Jewish voters,” remained in the Liberal camp. Toward the end of October, Harris reported that he thought the Jewish vote was moving toward Lindsay, based on a conversation he had had with a rabbi and his wife who said that they had voted for Beame in the primary but would not do so in the general election.16 Touting Lindsay as “the best news since La Guardia,” the fusion campaign also made inroads among Reform Democrats. Lindsay’s spin of Beame’s party loyalty as fealty to the machine induced many reformers to either

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remain neutral or endorse the fusion candidate. Thus, the Village Independent Democrats and Congressman Ryan remained neutral, while the Liberal Henry Stern convinced his friend, the Greenwich Village Democratic district leader Ed Koch, to endorse Lindsay and wrote his statement for him. (The next year, the Liberal Party backed Koch in his race for a vacant city council seat.)17 Meanwhile, national Democratic figures, including President Johnson, watched cautiously from the sidelines, as prominent Liberals urged Johnson to stay away from the race. Dubinsky wrote to Johnson in June, reminding him of the old days when the American Labor Party had backed both the Democrat FDR and the Republican La Guardia. As the election approached, Lou Harris kept Rose apprised of the president’s thinking, telling him that Johnson had said that unless polls showed Beame winning, “I will not come near” the race. Vice President Humphrey did campaign for Beame, as did Robert Kennedy, but Johnson only gave the Democratic standard-bearer a late and rather tepid endorsement.18 The Liberals played a major role in the campaign from start to finish, with Rose a member of the inner circle. On September 16, a typical day for Rose, he spoke with Bob Price, Governor Rockefeller, the Post’s James Wechsler, Dubinsky, political department head Gus Tyler, Lou Harris, the labor leader Harry Van Arsdale, Ben Davidson, Liberal judge Matthew Levy, the Queens Democratic politician Leonard Stavisky, and John Lindsay himself. All told, the party spent about $300,000 on the race, and helped turn out many volunteers to hundreds of storefronts around the city. When Lindsay won the three-way race, the results were a major victory for the Liberal Party. Lindsay’s 293,194 votes on Row C gave him his margin of victory. The party had proved decisive especially in Jewish districts in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, where in Flushing the Liberal vote had exceeded that of the Republicans. All in all, the Liberals had provided Lindsay with a quarter of his votes, the party’s best showing since 1949.19 The Liberal Party’s role in Lindsay’s victory entitled it to some jobs. Right after the election, Lindsay expressed his “great regard and affection” for Rose, and vowed that he would “keep [his] promise 100%.” The Liberal Frank Arricale served on the mayor-elect’s transition committee, while Rose, Davidson, and Ed Morrison huddled over party recommendation lists. All three fielded calls from job seekers. Generally, Rose dealt directly with Price, who was slated to become a deputy mayor, and Morrison spoke with Lindsay aide Constantine Sidamon-Eristoff. According to Morrison, most positions went to Liberal activists who were “deserving” in that they were “capable” of doing the job and of helping institute party positions, but Rose might call

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Price about a personal “special need,” and everyone got some offer because, after all, there was always something that a person could do, even if he was not up to the job he wanted. As usual, Liberals defended their receipt of patronage as the way they helped influence policy, but as one Democratic operative put it, appointments were “political as ever, except this time more Liberal Party hacks have the jobs.”20 The most important Liberal appointee in the new administration was Timothy Costello, who was named a deputy mayor, an office that offered its own patronage opportunities. Henry Stern, told by Arricale that he could “have whatever he wants,” became executive director of the parks department and head of its office of cultural affairs. Rose also spoke with Price about Sanford Garelik, a veteran police officer and, as an assistant inspector, head of the Central Office Bureau Squad. When Price asked whether Rose was recommending Garelik for police commissioner, Rose responded that he had “brought him up as a friend to help.” Price promised to “speak to John about him.” Garelik became chief inspector, the highest uniformed position in the department. At one point, Rose asked his son Herbert if he wanted an appointment, but Herbert apparently declined.21 Nevertheless, relations between the party and Price were tense. Liberals felt excluded from what Davidson complained privately was shaping up to be a “Republican administration” and Morrison told Rose did not feel like a “partnership.” Rose complained directly to Price that the administration in formation was supposed to be a “two party coalition,” but that “one party makes all decisions [and] the other has to read it in the paper,” and on at least one occasion he brought his grievances before the mayor-elect himself. Price’s early influence was so great that when Dubinsky once mentioned to Rose that he wanted to talk to Price, and Rose asked him why he didn’t call the mayor, Dubinsky replied, “Price is the mayor.” In a conversation between Lou Harris and Rose, Price was characterized as the “Jewish DeSapio,” as he attempted to bully the Liberals into endorsing a Republican to fill Lindsay’s vacated congressional seat. Price’s involvement in national politics, including his role in efforts to defeat Illinois liberal senator Paul Douglas, a party favorite, exacerbated the tensions. By the end of 1966, though, Price was out as deputy mayor, partly as a result of growing differences in political sensibilities with the mayor.22 In addition to patronage, the Liberals were also interested in issues. They pressed Lindsay to maintain free tuition at the city colleges and the fifteencent transit fare. Rose and Dubinsky, consulting with a number of labor leaders, advised Lindsay on how to deal with the transit strike that hit the city the moment the new mayor took office. Costello helped to set up an Office

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of Collective Bargaining to deal with municipal unions, but the relationship between the unions and the administration remained difficult. During the 1968 sanitation strike, Costello expressed support for Lindsay’s actions, including calling in the National Guard. “Members of the Liberal Party are first New Yorkers,” Costello declared, “and are deeply interested in the welfare of our city.”23 Outside New York City, Liberal strength was spotty, though the proportion of votes it drew from outside the city in statewide elections was growing. In the 1940s, upward of 90 percent of Liberal votes came from the five boroughs. By the 1960s, nearly half came from outside the city, though 70 percent of Liberal enrollees still resided there. In urban centers such as Buffalo and Rochester, Liberals wheeled and dealed in local politics in an effort to provide the balance of power between Republicans and Democrats in elections. Liberals in Rochester and Buffalo supported efforts to elect more African Americans to local office. Likewise, the party was active in civil rights issues in Binghamton and Orange County. It showed some strength in places like Olean and Kingston, where one city councilman was a Liberal. The lower Hudson Valley counties of Putnam, Orange, Ulster, and Dutchess had an active Liberal organization. In other parts of the state, however, the Liberals were weak. The party, Davidson complained in 1965, had no organizations or county committees at all in Schenectady, Saratoga, Oneida, Clinton, Washington, and Warren. It was “at a standstill” in Rensselaer, and had “not yet made it” in Jefferson and Herkimer. In some conservative-leaning suburban and rural districts, in fact, Liberal support could be a liability for successful local Democrats, who preferred not to have their names on the Liberal ballot line. In others, Liberal organizations were so weak that they were vulnerable to manipulation by local politicians from the larger parties. The state party repudiated the Niagara County organization, for example, for its close relationship with conservative Republican state senate majority leader Earl Brydges, and even in urban Albany County, the state office had to beat back an attempt by the local Democratic machine to take over the Liberal organization. In Nassau in 1971, the Democratic machine barred its candidates from taking the Liberal nomination, forcing the Liberals to play the role of spoilers.24 Patronage was the glue that held the Liberal Party together just as much in areas outside New York City as in the city, though nowhere could match the Lindsay administration in its largesse. Angelo Cordaro, executive secretary-treasurer of the Erie County party, worked for Congressman Richard McCarthy and later as register of vital statistics. Party vice chair Joseph

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Franczyk also had a local government job. “We now have some recognition in the Democratic City Administration and some in the Republican controlled County Administration,” wrote Davidson in 1965. Eli Diamond, party regional director, based in Rochester, was on the Democratic payroll at the state legislature.25 The balance between the party’s self-perception and desired public image as an issue-oriented party and its dependence on patronage was as delicate upstate as it was in New York City. At one point, Davidson felt obliged to admonish Cordaro for being too blunt about the party’s material needs in communications with politicians, and to instruct him on the correct way to raise these matters. “With regard to the request to candidates for contributions,” wrote Davidson, “I think it is wise that this be done person to person and not in letter form. When it is requested orally, the request should be for a contribution to the Liberal Party Campaign Fund for the candidate’s election. It would be wise not to have this kind of request black on white. One can never tell when it can be taken out of context and used against us.” In another letter, he instructed more specifically, “Do not refer to a contribution of 5% or any per cent which can be interpreted as a kick-back. . . . Do not refer to any figure like ‘not to exceed $300 per year.’ This is very bad.” Concerning jobs, he wrote, “Besides, do not refer to positions we get as ‘patronage’ jobs. We do not ask for patronage; we ask for recognition of the fact that we have able individuals who, if appointed to government positions, can make an important contribution to the cause of good government and for the public interest.”26

“Settling for a Reverend” When Timothy Costello resigned as state chair to take a post in the Lindsay administration, the Reverend Donald Szantho Harrington took his place. Born and raised in Massachusetts, Harrington had been won over to Socialism while at Antioch College, joining the Socialist Party in 1934. As a pacifist he worked in the American Peace Mobilization, an organization close to the Communist Party that opposed the United States’ entry into World War II. But when the group adopted an interventionist position overnight after Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Harrington became a hardened anti-Communist. It was a “revelation,” he later recalled, how much the peace movement had been manipulated by the Communist Party. Long influenced by the liberal minister John Haynes Holmes, Harrington joined him as associate minister at Community Church in New York. In 1949, Harrington succeeded Holmes as senior minister.

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But Harrington grew impatient with the Socialists’ “endless debates over small points,” and joined the Liberal Party in the hope of engaging in effective politics without “ideological nit picking.” He later said, “I wanted my activities to be somewhat more politically relevant. I was attracted to the Liberal Party as an organization that seemed to be able to hold to a progressive ideal at the same time that it could apply itself to getting the best of the alternatives which might not reach that ideal.” He also admired Alex Rose as a political tutor. For the leaders of the Liberal Party, the Protestant minister who hailed from a family that had been in New England since the 1630s was quite a catch. (He adopted his Hungarian wife’s maiden name, Szantho, as his middle name when they were married.) When he became party chair in 1965, he joined a long line of gentile intellectuals in that position. As Dubinsky explained, “You see . . . we had professors! We had Counts! We had Berle! We had Jack Childs! We had Hays! And after Hays we had Bowman, again a professor, and after Bowman, Costello, another professor! Now we settle for a reverend!” Although he was state chair for two decades, many suspected that he was a mere figurehead for the man who really pulled the strings in the party, Alex Rose. Harrington provided an idealistic veneer to the party, but as one insider put it, one of his virtues was that he “knew when not to look.”27 Probably of more import for the future of the Liberal Party was the retirement of David Dubinsky from the presidency of the ILGWU in the spring of 1966. Secretary-Treasurer Louis Stulberg, a former cutter whose career as a union officer Dubinsky had championed, took over as president. Stulberg moved decisively to consolidate his own power by marginalizing Dubinsky and even, some said, humiliating him. If the Liberal Party was Dubinsky’s baby, Stulberg had had little use for it. Moreover, he disliked and resented Rose, who, according to one unnamed source, “would treat him like an office boy” whenever he sat in at party meetings. According to one source, Stulberg had said, “My biggest job right now is to show Alex Rose that I am president of the ILG.” Close to Democratic Party politicians, Stulberg also simply disagreed fundamentally with the Liberals’ minor-party strategy, and came to differ with the party over such issues as the war in Vietnam. Over the next several years, this combination of personal, ideological, and practical politics would slowly drive a wedge between the Liberal Party and the union that had been its main sponsor.28

The Rehabilitation of FDR Jr. At the beginning of 1966, Governor Rockefeller’s popularity was slipping, and he seemed vulnerable in his bid for reelection that year. Angry at his

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refusal to support Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater in 1964, conservatives viewed him as a thoroughgoing tax-and-spend liberal. But liberals were wary of backing a GOP candidate for the state’s highest office. Ordinary voters chafed at the high cost of New York state government, ignoring, Rockefeller complained, the benefits their tax dollars bought them. Polls showed Rockefeller running behind a number of potential Democratic challengers, including New York City Council president Frank O’Connor, Nassau County executive Eugene Nickerson, the businessman Howard Samuels, former mayor Robert Wagner, and former congressman Franklin Roosevelt Jr.29 O’Connor emerged as the frontrunner. But the Liberals didn’t care for him, despite his having appointed the party official Eldon Clingan to his staff, and his reported promise to Rose that the Liberal Party would be an equal partner in his campaign. The party’s objections to O’Connor stemmed, as usual, from a mix of practical and principled concerns: in the state legislature he had sponsored a bill that would have ended party cross-endorsements of candidates, a measure that would have posed an existential threat to the party. Moreover, he had voted to extend the residency period for welfare benefits, and was close to the hated bosses Charles Buckley and Brooklyn’s Irwin Steingut. (Or as one more cynical observer put it, “The Liberals want a piece of somebody. . . . And they know they can’t share anybody with Buckley and Steingut.”)30 But there were cultural reasons for the distance between O’Connor and the Liberals as well. As the candidate himself complained, “There is a strange suspicion among many leaders of the Liberal Party and Reformers concerning an Irishman. And to have an Irish Catholic DA—no matter what your record, no matter what your protestations, no matter what your promises— it’s hard to convince them you are really liberal.” Rose rejected the accusation of prejudice, pointing to a string of Irish Catholic candidates the party had supported. But Clingan, a Protestant from out west who had for some time moved in predominantly Jewish Socialist and Liberal circles, noticed that the cultural sea in which O’Connor swam differed markedly from that of leaders of the Liberal Party. Clingan recalled once attending a St. Patrick’s Day parade with O’Connor: I realize that I’m hearing about a world that I don’t know anything about. These women are talking about their children who go to colleges that I’ve never heard of . . . and talking generally about a world that I didn’t know anything about. One of the events that was part of the St. Patrick’s Day festivities was a dinner of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick. Well, I don’t know anything about the Friendly Sons of St. Pat-

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rick. The people I knew were members of the Workmen’s Circle. . . . So I had a sense of, you know, good God, there’s a whole world out there. And Frank O’Connor came from that world, and it was a different world.31 Roosevelt’s charge that O’Connor had been secretly promised the gubernatorial nomination in 1966 in return for pulling out of the mayoral race the year before provided additional coverage for the Liberals’ aversion to the Democratic frontrunner. Despite pressure from President Johnson and Vice President Humphrey, the Policy Committee voted unanimously on August 9 not to support O’Connor. The party also had qualms about some of the other Democrats. The leadership, for example, was angry at Samuels, a favorite of the Reform Democrats, for convening a secret, expenses-paid meeting of upstate Liberal chairs and activists. Samuels “had something to learn about ethics and honesty in dealing with politics,” Davidson opined. He was “opportunistic . . . anti-democratic . . . illiberal.”32 Nor were the Liberals ready to back the incumbent, at least not openly, despite some liberal elements in his record. Having worked in the Roosevelt administration, Rockefeller was hardly a regular Republican. He had supported ILGWU projects in the past, and even donated $1,000 to Franklin Roosevelt Jr.’s 1950 congressional campaign. Moreover, he had supported the expansion of Medicaid and Social Security and opposed anti-union “right-towork” laws. Nevertheless, though Dubinsky admitted an admiration for the governor, he argued that the Liberal Party could not back a Republican for governor because the GOP was still the party of big business. Harrington thought Rockefeller “too conservative,” but also too fiscally reckless and too interested in personal monuments and buying off the building trades unions. Others believed that supporting the Republican would land the party in too much hot water with the national administration. Finally, Rockefeller had feuded privately with the Liberals’ favorite Republicans, Mayor Lindsay and Senator Javits. Nevertheless, there were some within the party and outside it who believed that the party’s ultimate decision to run its own candidate was its part of a quid pro quo with the incumbent. In return for the Liberals’ undermining of the Democratic ticket, Rockefeller would oppose election reform that would threaten the Liberals’ influence.33 With O’Connor and Rockefeller ruled out, the Liberal Party needed a candidate. The votes on the party’s line for governor would determine its ballot position in every election in the state for the next four years, and the Liberals were looking nervously over their shoulders at the surging Conservative Party in the contest for Row C, so a strong showing was imperative.34

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An informal canvass of party units throughout the state showed overwhelming support for an independent race. But party leaders were unsure. At a news conference, Harrington and Davidson seemed especially “embarrassed and almost apologetic,” according to one internal report, when discussing the presumed frontrunner for the nomination, Franklin Roosevelt Jr. After his defeat in his 1954 race for attorney general, FDR Jr. had for a while focused his attention on his business as a lawyer and as an American representative of the Fiat/Jaguar automobile company. But he remained interested in politics and sought to claw his way back to its upper levels. After stumping for Kennedy in 1960, Roosevelt became undersecretary of commerce and then chair of the Equal Opportunity Commission, a position that enabled him to burnish his civil rights credentials. Along the way, however, he made some moves that tarnished his image among liberals, the most damning of which was his law firm’s representation of the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. Questions about Roosevelt’s temperament remained as well, though opponents still feared the Roosevelt “extra gland” that seemed to secrete charisma.35 In fact, Roosevelt had been lobbying the Liberal leadership for months, meeting with Rose, Dubinsky, and Harrington. He did especially well with Dubinsky, who, Roosevelt’s friends told the Post, “broke out the 20-year-old scotch” during Roosevelt’s visit to the union leader’s summer house in Hampton Bays, Long Island. Dubinsky, armed with polls that showed that FDR Jr. could get as much as a quarter of the vote in the general election, much more than enough to trounce the Conservatives, helped in turn to win over Rose. Although some qualms existed among the members of the nine-man screening committee, Roosevelt performed well, coming across as knowledgeable, progressive, and suitably contrite over his connections to Trujillo. He won over Harrington, who announced, “Many people look to the Roosevelt name and family for leadership. I’m one of those people. I believe that he has genuine public service to render.” Most importantly, Rose proclaimed that he was over his past reservations: “As Frank Roosevelt came to me in the last few months, I did see a grown-up and different person.”36 Although support from Rose assured Roosevelt the nomination, some in the party continued to grumble. A group called the Independent Liberal Association preferred O’Connor, as did many party members from Queens, O’Connor’s home borough. Former party chair Adolf Berle also backed O’Connor out of support for the Johnson administration. Rose, however, easily, if not quite accurately, dismissed Berle as “not even a member of our organization . . . a former honorary chairman who has been completely divorced from our organization for many years.” More ominously,

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Stulberg and other ILGWU leaders, while supporting an independent campaign, balked at backing FDR Jr., with Stulberg recalling Roosevelt’s failure to maintain his Liberal affiliation after the 1949 election. As a member of the party selection committee, Stulberg was said to have favored running Harrington, Costello, or the civil rights leader and Policy Committee member James Farmer. The ILGWU’s house intellectual Gus Tyler argued that although Roosevelt might bring the Liberals a large vote, he would fail to attract young people. ILGWU locals echoed their leaders’ skepticism concerning the apparent nominee.37 Some liberals outside the party also expressed skepticism regarding Roosevelt. The respected liberal columnist Murray Kempton regarded him as a political hatchet man, mercenary, and incompetent car salesman, and saw Rose’s inclination toward him as a cynical effort to manipulate an electorate frustrated by the lack of an adequate choice. “Now the voters are in despair about the choice for governor,” he wrote. “In despair, men fall back on tradition. And, Roosevelt is a great symbol.” Pete Hamill mixed his criticism of the Liberal choice with a backhanded defense of O’Connor. The “selfrighteous mountebanks of the Liberal Party” had chosen Roosevelt to run against O’Connor out of vindictiveness, prejudice, and a self-serving effort to preserve their power. Had O’Connor made deals? “Show me a politician who doesn’t make deals,” wrote Hamill, “and I’ll show you Norman Thomas.”38 Kempton argued that Rose and Harrington would have to convince the public that FDR Jr. was a reformed sinner, and they set out to do just that. They maintained that he had “grown up,” that he was knowledgeable about the issues, understood the meaning of liberalism, and had a serious commitment to public service. Interestingly, Rose reached for the same comparison as Hamill in defending his own choice, asserting that no one was perfect and that purity in politics led to irrelevance: “The Socialist party for many decades lived up to the purist point of view. They were very consistent—and they died from consistency.” Dubinsky chimed in by conceding that working for Trujillo had been a mistake for Roosevelt, but after all, “even crooks are entitled to a lawyer.” The rehabilitation campaign also received support from another senior liberal commentator, the Post’s James Wechsler, who had always been close to the party and who now contended that Roosevelt had “forgot more about liberalism than O’Connor . . . has yet managed to learn.”39 At the nominating convention on September 8, party leaders easily beat back one last challenge, which came when, according to the journalists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, “younger, more radical elements” produced a boomlet for James Farmer. Although Davidson protested that Farmer, who

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was not present, had supported Roosevelt within the Policy Committee and would be “embarrassed,” Rockland County delegate Leo Koch placed his name in nomination. Koch, whom one observer described as a “heavily bearded” college professor sporting a “Peace Is Patriotism” button, named Farmer “as one who has done more for civil rights than all of us” and who, unlike Roosevelt, “hasn’t made any mistakes that he has to apologize for.” In the end, the convention nominated FDR Jr. with what the Times perceived as a distinct “lack of enthusiasm,” with 209 votes of 321 registered delegates. Farmer received 33 votes, 12 delegates abstained, and 67 simply didn’t respond to the roll call.40 Murray Kempton ridiculed the Liberal Party’s claim to be freer of boss rule than the Democrats, especially when the Liberal convention was so clearly under the thumb of “comrade secretary” Davidson, who presided as chair, nominated the candidate, and sought to suppress other nominations, declaring that Farmer supported the “party’s candidate” when the party had not yet voted. For his part, Farmer explained afterward that he would have accepted a draft, but that he supported the nominee.41 To round out the ticket, the Liberals nominated Harrington for lieutenant governor, the incumbent Democrat Arthur Levitt for comptroller, and Simeon Golar for attorney general. A thirty-seven-year-old rising star in the party, Golar was a native of South Carolina who had come to New York as a child and graduated from City College and New York University Law School. A former subway change agent, he had served as assistant corporation counsel and deputy relocation commissioner. Invariably described as a “Negro candidate,” Golar criticized incumbent Louis Lefkowitz’s consumer fraud program as a public relations gimmick and took the Republican to task for fighting district reapportionment.42 As the campaign unfolded, Roosevelt’s forthrightly progressive positions on the issues dovetailed well with those of the Liberal Party. Proclaiming himself to be against “backroom” politics and promising a New Deal for the state, FDR Jr. supported a state “planning and development council,” expansion of the State University of New York and free tuition, a reduced voting age, the right of public employees to strike, a state jobs program, and a massive antipoverty campaign. The “great, overriding challenge of the coming decade,” Roosevelt proclaimed, was the “deepening gap between affluent Park Avenue and the impoverished, devastated Harlem.”43 But Rockefeller and O’Connor both also ran on platforms that could be described as liberal. The governor touted his efforts to build affordable housing, his expansion of Medicaid, and his support for an environmental bond issue. He called for more progress on civil rights and more aid to education.

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O’Connor opposed the sales tax in principle as regressive, and like Roosevelt suggested a tax credit for low-income people. Although the Liberal Party sought to reinforce his image as a conservative, he continued to protest that this was unfair and that he had come a long way in understanding, for example, the necessity for strong civil rights laws. Accordingly, he, like Roosevelt, strongly supported the proposed civilian complaint review board (CCRB) that was the subject of a bitterly divisive referendum in New York City that year. Rockefeller vacillated, first supporting the board and then backtracking.44 The review board issue helped to differentiate the Conservative Party candidate clearly from the others. Paul Adams was a little-known, soft-spoken, and cerebral political scientist and dean at Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester. He and his party stood squarely against the CCRB, and they made it a centerpiece of their campaign. They also called for budget and tax cuts, the repeal of Medicare, and an elected state education commissioner. Although they, too, opposed O’Connor, the Conservatives painted the Liberal rejection of the Queens Democrat as an outgrowth of anti-Catholic, anti-outer-borough prejudice. With these conservative positions, Adams campaigned energetically, hoping to draw support from disgruntled voters in both major parties.45 But with not much separating three of the four candidates on the issues, much of the campaign came down to personalities and styles. Here, Roosevelt appeared to come out ahead of O’Connor. Despite what the political reporter Frank Lynn called the Democrat’s image as an “oldfashioned, back-slapping politician with more than his share of blarney,” Lynn noted that his long-winded speeches and low-key approach on the stump made him seem “weary or bored.” His campaign got off to a slow start and never picked up speed. Despite some sense that Roosevelt’s efforts were tinged by a “certain amount of regret and bitterness” over unfulfilled promise, according to a friend quoted by the Times, he campaigned vigorously and came across as energetic and articulate compared to his Democratic rival. Wherever he went, it was clear that, in the words of a Long Island Press headline, the “Roosevelt name still [had] magic,” especially among those voters who remembered his father. Recollections differed concerning Roosevelt’s ability to control his private weaknesses. According to his running mate, Donald Harrington, he did not drink at all during the campaign. But campaign director Ed Morrison recalled that it was difficult to get the candidate out of bed in the morning after nights of drinking and womanizing.46

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The Liberal Party ran Roosevelt’s campaign, spending a total of $264,000, about half of the gubernatorial candidate’s total expenditures. If the polls were correct, it was money well spent. Although unrealistic early hopes for outright victory receded, it still looked in October like Roosevelt might pull in a million votes, easily outdistancing the Conservative Adams.47 Nevertheless, the ILGWU’s failure to support the ticket had to be worrisome. Although Rose and Stulberg denied that there was a permanent split, the union head skipped the nominating convention, and the Post reported that he “openly blasted” the selection of Roosevelt. Of the candidates, Stulberg lamented, “They’re all equally bad.” But it seemed during the campaign that he was neutral for O’Connor, as he argued the need to support the national administration and touted his increasingly close connection with President Johnson. Some ILGWU leaders, including Antonini, backed FDR Jr. Some tried to straddle the fence. But most locals and officers stuck with the union, despite Dubinsky’s efforts to persuade them to do otherwise. The ILGWU did continue to contribute to the party, but cut its usual donation substantially. And Stulberg warned that “there will have to be changes for us . . . to stay in.”48 There were, of course, other races at stake in the November election. One of the most important from the Liberal Party’s point of view was that for the position of surrogate in New York County (Manhattan). The surrogate’s court in New York distributed trusteeships over estates, appointed guardians for individuals ruled to be incompetent, and otherwise dealt with matters of property, wills, and inheritances. The surrogate judge thus had a lot of patronage to offer, and it was no wonder that political bosses evinced a keen interest in who would hold the job. In Manhattan in 1966, the Democratic leader J. Raymond Jones made a deal with his Republican counterpart, Vince Albano, to support Judge Arthur Klein for the position. The Liberals at first put forward Judge George Starke, a Republican who was a drinking and card-playing pal of Rose and had once, as a favor to him, hired Ed Morrison as law secretary. But after Rose met Bobby Kennedy for drinks at the Prince George Hotel in mid-May, the Liberals entered into a coalition with Kennedy and Democratic Party reformers behind Judge Samuel Silverman. Jones later regretted not bringing Rose in on the Klein deal, but some observers, including the psychologist Kenneth Clark, saw the opposition to Klein as a racist challenge to the authority of Jones, who was Black. Farmer defended the Liberals, and said the issue was whether Blacks would follow the lead of political bosses. Probably the best analysis saw Kennedy using the surrogate race to make a name for himself

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as a machine “dragon slayer,” and Rose using it to “own himself a surrogate” and to cozy up to Kennedy.49 Elsewhere, the Liberal Party teamed up with the Republicans to elect the Albany journalist Dan Button to Congress as a reform candidate against the local O’Connell machine, and provided the margin of victory to two Democrats, one on Long Island and one upstate. Finally, the Liberals claimed credit for electing the Democrat Ed Koch to the New York City Council in a special election, and putting the first African American on the New Rochelle Town Council. Conveniently forgetting the election of Button, who replaced a Democrat, Rose wrote to Hubert Humphrey to claim credit for electing “the full contingent of Democratic Congressmen from New York State.”50 But on the state level, results were mixed. Preliminary returns showed that Roosevelt had received nearly half a million votes. This was the highest Liberal tally ever, and a surprising number of votes had come from outside New York City, making the Liberals, as Davidson put it, a “state party.” Moreover, the campaign had attracted some new people to the party, grateful that it had given them, as one said, an “opportunity to cast my vote for everything I really believe in.” In a paid ad in the Times, Harrington trumpeted the party’s success at having “stopped the Buckley-Steingut machine cold” and stood up against the “white backlash” by backing the CCRB. Above all, the party had held on to Row C, a “resounding victory” even in defeat. “I hope [the Democrats] learned [their lesson],” taunted Dubinsky. “In order to win an election campaign New York State, they’ve got to have the support of the Liberals.”51 But Roosevelt’s half-million votes were far fewer than party leaders were hoping for. And in December, more than a month after the election, came the news that the final official tally put the Conservatives ahead of the Liberals. The Liberal Party sank to Row D. This was, said the Times, a “considerable embarrassment” to Rose, who, according to the World-Journal-Tribune, had “dwindling adherents.”52

“Don’t Be a Yes Man for Bigotry” One factor that contributed to the large Conservative vote in 1966 was a referendum on the ballot in New York City that would rescind a mayoral order establishing a mixed civilian-police CCRB. This issue, touching on fears of rising crime, demands for civil rights, and strained racial and ethnic relations, brought a massive turnout of voters that influenced the gubernatorial contest. Conservative Adams was the only candidate in that contest to favor the referendum and oppose the board, giving him an advantage among the many

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who turned out to vote yes. The Liberal Party played an active role in the coalition trying unsuccessfully to beat back the referendum, but may have alienated some of its traditional constituency in doing so. As it was nationwide, crime in New York was becoming an issue that would drive a wedge between liberalism and its traditional constituencies. The struggle over the CCRB took place against the backdrop of both rising crime and sharpening challenges to the racial status quo. A board that heard civilian complaints of police misconduct, including brutality, had existed in New York since the early 1950s. But the civil rights movement gave rise to demands that civilians be added to the board, which consisted up to then entirely of members of the police force. As a mayoral candidate, John Lindsay had proposed not only to add officers to fight crime, but also to modernize the force. One of Lindsay’s proposals was to add civilians to the CCRB, a move he thought would win the trust of disaffected minority communities and thereby not only achieve a measure of social justice but also cut down on crime. In office, Lindsay issued an order creating a seven-person CCRB, with a majority of four civilians. As part of the mayor’s winning coalition, Liberals played a role in setting up the new board, with Harrington serving on the search committee for members. The board’s new executive director was Harold Baer, a lawyer with close ties to the Liberal Party.53 Reacting furiously to what they viewed as an antipolice measure, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA) and the Conservative Party moved to override the mayoral order through a referendum on the fall ballot. The campaign that followed became a referendum on what the cardinal issues facing the city really were: crime and disorder or racial inequality and police brutality. Liberals tended to see the contest as a confrontation of the forces of progress against those of reaction, while conservatives saw it as a struggle to defend law, order, and rightful authority. PBA ads pictured the police as the only defense against rampant violence and crime. The racial overtones sometimes became explicit: “I’m sick and tired of giving in to minority groups with their whims and gripes and shouting,” complained the PBA president at one point. An ad for the main antireferendum (pro-CCRB) group countered, “Don’t be a yes man for bigotry: vote no!”54 The Liberal Party joined with such groups as the New York Civil Liberties Union, the teachers’ union, the Citizens Union, the NAACP, the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, and the Anti-Defamation League in calling on voters to defend the CCRB by voting down the measure. In addition to Mayor Lindsay, Senators Javits and Kennedy opposed the initiative, as did gubernatorial candidates Roosevelt, O’Connor, and Rockefeller.

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Along with the other members of the coalition, the Liberal Party charged that the proposal would “prohibit any civilian participation in a review board” and make “the Police department . . . the only agency immune to outside inquiry and . . . a law unto itself.” In any case, the current CCRB had “proved its value” in helping to “ease tensions in minority communities.” It had been “scrupulously fair” and resulted in “no laxity in police performance.”55 The referendum against the CCRB passed by a two-to-one majority, with only Manhattan and a few predominantly Black and Hispanic districts dissenting. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of white Catholics, with their conservative sensibilities and often close ties to the police, voted yes. More shocking from a liberal point of view was that a majority of Jews, who had long formed the backbone of the New York Left, also opposed the CCRB, despite the position taken by their communal organizations. The loss, especially, of the Jewish working and lower-middle class in the outer boroughs— the Liberal Party’s core constituency—augured badly not only for the party’s ticket that year, but for its future. One observer even claimed to have seen anti-CCRB posters in the windows of two Liberal storefronts.56 The 1966 elections also chose the delegates to the ninth New York State Constitutional Convention, which had been mandated by a 1965 referendum and would convene in the spring of 1967. Support for a convention came from leaders of both major parties, although liberals and Democrats were more likely to favor the streamlining and “modernization” of the unwieldy 1938 constitution. Some, including the Liberal Party and the ILGWU, were also concerned about the issue of “apportionment,” or the drawing of legislative and congressional district lines. By the 1960s, the current procedures favoring rural areas seemed unfair to city residents in general, and especially to minority voters. The Supreme Court finally invalidated New York State’s apportionment plan in a lawsuit that the Liberal Party helped develop and in which Donald Harrington was a plaintiff. Another party to the suit, David Wells, an ILGWU staffer and one-time Liberal Party candidate for Congress, emerged as a significant expert on this issue. The Liberals therefore got behind the effort to call a convention. Despite tensions over the gubernatorial race, the Liberals and Democrats quickly entered into negotiations for a joint delegate slate. What emerged in a deal brokered by Senator Kennedy was an at-large ticket of ten Democrats and three Liberals—Donald Harrington, David Dubinsky, and Alex Rose. Two Democrats ran on their own, and the Liberal Party backed two Republicans: Javits and J. Lee Rankin, corporation counsel in the Lindsay administration. In district delegate elections, the Liberal Party sometimes fused with the Democrats and sometimes ran its own candidates.

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Liberals ran on a platform calling for a constitution that was a “short, workable document of basic law,” a position they shared with many, including the Conservative Party. They also called for a “permanent, non-partisan commission to apportion legislative districts” with variation of no more than 5 percent; consideration of a full-time unicameral legislature; the elimination of “referenda on bond issues”; tax and fiscal provisions to encourage flexibility; and strong home rule for cities. They pledged to stand “on guard against attempts to weaken the democratic process in such areas as separation of church and state, civil liberties, and citizen control of governmental institutions.”57 Democrats took the majority of seats, and the Liberals ended up with a delegation of three. Among the minority of delegates who were not lawyers, the Liberals prepared assiduously for the assignment with the aid of a special party committee, a staff that included Wells on loan from the ILGWU, and several paid consultants on the issues of education, civil liberties, and taxation.58 The issue of “separation of church and state” emerged as a contentious one during the campaign and absorbed much of the delegates’ attention as they met from April through September 1967. It took the form of a debate over repeal of the so-called Blaine Amendment, a provision that had been in the New York Constitution since 1894 and on the statute books since 1844, which banned the use of state funds for schools “wholly or in part under the control or direction of any religious denomination, or in which any denominational tenet or doctrine is taught.” The debate recalled the culture wars of the 1940s more than the racial ones of the 1960s, as Catholic organizations lined up for repeal, and Jewish, mainline Protestant, and liberal groups against. But the lines were not clearly drawn: Some Orthodox Jews, Lutherans, Episcopalians, and Orthodox Christians favored repeal, as did Reinhold Niebuhr, the Protestant theologian who had been associated with the Liberal Party, and former party chair Timothy Costello. Most civil rights groups favored retention, but some Black Catholics sought repeal. Most importantly, the Democratic Party favored repeal, while the Republicans favored a separate referendum on the issue.59 At the convention, the Liberal delegates were especially outspoken on the issues of apportionment and the Blaine Amendment, with Harrington taking the lead in debates. On apportionment, delegates rejected a call for an eight-member Non-Partisan Congressional-Districting Advisory Commission. On Blaine, Harrington proposed to retain the ban on state support for parochial schools, a stance he tied to the defense of separation of church and state but also to broader issues such as school integration and

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the relationship between federal, state, and local governments. Otherwise, the Liberals favored the vote for eighteen-year-olds, with Harrington arguing that those old enough to be subject to conscription should be allowed to vote; a nine-member state board of elections, with no more than three members from any party; and direct primaries for judgeships, a position they shared with the Conservatives. The Liberal proposals on all of these issues failed. After a five-hour debate, Harrington’s resolution to retain the Blaine wording went down on a vote of 130–48. His rearguard attempt to ban state funds for the construction of nonpublic schools also failed.60 Given these disappointments, as well as the failure of the new constitution to ban wiretapping and to include a code of ethics for legislators, the Liberal Party decided to oppose its ratification in the statewide referendum that followed the convention. They were joined in opposition by the New York Civil Liberties Union, the League of Women Voters, the Citizens Union, the New York NAACP, teachers’ and public employees’ unions, some Reform Democrats, and the Conservative Party. With such a broad coalition, the Liberal Party could not take that much credit when the constitution went down to a nearly four-to-one defeat at the hands of the voters.61

Alex Rose, Boss In the wake of the disappointing 1966 campaign, the ILGWU led a move to “reform” the Liberal Party, focusing its dissatisfaction on Alex Rose and the party structure that allowed him to dominate decision making. Although Stulberg denied that he wanted to oust Rose, union representatives spoke of an effort “to break Alex’s one-man rule.” At what the journalist Victor Riesel reported as a “tense two-hour meeting” of the Policy Committee, Stulberg called for a reorganization “to broaden the base and democratize the party.” The Policy Committee voted to appoint a committee of nine to report back on such efforts. But when the party leadership arbitrarily expanded the committee to eleven members, Stulberg complained that the move made a “mockery” of the Policy Committee’s decisions and exemplified the problem of manipulation that the committee was supposed to address. He announced that he would boycott the committee’s meetings. ILGWU vice president Charles Zimmerman resigned from the committee altogether.62 The committee’s report, delivered in February 1967, ultimately put a positive spin on the party’s recent experience. The FDR Jr. campaign had drawn a large vote to the Liberal ballot line and the party had polled more votes

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outside New York City than in it. If not for the CCRB issue, which stimulated right-wing turnout, and the last-minute desertion of voters to Rockefeller, the Liberal vote would have been higher (and the Conservative vote lower). The need now, committee members argued, was to capitalize on the campaign by recruiting new members, especially outside the city and among minorities, youth, and labor. It called for an effort to revitalize party clubs and for more involvement in local issues. It also noted the need to broaden the party’s base of funding, with no source providing more than 10 percent of the budget, an implicit acknowledgment that the party would not be able to rely on the ILGWU in the future.63 A central issue, unacknowledged by the report, was Alex Rose himself. Many party members considered him a “political genius,” and admired him especially for his ability to create the impression of a coherent party when one in fact barely existed. Some Liberal clubs by this time were purely social or “card-playing clubs,” what Eldon Clingan remembered as places for unionists and other members to “get away from their wives.” While some clubs also liked to hear guest speakers, when it came to elections, few were effective. (Clingan recalled that members of Local 10 would appear at Bronx County headquarters, making sure their union business agent knew they had picked up Liberal campaign material. They would then go out and dump the material.) As one observer put it, “Just look in the phone book—how many Liberal clubs are there that even have a phone? The whole thing’s fantastic, it’s all done with mirrors, rubber bands and paper clips. I’ve heard Alex say: ‘I’m trying to conduct a symphony with just a harmonica for an orchestra.’ He’s outlasted all these clowns, the DeSapios and so forth—for 30 years.”64 What exactly motivated Rose, who had a reputation for inscrutability as well as shrewdness, was something of a mystery. It certainly wasn’t money. But was it power? Or was he an ideologically driven idealist? In 1966, the crusading journalist Jack Newfield still believed Rose was “committed to liberal legislation and oriented toward good-government,” comparing him favorably to the “conservative and patronage-oriented” Stulberg. But Ed Morrison believed that Rose’s interest in politics had much to do with the game itself. Picking up on the orchestral metaphor, Morrison recalled, “His real interest in the party was power, was being able to manipulate. He used to call it orchestration. He was the orchestra leader and each part of the orchestra, he would be able to bring into a concert and finally to a crescendo, by his own manipulation, and that to him was what was so important, and accomplishing a result.” If Rose backed someone like Robert Wagner Jr., it was not because of the mayor’s progressive pedigree or his program. “It was not that,” according to Morrison. “It was essentially power.”65

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Whatever his motivation, there was little doubt that Rose ruled within the Liberal Party. As one local activist put it with considerable understatement, “On our level, or even on the county level, there haven’t been that many times when [his] opinions have been disregarded.” Or as Henry Stern recalled, “It was Mr. Rose [who made decisions], as far as I know. . . . The higher I rose in the Liberal Party organization, each step I learned that decisions were made at the next higher step.”66 The Policy Committee was a key tool in Rose’s orchestration of party affairs. The committee, with somewhere between twenty-five and forty members, in fact had no statutory powers or even official existence, but it constituted the inner circle of party leaders. Members were co-opted onto the committee through a process vague even to them. As one reported, “I don’t even know how I got on the policy committee. I was called once and asked if I wanted to be on it, and I said yes, and then I was called again and told I was on it.” As an aide to Harrington, Clingan similarly discovered that the party chair himself had no idea how he had joined the Policy Committee or what its legal basis was. Clingan recalls asking himself, “ ‘What in God’s name are we dealing with here that the state chairman doesn’t know how he got to be on what clearly is the politburo of this organization?’ And of course, the answer had to be that this group consisted of people that Alex co-opted. And, of course, he didn’t co-opt anyone who was apt to give him any trouble.”67 In bringing an issue before the Policy Committee, Rose carefully orchestrated the discussions. First he would talk it over with key advisers within and outside the party—perhaps Harrington, Dubinsky, Henry Foner, Post editor James Wechsler, Post publisher Dorothy Schiff, the pollster Lou Harris, or party counsel Herb Rubin. Then the Administrative Committee of about eight people would caucus before the full committee met to debate and vote. Harrington would lead off the meeting by presenting the agenda, and Rose would follow up with a long, intricate, and often fascinating analysis. Impressions of what happened next differed among participants. Davidson recalled “very thorough democratic discussion[s].” But others thought there was little energetic debate: “Everybody’s tired,” one reported. “They don’t care.” Whether because of his brilliant persuasive powers, or because he was the only one who devoted his entire energy to the party, or because committee members had been handpicked to agree with him in the first place, Rose usually carried the day. To Harrington, this process was necessary because the Liberals were always in danger of going the way of the Reform Democrats, “torn apart by factionalism,” and Rose was trying to keep the Liberals a “coherent party.” Rose taught

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unity and discipline, exactly what Harrington had come to the Liberal Party looking for.68 Party director Davidson also remained a key part of the machinery. Henry Stern remembered Davidson as a short and “intense” man, and Clingan recalled that he served as the “ideological conscience” of the party, with primary responsibility for working out its detailed platforms. Nevertheless, he seemed to some to have retained the political habits of the Communist he had once been, even if his ideological commitments had changed. At the end of a discussion, he would lay down the party line, recalled Henry Stern: “And I remember thinking to myself, ‘This is what it must be like. . . . ’ ” Above all, Clingan noted, Davidson was “extremely committed to the party as an institution,” and like Rose, on whose orders he often acted, he was fascinated by the game of “political chess” that took up much of the ten to eleven hours a day he worked at party business.69 The growing rift with the ILGWU complicated Davidson and Rose’s job of keeping the party afloat on a practical level, and intensified the party’s aura of machine politics. Estimates of what percentage of the party’s $250,000 (off-election-year) budget had been provided by the union ranged from 25 to 50 percent, but as the union curtailed its contributions, the party had to look elsewhere for funds. As Stulberg asked, “Who’s going to give them money now?”70 The issue of funding thus became bound up with that of patronage. Jobs doled out to party members by elected officials whom the Liberals had helped elect were among the most effective “rubber bands and paper clips” that Rose had to keep the party together. To those who thought this reliance on patronage unseemly for a party that thought of itself as a reform movement, Rose had a ready answer: “The truth of the matter is: we consider it very important to have people in public life whom we consider publicspirited. It would be very foolish to fight for political liberalism and then have nonliberals mandated to carry it out. It’s like a union fighting to organize the workers and then not asking for recognition.”71 But more and more now, the party approached its appointed officeholders and potential candidates for money. Morrison, who as chair of the Manhattan organization was responsible for doling out patronage during the first Lindsay administration, noticed that “now . . . Alex . . . approaches all of the office holders and says, ‘I need your money.’ So if you’re getting X amount from government, ‘I want at least a tenth, and if possible, I want more.’ ” With the party so dependent on officeholders for money, it became less fussy about whom it nominated. Morrison started to notice that Rose was referring strangers for jobs, people who had never been active in the party

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and who demonstrated little commitment to its program. Nominations for judgeships also depended on a willingness to give large contributions. And that, he recalled, “to me was buying a nomination. What was the difference between that and giving it to [Tammany leader] DeSapio?”72 In the mid-1960s, the Liberal Party thus seemed to be both at the peak of its influence and an integral part of any progressive coalition. But the loss of union support, and the apparent gap between the party and its traditional base on such issues as the CCRB, created dangerous weaknesses. Both of these trends only accelerated in the second half of the decade and into the 1970s. The Liberals reelected Lindsay almost all on their own, giving them even more clout in the mayor’s second administration. At the same time, the general crisis in American liberalism engendered by the Vietnam War and racial strife threatened to split the party and alienate it further from its former supporters.

Ch a p ter 9

Wars in Vietnam and at Home

The Vietnam War proved as divisive and damaging to the Liberal Party in New York as it was to the liberal coalition throughout the country. The party’s struggle to come up with a coherent position regarding the war exposed all sorts of internal divisions: although lines were blurred, younger members, upstate branches, intellectuals, and those inclined to find common cause with the New Left and New Politics movements opposed the war. Those for whom the party’s founding anti-Communism remained a cardinal principle, many of them former Socialists and Lovestoneites, supported the war. Most significantly for the party, its drift into the antiwar camp threatened its treasured relationship with the Johnson administration and exacerbated tensions with the ILGWU, whose officers generally took a pro-war position. As the 1968 presidential election approached, the politics of war and peace intersected with the party’s electoral maneuvering. As battles over the war in Vietnam heated up, so did racial conflict in US cities. Events such as the clash between the New York teachers’ union and proponents of community control over public schools further exacerbated divisions among liberals in general, and within the Liberal Party in particular. Since the United Federation of Teachers had ties to the party, that conflict, too, separated the Liberals from their traditional trade union base. Ironically, it was just at this time that the Liberal Party achieved its greatest electoral success, almost single-handedly reelecting the mayor of New York 215

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City. That victory ultimately proved hollow, however, as it alienated the party even more from its traditional voters, and exposed its growing inclination toward patronage politics.

The Liberals’ Vietnam Party chair Donald Harrington was the Liberal Party’s most prominent antiwar voice. In April 1966, he gave a sermon entitled “David and Goliath in Vietnam,” in which he compared the US to Goliath. He saw the war as part of a long struggle by the Vietnamese people for independence, and charged the American people with the moral duty to stop the war through negotiations and free elections. There was no way for the US to win the war, he argued, and in the meantime it sapped resources from antipoverty and foreign aid programs.1 The national administration was clearly concerned with developments in New York. Shortly after Harrington’s sermon, Johnson invited Rose to the White House, where in a meeting that started at lunch and lasted three hours through LBJ’s normal rest period, the president seemed anxious and depressed, and concerned about his image with liberals in general. Johnson attempted to convince Rose that he was a “man of peace” who wanted to improve life for the Vietnamese people while coming under pressure from right and left. Afterward, Arthur Goldberg, US ambassador to the United Nations, and well known to Liberal leaders from his days as a labor lawyer, called the party’s Policy Committee to a secret briefing in New York. Goldberg tried to convince those present to line up behind the administration, but the meeting simply demonstrated the party’s divisions, as Harrington delivered a scathing attack on American involvement in the war, while ILGWU president Louis Stulberg defended it. Rose concluded that the party should stay away from the issue.2 But pressure was building on Rose to at least allow debate. Young people in the party were especially upset that it had not taken a clear stance on what was becoming the defining issue of their generation. Harrington impressed on Rose that a forthright position was necessary to keep ahead of the Reform Democrats and attract a younger following. Another influence on Rose was Henry Foner, president of the New York Joint Board of the left-wing fur and leather workers’ union. A former Communist and an outspoken critic of the war, Foner made a strange bedfellow for Rose, who had cut his teeth on the anti-Communist struggle in the hatters’ union. But by that time, Foner was a vice chair and member of the Policy Committee of the Liberal Party, and Rose respected him for his intelligence, integrity, and independence.

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According to Ed Morrison, Foner also reminded Rose of his own leftist origins. Foner and others pushed a reluctant Rose toward an antiwar position.3 Finally, at the end of November 1967, the Policy Committee called for a “discussion period” on Vietnam in party units in an effort to find a consensus in advance of a delegated state conference on the issue to be held in the spring. The conference was never held, but a lively, even vituperative, debate did take place. Upstate, a movement pushed for a “peace and freedom platform” and the nomination of peace candidates, with some supporters also seeking an alliance with the “New Politics,” as the space where antiwar liberalism intersected with the New Left was coming to be known. The Broome, Cayuga, Cortland, Livingston, Monroe, Onondaga, Otsego, Rockland, and Tompkins County organizations endorsed a resolution calling Vietnam the “great moral issue of our time,” and demanding a halt to bombing and “all offensive military activity”; negotiations with North Vietnam and the Viet Cong; National Liberation Front participation in a coalition government; aid to rebuild Vietnam; and a general reassessment of foreign policy. Similar resolutions came from Columbia and Saratoga Counties, and the VillageChelsea Club in Manhattan. The Greater Newburgh Liberal Party, on the other hand, adopted a weaker statement, saying simply that the Liberal Party was “not in agreement with the United States’ present policy in Vietnam.”4 From the beginning, ILGWU members active in the Liberal Party followed Stulberg’s lead in believing that the party “ought to back the administration.” The union chief argued, “If we don’t fight the Communists in Vietnam, we’ll have to fight them in a worse place.” He called explicitly on managers of locals to take a pro-war line as well. Local party clubs where the union had influence, such as in the Forty-Fourth Assembly District and several in Queens, as well as the Oswego County organization, also voted to back LBJ on Vietnam.5 In Rockland County, the fight over the war in Vietnam spilled over into a contest for control over the local party and illustrated the sorts of social and political cleavages that typified the fight. There, a pro-peace group led by Professor Leo Koch attempted to oust the county chair Irving Astrow, an ILGWU officer. Astrow made plain his contempt for the “peaceniks” and “highly individualistic . . . well intentioned, but politically naïve Liberal intellectuals” who reminded him of ALP “infiltrators” and “borers from within.” The struggle came down to a messy meeting, at which Astrow presided and ruled in his own favor on a challenge he had brought against the votes of the opposition. After the meeting he brought Koch and his wife, Mary, up on charges of “usurping the power of the Chairman, . . . fostering an organization within an organization, and deliberately acting

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against the best interests of the Liberal Party.” But a party grievance committee ruled the charges “too nebulous . . . without factual foundation.” Finally, in June 1968, the peace camp won control of the county, a result that Astrow blamed on the lack of a trade union membership. Party members, he complained, are “largely professionals, small businessmen, intellectuals” without “self-imposed discipline.”6 Finally, on June 29, 1968, the state committee voted “overwhelmingly” to demand an immediate cease-fire during negotiations, and to oppose any continuation of the war in Vietnam or “similar wars elsewhere.” The resolution, according to the New York Times, met with a “long ovation.” The committee members also urged the party leadership to push for a peace candidate for president even before the major parties made their choices. A resolution to back Minnesota senator Eugene McCarthy, introduced by Brooklyn College professor emeritus Leroy Bowman, was ruled out of order as it would have bypassed the party’s normal endorsement procedure. At the same meeting, Stulberg was dropped from the list of party vice chairs.7 Tensions over Vietnam continued as the party debated its role in the 1968 presidential and senatorial races. In the presidential race, the most forthright Liberal opponents of the war favored McCarthy, who as an antiwar insurgent in the Democratic primaries energized many young antiwar activists and rallied the party’s peace wing against the Democratic administration. Former party chair Timothy Costello was among a number of prominent party activists who formed Liberals for McCarthy. Several party chairs in upstate counties also joined. Some upstaters also signed a petition warning that “under no circumstances will we support Lyndon Baines Johnson,” earning them a rebuke from Harrington, who, despite his antiwar position, believed Johnson was salvageable if he changed his policy in Vietnam.8 By contrast, Stulberg and the ILGWU backed Johnson until the president withdrew from the race, forced out by McCarthy’s strong challenge in the New Hampshire primary. Once Vice President Hubert Humphrey entered the race in April, Johnson supporters transferred their allegiance to him. In many ways, with his long pro-labor, pro-civil-rights, and staunchly anti-­Communist record, Humphrey was a natural fit for the Liberal Party, ­especially, perhaps, its older members.9 But both candidates had faults in the eyes of Liberal leaders as well. Neither Humphrey nor McCarthy made a particularly good impression when they appeared before the party executive committee. Davidson, for example, admired McCarthy for his forthright position on the war and for attracting young people to the political process, but found him “either evasive, or very general and abstract” regarding domestic issues. McCarthy, Davidson

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recalled, “really didn’t seem to be much interested in the problems of the people.” On the other hand, hamstrung by his position in the administration, Humphrey was not sharp on the Vietnam issue. Harrington likewise thought McCarthy a “dubious” candidate, and “not a stable enough person.” Rose, according to Harrington, did not “take his candidacy too seriously,” the kiss of death for any chance of a party endorsement. A few Liberals supported Bobby Kennedy when he also entered the race.10 Nevertheless, most Liberals certainly felt comfortable with Humphrey and believed he would be a good president, even if McCarthy had a better position on the war. In any case, Liberal influence on the national Democratic nomination was minimal, and the Liberal Party was forced to follow the Democrats’ lead. Although some members of the Liberal state committee protested that the vice president was “a tired man thinking only of his own advancement” and a supporter of the LBJ policy in Vietnam, the committee officially nominated Humphrey, by then the Democratic standardbearer, on September 4, by an overwhelming vote. Rose, Dubinsky, and Harrington joined the joint Democratic-Liberal slate of electors.11 Vietnam was also the focus of the Liberal Party’s first-ever statewide primary, which came in the race for US Senate. By his own admission, the incumbent, the liberal Republican Jacob Javits, had at first been an “ardent supporter” of the war. But by the beginning of 1967 he adopted a moderately antiwar stance, demanding a halt to bombing, and negotiations with both North Vietnam and the Viet Cong. The Liberal Party had helped to start Javits’s political career when he ran for Congress in 1946, but had not backed him in any of his previous statewide races. In 1968, though, Rose and others were said to favor backing Javits early on as one of the most liberal Republicans in Congress and a proven vote getter. Supporting one of the several Democrats seeking their party’s nomination, on the other hand, was risky—if the Liberal nominee lost the Democratic primary, the Liberals would be left without a viable candidate.12 But Javits’s candidacy became a focal point for disagreement about the war and other issues. On the left, some party activists, including the leaders of a number of upstate counties, favored Manhattan borough president Percy Sutton. Not only was Sutton outspokenly antiwar, they argued, but as an African American he would strengthen the party’s credibility on civil rights and other issues of social justice. As the party members James and Ann McNamara wrote to Rose, Sutton was “more liberal” than Javits and would be able to speak “eloquently about the problems of the cities, poverty, and civil rights.” Moreover, he would not support Republican presidential nominee Richard Nixon in the general election, as Javits would, would “raise the

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aspirations of black people,” and had indicated his willingness to run on the Liberal line even if he lost the Democratic primary.13 Stulberg also had qualms about supporting the Republican Javits. He conceded that the incumbent’s record was good and that he would likely win. “I would not want Javits at our meetings as our candidate if he speaks for [Nixon] elsewhere,” the union leader told the Policy Committee. Such a situation, he told the press, would be “embarrassing to both the party and its candidate.” Moreover, there was the real danger of a Republican victory in the presidential race, and Stulberg feared that Liberal support for Javits in the Senate race would strengthen the national Republican ticket. Instead, he argued, the Liberal Party should run its own candidate, perhaps the party stalwart Benjamin McLaurin.14 At a March 28 meeting of the Policy Committee, Rose appealed for unity in the interest of the national Democratic ticket. Committee members rehashed the arguments for Javits, Sutton, and a hypothetical independent candidate. Interestingly, while Leroy Bowman, who was white, backed Sutton on the principle that you “back a Negro when you can,” the two Black members present, McLaurin and Simeon Golar, both opposed Sutton. Golar favored an independent candidate, while McLaurin thought it necessary to use the Senate race to support LBJ, though he was vague on what that would mean. Dubinsky supported Javits and compared the situation to that of 1928, when as a member of the Socialist Party he had felt unable to campaign for Norman Thomas over the pro-labor Democrat Al Smith. When the dust settled, the committee recommended Javits over Sutton or an independent candidate, and three days later, the state committee officially designated Javits as the party’s candidate. Sutton withdrew from the race.15 But the dust had not completely settled. Nor was there unity, as Rose had hoped. The ILGWU and pro-war forces had nominated Murray Baron, a labor lawyer close to the union, as their own candidate for the Senate. A left-wing Socialist activist in the 1930s, Baron was a former Manhattan chair of the Liberal Party, and called himself an “anti-Communist liberal.” He had won enough votes from the state committee to gain a spot on the ballot for a primary against the official designee, Javits. A “strong hawk” on Vietnam, Baron nevertheless sought to establish himself at least rhetorically on the left. Working closely with the ILGWU during the campaign, he argued that he was more consistently liberal than Javits. He also pointed out that the Republican had seemed reluctant to accept Liberal Party backing. Baron received the support of former party chairs Adolf Berle and George Counts, as well as trade unionists inside and outside the ILGWU.16

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While Baron campaigned actively, Javits was in truth a reluctant candidate. He had wanted to avoid a primary, and now demanded assurance from the leadership that he had rank-and-file voter support. In a compromise with Republican county chairs, who did not want him to take Liberal support at all, he agreed to run a passive campaign mostly through the mail. The Liberal leadership, though, campaigned on his behalf, stressing the senator’s liberalism, the attacks he suffered from the Conservative Party and right-wing Republicans, and his opposition to the war. Harrington quoted the Times in calling Baron a “super hawk.”17 Everyone recognized that the primary was part of a broader struggle for control of the party. Each side claimed to be the true voice of progressive reform. Working through the Committee for Responsible Liberalism, the ILGWU put up slates of candidates for a number of county committees and called for “a party based on principles—not patronage.” Stulberg pointed to the Liberal endorsement of Republican state senate leader Earl Brydges, as well as of Javits, as evidence of a backroom deal between Rose and state Republicans. Rose countered that Stulberg would turn the Liberal Party into “a tail for the Democratic machine” or a second Tammany. Manhattan leader Morrison called for a “broad coalition of liberal and labor forces” against “one union control” of the party. In an attempt to put some muscle behind the exhortations, Morrison sent a vaguely threatening letter on his law-firm stationery to opposition candidates for county committees (he told them there were “serious legal errors in the petitions which give rise to your candidacy”). Symbolically, the ILGWU’s Gus Tyler was dropped as Nassau County honorary chair. Leadership fights took place in Rockland and Queens. Harrington and Stulberg exchanged angry letters.18 Javits defeated Baron in the primary, and went into the general election as the Republican-Liberal candidate against the left-wing Democrat Paul O’Dwyer and the Conservative James Buckley, William’s brother. Buckley saw Javits’s alliance with the Liberal Party as fodder for the Conservative campaign to purge the GOP of its left wing, including the liberal senator. Positioning himself, as his brother had in the mayoral race three years earlier, as the only real Republican in the race, Buckley announced that his goal was to “liberate New York’s Republican apparatus from its obsessive concern for the good opinion of Alex Rose and the fundamentalist liberals of the New York Times.”19

Teachers’ Strikes In addition to Vietnam, the 1968 election campaign was waged against the backdrop of heated local conflict over the issue of community control in

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the experimental school district of Ocean Hill–Brownsville, Brooklyn. The experiment in community control came about as the result of a confluence of interests. On the one hand, pressure came from Black and Puerto Rican parents, especially in poor neighborhoods, who had grown disillusioned with the apparent failure of the movement for school integration, and angry with the board of education bureaucracy and the upstart teachers’ union, which, they felt, had given the cause of civil rights only lip service. Desperate to improve the education of their children, they now spoke of running their own schools in ways more conducive to learning for minority students. Meanwhile, the Lindsay administration discovered a quirk in the formula for state funding of education that meant that breaking the city’s school system into smaller districts would bring more money. Besides this, Lindsay sympathized with minority communities and the poor, and was inclined to favor structural reform of the system to promote their empowerment.20 With the help of the Ford Foundation, three experimental districts were set up, with unfortunately vague powers and responsibilities. Under the leadership of superintendent Rhody McCoy, a mild-mannered Black nationalist educator, the district board in Ocean Hill–Brownsville was determined to interpret its mandate in the broadest possible way and to revolutionize the education of African American and Puerto Rican students. The community board’s assumption of broad powers, including the power to hire and fire school personnel, clashed with central board of education regulations and with the central board’s contracts with the teachers’ union. The union was the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), headed by Albert Shanker. The UFT traced its roots to the Teachers’ Guild, which had split from the Communist-influenced Teachers’ Union, a schism in which several figures later associated with the Liberal Party—including Ben Davidson and party chairs John Childs and George Counts—played central roles. The UFT under Shanker continued to espouse a brand of social democracy close to that of the Liberal Party. Pro–civil rights, its main program for school reform, More Effective Schools, called for an infusion of resources into poor and minority areas, and was in large part devised by the union activist Simon Beagle, a former Lovestoneite and member of the Liberal Party. Above all, the UFT very much reflected the New York Jewish culture from which perhaps 85 percent of its membership sprang—liberal, intellectually combative, committed to meritocracy, and deeply invested in the educational establishment.21 In April 1968, McCoy sent a letter to nineteen educators, informing them of the “termination of [their] employment” and threatening that “not one of these teachers will be allowed to teach anywhere in this city. The black

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community will see to that.” His action prompted a district-wide strike in defense of the teachers’ right to due process in accord with their contract. After board of education president Rose Shapiro, an integrationist with close ties to the Liberal Party, failed to resolve the crisis, the union again walked out, this time citywide. On-again-off-again teachers’ strikes disrupted the school year through November, as each attempt to reach a resolution collapsed. Violence and disorder swirled within and around the district schools. By the end of October, the union had moved beyond its demands for due process to push for the dismissal of the community board.22 The strikes bitterly divided the city along racial, ethnic, class, and political lines. Teachers and their supporters complained of antisemitic threats and epithets, and the union reproduced half a million copies of two antisemitic flyers it said had been distributed in the district. Supporters of the community board countered that some 40 percent of the replacement teachers were Jewish, and that Shanker’s move in broadcasting the anonymous flyers was a cynical one designed to stir up hatred. One of the most notorious instances of antisemitism in the crisis—the reading of an antisemitic poem over radio station WBAI—actually occurred after the end of the strikes.23 The strikes proved particularly challenging to liberals and radicals, faced as they were with a choice between two causes they had traditionally supported—those of labor and civil rights. The clash between community control and union rights also hit the Liberal Party. Shanker was a member of the Policy Committee, although he seldom attended meetings and had little influence in the party. But although the UFT had never played the same role in the party as the ILGWU, many Liberal leaders over the years had been educators and teachers’ union activists. Moreover, the middle-class, Jewish members of the union, many of them from working-class backgrounds, were the party’s prime constituency. As Ed Morrison recalled, the strike was discussed and debated at all levels of the party. The majority, he said, “basically were with the teachers.” But the party was also heavily involved in the pro-community-board Lindsay administration. Moreover, Harrington, Davidson, and some others were inclined toward community control. John Childs, no longer involved in the party, wrote to Ben and Eve Davidson that “not all problems can be resolved by [the strike’s] use. The present educational problem is an aspect of the complex urban-industrial problems and drastic reconstruction is now required in our urban centers.” Davidson circulated the letter among party leaders.24 As cochair of the Emergency Citizens Committee to Save School Decentralization and Community Control, Harrington was especially associated with the pro-community-board side, though his position was more nuanced

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than that of many. “I believe,” he wrote, “that both school decentralization with community control and job security with due process for teachers are important. . . . Any effort to destroy such school decentralization or teacher unionism would be evil and detrimental to education.” Behind the scenes, he complained to Rose, Dubinsky, and Davidson that the UFT “should never have allowed itself to become pitted against the communities and parents whose children its members must educate.” He hoped the labor movement would convince Shanker that he was making a mistake. Finally, Morrison recalled, “there were many like me who fell in the middle, depending on who argued the last. I kept changing my mind from flipping to flop. It was a very, very difficult period, because you couldn’t get a clear sense of who’s right and who’s wrong. It was right on both sides and wrong on both sides, at least from my perspective.”25 The official Liberal Party position, though it used language similar to Harrington’s, actually fell closer to that of the UFT. Calling the struggle in the schools a “great tragedy,” it supported the principle of “job security and due process” for teachers. It stopped short of calling for community control, expressing support instead for “school desegregation and community participation.” The party called on the mayor, the board of education, and the UFT to find a solution to the crisis that would incorporate those principles. Nevertheless, Shanker angrily quit the Liberal Party because it did not forthrightly repudiate what he called the “extremist” stance of its chairman. He also lashed out at the party’s close ties with Lindsay, whom he disliked personally as well as politically.26 By the time the crisis came to an end, largely on the UFT’s terms, New York’s liberal coalition had taken a largely self-inflicted beating. The Liberal Party’s specific brand of liberalism—social democratic and for racial equality through integration—had shown itself to be particularly outmoded. ­Moreover, the Liberals’ probable standard-bearer in the mayoral election later that year, the incumbent Lindsay, had been widely criticized for his weak handling of and belated reaction to the crisis. Among lower-middleand working-class Jews in the outer boroughs, he was now widely viewed with intense suspicion, if not hostility.27 Amid the layers of crisis, James Farmer made a bid for Congress as a Republican-Liberal. Farmer, the former national chair of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), was honorary vice chair of the party. He had sounded out a possible race in a number of districts before settling on the newly formed, majority-Black Twelfth Congressional District, centered in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Early in 1968, Farmer met with party representatives, including Davidson and Golar, the latter a potential rival for the

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district nomination. Davidson reported that Rose, Harrington, and Leroy Bowman were all “delighted with the general view of things and the possibilities.” In order to protect his candidacy, when Farmer spoke at the Brooklyn Liberal luncheon on March 10, Bowman warned him not to talk about Vietnam because the party was so divided on the issue. Farmer’s Democratic opponent was Assemblywoman Shirley Chisolm, backed by the local machine.28 Campaign literature stressed Farmer’s leadership role in the civil rights movement, and proclaimed that he was “not the invention of a political machine” like his opponent. His rhetoric was militant, warning white America of a coming violent “blacklash” if conditions in the inner cities were not improved through a massive investment of capital and energy. “He toured the district,” Chisolm recalled, “with sound trucks manned by young dudes with Afros, beating tom-toms: the big, black, male image.” His concrete proposals, though, were well within the liberal tradition. While Farmer saw a role for the private sector in rebuilding the slums, he believed that government needed to “assume its proper obligations to the welfare of Americans” by providing the capital to do so. He also proposed legislation to offer tax incentives and penalties to induce banks to provide such capital as well.29 When it came to the Ocean Hill–Brownsville school desegregation conflict then roiling the city, Farmer was uncompromising. He supported community control “with as little modification as possible,” arguing that the teachers’ demands for “due process” threatened to infringe on the rights of the parents and community to exercise control over their children’s education. On one level, he proposed to take the Ocean Hill–Brownsville schools out of the city system and put them in direct relationship to the federal or state government. On a local level, he called for community protective squads and a “parents’ planning patrol” to guard against “the spontaneous and traditional racist attitudes of most teachers.”30 As a nationally known activist, even a celebrity, Farmer attracted support from Blacks and whites alike well beyond the confines of the district. Farmer faced a number of obstacles as well. One was that he and Chisolm did not differ greatly concerning the issues: both opposed the war, both supported community control. The fact that he was running on two tickets—one headed by Humphrey, the other by Nixon—was confusing to voters. (Farmer eventually endorsed Humphrey on the Liberal line.) He did not have deep roots in the district, while Chisolm did. And in the polarized atmosphere of 1968, the fact that his wife, Lulu, was white threatened his “black image.” Farmer responded that “geographical boundries [sic] don’t define the problems of the Black and Puerto Rican communities,” and friends urged Lulu

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to take an active role in the campaign, especially to make connections with Black churchwomen on the basis of common motherhood of Black children. Farmer parried accusations of antisemitism by associating the anonymous flyers making the charge with the George Wallace and Nixon campaigns.31 In the end, Farmer’s celebrity was not enough to overcome these obstacles, and Chisolm defeated him by a nearly three-to-one margin.32 Statewide, the results were a mixed bag for the Liberal Party. In the presidential race, Humphrey carried New York with about the same percentage of votes on the Liberal line as LBJ had taken four years earlier. Javits won an overwhelming victory over the Democrat Paul O’Dwyer, and the Liberal line recorded its highest percentage of the vote ever in a senatorial contest. Moreover, although Javits had not needed votes on the Liberal line to win, the party could derive some satisfaction that it had helped him shore up the liberal wing of the Republican Party in the state. All in all, Liberal Party leaders saw this as a good showing in a highly fractious year. Buckley’s tally on the Conservative line must have given them some pause, however. His 17 percent of the vote far outstripped the Liberal vote.33 Another ominous development was the widening of the rift between the Liberal Party and the ILGWU in 1968, and the final break the following year. Although Stulberg reported that support for the Liberal Party was “out the window” in the union, he also vowed to fight on. “Nobody can read us out of this party,” he declared. “We’re staying in.” But in the counties and clubs, the leadership faction beat back challenges mounted by the ILGWU during the 1968 primaries. At a tumultuous county committee meeting in Queens in July 1968, J. Stanley Shaw, “our candidate” as Davidson called him in a report to Harrington, defeated the ILGWU’s candidate in the election for county leader by a vote of 201–73, although the credentials committee had reported only 201 members present. Union people walked out angrily. A similar scene took place in Brooklyn, where the majority—made up of job holders, their friends, and millinery union people—dominated. The leadership group also won in Manhattan and upstate, while the ILGWU retained strength on Long Island. By March 1969, when a new Policy Committee was named, all ILGWU people were dropped.34 By that time, the union had all but made its decision to leave. At a January general executive board meeting and in staff memos, the case against the Liberal Party was laid out: It was no longer a party of principle but of jobs, it had thumbed its nose at the ILGWU, its membership had stagnated, it had failed to form a national third party, and it had fallen behind the Conservative Party. Moreover, it divided liberal and labor forces instead of uniting them, and often played the spoiler and helped elect conservative Republicans.

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Finally, the board voted to disaffiliate the ILGWU from the Liberal Party once and for all. In doing so, the union charged the party with being a “tail on the Republican kite,” and condemned the Lindsay mayoralty as “catastrophic.” The decision was conveyed to the union membership. Former La Guardia aide Reuben Lazarus wrote to congratulate Stulberg, quoting the Little Flower as once having told him in private conservation, “A new political party is good for about two years after which it becomes just another political party looking for jobs and the right to trade favors—or worse.”35 The leadership tried to put a good face on it, but the departure of the ILGWU had serious consequences for the party. Harrington brushed away the decision as unimportant—it just ratified what had been the case for years, and the union had long since stopped contributing much to party coffers. (Indeed, the journalist Victor Riesel reported that whereas the union had once provided as much as 40 percent of the party budget, it now gave maybe 4 percent.) Replacing that money, not to mention the mass base the union provided, was already proving difficult. This is clear in a letter from Rose to Pat Gorman of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, which had become the parent union of the furriers. Writing on millinery union stationery, Rose asked for money, arguing to the leftleaning Gorman that “the Liberal Party’s influence is due to the fact that it retained the best traditions of the Socialist days with a sense of political reality.”36

Turning Back the Backlash At the beginning of 1969, Lindsay faced a difficult path to reelection. His first term had been one of turmoil, including strikes of transit and sanitation workers, and teachers; rising crime; clashes over the Vietnam War; and polarization around cultural change. At the beginning of the year, a blizzard paralyzed the city, and many New Yorkers, especially in the outer boroughs, blamed the mayor for the city’s ineffective response. Unlike many other US cities, New York had not seen major race riots, a point that Lindsay and his supporters sought to emphasize, but racial tensions were high and several small-scale disturbances put the city on edge. There was a general sense that Lindsay had failed to stem the urban malaise that he himself had helped identify four years earlier. If anything, many New Yorkers believed, things had gotten worse.37 Liberal observers saw New York’s problems as manifestations of a national urban crisis, bigger than one city or one man, but even they felt ambivalent toward the mayor. They gave him credit for paying attention to the problems

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of the poor and of minorities, for keeping a lid on civil unrest, and for serving as a spokesman for the nation’s cities. They continued to like his urbane style. But they had a hard time mustering much enthusiasm. One problem was that Lindsay remained a Republican, though one increasingly out of step with his party. From the 1968 GOP convention, where Lindsay had been rumored to be a possible running mate for Richard Nixon, he called Alex Rose to tell him, “I’m trying to make myself as unappetizing as possible.” Rose said he understood. Lindsay ended up seconding Spiro Agnew’s nomination for vice president, as his aide Sid Davidoff expressed the wish that “we were back in New York on the streets.” As Nat Hentoff wrote, Lindsay “hasn’t lived up to anyone’s expectations, but he’s done better than anyone expected.”38 Jews remained a crucial constituency for both Lindsay and the Liberal Party. Rose took the mayor and his new campaign chief, Richard Aurelio, to meet with the pollster Lou Harris at the latter’s home in Riverdale. There Harris briefed the three on divisions within the Jewish community, which ranged from highly educated, well-off liberals, concentrated especially in Manhattan, to the “ultra-Orthodox” in Brooklyn. In between were the working- and lower-middle-class Jews of the outer boroughs who had been the base of the Liberal Party, and New York liberalism in general, but were now increasingly coalescing with other ethnics into a white “backlash” voting bloc. Letters received by Dubinsky and other Liberal leaders provide something of a gauge of the mood of these voters. As one wrote in ungrammatical, unpunctuated Yiddish: Three years ago you recommended Mr. John Lindsay for mayor He is not capable of being mayor. Jews and Gentiles are not happy with him The riots the crime in the city are his fault He doesn’t send police as he should You see the teachers strikes took ten weeks and the garbage strike was 3 weeks He is a enemy of the unions He wants to break all unions He wants to break the civil service This is what a Republican mayor can do New York needs to have a Democrat mayor Mr. Lindsay fit to be an actor in a theater. 99 percent of New York do not want him So I want to ask you that the Liberal Party should not recommend him, but a Democrat mayor so we will be happy. And another in more formal English: “I want you to know, as a voter who has always voted for Liberal Party candidates, that I will never again support the Liberal Party if it approves and supports Mr. Lindsay. This man is an unmitigated catastrophe for New York City, especially insofar as educational policies are concerned.” Another Yiddish letter addressed to Dubinsky and Rose wondered “how it is that you support Mr. Lindsay for Mayor when he

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wanted to break certain unions and arrested several union leaders. . . . There are also Jews among the Liberals. Isn’t it true that Lindsay injected anti-semitism in the teachers’ strike?” As an unnamed party activist told the New York Times, “The chief concern of the leadership is holding onto its votes, which are 85 per cent Jewish middle-income liberal. A large part are school teachers, or have school teachers in their family.”39 The Liberal Party thus needed to decide whether it would stick with Lindsay or perhaps endorse one of the many hopefuls in what was shaping up to be another wide-open Democratic primary. These included the city’s most prominent Puerto Rican politician, Bronx borough president Herman Badillo; Congressman James Scheuer, who expressed interest in Liberal support but made a mistake in lobbying Stulberg, who was on his way out of the party; the mercurial writer Norman Mailer, who ran under the slogan, “The Other Guys Are the Joke”; and Comptroller Mario Procaccino. The son of working-class Italian immigrants, Procaccino embodied the style of the lower-middle-class white outer boroughs, as Jimmy Breslin described him, with his pencil-thin “mustache from Arthur Avenue, his suit from the garment center, his language from all the years of all the neighborhoods of New York.” He staked out the right side of the field with inflammatory rhetoric calling for law and order in a way that supporters and opponents alike saw as code for a white backlash against the Black push for equal rights and more power. While progressive and cosmopolitan New Yorkers found him repulsive, scary, or laughable, many Italians, Jews, and other whites saw him as their tribune.40 The entry of former mayor Robert Wagner into the race complicated the Liberal position only slightly. Early on, party leaders were publicly noncommittal, with Harrington telling the press, “I don’t think our support will be automatic at all.” And, indeed, there was some rank-and-file support for Wagner, and talk of an “open primary.” But the party had a lot invested in the Lindsay administration, including dozens of jobs. In a private conversation with Wagner, Rose tried to convince the former mayor not to run, and made it clear to him that there would be no primary, which Rose thought would damage the party. Meanwhile, Rose also met with Lindsay. According to Rose later, the conversation went something like this: Lindsay: “I assume you must go for Wagner.” Rose: “Not necessarily so. In 1961 we stood by Wagner when he was in deep trouble. Now you’re in deep trouble, and I have no right to desert you.” “His face grew pale. . . . He suddenly realized the difference between loyalty to conviction and loyalty to a friend,” Rose recalled, adding, “I stood by him

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when he was at his lowest political ebb. . . . I encouraged him not to despair.” Wagner withdrew from Liberal consideration, though not from the Democratic race.41 By the time the Liberal Party nominating convention opened on April 15, Rose said there was an “indicated trend” within the party for Lindsay, making the outcome all but assured. The procedure, which, as often was the case in the Liberal Party, seemed improvised and complex, called for debate at the convention of four hundred delegates from clubs and various standing committees, followed by a recommendation from the Policy Committee, followed by a vote of the convention. The legally constituted Joint Executive Committee of about two hundred district leaders and county officers would later ratify the decision of the convention. Stulberg and Gus Tyler contended that the convention was “rigged,” and “stacked” with Lindsay supporters, and a number of Liberal district leaders and club officers complained that they had been illegally excluded. Skeptics doubted that there were ninety functioning Liberal clubs in the city, and Davidson failed to still their doubts when he refused to provide a list because club officers didn’t “want to be exposed to all the propaganda of political candidates and groups.” Rose admitted that the party had forty or fifty job holders, but at least one reporter thought there were at least twice as many such patronage appointees among the delegates.42 Nevertheless, some found the convention refreshing, as James Wechsler noted, for its absence of ILGWU business agents and presence of more members of racial and ethnic minorities. As the Times reported, the convention opened with one speech after another praising Lindsay, including statements by a “half dozen Negro and Puerto Rican delegates who called Lindsay ‘the man who made us first-class citizens.’ ” Wechsler believed there was a “quality of racial fraternity in the room,” and Hershel Chanin, Brooklyn vice chair, was booed when he said Lindsay had brought the city to “the brink of race war.” All told, twenty-six of thirty-three speakers in the opening session backed Lindsay, five favored an open primary, one spoke for Scheuer, and one called for an independent candidate. As Harrington put it, the convention “spoke pretty clearly” for Lindsay. The Policy Committee voted twenty-two to one for Lindsay, and the convention and Joint Executive Committee overwhelmingly followed suit.43 To round out the ticket, the Liberals tapped Fiorvarante Perrotta, a Republican political operative and finance administrator in the Lindsay administration, for comptroller, and Chief Inspector Sanford Garelik for city council president. As a registered Democrat, Garelik was meant to help maintain the slate’s fusion credentials, and as a Jew, to give it ethnic

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balance. He had close ties to Rose and advised him on police matters, and, in turn, Rose had helped Garelik advance to his current position. As a veteran police official, Garelik could also help Lindsay stave off charges that he was weak on crime. Indeed, Garelik ran as a “good cop” who knew the problems of the city and had dealt with all its people. Politically untested, though, Garelik was not well in tune with liberal sentiment. He stirred up a minor controversy when he charged that “money is coming in from Cuba and China to foment dissent on the campuses.” He was forced to retract the statement to beat back calls that the Liberal Party reconsider its endorsement. Both Perrotta and Garelik also won their primaries to secure the GOP nomination.44 The mayoral primary results, however, scrambled partisan alignments and changed the nature of the contest. Not surprisingly, Lindsay narrowly lost the Republican primary to state senator John Marchi, a well-respected if uncharismatic conservative from Staten Island who also had the Conservative Party nomination. In the long run, Marchi’s victory over Lindsay was an important milestone in the gradual ouster of the liberal wing from the New York GOP, engineered partly by the Conservative Party. In the short run, it meant that Lindsay now ran solely as the Liberal Party candidate for mayor (not counting a second ballot line set up just for the election). The fact that Procaccino won the fractured Democratic primary with barely a third of the vote made it possible for the mayor to pick up the support of many Reform Democrats who could not bring themselves to vote for their party’s conservative nominee. Some prominent liberal Republicans, including Senator Javits, also stuck by Lindsay.45 The Liberal Party was now the leading force within the mayor’s reelection campaign. With Morrison as liaison between the party and the candidate, the Liberals opened forty storefronts and shared six others with the campaign. They distributed 450,000 registration leaflets, 250,000 “Stay Cool with Lindsay, Perrotta, Garelik” flyers, and two million “Vote Row D” cards, in addition to flyers in Spanish and literature designed for specific districts. Party members staffed tables, drove sound cars, held coffee klatches, and canvassed door to door. In an ad in the Times, Harrington argued that Lindsay “has responded to the challenge of this [urban] crisis with resourcefulness, imagination, sensitivity and, most important of all—with courage, the c­ ourage to act, to experiment, to try new ways and pioneer new programs.” He had calmed people during potentially explosive moments, represented the young and minorities, and made the city more exciting and more just. The annual party dinner in October was a happy affair, broadcast on the radio and starring the comedian Henry Morgan. With the party anticipating its biggest

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vote ever, perhaps approaching a million votes, it hoped to raise in one night half the funds it needed for the campaign.46 Rose and Aurelio devised two themes for the campaign. One was to admit the mayor’s shortcomings and even failures, but to argue that he had done as well as anyone could have in the “second toughest job in America,” and that he would learn from his mistakes. The other was to position Lindsay as the great progressive hope in the struggle to stem the tide of reaction. Right after the primaries, Lindsay himself charged that “the forces of reaction and fear have captured both major parties.” Writing in the Village Voice, Michael Harrington, the country’s leading Democratic Socialist, conceded Lindsay’s shortcomings as a Republican with a spotty record on labor issues, but argued that a Lindsay victory was “imperative if the city and the nation are not to become reactionary.” Rose made the same argument even more graphically: “New York had to become a political Stalingrad, like the city where the forces of Hitlerism were turned back. . . . [T]he backlash had to be turned back.”47 On the basis of this appeal, the Lindsay campaign assembled a coalition of liberal and Reform Democrats, liberal Republicans, “young people, the black and Puerto Rican communities, the progressive trade unions and the relatively new unions, the educated people and those who believed in liberal values and the liberal tradition.”48 One key component of this coalition would be Jewish voters, many of whom were now skeptical about the mayor. If Lindsay had attracted widespread adulation in Jewish neighborhoods in 1965, the same neighborhoods were now a harder nut to crack. The furriers’ union leader and Liberal Party activist Henry Foner recalled a visit to a woman who was a registered Liberal: “And the husband didn’t let the wife say a word. He said, ‘Well, what are you here for?’ I said, ‘Li—.’ ‘Lindsay, we don’t want him.’ So we went through the whole thing. The wife didn’t say a word. The daughter called me in after a few minutes . . . and said, ‘Look, you’ve had enough. Why don’t you take off ? It’s creating a problem here.’ So I start to go out. And I get to the door. And for the first time, the mother’s voice is heard. She says, ‘Tuck in your shirt.’ ” Regarding Procaccino, on the other hand, according to one account in the Yiddish press, the “masses immediately feel at home with him. The minute he begins to speak he gives the impression of a simple man of the people, and he doesn’t try to hide it.”49 Nevertheless, the Lindsay campaign and the Liberal Party made a major effort to attract Jewish votes. Jews may have been put off by Lindsay’s new liberalism, but they were also uneasy about what Jonathan Rieder has called “racially overwrought conservatives like Procaccino.” Rose expressed optimism that they would vote “as liberals for good government, because that

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is their tradition.” And much of the campaign therefore focused on what Lindsay himself called “undecided neighborhoods” in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens that were “usually middle-class, traditionally liberal, and in great measure Jewish.” The Liberal Party sponsored Yiddish radio speeches by Dubinsky and the Forward’s Hillel Rogoff. Much of the campaign’s effort to paint Procaccino as a bigoted reactionary was designed to convince Jews to vote for the mayor. By October, Rose and Davidson discerned a trend toward Lindsay, a development aided by a visit by Israeli premier Golda Meir, which the mayor used to identify himself closely with Israel and with the popular Israeli leader.50 The Liberal Party would have to attract these votes without the help of the ILGWU. In deference to the recommendation of local managers, the international made no endorsement, and Stulberg remained neutral, though he stated that electing a Republican would be a mistake. Nevertheless, a number of locals and officers came out for Procaccino. The Dressmakers’ Political Action Club supported Procaccino because “any Democrat would be an improvement over Lindsay,” and because Procaccino “is one of us. He knows our world.” Abe Dolgen of Local 10 agreed that the Democrat was “a man for the people,” saying that “he comes from the same kind of background as our members” and calling his support for Lindsay in 1965 “the biggest mistake of my life.”51 Liberal spokesmen replied that the ILGWU leadership was out of touch not only with the most dynamic sectors of the labor movement, but also with their own membership, the demographic composition of which had changed. New unions, such as District Council 37 of the municipal employees union, had joined the party. The Labor Committee for the Re-election of John V. Lindsay included leaders not only of DC37 but also of other municipal unions, left-wing unions like District 1199 of the hospital workers and District 65 of the distributive workers, and show business unions, as well as labor leaders affiliated with the Liberal Party, such as Foner and McLaurin.52 On election night, with Rose, Dubinsky, and Harrington behind him on the stage, Lindsay turned to Rose and asked, “What do you think is really going to happen?” “I’m pretty sure,” responded Rose, “it will be alright.” In fact, Lindsay won the three-way race with about 42 percent of the vote. The Liberal Party was exultant. It had just elected the mayor of New York, Lindsay’s nearly 850,000 votes on the Liberal line alone having exceeded Procaccino’s total. Four Liberals had been elected to the city council, and several Manhattan Democrats had been elected with more votes on the Liberal line than on that of their own party, including borough president Percy Sutton. In a

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personal victory for Dubinsky over Stulberg that few others noticed, Lindsay beat Procaccino nearly two to one in the six election districts comprising the ILGWU/Penn South cooperative housing development in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. Davidson high-mindedly posited the results as a victory for “growing sentiment for an end to the war in Vietnam, for reordering priorities in our country, for massive aid by our federal and state governments to our cities to aid them in dealing with the huge problems choking the urban areas, and for social justice for the poor, disadvantaged and underprivileged.”53 The election burnished the Liberal Party’s progressive credentials, while also reinforcing Alex Rose’s reputation as a political genius. The Times thus called the Liberal Party the “keeper of the conscience of the major parties in this city and state,” while the Post observed, “New York’s polluted air is again wafting to Alex Rose the heady, pungent scent of success. Once more the Liberal party strategist has managed to pluck up a sagging candidate, transfuse fresh spirit into his campaign and emerge with a decisive victor.” Rose concluded that “New Yorkers have done a magnificent job of reversing the backlash trend,” but he lamented what he called “the hidden backlash vote among Jews,” who were embarrassed to support Procaccino publicly but voted for him in the privacy of the voting booth. Without this Jewish backlash vote, Lindsay’s plurality would have been even greater.54 After the election, the Liberals, and especially Rose, emerged as a powerful force in Lindsay’s second administration. As one mayoral aide put it, “As F.D.R. needed a Sidney Hillman, Lindsay needs an Alex Rose. . . . There’s something nitty-gritty about Rose that you don’t get from the Brownells,” referring to the former US attorney general and Republican Lindsay mentor Herbert Brownell Jr. And as Roosevelt supposedly cleared the 1944 vice presidential nomination with Sidney, Lindsay consulted with Rose on appointments. Rose clearly enjoyed the close relationship he had with the mayor and believed he had it coming to him, given the role his party had played in the election. “The Mayor does feel,” the Liberal leader told the press, “—and he should—that we be given an opportunity to pass judgment on important appointments.” Rose didn’t get everything he wanted, of course, but Liberals did take many top positions in the administration, including the role of counsel to the mayor, filled by Michael Dontzin, and chair of the New York City Housing Authority.55 Ed Morrison became the most prominent Liberal in the administration, first as secretary to the mayor, then as deputy mayor/city administrator, serving as the mayor’s liaison with the city council and as his representative on the board of estimate. Born in 1933, Morrison was raised in Brooklyn

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and joined the Young Liberals while at Stuyvesant High School, where he also became active in CORE. After graduating from Brooklyn College, he attended Columbia Law School, where he was mentored by former Liberal Party chair Adolf Berle. Unhappy in his job as an insurance claims adjuster, he eagerly accepted Rose’s invitation to work for the party instead. Though on the payroll of the hatters’ union, he worked mainly for the party. He also took on some cases for the ILGWU, and helped organize the Low Income Public Housing Tenants Council, which was mainly a kind of legal clinic staffed by lawyers from the unions and party. Living in the ILGWU/Penn South Houses, he was embedded in the institutions of the old social democratic labor movement of New York. In 1964, he was a Liberal candidate for Congress, and as Manhattan party chair, he helped distribute patronage in the first Lindsay administration. When offered a job in the second administration, Morrison took it, “because Alex said, ‘Go do it,’ so I said, ‘OK.’ ”56 On the board of estimate, Morrison was involved in the horse trading that made up much of its day-to-day business, giving the various borough presidents what they wanted in return for their votes. But, as Rose always asserted, the Liberals in the administration also attempted to formulate and implement progressive policy. Morrison assembled a committee to examine legislation and make recommendations, many of which originated in the issue committees of the Liberal Party. If the government people liked a proposal, Morrison would bring it to the mayor. One such idea was an affirmative action plan to encourage racial integration of the building trades, pushed by James McNamara, a hatters’ union official who was now working for the administration. The resulting law was eventually declared unconstitutional.57 Although Harrington complained that after Lindsay’s reelection, “he wasn’t doing very much for us,” giving Liberals fewer than 1 percent of appointments, party members held a number of jobs in the administration. In fact, by this time, it seemed, almost every active Liberal who wanted one had some city job. The effect this had on the party itself bothered Morrison. “If you wanted to become a member of government,” he recalled, “the best way of doing it was joining a party like the Liberal Party. . . . [T]here were people who definitively wanted the job and that’s why they joined the party. That was the question they asked. . . . This was all on the basis of what is available and what will the pay be.” He recalled asking Rose, “So what’s the difference between that and Tammany Hall? . . . What’s the difference?” But Rose saw no alternative, as appointees were becoming a more important source of party funds.58 Along with the mayor, the Liberal Party elected four members of the city council, the party’s first council delegation since 1949. Three of the

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candidates—Eldon Clingan of Manhattan, Kenneth Haber of Brooklyn, and Alvin Frankenberg of Queens—were elected by garnering the second-highest vote totals for at-large seats in their boroughs, according to the city’s system by which each party ran one candidate but the top two vote getters won seats. The fourth Liberal, Charles Taylor, carried his Harlem district, besting his Democratic opponent. Since no one had expected the Liberal Party to take so many council seats, no one had given much thought to who would represent the party. Except for Clingan, who had been a Morrison protégé and party staffer, the councilmen were not in the inner circles of the party. As Clingan put it, Haber was a “shleppy guy who was used to taking orders.” As an enrolled Liberal, Taylor was plucked from the voter list and put on the ballot mainly because he agreed to run. Frankenberg, a city marshal, was, according to Clingan, the kind of guy who had no trouble evicting someone. Morrison thought them nice guys, but not particularly impressive. All had patronage positions, Taylor as administrator of one of Lindsay’s “little city halls” in Brooklyn, Haber as an economic development administrator, and Frankenberg as a marshal in addition to having a legal practice.59 Eldon Clingan was, by his own account, an “unusual person in the Liberal Party.” Born in the packinghouse slums of Oklahoma City and brought up in a small town in California, he was the son of a packinghouse worker turned pipe fitter. After coming to New York City to attend Columbia University, he joined the Young People’s Socialist League (YPSL) and rose to become national chair. He left the YPSL after about three years, frustrated at the time spent in sterile factional debates, and joined the Liberal Party in 1963, looking for a practical application of his social democratic inclinations. Although fewer of the young people in the party came from Socialist backgrounds, many of the older people did, and this gave Clingan a leg up in the party. “Coming from the YPSL and the Socialist movement,” he recalled, “is like in some corporate circles being a member of Sigma Chi. A lot of them had that background, and so we identified very quickly with each other.” Moreover, although he wasn’t Jewish, he was, he said, “heavily acclimated into a Jewish environment.” He worked on the party staff in 1964 and 1965, and served briefly as an aide to council president Frank O’Connor. But, according to Morrison, Clingan and Rose did not get along, and so there was a limit to how far Clingan could go in the party. At the time he was elected to the council, he was director of Citizens for Clean Air.60 With four members, the Liberal delegation was larger than that of the Republicans, and so it formed the official minority on the council. This meant additional patronage opportunities, and the Liberal caucus was able to hire a couple of secretaries, a counsel, and a legislative aide. It also meant

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that its first order of business was to elect the council’s minority leader. At a meeting attended by Ben Davidson, three of the four councilmen voted for themselves. The fourth, Taylor, voted for Clingan, giving him two votes out of four. Harrington ruled that that was enough to make Clingan leader.61 But despite party leaders’ role in organizing the delegation, there was, in fact, little coordination among the Liberal council members or between them and the Liberal city administration. Indeed, there was friction. Within months, Morrison complained that Clingan had fired the Liberal counsel and hired a Reform Democrat instead. Frankenberg and Haber called for his resignation. Morrison, for his part, recalled that he had to work just as hard to get Clingan’s support for a bill as he would to get any Democrat’s. In any case, he said, for the administration, “there was no thought at all of respect for the council,” which Henry Stern said differed from a rubber stamp only in that a rubber stamp left an impression. Clingan, on the other hand, vowed not to be a “tool of the Lindsay administration,” and believed that Morrison, as Lindsay’s representative, “absolutely destroyed [his] ability to put forward a program.” Moreover, Davidson was deferential to the administration, even backing away from long-standing support for rent control in the face of an administration bill weakening it.62 The Liberal council delegation did not accomplish much legislatively, but Clingan did introduce the city’s first-ever bill to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. Clingan, who was a friend of the gay Socialist leaders Bayard Rustin and David McReynolds, met in Greenwich Village with members of the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis, and at their urging introduced the bill to add the ban to the city’s human rights law. Backed by the Gay Activist Alliance, he held three public hearings. The bill did not pass while Clingan was on the council, but he recalled having learned from Rustin that a piece of legislation could be a tool to get people to focus on an issue and take a stand. He used his office to support the gay rights movement in the face of a hostile press and police force and Greenwich Village council member Carol Greitzer. Clingan and Taylor also introduced legislation for affirmative action to racially integrate apprenticeships, using it as leverage to push the administration into an executive order on the issue.63

Bossism versus the New Politics Even as the Liberal Party was savoring its greatest victory, liberal public opinion had decisively turned against it. Commentators now saw Rose unequivocally as a “boss,” perhaps even “the most authoritarian boss in New York,” or the “boss of all bosses.” Observers now described his methods in

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terms they might once have used for those of Tammany bosses like Richard Croker, John Murphy, or Carmine DeSapio: Rose was interested only in candidates who would “go along,” it was explained. And he was not above intentionally splitting the vote to defeat a progressive Democrat in order to remain on friendly terms with someone like Manhattan Republican leader Vince Albano. Rose “never gives,” explained one political operative. Instead, he asked “questions designed to elicit information. He will question repeatedly. He never gets angry. He never threatens so that you could hear him if you happened to be next door. What he will do is say, quietly, very quietly, ‘I think you may regret that.’ ” The party had become a mercenary force. According to one Democratic operative, Rose “never sends money. He’ll send a couple of good guys to work for you. Money, never. The Liberals want money from you.”64 Progressive commentators complained that the Liberal Party was more concerned with the “survival of the Liberal Party” than with the burning issues of the day, and that it associated the party’s survival primarily with patronage. As a “clearing house for patronage,” it was said to have dibs on one in three judgeships and a “staggering” number of jobs in the local administration for a party of maybe five thousand active members. The Village Voice cited one Queens Liberal whose entire job as an aide to a state senator was to coordinate between his employer and the party, and who regularly flew down to a Rockefeller resort in Puerto Rico on the governor’s tab. “If it was called the Patronage party, I wouldn’t mind,” protested Jack Newfield, who had once been a registered Liberal and defended Rose’s ­progressive credentials. “If it was called the Alex Rose party, that at least would be honest. But the Liberal Party, that’s what gets Orwell aficionados . . . so angry. It’s like taking stale rainwater and selling it under the generic name of perfume. I have nothing against rainwater, it’s the devious label that troubles me.”65 It wasn’t even clear to some observers that the Liberal Party should be called a party at all, but whatever it was, it played a negative role in local politics, in their opinion. To Pete Hamill, the Liberals were a “line on the ballot, not a political party.” But the chief business of that line was to give New Yorkers Republican rule in the form of Governor Rockefeller, Senator Javits, Mayor Lindsay, and Attorney General Louis Lefkowitz. Newfield complained that the Liberals had actually opposed liberal reform insurgents at the local level, engaged in red-baiting, followed the ILGWU line in opposing a hike in the minimum wage, failed to oppose the war, and called for strengthening NATO. In any case, those young people interested in political reform no longer joined the Liberals, but flocked instead to the reform

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movement within the Democratic Party—a damning observation at a time when youth itself was seen as the embodiment of political virtue.66 One of the hallmarks of the Reform Democrats was their concern for procedural reform and internal party democracy. In this regard, too, the Liberals came up short, and as the 1970 election approached, observers pointed out the closed nature of the Liberals’ deliberations. The Times charged that “the lack of debate, the refusal even to allow candidates seeking endorsement to speak, the secret decisions carefully worked out by private conference among the very few—all this combined at the Liberal party’s nominating convention over the weekend to turn its proceedings into a mockery of democracy.” And Newfield quipped, “The definition of a Liberal party primary is Alex Rose having an argument with his maid.” Newfield also complained that the procedure would in 1970 once again lead to Liberal support for tired Republicans or outright conservatives over exciting liberals. Moreover, dissidents had been purged from the Manhattan organization, and replaced in positions of leadership with patronage officeholders and relatives of party leaders, such as Herbert Rose (Alex’s son) and Eve Davidson (Ben’s wife).67 Liberal leaders protested, but their protests sounded defensive and contradictory. On the one hand, Rose still insisted that the Liberal Party was different. “We only want to give,” he asserted. “There are those who specialize in doing evil. We specialize in doing good. We are on the side of good, municipal good. We could be dominant. Our influence has been great. But we are in business only for the public good. Whatever dividends accrue to us have been natural results of our efforts.” On the other hand, in contending that the Liberal nominating process was transparent and fair, despite the lack of an open primary, Harrington argued that the party was no different from any of the other parties in banning nonmembers from entering the race.68 The reformist critique of party leadership resonated with some in the Liberal Party who identified with the “new politics.” More amorphous than a movement, the new politics saw itself as a “conscience coalition” of, in the historian Doug Rossinow’s words, “feminist, antiwar, civil rights and consumer activists.” Like their counterparts nationally, New York’s Liberals for New Politics consisted mainly of young college-educated professionals. For the most part, they lacked the connection with labor that had been so important in American liberalism since the New Deal and had been especially central to the Liberal Party.69 Liberals for New Politics arose partly in reaction to an attempt by the state leadership to form a new club on the East Side of Manhattan. Local Liberal activists, who had been critical of the leadership for dragging its feet on the issue of Vietnam and for the lack of transparency in its decision

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making, believed that the new club was an attempt to marginalize them. Led by Eldon Clingan, the group included council member Charles Taylor and district leaders Carol Isenberg, Sondra Albert, and Mary Nothelfer, as well as Lewis Kruger of the East Side Liberal Club. “We’re going to set afoot a reform movement in the Liberal party,” proclaimed Clingan. “The question here is whether one man can make all the decisions for a party and then go around bargaining with other parties.” Accusing party leaders of “cronyism,” Liberals for New Politics called for an internally democratic, issue-centered, activist party. They demanded the abolition of the Policy Committee and staff neutrality in internal disputes. Among their other activities, they held a “counter-dinner” to protest the official annual party fundraising gala. Clingan recalled that the reformers’ informal and cheap spaghetti dinner, held in a pub on Irving Place, made “fun of this big fancy dinner” of the official party and projected an alternative image of what the party “ought to look like”—open and affordable.70 Liberals for New Politics put forward a slate of candidates for party office at the July 1970 state committee meeting. As candidate for party chair, Paul Siminoff, a Syracuse virologist, called Rose a “political boss” and accused him of “secret manipulations.” The insurgents called for “Liberal Party leadership of the progressive movement,” but only received between 17 percent and 21 percent of the vote of state committee members. The incumbent leadership saw the result as both a demonstration of party democracy and a ringing endorsement of its position.71 In Queens, the reformers allied with J. Stanley Shaw in his contest for county leadership. Shaw was a struggling young lawyer when Rose brought him into the Liberal Party, apparently in the hope that he would attract more young people, which in fact Shaw claimed to have done. Shaw, for his part, hoped that political activity would help his legal career, as indeed it did. At first, Shaw and Rose got along fine. According to Shaw, Rose had “a way of making you feel like an insider and someone who is indispensable to their cause.” And Shaw reciprocated by helping to beat back the ILGWU challenge to Rose’s leadership and working enthusiastically for the party’s official candidates. According to Shaw, his troubles with Rose started when Lindsay called the Queens leader directly for a recommendation for an appointment, bypassing Rose. Rose started to blackball Shaw’s “people” who were up for city jobs and judgeships. Shaw was in fact widely distrusted by both sides. Harrington regarded him as an “unsavory character” allied with the “ultra left”—not Communists exactly, but “long hairs” attracted to violence and marijuana. Morrison considered him a mercenary in a bitter personal feud with Rose. Even Clingan, a party dissident, “never seriously trusted” Shaw.

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Nevertheless, Shaw identified himself with the cause of party reform and independence, charging that party leaders had threatened officeholders with reprisals if they voted for him, and objecting to nepotism in nominations for judgeships. After another turbulent Queens county committee meeting in July, and a subsequent court challenge, Shaw held on to the county chairmanship.72 Some upstate counties, especially those where there were many academics, were also centers of dissent within the party. As early as June 1965, the upstate organizer Eli Diamond reported that in Monroe, Ontario, Cayuga, and Tompkins Counties, members were “overwhelmingly . . . opposed to current United States policy” in Vietnam and the Dominican Republic, and “out of patience with Liberal Party silence on these matters.” Along with Onandaga and Broome Counties, these county organizations supported Liberals for New Politics and similar efforts.73 The Tompkins County Liberal Party exemplified this dissatisfaction. County and Ithaca city party chairs included a number of Cornell professors, and members included radical academics such as Douglas Dowd and Joel Silbey. Indeed, the party explicitly urged “all students and faculty to take an active part in the public affairs of Ithaca and Tompkins County,” supporting low-income housing, a full-time director for the county human rights commission, antiracism efforts, and the antiwar movement. Tompkins Liberals supported McCarthy for president in 1968, like many in the statewide leadership, but unlike the latter, they refused to support Humphrey once he was nominated. Likewise, they bucked the state leadership by refusing to endorse Javits in 1968 or 1974, preferring the more outspoken peace candidates, Democrats Paul O’Dwyer and Ramsey Clark. In 1970, the Tompkins County organization officially affiliated with Liberals for New Politics, but by 1977, at least some of its leaders had finally lost patience with the statewide party and quit.74 The Liberal Party survived the tumultuous 1960s, even demonstrating that it still had electoral muscle to flex. But as the departure of the Tompkins County activists demonstrated, many small-l liberals now regarded the party with suspicion. It seemed, at the very least, to be irrelevant to the most heatedly contested questions of the day. At worst, it seemed to be both an impediment to political progress and a patronage machine under the control of an old-fashioned boss.

Ch a p ter 1 0

The End of the Rose Era

Entering the 1970s, following Lindsay’s reelection, the Liberal Party remained influential. Politicians still beat their paths to the party’s door to appeal for its support, and in 1974 the Liberals helped elect a governor. And the party still endorsed a progressive program. But at other times, the Liberal Party seemed a hollow shell, held together by the constant machinations of its de facto leader, vice chair Alex Rose. Then, the party seemed like nothing but the kind of political machine that it professed to despise, and Rose seemed like nothing but an old-fashioned boss. And there were times that even Rose’s supposed political genius could not carry the Liberals to electoral victory. Nevertheless, when Rose died at the end of 1976, the party lost both its connection to its ideological origins and its chief political asset. The statewide elections of 1970 offered the Liberals an opportunity in the gubernatorial race but a complicated choice in the contest for US senator. Governor Rockefeller seemed tired, and once again appeared to be vulnerable. He was weak in the polls, and, with the state facing a budget crunch, he attempted to redefine himself as a fiscal conservative. Moreover, he adopted a tough law-and-order stance as part of his swing to the right. Nevertheless, it remained to be seen whether he would be able to convince conservative voters that he was really one of them without alienating liberals. In the race for the Senate, Vietnam remained a paramount issue. Senator Charles Goodell, appointed by the governor to fill Robert Kennedy’s term, had transformed 242

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himself from a conservative upstate congressman to a liberal senator and outspoken opponent of the war. Like many progressives, the Liberal Party needed to decide whether to back the senator based on his brief record as a liberal, or to go with one of the Democrats vying for the seat.1 Rockefeller’s likely Democratic opponent, Arthur Goldberg, announced his candidacy in March. A former counsel to the AFL-CIO and secretary of labor under John F. Kennedy, Goldberg was an old ally of Alex Rose and David Dubinsky. That, plus his credentials as a former Supreme Court justice and US ambassador to the UN, should have made him a shoe-in for the Liberal nomination. But in the first of what turned out to be many campaign gaffes, Goldberg angered Rose by approaching several Democratic leaders to secure their support in his nomination fight before contacting Rose. It was bad enough that he had lunched with former governor Averell Harriman without inviting the Liberal leader, but he had also allied himself with the Democratic bosses Joseph Crangle of Erie County and Meade Esposito of Brooklyn, who had been exploring the idea of banning cross-endorsements and thus putting the Liberal Party out of business. Rose retaliated by making Goldberg wait for the endorsement he thought was his for the asking. Donald Harrington arranged a meeting between the candidate and party leaders. He later recalled, Arthur came in very voluble, full of good will, just bubbling over with friendship and reminiscences, and Alex sat like an iceberg. He didn’t crack a smile. He didn’t respond except in monosyllables, and the colder Alex became, the more effusive Arthur became until it really became ridiculous. And finally Arthur said, ‘Alex, what’s the matter? Old friends. We’ve been friends for years and years. What’s the matter?’ And I forget now exactly what Alex said but it was something like, ‘Arthur, you are a damn fool.” . . . Alex indicated that for Arthur to come up to New York and immediately contact the worst elements in the Democratic Party publicly was as bad a move as a candidate wanting to mobilize the liberals could possible make and that we couldn’t associate ourselves with such a campaign or such a candidacy, and we were probably going to support me for governor. The threat was that although there was no talk of backing Rockefeller, and there was little support in the party for Goldberg’s primary opponent, the businessman Howard Samuels, the party might run its own candidate in November.2 Besides any misgivings that Rose may have had, some Liberals objected to Goldberg’s belated opposition to the war. Ed Morrison, for example,

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reminded Dubinsky that Goldberg had several years earlier told the Policy Committee that he supported the war. Goldberg’s claim now that he had always opposed it was, Morrison said, the “highest form of political deceit.” In an unmailed response, Dubinsky chided Morrison for being one “of the very, very pure ones” in politics, a purity of the sort generally found only in the graveyard. The union chief pointed out that Goldberg had quit the UN ambassadorship because of his differences with the administration. If he had changed his mind on this issue, that was not a problem.3 Charles Goodell had likewise changed his mind on the issue of Vietnam. With little name recognition beyond his upstate district, it was said that when Goodell was appointed to the Senate, he had asked, “How do I get back to Washington?” The answer: “Go to New York City and turn left.” Republican critics called him an “instant liberal” and “changeable Charlie,” and Vice President Spiro Agnew compared him to Christine Jorgensen, famous for having undergone an early sex-change operation ( Jorgensen demanded an apology). But Liberals remembered that Goodell had backed Lindsay in his reelection bid the previous year. And even Americans for Democratic Action, while endorsing his eventual Democratic opponent, noted that Goodell had “changed from an effective conservative in the House to an effective liberal in the Senate,” one whom the organization had given a high voting rating.4 In the meantime, however, the Liberal Party was reluctant to go out on a limb in a race in which there still several viable Democratic candidates. These were Paul O’Dwyer, the party’s old nemesis, who nevertheless had some support among Liberals as the strongest opponent of the war; the former Kennedy aide Theodore Sorensen; Congressman Richard Ottinger of Westchester; and upstate congressman Richard McCarthy. Moreover, the Liberals feared that their early support for Goodell might actually hurt him at the upcoming Republican convention.5 When it met in early April, the Liberal Party therefore nominated its chair, Donald Harrington, for governor, and its former chair, Timothy Costello, for senator. Everyone understood that these were stand-in candidates who would be withdrawn when the political landscape became clearer. Charging that the nominations were meant just to give Rose five more weeks to make a deal, Liberals for New Politics put up the Rochester chemist and Monroe County Liberal chair Basil Kyriakakas for governor. Some Liberals, including Dubinsky and Queens leader Stanley Shaw, would have preferred to nominate Goldberg immediately. But Costello spoke for most of the leadership when he stated, “I, for one, want to wait until the dust settles” in the Democratic Party. Dubinsky followed up with an impassioned speech in which he argued for consensus and party unity. The Liberals therefore went ahead

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and, despite some continued dissent, nominated Harrington for governor and Costello for the Senate.6 Over the next month, Goldberg waged a successful struggle to make amends with the Liberal Party, which ultimately dropped Harrington from the top of the ticket in favor of the Democrat. In a nine-page, single-spaced open letter to Harrington, Goldberg called for leadership in opposition to the Vietnam War, in the redistribution of resources to domestic needs, and in defense of civil liberties. He criticized Rockefeller for building “incredible personal monuments” in Albany but letting subway fares increase by 50 percent. And he proposed the creation of an Ethical Practices Commission, a citizens’ ombudsman, more fairly allocated state aid to education, more transparent decision-making processes, improved narcotics treatment, strengthened rent control, and other policies likely to appeal to liberals. Perhaps most importantly for Liberal Party, Goldberg explicitly envisioned the party as a part of the coalition for good government. The Liberals later reprinted a section of the letter in a campaign flyer.7 Meanwhile, Rockefeller made a last-ditch effort to convince the Liberal Party to keep Harrington in the race, a move that, of course, would have sunk Goldberg’s candidacy. At a meeting with Harrington, Rose, and Dubinsky, the governor promised to ensure the party’s survival if Harrington stayed in the race. The move backfired, however, as Harrington protested that the Liberal Party was not for sale, and Rose warned Rockefeller that he could not “intimidate” it.8 In May, Harrington withdrew from the race, citing Goldberg’s “strong commitment to an Independent Administration, to a Democratic-Liberal coalition, and to an Ethical Practices Commission of distinguished citizens to scrutinize all appointments.” He lauded the Democrat’s “real independence from the old-line machines” and his “strong liberal positions.” Shaw commended Dubinsky for his skillful “handling [of ] a complex and sensitive situation” in bringing the party behind Goldberg. Rose was placed on the executive committee of the campaign, and by August was proclaiming that there was a “great deal of determination” and “no lack of enthusiasm” for Goldberg in the party.9 Costello also withdrew. In doing so, he noted the escalation of violence in Southeast Asia and at Kent State University in Ohio, where several students had been shot by national guardsmen during an antiwar protest. Seeing in the violence and polarization an existential threat, Costello was encouraged that “there remain within the system men and women whose courage, idealism and profound good sense make it worthwhile to continue the fight to reform democracy rather than destroy it.” Goodell, said Costello, was one

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of those people, who had spoken out against the war and for a “change in the national priorities.” The state committee, acting as an advisory body to the committee on vacancies, voted for Goodell over O’Dwyer, 67 percent to 16 percent, with other votes going to the remaining Democratic contenders. The Liberal Party officially nominated Goodell.10 Ottinger, a solid antiwar liberal, won the Democratic primary, setting off debates among progressives concerning whom to support in the general election. The feminist leader Gloria Steinem backed Goodell, charging that Ottinger was a well-heeled opportunist and reluctant dove, while Goodell had courageously spoken out against the war and challenged his own party leadership. The journalist Jack Newfield responded by putting Steinem and other Goodell supporters in the category of “death-wish liberals” guilty of “middle-class reformism” and oblivious to economic questions and the possibilities of building bridges to the white working class. In backing Ottinger, the ILGWU also worried about Goodell’s conservative and, in the union’s view, antilabor record in the House. The Forward, its influence much diminished, also endorsed Ottinger and labeled Goodell an opportunist. Finally, Liberals for New Politics hesitated, but eventually transformed itself into Liberals for Ottinger.11 Meanwhile, the Conservative Party again nominated James Buckley. Buckley’s slogan—“Isn’t it time we had a senator?”—appealed to his supporters’ alienation from the liberal New York political establishment in both major parties. But with two liberals in the race, Buckley now ran to win rather than make a point. He sought especially to mobilize conservative Catholic and anticounterculture voters by raising the issue of abortion (New York had recently liberalized its abortion laws) and stressing his patriotism. At the party dinner, opened with a benediction by a monsignor and the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, a Buckley aide told a reporter, “It seems everyone here is Irish— or at least Catholic.” Anthony Spinelli, the Conservative candidate for state comptroller, attacked “Rockeberg, Goldfeller, Ottindell and Goodinger.” During the campaign, the Conservative attracted the support of many Republicans unhappy with the GOP’s nomination of Goodell. President Nixon gave his tacit support to Buckley, and Vice President Agnew made his explicit. Rockefeller endorsed Goodell, but mainly kept away from the Senate contest. “Clearly,” wrote one observer, “the Conservative party is a growth party.”12 The Liberal ticket, on the other hand, faltered. Goldberg, so formidable on paper, turned out to be a terrible campaigner and dull speaker. Rockefeller outspent him almost four to one, and even managed to capture the endorsement of the state AFL-CIO based on his support in the building trades. In the Senate race, as Buckley surged, Goodell was squeezed, forced to try to

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keep upstate Republican votes by emphasizing his moderation, while winning Manhattan votes by stressing that he had been antiwar before Ottinger. The Republican-Liberal mainly failed at both, as conservatives deserted him for Buckley and most liberals backed Ottinger. Still, Goodell resisted calls to withdraw in favor of Ottinger in a stop-Buckley maneuver.13 Some blamed the Liberals. In Paul O’Dwyer’s opinion, the Democrats were being hurt by tensions between the Goldberg and Ottinger camps that arose from Liberal involvement in the former and not the latter. “It is not the first time,” wrote O’Dwyer, “that the presence of the Liberal Party supporting one side and not the other has developed mischief.” As an example, he mentioned the 1949 race involving his brother Bill, running as a Democrat without Liberal support for reelection as mayor, and Herbert Lehman, the Democratic-Liberal candidate in a special election for the US Senate. Simon Weber, writing in the Forward, gave the Liberal Party more credit for having done good things in the past, but still charged that “it has committed its greatest error this year with the nomination of the Republican candidate for senator, because by doing so it has split the liberal camp rather than uniting it.” Another writer for the Forward warned that the Liberals would bear the “main responsibility if Buckley is elected.”14 The Liberal Party stuck to its guns, calling for a vote for “the best candidates of all parties” on a liberal platform against the war, for aid to Israel, and for a “reordering of national priorities” toward social justice, civil rights, and civil liberties. In his weekly sermon broadcast on November 1, Harrington accused Nixon and Agnew of sowing division and rancor by exploiting fears and anxieties, and of declaring “war on liberal America” in the service of reaction. “Our Vice President’s sneers and smears, sly slurs and savage epithets sound so much like Dr. Goebbels at times,” charged the Liberal chairman, “that it is not hard to imagine him in a brown shirt uniform surrounded by hard-hatted S.S. and S.A. men.” Without mentioning Goodell by name, he implied that the attempt to purge him from the Republican Party was part of a campaign to turn the United States toward reaction.15 The results were dismal. Rockefeller beat Goldberg handily, 52.4 percent to 40.3 percent. Goldberg’s 263,071 votes on the Liberal line (4.4 percent) were just over half of what Roosevelt had gotten four years earlier. This was certainly not the worst showing in party history, but four years earlier the Conservatives had barely edged out the Liberals in the gubernatorial race. This time, Conservative Paul Adams beat the Liberal vote for Goldberg by nearly 160,000 votes, firmly establishing the Conservative Party as the third party in the state. In the Senate race, Buckley edged out Ottinger, 39 percent to 37 percent. Goodell came in a distant third.16

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The 255,793 votes that Goodell received on the Liberal line would have been enough to defeat Buckley had they gone to Ottinger, so some accused the Liberals of playing the spoiler. Rose’s image as a political genius was tarnished. The labor journalist John Herling charged that Rose was prone to “frequently ris[ing] above principle, while talking principle.” In response, Rose denied implausibly that he had had any role in swinging the party to Goodell. More plausibly, Rose pointed out that in a similar three-way race in 1968, with the Liberals backing the Republican Javits against the Democrat O’Dwyer and the Conservative Buckley, the result had been different. In explaining the party’s refusal to dump Goodell, Ben Davidson argued further that such a move would have been reprehensible given Goodell’s willingness to stand up for liberal principle. Moreover, he asserted, the Liberals had had to make their nomination earlier than the Democrats. If they had endorsed O’Dwyer or Sorensen, either of which was a more likely scenario than an endorsement of Ottinger, there would have been a four-man race, with three liberals, and the results would have been the same.17

Forest Hills As chairman of the New York City Housing Authority, the Liberal Simeon Golar played an important part in the controversy over the building of public housing in Forest Hills, Queens, that roiled the city in 1971–72. Pitting the Lindsay administration against the fierce, and largely Jewish, neighborhood opposition to the project, the controversy resembled the school wars of 1968 in that it escalated Black-Jewish tensions and thus helped to undermine support for liberal policies (like public housing) among Jewish voters. Liberals were not nearly as conflicted about Forest Hills as they were about the teachers’ strikes because the housing battle did not set two sacrosanct liberal causes against each other, and the issue was not one that particularly divided the Liberal Party. Nevertheless, it contributed to the breakup of the progressive coalition in the city, and drove another wedge between the Liberal Party and its traditional constituencies.18 The roots of the Forest Hills conflict lay in the Lindsay administration’s determination to reform New York’s public housing program. For one thing, in keeping with his efforts to liven up the city and improve its aesthetic experience, the mayor hoped to encourage more innovative design for smaller projects. Second, he saw public housing as a tool for fostering racial integration. The result was an emphasis on “scatter-site” projects, with public housing placed in various neighborhoods throughout the city, including middle-class and predominantly white neighborhoods like Forest Hills.

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A housing task force headed by Charles Abrams, the longtime housing activist with ties to the Liberal Party, helped promote this approach. While the move toward better architecture faltered due to issues of cost, the scatter-site policy continued.19 In 1970, at the beginning of Lindsay’s second term, Golar became chairman of the housing authority, inheriting a number of projects in the works. A native of South Carolina, Golar had come to New York as a child during the Depression with his adoptive parents. His father worked as a janitor, and the family lived in slum conditions in Brooklyn, until his father’s employment at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II qualified them to move into the Fort Greene Houses. With a degree from NYU Law School, Golar was named an assistant corporation counsel by Mayor Wagner in 1962. In 1966, he was the Liberal candidate for state attorney general. In 1969, when Lindsay needed someone acceptable to Jewish groups to replace Human Rights Commission chair William Booth, whom some Jews saw as antisemitic, he turned to Golar. Golar’s tenure at the commission was brief, however, as Lindsay tapped him to run the gigantic housing agency the following year. A fast talker, standing six feet five inches and weighing 235 pounds, Golar was thought by some to be overbearing. But Ed Morrison recalled him as a “delightful” man with a “good sense of humor,” though not particularly helpful in terms of patronage for the party. When the Forest Hills controversy exploded in 1971, Golar “became the project’s public face,” as the Times later noted in his obituary.20 The first head of the agency to have lived in the projects, Golar was a passionate advocate for public housing. He recalled the difference that it had made in his family’s life: “We moved from a shabby basement apartment at 514 Bushwick Avenue, where we lived down with the coal and furnace . . . into this new place with fresh-painted walls and a shiny new bathroom and kitchen. The bathroom first caught my eye, the sparkling fixtures and everything so clean. . . . People have hope when they move into attractive surroundings. Lives are infused with hope they never had before.” In a policy shift for the Lindsay administration, Golar emphasized quantity, even if it meant building bigger and cheaper. Housing starts increased under his direction, but critics charged that in his zeal to provide decent homes for the poor, he also helped lower both construction and admission standards for city projects.21 When in 1971 work began on three twenty-four-story buildings, many residents of Forest Hills reacted furiously. Organized in the Forest Hills Residents’ Association under the leadership of the real estate operator Jerry Birbach, they engaged in high-profile demonstrations and marches, delivered

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petitions to public officials, and testified at hearings. They complained of the cost of the project, its scale in relation to the neighborhood, the burdens it would place on the area’s infrastructure, and the crime that could be expected from project residents. Invoking the language of community control, Birbach and other spokesmen complained that the Forest Hills community had not been consulted adequately, and that it had in fact been targeted because of the assumption that Jews would be more willing to go along with an intrusive project than would other groups (a charge that Golar and Gerald Coleman, a Liberal member of the city planning commission, both refuted). Demonstrators compared Lindsay to Hitler and administration officials to Goebbels. Although movement spokesmen denied racial motivations when questioned at a hearing by the Liberal city councilman Alvin Frankenberg, the racial undertones of their opposition to the project were hard to miss.22 Golar became a lightning rod for opposition to the project, and he responded in kind. As one observer wrote, “The reaction to the mention of his name in Forest Hills or other middle-class white areas is intense. Frail old women contort their faces with fury and spit on the sidewalk. Mild-mannered family men string out obscenities. Golar is denounced as an example of the arrogant, insensitive city official, ‘typical of the Lindsay administration,’ who doesn’t give a damn about the middle class. As a black man himself, some of those middle-class critics say, Golar is just another of ‘them,’ and he’s just as ready as the rest of ‘them’ to ruin a good neighborhood.”23 Golar, in turn, attacked what he called a campaign by “destructive and negative leadership” of “fear, misinformation and intolerance.” Attempts to meet with the opposition went awry. At one private meeting between Golar and Birbach, Golar lost patience with the racial condescension expressed by one of the Forest Hills activists. When the man protested, “You don’t know me,” Golar angrily replied, “I’ve known you all my life.” A television debate between Golar and Birbach degenerated into mutual charges of bigotry and lying, as the two men’s aides nearly came to blows outside the studio. Even observers friendly toward scatter-site housing complained that Golar did not adequately consult with the community on the city’s plans.24 Ultimately, the Lindsay administration adopted a compromise proposed by a local attorney, Mario Cuomo, who had been appointed to mediate the dispute. Over the objection of Golar, who called the plan “outrageous” and “manifestly absurd,” and arguing that it would mean a “direct loss of 400 desperately needed homes for the working poor,” the project was halved in size and more of its units were reserved for the elderly. Later, the nature of the project was further altered according to a proposal by Councilman

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Figure 7.  In 1971, residents of Forest Hills protested Lindsay administration plans to build public housing in their neighborhood. Placards condemned Lindsay, who had won reelection running as a Liberal, and Simeon Golar, the Liberal head of the New York City Housing Authority. Credit: Michael Evans/The New York Times/Redux.

Donald Manes to become cooperative rather than rental housing. Birbach still objected, but most local politicians endorsed the compromise, and the project proceeded in its altered form.25 The effects of the Forest Hills controversy on the Liberal Party were subtle and, perhaps, delayed. There was no party split, but one Democrat with whom the party had been close, Congressman Ed Koch, broke from liberal orthodoxy to publicly oppose the project. Many progressives were angry at him for doing so. In 1973, when Koch floated a run for mayor, Liberal leaders at a meeting presided over by Rose in a storage room at the millinery union building took turns denouncing Koch. “They were going around the room,” recalled Henry Stern, “and everyone was adding his two cents saying how awful Koch was. Now, I totally agreed with Koch. But I knew that if they came to me, either I would betray my friend and lie, or else they would never nominate me for councilman-at-large, which is what I aspired to that year. So for the first and only time, when I saw what they were doing I quietly left the room.” That year, Stern was elected to the council on a ticket that included Simeon Golar as candidate for city council president. Unsuccessful in that race, Golar was appointed by the outgoing Mayor Lindsay to the

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family court bench (he later served on the state supreme court). The Liberal Party never supported Koch in any of his runs for mayor.26

Liberalism Takes a Beating, 1972 The contest for the Democratic nomination for president in 1972 brought into relief competing visions of liberalism. Against the advice of Alex Rose, John Lindsay, newly converted to the Democratic Party, attempted a run as representative of the nation’s cities, but was forced to withdraw after a dismal primary showing in Florida, where many older former New Yorkers resided. Of the major candidates, Vice President Hubert Humphrey represented the old New Deal/Cold War liberalism that was familiar to the Liberal Party. But Humphrey was still encumbered by his association with Johnson’s war in Vietnam. Senator George McGovern of South Dakota emerged as the standard-bearer of the antiwar, New Politics wing of the party, rallying young people and party reformers as well. Maine senator Edmund Muskie tried to carve out a middle path between the two. But a new set of rules written by a party commission headed by McGovern encouraged more open primaries and a more open convention than had ever existed before, and brought new constituencies—minorities, women, young people—into the process. The new structure favored McGovern’s insurgent campaign, and he emerged from the primaries with the most delegates.27 Each of the major candidates had their appeals to Liberal leaders: Humphrey was, in Davidson’s words, an “old friend,” and Muskie was a “strong liberal” with his “feet on the ground,” a high compliment from those who prided themselves on their balance of idealism and pragmatism. On the other hand, party leaders expressed some ambivalence about McGovern. He was a “liberal . . . with the kind of record that . . . we generally approved” of, according to Davidson, but he had a “certain weakness” for an “abstract approach to the domestic problems of the country.” Harrington was not sure that the South Dakotan had a “broad enough viewpoint” to be president. Nevertheless, the party had no real policy differences with the senator, and “on the whole,” Harrington recalled, “our people were quite enthusiastic about him.”28 Indeed, by 1972, the Liberal Party had adopted a strong antiwar stand closer to that of McGovern than to that of any of the other candidates, arguing that in Vietnam, the US committed “actions now approaching genocide, in effect, if not intent.” The party called for an “immediate halt in the war and immediate cessation of the bombing and a complete withdrawal of all American armed forces from Vietnam.”29

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In any case, it was taken for granted that the Liberal Party would back the Democrat, and as McGovern was the presumed nominee, the Liberals opposed a last-ditch “Stop McGovern” movement that arose among Humphrey and Muskie supporters. When McGovern did become the Democratic candidate, the Liberal Party nominated him as well. Harrington, in fact, hailed the Democratic convention, which some observers considered chaotic, as “one of the most interesting and politically promising party conventions of our country’s history.” Harrington cited one of his own ancestors, who had fallen at Lexington at the beginning of the American Revolution. Picking up on the McGovern campaign’s call for America to “come home,” Harrington proclaimed, “George McGovern would call us home to that tradition, home from imposing unwanted dictators on other peoples, home from the massive pulverization of small countries with modern weapons, home to our original ideals and aspirations. He does not call us home from world involvement, on the contrary he summons us to responsible world involvement, and the rebirth of our own ideals, and the reinvigoration of our own liberties, and the strengthening of our own society.” The vote of the state committee was 218 for McGovern to 8 for the radical pediatrician Benjamin Spock, running as the People’s Party candidate.30 As the Liberal candidate, McGovern spoke at the party’s October 4 dinner. Joined on the podium by vice presidential candidate Sargent Shriver, Senator Edward Kennedy, and Lindsay, McGovern condemned the Nixon administration for its corruption and cynicism. “They make war and call it peace,” he charged. “They ease a recession they created and call it progress.” Nixon and Agnew were guilty of harboring a “consuming greed” and applying “two standards of justice.” As usual, the Liberals organized independently for the joint Democratic-Liberal ticket, issuing their own flyer and buttons.31 Unfortunately, McGovern proved to be an inept candidate. Moreover, as Jonathan Rieder points out, he “came to personify all the forces that were anathema to the interests and ideals of the middle-income classes”—­pacifism, fiscal profligacy, surrender to Black militancy, and weakness in the face of rising crime and disorder. Many traditional Democratic and Liberal constituencies deserted the Democratic ticket in 1972, including many white Catholics and Jews. The AFL-CIO remained neutral, and some unions supported the president. For many of these voters, the very term “liberal” became a dirty word.32 The results were disastrous for the Liberal Party as well as for the ticket itself. Nationally, McGovern carried only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. Nixon took New York with over 58 percent of the vote. The Liberals, Rose admitted, “took a beating,” garnering some 181,000 votes for

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McGovern, less than 60 percent of the vote for the top of their line four years earlier. The Conservative Party, by contrast, won more than twice the Liberals’ vote in the first race in which the Republican Party allowed cross-endorsement of the GOP presidential candidate, solidifying its status as the third-largest party in the state. Rose blamed the results on a “climate of fear and reaction” in which “many whites identify crime with the blacks and blame reduced educational opportunity on the blacks,” and in which “many people are blaming liberals for permissiveness that they say is hurting their children, and they want a little autocracy. They want to give a sort of spanking to liberalism.”33 In some high-profile local congressional races, the Liberals fared little better, whether they backed incumbents such as the octogenarian Emanuel Celler in his losing race against a young reformer named Elizabeth Holtzman, or insurgents like the liberal crusader Allard Lowenstein in his challenge to the pro-war Democrat John Rooney. The most wrenching contest came on the West Side of Manhattan, where two Reform Democratic members of Congress were pitted against each other by redistricting. There the race between Bella Abzug and William F. Ryan turned bitterly personal, hinging on who was the more militant activist or the more effective legislator, on the lack of women’s representation in Congress, and on Ryan’s apparent bad health. Reform Democrats considered the conflict “suicidal” and tragic, as the two candidates battled through the district’s reform clubs.34 The Liberal Party backed Ryan, mainly because it considered him an old friend. As Manhattan party leader Ed Morrison put it, “We have been nominating Mr. Ryan for years. . . . We felt he was our Congressman. He has represented our point of view very ably.” According to Morrison, the Liberals would have been “very sympathetic” to Abzug if she had chosen to run in a different district after hers was eliminated, though they had not backed her in her first campaign two years earlier either. The clincher was perhaps that Ryan promised to run in the general election as a Liberal even if he lost the primary, while Abzug pledged to back the Democratic candidate. In the June Democratic primary, Ryan won by a surprisingly large two-to-one margin.35 But the concerns about Ryan’s ill health turned out to be well founded, and the congressman died on September 17. The Democrats nominated Abzug in his place, but Ryan’s widow, Priscilla, announced that she would enter the race, easily winning the Liberal Party nod. Priscilla Ryan positioned herself as potentially the more effective legislator because she would be willing to listen as well as lecture, and she won endorsements from a number of liberal luminaries, including Marie La Guardia, A. Philip Randolph, and Albert Shanker. Abzug countered that by running as a Liberal, Ryan was

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hurting the top of the Democratic ticket (though McGovern also ran on the Liberal line). The new contest continued all of the bitterness of the first primary, magnified by the feeling among some of Congressman Ryan’s friends that Abzug had hastened his death by her attacks. But Abzug easily turned back the challenge.36

In City and State As the mayoral election neared in 1973, a sense of upheaval continued to pervade the city, with crime, racial tensions, and fiscal difficulties all mounting. Lindsay had been damaged by his party switch and abortive presidential run, and Rose urged the incumbent not to try for a third term. The mayor delayed his announcement to early March, but ultimately made it clear he was not running. The Liberal Party had in the meantime begun its search for a new standard-bearer, and the year started with a series of quasi-secret political machinations that were vintage Rose. It ended, though, in defeat— another in a series of losses since 1970 that demonstrated the fallibility of Rose’s political genius.37 At meetings brokered by Senator Javits, Rose and Governor Rockefeller decided to push for a Republican-Liberal campaign in the fusion tradition. Rose and Rockefeller both feared the candidacy of conservative Bronx Democratic congressman Mario Biaggi, who seemed poised to receive both the Republican and Conservative nods, and who planned to run in the Democratic primary as well. Rockefeller also hoped to head off a third run by Lindsay. The question was, who would be the candidate? Rose would have liked Javits himself to run, but the senator refused. As early as January, Rose told former mayor Robert Wagner that he might “yet have to be the man to stand up and fight for New York,” and by March, Rockefeller told Rose he could go along with Wagner too. Wagner was willing, though he was reluctant to face a primary. Asked how it felt to be wooed by the two men who eight years earlier had drafted Lindsay to run against his record, Wagner replied, “Boy, times have changed.”38 But while Rose was able to deliver, Rockefeller was not. Though some Liberals would have preferred a fresher candidate, such as Ed Koch, state assembly majority leader Al Blumenthal, or Congressman Herman Badillo, the Policy Committee backed Wagner on March 15. A delegated conference of an ad hoc body called the Liberal and Labor Committee for 1973, representing the party leadership, followed suit four days later, endorsing Wagner over Blumenthal, Badillo, and council president Sanford Garelik. In doing so, the committee singled out Biaggi as a danger for having “no qualifications”

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and a “right-wing philosophy,” and argued that “Bob Wagner is the only man who can beat Biaggi and win a victory for New York.”39 At the same time, the governor publicly endorsed Wagner and strove to line up support for the Democratic former mayor among Republicans. One obstacle was state senator John Marchi, the 1969 GOP candidate, who wanted to make a second run. Nor were party leaders on board: the Bronx GOP leader called Wagner a “moron,” and the Brooklyn and Staten Island machines refused outright to go along. One observer, commenting on the Rose-Rockefeller effort to draft Wagner, offered that “they’d look like damn fools if he didn’t run.” But that is precisely what happened. Citing his lack of drive for the race, unwilling to contest a primary, and accusing Republican bosses of failing to understand the nature of fusion and good government, Wagner pulled out of the race. Marchi announced his candidacy, with Republican organization support. Rose consoled Rockefeller: “I said to him it was not a total loss. . . . ‘You accomplished 50 per cent for good government because you denied your party’s nomination to Biaggi. You opened up the election. Now, no matter what happens, there will be choice.’ ”40 While the Liberals worked to form a fusion ticket with the Republicans, the Democratic race got underway. In addition to Biaggi, a former policeman who ran on a law-and-order platform, Comptroller Abe Beame made his second try for the mayoralty based on his reputation for competence. Several reformers also launched bids, but most pulled out when the New Democratic Coalition (NDC), the umbrella group of Reform Democratic clubs, endorsed Al Blumenthal. The NDC’s rejection angered Herman Badillo, who accused the predominantly white reformers of racial and class bias. He continued in the race, attracting the support of many white liberals, but was increasingly seen as the “minority” candidate.41 With Wagner out of the race, the Liberals faced a choice of Blumenthal or Badillo. Blumenthal’s NDC endorsement was certainly a point in his favor since it anointed him the official liberal candidate in the Democratic primary. So was his willingness to run an active campaign as a Liberal if he lost that primary. Rose told party activists that the Post would endorse Blumenthal if he ran on the Liberal line. In addition, many political insiders, including Liberals, simply did not like Badillo personally, finding him arrogant and untrustworthy. They may have resented Badillo’s earlier criticisms of the Liberals for their negotiations with Rockefeller, and chafed at his comments about the NDC’s ethnocentrism. But another factor in the Liberals’ inclination toward Blumenthal was in fact that he was, in Ed Morrison’s words, a “good, Jewish youngster who was articulate and able and a quick mind. Finally, you have a Jewish candidate you can be proud of; it’s our own Abe

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Beame.” Badillo made a final appeal to Rose, arguing that he could unite white liberals and minority voters, but the Liberal leadership voted overwhelmingly for Blumenthal. Badillo said he was “appalled,” and Bronx district leader Lucas Olmedo stormed out of the meeting, calling it “rigged.”42 The dissident Queens group led by J. Stanley Shaw challenged the nomination. The Shaw group had on its own interviewed several of the Democratic candidates, including Blumenthal and Badillo, but to force a primary, they needed a candidate who was an enrolled Liberal. Accordingly, thirtythree members of Liberals for New Politics met at the Hilton and nominated a ticket headed by Shaw himself, who proclaimed, “Alex Rose is a political myth. He’s done it all with mirrors, and I’m about to prove it.” He called Blumenthal the new John Lindsay, someone who would deal with Rose on “patronage and no-show jobs,” and called for the transformation of the Liberal Party from a “patronage party to an issue-oriented party.” Rose responded that Shaw was an opportunist in league with left-wing ideologues. The Liberal and Labor Committee for 1973, representing the party leadership, went for the jugular, citing charges of “fraudulent practices” by the New York State attorney general that had led to a ban on Shaw’s participation in securities sales, and linking the dissident to an alleged counterfeiter (his uncle, the charges against whom had been dismissed). Blumenthal eventually defeated Shaw easily in the Liberal primary. Shaw declined to support the Liberal nominee, instead forming Liberals for Beame in the general election.43 But in the Democratic primary, Blumenthal proved to be a very weak candidate, coming in a distant fourth. Since no one had garnered 40 percent of the vote, the top two finishers—Beame and Badillo—entered a runoff. Blumenthal recommended a vote for Badillo in the runoff, but pledged to continue his candidacy as a Liberal regardless of the outcome. When Beame easily won the runoff, which to some degree devolved into an ethnic struggle, Badillo met with Harrington and Rose in Harrington’s apartment, hoping to persuade them to find some way to drop Blumenthal and nominate him instead. But Rose said that “there was no way,” because Blumenthal refused to take a judicial nomination, the only legal way he could be dropped from the ticket.44 The primaries led to a four-way race in the general election, with Beame the Democrat, Marchi the Republican, and Blumenthal the Liberal. Biaggi remained the Conservative candidate despite an effort by some top party leaders to replace him after it was revealed that he had pled the Fifth Amendment numerous times during an investigation of police corruption. As promised, Blumenthal ran an active campaign, touting himself as the only

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progressive and reform alternative. Each of his opponents, he charged, was “tied in his way to the past and each either unable or unwilling to confront the problems of the future.” Moreover, he accused Beame of close ties to the machine, and of being merely “a mechanic,” without the imagination to lead a great city. Blumenthal took reliably liberal positions on the issues (except that he argued that the municipal unions had accumulated too much power). And at the Liberal dinner that year, Harrington proudly pointed out, by way of comparison to both Beame and Biaggi, that Blumenthal had “not sought to stimulate an anti-minority vote to carry him to mayoralty on a tide of bigotry.” In a moral victory, the Citizens Union backed Blumenthal, but in the end Beame overwhelmed his opponents. Blumenthal came in third, with about 15 percent of the vote.45 The Liberal slate did not fare well in other races either. Golar gained some credibility with the endorsement of the New York Times, but lost the race for city council president to the Democrat Paul O’Dwyer. The fractious Liberal council delegation had already been decimated when its leader, Eldon Clingan, defected to the Democrats, along with Harlem councilman Charles Taylor. (Both lost Democratic primaries to keep their seats.) Clingan’s place on the ticket as candidate for city councilperson at large from Manhattan was taken by Henry Stern, who was the only Liberal elected that year. Stern had first become associated with the Liberal Party as a sixteen-year-old volunteer with the Halley campaign in 1951. Later, as a young graduate of Harvard Law School, he felt uncomfortable at the Democratic club in Inwood. He instead joined the Liberal Party and took a job as law clerk for the Liberal judge Matthew Levy. Stern served in several capacities in the Lindsay administration, by 1973 as a deputy to the consumer affairs commissioner Betty Furness. In its endorsement of his bid for the council seat, the Times called him “the single most promising newcomer seeking election.”46 As the lone Liberal council member, Stern generally took progressive positions: championing gay rights, looking out for consumer interests, and calling for good government. But there was much less of an effort to coordinate his activities on the council with those of the party than there had been for earlier delegations. Stern recalled, for example, that “one time there was a tax bill under consideration. It was an unusually difficult issue. I didn’t know which way to go. . . . I wanted to do the right thing. So I called up Alex Rose and asked him what to do. He said, ‘You decide that. That’s why we elected you.’ ” This was a far cry from the party’s attitude in 1946, when it had provided the Liberal council members with a secretary and offered advice on issues.47

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A strange incident that took place mostly on Long Island in 1973 demonstrated how easily a small party like the Liberal Party could be manipulated by unscrupulous members of the larger parties, and cast further doubt on its status as a force for good government. In a number of suburban districts, letters had been sent out by something called the Action Committee of the Liberal Party urging voters to cast their ballots for Liberal candidates. Nothing was odd about this, except for the fact that the letters appeared to have been paid for by local Republicans in districts where both major parties had banned cross-endorsements, and where the Liberals had therefore run their own candidates. In close elections, it could be assumed, large Liberal votes would come mainly at the expense of the Democrats, and therefore help the GOP. The man behind the letters, Harold Relkin, turned out to be a nephew of state court of appeals judge Charles Breitel and the holder of a no-show job with the Republican-controlled state assembly. A former Liberal enrollee in Queens, he was a current resident of New Jersey. The incident helped lead to the indictment, though not the conviction, of the speaker of the state assembly. Although Rose denied knowledge of the plot, calling it “perhaps not illegal, but certainly immoral,” some observers saw it as further evidence of cynical Liberal-Republican cooperation.48 In another indication that the Liberals’ reputation was tarnishing, Rose was forced to deny a report in New York magazine that he had hugged former Democratic boss Carmine DeSapio, recently released from prison, at the Democrats’ annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner. Rose pointed out that he had not been at the dinner at all, while James Wechsler called the report a “dirty trick.”49 In 1974, against the backdrop of the Watergate scandal and the resignation of President Nixon in the summer, it seemed that the Democrats had a good chance of taking the statehouse for the first time in twenty years. Rockefeller had resigned the governorship in December 1973, leaving it to longtime lieutenant governor Malcolm Wilson, a much more conservative Republican and conventional politician than his former boss. Seeking to avoid the kind of situation that had occurred in the previous year’s New York City mayoral election, when three of the four candidates were Democrats, state party chair Joseph Crangle demanded that all Democratic gubernatorial candidates pledge to back the winner of the primary. Unity was essential to press the Democrats’ advantage.50 At the same time, however, Crangle met with Alex Rose, aware that a Democrat could not win a statewide election without Liberal backing. This did not make everyone happy. Matthew Troy, Democratic leader in Queens, objected to reports that the Liberals would back the Democratic candidate

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for governor but the Republican incumbents Javits and Lefkowitz for senator and attorney general. Troy pointed out to Crangle that Rose was bargaining from a weak position: “If I were you Joe (and I’m really glad that I’m not) I would not let any of our candidates accept Liberal Party endorsement, unless they all get it. Alex Rose is in no position to demand anything. After all, his paternalistic god-father, John Lindsay is in the Caribbean, and Rockefeller is in ‘Limbo,’ so why should he be able to demand anything.” He threatened to withhold support from any statewide Democrat who ran as a Liberal as well.51 Rose, for his part, seems to have been aware that he was in a weak position. The Liberals needed a strong showing in the gubernatorial race to maintain their ballot line, and perhaps even to retake Row C from the Conservatives. They could do this either by running an independent candidate, in which case they would be shut out from patronage for the next four years, or by backing the official Democratic candidate. Nominating a candidate who then lost the Democratic primary and refused to run a vigorous independent campaign in the general election could mean the end of the party. Accordingly, Rose indicated that any of the three leading Democratic contenders— the liberal businessman Howard Samuels, Brooklyn congressman Hugh Carey, and Westchester congressman Ogden Reid—was acceptable. He did not mention a fourth candidate, Queens borough president Donald Manes.52 When Reid and Manes dropped out, Carey and Samuels faced off. Samuels, making his third bid for the governorship, was a millionaire businessman and former Johnson Administration official who was active in the antiwar movement. Best known to the public as the first chair of New York’s Off-Track Betting Corporation, he had widespread support among Reform Democrats, but also won the backing of most county party chairs. On the other hand, although Hugh Carey was widely thought of as a product of the Brooklyn machine, he was in fact on the outs with county boss Meade Esposito that year. Carey had first been elected to Congress in 1960, his margin of victory coming on the Liberal line. In subsequent races, however, the Liberals refused to back him because of his strong support, as an active Catholic layman, for federal aid to parochial schools. Nevertheless, representing an increasingly conservative district, he compiled a solid liberal voting record.53 As the favorite of both regulars and reformers, Samuels emerged as the frontrunner. But over the following months, Carey ran a brilliant campaign with the help of the media wizard David Garth, positioning himself as an insurgent and pinning the bossism label on the self-proclaimed reformer Samuels.54 That campaign was also abetted behind the scenes by Alex Rose. Samuels had been confident that he would get the Liberal nomination,

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but he made a poor showing at a party delegate conference. Carey, on the other hand, perhaps coached by Rose, came across very well at the conference—answering questions forthrightly, showing himself to be “very issueorientated, a quick learner,” as Morrison recalled, and taking positions more liberal than expected on such issues as abortion rights (he opposed abortion personally, but said he would abide by New York’s recently enacted liberal law). According to Harrington, Rose persuaded Carey to remain in the race after the Democratic convention, and met with him “practically daily” over the summer. Nonetheless, the Liberals hedged their bets, nominating the stand-in candidates Ed Morrison for governor and Raymond Harding, Bronx party chief, for lieutenant governor, pending the outcome of the Democratic contest.55 In the Senate race, on the other hand, the Liberal leadership made it clear from the beginning that it would back the incumbent Republican, Jacob Javits. Two days after Javits announced that he would run, a meeting of five hundred representatives of party clubs and unions, organized in an ad hoc Educational Committee of the Liberal Party, recommended Javits to the state committee with just one dissenting vote. The state committee obliged ten days later, over the objections of the New Politics and Shaw factions, which would have preferred that the party back Ramsey Clark, the standardbearer of the Left within the Democratic primaries.56 Wilson’s nomination by the Conservative and Republican Parties, and Carey’s overwhelming victory in the September primary, set up the most conventional liberal-conservative face-off in many years. Carey quickly moved to establish unity not only within Democratic ranks but also between the Democratic and Liberal Parties. When asked who his chief advisers were, he happily named Rose as a member of the campaign’s inner circle. In a formal letter, the Democrat appealed for the Liberal nomination, and Morrison obligingly stepped aside and ceded it to him. Carey opposed the death penalty, advocated the decriminalization of marijuana, and called for public financing of elections. But he also linked Wilson to what he called Rockefeller’s fiscal profligacy and promised not to raise taxes. The Liberal Party campaigned actively for Carey, distributing 1.2 million pieces of literature.57 The Senate race was a little more complicated. Javits faced opposition on two fronts. On the left, Ramsey Clark attacked the Republican-Liberal for his caution in calling for Nixon’s resignation in the face of impeachment proceedings (not to mention caution in all other liberal causes, including opposition to the Vietnam War). Javits, in turn, charged that “over and over again,” Clark had “inveighed against compromise [and] preached the politics of self-righteousness.” The incumbent criticized his challenger for his

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trip two years earlier to Hanoi, and for advocating a Palestinian state. On the right, the Conservatives found an articulate and appealing candidate in the political unknown Barbara Keating, an educational and pro-war activist from Westchester whose husband had been killed in combat in Vietnam. She declaimed against the “Javits-Clark formula of ultra-liberal, big spending, welfare state government,” and pointed to the incumbent’s own trip to Cuba earlier in the year. If Javits had an advantage in the three-way contest, it was that he could position himself as the moderate and reasonable alternative to two extremes.58 In one of a number of legal challenges that year to party procedures, Clark also sued the Liberal Party in federal court, charging that the party’s nominating process was “exclusionary,” and so “inherently undemocratic as to constitute a violation of the equal-protection clause of the Constitution.” Specifically, Clark’s suit challenged the provision in the WilsonPekula law that banned candidates from the primaries of parties in which they were not enrolled, unless given special permission by the party’s governing body in the relevant jurisdiction. Clark alleged that he and others were denied an opportunity to present their case before the state committee, and that Harrington had told him that the party always endorsed those it had endorsed in the past. This was a serious challenge in that it threatened the very basis for the Liberals’ power—the ability to control their ballot line. In response, Davidson asked rhetorically what would have happened had Javits asked to be allowed to contest the Democratic primary, and argued that open primaries would destroy any small party by making it a constant battleground for rivals from the major parties. The Liberal legal team, headed by Herbert Rose, Alex’s son, beat back the court challenge. In an ad in the Post, Clark made a last-minute appeal to “small l” liberals to repudiate Rose’s bossism by boycotting the Liberal line and voting for him.59 In Manhattan, the Democratic opponent of Republican-Liberal state senator Roy Goodman challenged all of the Liberal nominations in the county, alleging that the party had failed to file the authorization papers for nonenrollees to run on the Liberal line—the papers required by the very provision that Clark was trying to get struck down. Although the Liberals claimed that they had indeed filed the papers, they could not be found, and the board of elections therefore ruled the Liberal candidates off the ballot. County chair Henry Stern called the ruling “primitive” and went to court. Finally, after several adverse lower court rulings, the state court of appeals ruled in the Liberals’ favor, and their candidates, including Goodman, were back on the ballot.60

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At the October Liberal dinner, what Matthew Troy had feared came to pass, as the Democrat Carey awkwardly shared the platform with the Republican Javits. Carey promised sweeping reforms in his first hundred days in office, and his “sense of anticipation” of a GOP defeat was, according to the Times, “applauded repeatedly and warmly.” But Javits also spoke, calling for reform to ensure “integrity in government,” including public financing of campaigns, financial disclosure by candidates, more limits on presidential power, and an independent judiciary.61 The results for the Liberal Party were mixed. Liberals could be proud of the role they had played in reelecting Javits, and in electing Carey in a landslide. But the party had provided neither candidate with his margin of victory. Indeed, despite its weak joint candidate with the Republicans in Wilson, the Conservative Party again outpolled the Liberals. Against Javits, Keating did especially well for a political unknown, taking over 18 percent of the vote. Rose was forced to concede, “We are disappointed in our party’s vote,” perhaps consoled by the knowledge that the party would still enjoy some patronage.62 Another consolation for the leadership may have been its final victory over the Queens dissident faction. The state committee officially condemned Shaw for failing to support the party’s nominee in 1973, and continued to draw attention to his legal and business troubles. After the primaries, Rose could proudly announce that the Shaw faction had been “wiped out,” and that Shaw himself had lost his district leadership. Soon he was ousted as county chair as well. By that time, Shaw had lost interest in day-to-day politics and he disappeared from the Liberal scene.63 Though Liberals did not play as big a role in the Carey administration as they had in Lindsay’s, Rose could claim to be a Carey confidante, and the party received its share of the patronage from the new governor. Harrington’s assessment was that Carey “has been reasonably good to us,” adding the usual caveat that what was really important was the “philosophy” that appointees brought to government. And indeed, Ed Morrison, who had turned down a post in the tax department, made the most of the chairmanship of the Crime Victims Compensation Board, set up to help poor crime victims with medical or funeral expenses. Morrison saw to it that the board distributed as much aid as possible, until the state budget office complained. He also helped organize compensation boards nationally and develop a law to divert any profits perpetrators might make from books to their victims.64 But while Morrison took a peripheral role in the administration, another up-and-coming Liberal landed a job as special assistant to the governor, placing him in a strategic position within the party. Raymond Harding was a

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forty-year-old attorney who had been born in Yugoslavia and fled the invading Germans in 1941, arriving in the United States in 1944 after time in an Italian internment camp. He had graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School and worked his way through City College and NYU Law School as a waiter and cab driver. In 1958, Harding joined the Liberal Party after meeting Alex Rose at the Washington Heights Liberal Club, becoming active first in Manhattan and then in the Bronx. For a time he had a position as a lawyer for the city, investigating crooked building inspectors. An able and hardworking party activist, by 1974 he was Bronx Liberal chair, a member of the Policy Committee, and secretary to supreme court judge Max Bloom. In Henry Stern’s later estimation, Harding’s position as special assistant to the governor put him “at the center of the action,” which meant that “Alex became dependent on Harding as his link to Albany and his link to Carey.”65

Fiscal Crisis Coming on top of the dwindling of the Liberal Party’s social base and its loss of union support, the New York City fiscal crisis of 1975 was another blow to the party, striking at the core of its social democratic vision for the city and state. Carey played a central role in the dismantling of the regime based on that vision. Indeed, in his inaugural speech, the governor reacted to a much milder state fiscal crunch by proclaiming that “the days of wine and roses are over” and promising a series of austerity measures. By the spring, though, it became clear that the city faced a much deeper crisis, one that threatened to throw it into bankruptcy, with the danger that it might drag many other private and public institutions with it. The origins of the crisis lay in a complex, and to this day politically contested, combination of shoddy fiscal practices on the city’s part, shifts in the global economy and New York’s place in it, a national recession, and changes in federal policy. New York City was left with soaring costs and falling revenues, patched by short-term borrowing. When banks refused to underwrite any further loans or buy any bonds, the crisis hit. Many in the business community, as well as in the Republican administration of President Gerald Ford, saw the crisis as an opportunity to do away with what they considered unaffordable and unnecessary luxuries, such as free higher education at the City University, cheap public transit, an extensive public hospital system, tax-subsidized affordable housing, and what Treasury Secretary William Simon called “absurd” municipal salaries and “appalling” pensions. Simon, in particular, called for “punitive” measures to discipline the city. In an effort to avoid a catastrophic fiscal failure, to head off the most punitive response, and also to establish discipline in municipal fiscal

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practices, Carey established such mechanisms as the Municipal Assistance Corporation and the Emergency Financial Control Board, which took much of the city’s control over its budget and revenues away from it. In the short run, not only the most extravagant of New York’s social institutions but even its basic services, such as police and fire protection, sanitation, and public schools, suffered deep cuts.66 The Liberal Party had helped to build New York’s strong social sector, but while on one level they protested its undoing, on another they, like their liberal Democratic allies, felt obliged to accept what seemed to be necessary measures to avoid further catastrophe. So while speakers at the Liberal Party dinner, including Carey himself, accused Ford and the Republicans of “scapegoating” the city and trying to score political points in the rest of the country by attacking it, Rose and Harrington also consistently defended Carey. After a four-hour question-and-answer session between the Policy Committee and the governor at the beginning of June, for example, Harrington told the press that there was “no doubt that New York now has a Governor who knows his job, understands the issues, and is a great liberal and progressive governor who promises to be one of the greatest our state has ever had.” By the end of the summer, according to reports, Rose had become convinced that fiscal discipline was paramount and that the governor needed to act decisively to establish that discipline. But although Rose was widely considered an important political adviser to Carey, Liberals played little role in formulating policy in response to the crisis.67 The first important election year following the crisis came in 1976. In that year’s presidential race, there was never any question that the Liberal Party would back the Democratic nominee, as it had always done. The early favorite among the Liberals, as among the Democrats, was Senator Walter Mondale. But when Mondale dropped out, Liberal sentiment split between Senators Henry Jackson and Hubert Humphrey, both old friends, as well as Congressman Morris Udall and former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter, both less familiar. Once Carter had the Democratic nomination sewn up, Rose and Harrington met with the candidate, leaving Harrington, at least, suitably impressed. The party duly nominated the centrist Carter in September despite a general lack of enthusiasm, which Carter fueled at the Liberal Party dinner. Though he flattered the party by calling it “America’s political conscience,” he nevertheless took positions that were not calculated to appeal to the Liberals, calling, for example, for “strong families and less government.” (Not that the Liberals would have been against strong families, but they would have been inclined to advocate vigorous government programs as strengthening agents.)68

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The Senate race that year was more complex for the Liberal Party. James Buckley was up for reelection, and although he now had Republican backing in addition to that of the Conservative Party, he seemed defeatable. The Democratic field included Congresswoman Bella Abzug, the 1974 candidate Ramsey Clark, the 1968 candidate Paul O’Dwyer, and the eccentric parkinglot mogul and Democratic fundraiser Abe Hirschfeld. After some hesitation, former US ambassador to the UN Daniel Patrick Moynihan also threw his hat into the ring. Abzug emerged as the main contender on the left, though Clark and O’Dwyer refused calls to withdraw in her favor. Moynihan, whose own candidacy arose from his participation in the Jackson presidential campaign, represented a centrist alternative to Abzug. Indeed, the contest between Abzug and Moynihan represented a clash between two different visions of New York liberalism. Moynihan’s core backers and advisers included a number of intellectuals, labor leaders, and political operatives who would come to be known as neoconservatives, though at the time they had not yet broken with the Democratic Party. Indeed, many of Moynihan’s supporters had backgrounds that put them in the same political world as the Liberal Party—with roots in the Socialist and labor movements, as well as in the Jewish community. They were adamantly anti-Soviet, pro-Israel, and, for those reasons, inclined to support an assertive US foreign policy. Abzug, on the other hand, was the very kind of liberal whom the Liberal Party had been organized to combat, often allied with Communists and harshly critical of US Cold War policy. Moreover, Abzug had become a leading figure in the feminist movement as well as in the antiwar movement. Some of their associates believed that Rose and Davidson still disliked Abzug for her Popular Frontist politics, and that Rose was partly behind Moynihan’s candidacy. But the departure of the ILGWU, and the aging of the founding generation, had weakened those ideological tendencies within the party. Most younger members were not so doctrinaire, and some preferred Abzug’s liberalism to Moynihan’s. In the meantime, the party nominated a stand-in candidate in Henry Stern.69 After Moynihan squeaked by Abzug in a close Democratic primary, the Liberal Party was expected to follow suit and nominate him as well. Instead there was an apparent revolt in Liberal ranks. It seems to have begun when O’Dwyer, regretting his role as the progressive spoiler who cost Abzug the nomination, called Henry Foner at three in the morning the day after the primary to ask if he couldn’t prevail on Rose to give the Liberal nomination to the congresswoman. Foner, who supported Abzug all along, didn’t think it was possible, but others, including Harrington, opposed Moynihan as well, angry at his service in the Nixon administration and his famous call

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for “benign neglect” of racial issues. According to Harrington, the African American psychologist and civil rights activist Kenneth Clark, an Abzug supporter, lobbied him, calling Moynihan a “terrible man” and a “walking time bomb.” The rebels moved to throw the party’s nomination to either Abzug or John Lindsay, and Rose uncharacteristically expressed a willingness to bow to the wishes of the majority, though he believed Moynihan the strongest candidate to defeat Buckley. When both Abzug and Lindsay demurred, the rebels suggested they might put Harrington himself forward as an alternative.70 At Rose’s suggestion, Governor Carey intervened and prevailed on the Policy Committee to meet with him and with Moynihan. Carey spent forty minutes persuading the committee that it should back the Democratic nominee. The Liberal leaders spent seventy-five minutes interrogating Moynihan, during which time, Davidson recalled, they “let him have it.” Nevertheless, when Carey and Moynihan promised to include Liberals in a permanent advisory committee to consult with Moynihan during the campaign and after, Rose came away impressed by Carey’s “exceedingly logical, passionate, and convincing” argument, and Harrington became convinced that Moynihan had “in many respects . . . a liberal viewpoint.” The Policy Committee voted to endorse the Democrat despite its misgivings. Delegates to a subsequent “advisory conference” likewise displayed a distinct lack of enthusiasm for Moynihan, but after a “long series of denunciations,” during which one delegate called the former ambassador a “bigot in a bowtie,” they fell into line and recommended his nomination 125–24. The lopsidedness of the vote despite such an obvious lack of enthusiasm for the candidate led some cynics to conclude that the whole revolt had been orchestrated by Rose to impress on Moynihan the importance of the Liberal nomination. Following the recommendation of the advisory conference, Stern withdrew and his committee on vacancies nominated Moynihan in his place.71 But the confusion was not over. J. Daniel Mahoney, state chair of the Conservative Party, sued to block the Liberal nomination of Moynihan, arguing that the process had been fraudulent in that Stern had been a “dummy candidate” from the start. In his testimony denying that he had angled for the Liberal nomination, Moynihan sounded like one of the dissembling Tammany politicians the Liberal Party had always liked to ridicule. “Yes,” the candidate admitted, he had called Rose, and yes, “it was before the primary . . . but I only called because Mr. Rose was ill and I wanted to inquire about his health.” The judge, a former chair of the Albany County Republican Party, ruled Moynihan off the Liberal line. But Moynihan was reinstated on appeal, the state court of appeals noting in its decision that “the general practice of

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the parties, particularly the minor parties, to substitute candidates is so prevalent that no one is or should be deceived.” Any remedy to what might seem a confusing procedure should be legislative, the court ruled, and Moynihan was back on the Liberal line.72 Nevertheless, by Davidson’s admission, the Liberal Party ran a weak campaign that year in both the presidential and senatorial races. The party was hampered not only by its members’ lack of enthusiasm for the candidates, and by its problems getting Moynihan on its ballot line, but also by new campaign financing regulations passed in the wake of the Watergate scandal. The new law mandated that campaign committees approve all literature for their candidates, and limited the funds that could be spent on behalf of a candidate. This meant that the Liberal Party was dependent on the Democratic National Committee for funds, which were not forthcoming.73

Alex Rose Dies On December 28, 1976, after listening to a report from his secretary on missed calls while lying in a hospital bed with an oxygen mask over his face, Alex Rose died of cancer at the age of seventy-eight. One thousand attended Rose’s funeral at Metropolitan Synagogue, including many politicians he had helped elect, such as Senator Javits, Senator-Elect Moynihan, Comptroller Arthur Levitt, Attorney General Louis Lefkowitz, and city comptroller Jay Goldin, and even some he hadn’t, such as city council president Paul O’Dwyer. The main speakers were the sitting governor of the state of New York—Hugh Carey—and two former mayors of New York City, Robert Wagner and John Lindsay. Neither Mayor Beame nor the Democratic county leaders showed up. Friends and rivals alike praised him as a “consummate liberal” ( Javits), “political romanticist” (Hubert Humphrey), shrewd strategist, and “force for good” (O’Dwyer).74 The same day that Rose died, Eve Davidson collapsed. This was another reason for Ben Davidson, who was in poor health himself, to retire as executive director of the party. Davidson had been the party’s workhorse as well as its disciplinarian. He would work for hours mapping out seating arrangements for the party’s annual dinner, and, Morrison recalled, “if Alex Rose got angry with somebody, he would say, ‘Ben, talk to him.’ ” He was also very issue-oriented, in a way that Rose was not, and it was Davidson who would hammer out the party’s voluminous legislative programs. He saw the Liberal Party as an essential force for good, and, said Morrison, “the sicker [he got], the more adamant he was that the Liberal Party should continue

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and work.” With Rose’s death, Davidson agreed to stay on a few months to ease the transition.75 But the future of the Liberal Party without Rose and Davidson was “cloudy,” as the journalist A. H. Raskin put it. The Policy Committee mourned Rose’s death but proclaimed that “the Party is bigger and more important than any single leader, however wise or influential, and it will survive.” Rose’s “powers,” it said, would “revert to the Party itself and its members,” and much of his role would be taken over by Harrington. There was talk of collective leadership, but even Harrington had to admit later that such leadership “really isn’t a substitute for his instincts.” According to Morrison, Rose, unlike Davidson, did not envision the party outliving him by much, and he had not groomed an obvious successor. When prodded a few weeks before he died, he had mentioned Morrison, Harding, and his own son Herbert. Others mentioned Foner, Stern, Harrington, and Nicholas Gyory of Rose’s old union. Too sick to travel to Albany to cast his vote as a member of the Electoral College, Rose had named Harding as a replacement—perhaps because Harding was already in Albany, or perhaps because he saw Harding as his heir apparent. “We’ll see,” Stern said, “whether this remarkable man’s monument can endure, whether the institution can transcend the person.”76 Henry Stern was right to wonder. Without Rose’s presence, the paper clips and rubber bands that held the party together could last only so long. What ensued was a knock-down, drag-out brawl over the Liberal soul.

Ch a p ter 1 1

Not Liberal, Not a Party

The Liberal Party now had to navigate its treacherous course between pragmatism and idealism without Alex Rose. A “Liberal Manifesto” prepared in 1978 by party chair Donald Harrington and outgoing executive director Ben Davidson sounded all the traditional notes: invoking the heritage of Eugene Debs, FDR, and A. Philip Randolph, it called for a “mixed economy . . . coordinated by democratic planning” and proposed a litany of social democratic and liberal reforms, while celebrating its coalition of labor, intellectuals, and good-government reformers. In the late 1970s, the Liberal Party showed that it could still play an important role in New York politics and command the attention of politicians and voters. But over the next two decades, vote totals dwindled along with the party’s active membership. Moreover, the progressive ideals expressed in Harrington and Davidson’s manifesto increasingly took a back seat to the kind of cynical maneuvering and patronage politics that critics had long charged the party with. Leadership circles continued to narrow, until the party resembled a family business. By the end of the century, observers liked to quip, the Liberals were neither liberal nor a party, but a law firm with a ballot line. And then they lost the ballot line, their last remaining significant asset.1 The 1977 mayoral election was the first since New York City’s fiscal collapse two years earlier, and an ongoing sense of crisis informed the campaign. Deep cuts in services and high crime contributed to widespread 270

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voter dissatisfaction, making incumbent mayor Abe Beame vulnerable and prompting a wild Democratic primary with seven candidates. The race thereby became a referendum not only on Beame’s leadership, but also on austerity, the meaning of liberalism, and ethnic interests. Although she tried to tone down her rhetoric, Congresswoman Bella Abzug embodied the spirit of resistance to the new austerity regime. Congressman Ed Koch, on the other hand, though known as a Greenwich Village reformer, ran as a law-and-order hard-liner and “liberal with sanity” who recognized the need for fiscal discipline. Beame, Abzug, and Koch were all Jews, and observers believed they would contend for the Jewish vote, while Manhattan borough president Percy Sutton, who was African American, and Bronx borough president Herman Badillo, who was Puerto Rican, would carry their coethnics. New York secretary of state Mario Cuomo was the only white Catholic in the race, and despite his cerebral manner and generally liberal platform, he had a hard time shaking the image of an outer-borough ethnic, which worked for him in some ways but made it difficult to expand his base. Abzug and Beame were the early favorites.2 The 1977 election was also the Liberal Party’s first test of the post–Alex Rose era. The Liberals would not support Beame; that was clear. According to Henry Stern, some members liked Koch, but Liberal leaders first feared he would not survive the Democratic primary, and then recoiled from his support of the death penalty. In Harrington’s opinion, at least, Sutton was too much of a “Democratic regular,” and Abzug didn’t “see the nuances well enough.” Moreover, despite the support she received from some party members in her Senate race, others still distrusted her Popular Frontist past and resented her run against William Ryan in 1972.3 In truth, jockeying for the support of the party had begun the previous year, while Rose was still alive. According to Harrington, talks with East Side Republican state senator Roy Goodman began in December, with the Republican promising a full fusion campaign and administration. But Rose preferred to back a Democrat in deference to Governor Carey if a viable candidate could be found. By early February, with Rose gone, Goodman had the inside track. The journalist Jack Newfield reported in the Village Voice that the Liberal Party “seem[ed] about to hand” the nomination to Goodman, and complained that the Ex-Lax heir was too close to the banks and weak on tenant issues.4 But Carey was happy neither with the Democratic field nor with the prospect of a Republican-Liberal fusion campaign. Using former mayor Robert Wagner as an intermediary, the governor summoned the Liberal leadership to a meeting to discuss “the revitalization of our coalition.” The Liberals

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threatened that if Carey signed a pending bill to move the primaries from September to June, they would go immediately with Goodman. Carey promptly vetoed the June primary bill, convinced Cuomo to run, and began to put intense pressure on the Liberals to back the secretary of state. As an inducement, Carey promised that he would support a Cuomo candidacy through the general election, even if Cuomo lost the Democratic primary. Two members of the Liberal leadership, Ed Morrison and Ray Harding, who were also members of the Carey administration, felt the governor’s pressure more than most. Morrison, head of the Crime Victims Compensation Board and a personal friend of Goodman, advocated a RepublicanLiberal fusion campaign. But calls from Wagner and Carey made clear to both men where the governor stood on the issue. Fearing for his job, Harding obliged and helped to lead the Cuomo effort within the party. Though Morrison stuck with Goodman, and some last-minute sentiment surfaced for Sutton and MTA chief Richard Ravitch, by May the die was cast. A special mayoral search committee voted nine to five to one for Cuomo over Goodman and Koch, and the Policy Committee followed suit. On May 19, the state committee officially designated Cuomo as the Liberal candidate.5 The field in the bitterly contested Democratic primary was tightly bunched, and dramatic events over the summer contributed to a double upset in September. Abzug’s defense of police officers’ right to strike called into question her ability to manage the city’s affairs responsibly, and an official report on the fiscal crisis sharply criticized Beame’s handling of the city’s finances. Meanwhile, widespread riots following the massive blackout on July 13–14, and fear of a serial killer who called himself the Son of Sam, boosted the fortunes of the unlikely law-and-order candidate Ed Koch. Cuomo, by contrast, emerged as an articulate and thoughtful liberal who nevertheless could speak to outer-borough whites. While Koch enthusiastically embraced capital punishment in response to high levels of violent crime, Cuomo consistently opposed it. In a close finish, Koch and Cuomo edged out Abzug and Beame to enter a runoff, which Koch won two weeks later.6 The Liberal Party lay low during the primary and runoff season. But with the general election approaching, and Cuomo now willing to campaign actively on the Liberal line, the party undertook to “throw off the wraps and go all out,” in Harrington’s words. One obstacle was Governor Carey, who reneged on his promise to back Cuomo through November and pressured the Liberals to persuade their candidate to drop out. The Liberals and Cuomo refused, however, and soldiered on. Cuomo positioned himself as a gritty independent, a unifier, and a fighter for neighborhood stability. Liberal Party flyers called Cuomo a “sensitive and determined leader to defend and

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rebuild our neighborhoods,” leading one historian of the Conservative Party to conclude that Cuomo had stolen the thunder of that party’s standardbearer, the radio host Barry Farber. Goodman remained in the race as the Republican, but neither he nor Farber proved much of a factor.7 On November 8, Koch beat Cuomo for the third time in two months. But Cuomo’s nearly 41 percent of the vote was more than respectable for a candidate of a minor party, and the results constituted a moral victory for the Liberals. As one observer put it, they had “temporarily disprove[d] the notion that, without mirrors, the party consisted entirely of Alex Rose and his telephone.” Further down the ticket, the party had retained its city council delegation of one, in the form of the eccentric but highly regarded Henry Stern. The Liberal leadership was pleased with the results, which party leaders Donald Harrington, Ben Davidson, and James Notaro told members of the state committee “demonstrated that we not only survived [Rose’s death], but that we were a very important political factor in N.Y. City and N.Y. State.”8 If there was a cloud behind the silver lining for the Liberal Party, it was that it had underestimated Ed Koch and gained the victor’s enmity, which would last for the next twelve years. Koch had been close to the Liberals early in his career and was now very disappointed that he did not get more Liberal support early in his race for mayor. Moreover, despite Cuomo’s promise to the Liberal state committee that his campaign would be “free from vilification, free from name-calling, free from petty slander,” the race was marred by whispered allegations that the Greenwich Village bachelor Koch was a homosexual. Indeed, Harrington became inadvertently implicated in the smear. According to Harrington, what happened was that he made a television ad for Cuomo in which he said, “Cuomo is not a media image—he’s a real man.” But the first part of the statement was cut by the spot’s editors, leaving the impression that Harrington meant to imply that Koch was not a “real man.” When the Koch camp complained, the ad was pulled. But Koch continued for years to blame Harrington for fueling what he called the “homosexual slur against me,” and others remembered the incident as well.9 The only Liberal whom Koch exempted from his wrath was his old friend Henry Stern. When in 1983 Stern’s place on the council was threatened by a suit against at-large seats, the mayor appointed him parks commissioner. Stern resigned from the council and from his party posts. Koch praised Stern’s “special dedication, special turn of mind and a wry sense of humor . . . as well as intelligence.” At the same time, referring to the Liberal Party, he could not resist crowing, “I have successfully removed their only elected official.”10

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The mayoral race also greatly influenced the process of choosing a successor to Rose as the party’s de facto leader. Within weeks of Rose’s passing, a “collective leadership” had arisen, consisting of Harrington, Morrison, Harding, the new hatters’ union chief Nicholas Gyory, Alex Rose’s son Herbert, and Davidson, who postponed his own retirement. Although party chair Harrington anticipated a long-term collaboration, others expected this arrangement to be temporary. As Herbert Rose put it, his father had envisioned “a collective leadership out of which would come someone who would grasp the reins.” The question was, of course, who that someone would be. Some said Herbert Rose, an attorney, didn’t seem to have enough of an interest in politics to take over the family business. Ed Morrison, on the other hand, seemed to be the natural successor to his longtime political mentor. But Morrison’s standing in the party was seriously damaged by his unsuccessful effort to make Goodman the party’s mayoral nominee in 1977. Adding to Morrison’s weakness was his apparent indifference; he just didn’t care enough to do the politicking necessary to become party leader. Ray Harding, on the other hand, cared a lot. He had already been using his position close to Carey to make himself an indispensable intermediary between the party and the governor, a role now solidified by his support for Carey’s candidate in the mayoral race. Harding worked assiduously to cultivate support among Liberal activists, either by making them dependent on him for patronage or by convincing them that he was more loyal to Rose’s legacy than Morrison was. And according to Morrison, Harding instructed politicians outside the party to deal only with him. As Morrison recalled, sometimes politicians would disobey these instructions and call him up, only to plead, “Don’t tell Ray I spoke with you.”11 At six feet two inches, “with a tendency toward overweight,” as the Times put it delicately (less delicately, the political consultant David Garth called him the “Graf zeppelin of New York politics”), the gravelly voiced, chain-smoking, blunt-speaking Harding had what the Times called the “appearance . . . and style . . . of a Democratic Party ‘boss.’ ” Harding grew emotional when he described his desire as a former child refugee to give something back to American society and to leave “this place one percent better.” But by all accounts he was much more interested in political maneuvering and manipulation than in ideology or policy. Political insiders, both inside and outside the party, thought him trustworthy, someone who could be relied on to follow through on commitments. Even Morrison himself admitted that Harding was a “very efficient and effective leader.” A “mean guy” who “liked mean guys,” in the estimation of later party executive director Martin Hassner, he nevertheless built a well-oiled machine based on officeholders who owed

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him their jobs. As early as the spring of 1977, in the midst of the mayoral race, observers regarded him as the real leader of the Liberal Party. Soon he would quit his job in state government to join the politically connected law firm of Shea Gould and become a vice chair of the Liberal Party, like Alex Rose. By 1980, Harrington and others were referring to him as the party’s “political leader,” as if that were an official title.12 The next test came in the 1978 gubernatorial contest, and although its candidate won, the Liberal Party did not emerge in a strong position. There was no question that the party would back Governor Carey for reelection. And with the emergence of the fledgling and amateurish antiabortion Right to Life Party, new party secretary James Notaro expressed the hope that it and the Conservatives would split the right-wing vote, enabling the Liberals to retake Row C on the ballot. Instead the Conservatives outpolled the Liberals nearly two to one, and after spending a mere $60,000, the Right to Life Party captured Row D, relegating the Liberal Party to the fifth place on the ballot. Moreover, the party felt slighted by its victorious candidate when Carey failed to appear at Liberal headquarters on election night as promised, even though it was only ten blocks from his own celebration. Harrington berated the governor for the slight and urged him to get “a sharp, persistent, idea-man closer to you, at your elbow,” presumably a Liberal. The party entered a period of soul searching—reconsidering strategies, leadership, and even its name.13

Endorsement for Sale In 1980, the Liberal Party needed to demonstrate both its ability to determine elections and its rationale for existence as a progressive movement. In both regards, it helped that the party was already disgruntled with the Carter administration. As early as 1978, Harrington had publicly criticized the administration’s “drift toward conservatism” in its abandonment of a policy of full employment and health security. Moreover, as Harrington complained later in a private letter to the president, Carter had not maintained the kind of ongoing relationship that the party had had with previous Democratic administrations. At the party’s 1979 gala, Harding set the tone in a speech entitled “A Time to Be Stubborn,” in which he attacked the “new conservatism” as a “virus that is infesting both national political parties” and called on the Liberal Party to demand of its candidates a commitment to the party’s political “traditions.” In 1980, though, the Liberals ended up breaking with one of their own traditions by refusing to back a Democratic presidential candidate.14

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The Liberals’ independence in that year’s Senate race was not entirely intentional. The party’s old liberal Republican friend, Senator Jacob Javits, aging and in poor health, decided nevertheless to run for a fifth term in order to head off what he feared would be a right-wing takeover of the state GOP. He was challenged in the Republican primary by Hempstead town supervisor Alphonse D’Amato, who had the active support of the Conservative Party. When D’Amato defeated Javits in the primary, the Liberal Party stuck with Javits. Supporters of the Democratic candidate, the liberal Brooklyn congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, called on Javits to step aside and the Liberal Party to revoke its endorsement so as not to split the progressive vote, but both refused. As Stern explained it, the party had to stay with “our incumbent. . . . And someone has been at all your affairs and been supporting you. And now he’s challenged by some punk right-winger. Of course you’re for Javits. Do you withdraw your support for him at this time?” The answer could only be no.15 Carter, on the other hand, had not supported the Liberals or shown up at their affairs, and they signaled early on that they might not support him for reelection. After flirting with Ted Kennedy’s challenge to the incumbent in the Democratic primaries, party leaders began to talk openly of a possible independent candidacy. Harding met with Illinois Republican congressman John Anderson, who after losing the Republican nomination to Reagan was himself contemplating an independent centrist run. Harding, Harrington, and Notaro also visited the White House, the first Liberal visit since Rose had met with Johnson some thirteen years earlier. But Carter failed to give the Liberals the kind of attention they wanted. When Anderson promised to run solely on the Liberal line in New York, the Policy Committee endorsed him and his running mate, former Wisconsin governor Patrick Lucey. A week later, with a few dissenters, the Liberal Party officially nominated the Anderson-Lucey ticket.16 The Liberal endorsement, giving Anderson an automatic place on the ballot in the nation’s second-largest state, provided a boost to his campaign. As the race progressed, the independent increasingly shifted his fire away from Reagan and toward Carter, his main rival for liberal votes. Accepting the Liberal Party’s nomination, Anderson called Carter an “opportunist” who was “disgracing his office,” and proclaimed, “A vote for John Anderson is a vote for freedom of choice. It’s a vote for ERA. It’s a vote against the draft. It’s a vote against the mobile MX missile.” A Liberal Party flyer told “independents, progressive Democrats, moderate Republicans” that they “really [did] have a choice for president.” The Liberal Anderson-Javits ticket also provided an alternative to the significant number of New York Jewish voters who were

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alienated from Carter because of his frosty relationship with Israel but were not prepared to vote for so conservative a candidate as Reagan.17 Not everyone was happy with the Liberal Party’s direction, fearing that drawing votes away from Carter would only elect Reagan. Morrison formed Liberals for Carter, following Rose’s dictum of not helping Republicans on the national level. Harrington, however, defended the party’s decision. Anderson had “candor, courage,” he wrote in one letter to an unhappy friend. If Carter didn’t win, he told another disgruntled liberal, it was because of his own faults. Echoing an old Socialist argument, Harrington further argued, “We cannot make our political decisions solely on the basis of the fear that our vote might help elect somebody we don’t want.”18 Once again, the results for the Liberals could only be described as mixed. On the one hand, Reagan had been elected president and D’Amato senator, ushering in a new period of conservative ascendance. On the other hand, the Liberals had demonstrated definitively that Democrats still could not carry New York without their support. Anderson received 7.5 percent of the vote in the state, much more than Reagan’s margin of victory. And had Javits’s 11 percent gone to Holtzman, she would have won. Still, Harrington believed, Liberals could “hold up our heads.” They had stuck to their principles. Moreover, he argued, Reagan would have won anyway, even if Carter had taken New York. And if Javits had dropped out, his vote would have been divided between Holtzman and D’Amato and the Republican still would have won. “And,” the party chair declared exultantly, “we just happened to have gotten the best vote for president since John F. Kennedy ran on our ticket, and the best vote for senator that we have ever gotten.”19 Two years later, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan was up for reelection. Since his 1976 election, his relations with the Liberal Party had been rocky. The issue of tax credits for private school tuition was a particular bone of contention between the Liberals and Moynihan: Moynihan supported them, while the Liberals opposed them as a subsidy to sectarian parochial schools and an attack on public education. When Moynihan introduced a bill to enact such credits, the Liberal Policy Committee proclaimed that the senator had “forfeited his right to the party’s support now and in the future.”20 But by 1982, positions had softened somewhat, and the process by which the party reconciled with Moynihan indicated where its priorities now lay. At an exploratory meeting in January, Harding told the Moynihan staffer Tim Russert that the senator had to take three steps in order to secure the Liberal Party’s support: (1) The party needed the campaign’s financial support, and so, (a) the Moynihan organization had to buy several tables at the

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Liberals’ annual dinner, and (b) Moynihan had to set up a “separate campaign fund” for the Liberal Party to run its own campaign on his behalf; (2) Liberal Party members needed to know they would be considered for jobs; and (3) some “mutual understanding” was needed on tuition tax credits. The last issue was quickly disposed of. When Russert explained that any bill would include strict language protecting civil rights and public school funding, Harding replied, “I could live with that.” Russert also assured Harding that the Moynihan campaign would help with fundraising efforts and consider “all applicants” for jobs, though he added in his report back to Moynihan, “It was important that he understand I did not view his presentation to in any way reflect the notion that the ‘Liberal Party endorsement was for sale.’ ” Harding agreed that that was correct. The final cost for the Liberal endorsement was $100,000: $75,000 for overhead and campaign costs, and $25,000 in dinner tickets. Moynihan apologized for not having understood more quickly what was needed. “Alex Rose never asked me for support of this type,” he said. A month later, the Liberal Party officially nominated Moynihan for reelection.21 Lucrative as the Senate contest may have been, however, the gubernatorial election was more important, because the number of votes the Liberal Party received for its candidate would determine what ballot spot it would have for the next four years. When Governor Carey announced in January that he would not seek another term, the election became a crucial test of Ray Harding’s political leadership, as he declared that his “most important goal” that year was to elect a governor and win back Row C or D. The selection of a candidate also became entwined in a simmering internal rift that soon erupted into a full-scale power struggle between Harding and Harrington, the likes of which the party had never seen.22 As soon as Carey announced his retirement, Harding reported that he was “deluged with phone calls” from would-be candidates. But soon, the Democratic field boiled down to two: Lieutenant Governor Cuomo and Mayor Koch, who faced off for the fourth time. Cuomo was especially anxious for Liberal support and lobbied Harding assiduously through the spring. Since no Democrat could carry the state without the Liberal endorsement, he figured, the party’s nod would make him the only credible Democratic candidate. But he also had begun to think that by positioning himself as the only genuine progressive, he might be able to beat both Koch and the conservative Republican candidate on the Liberal line alone. Both Democrats needed to convince the Liberals that they would continue to run even after losing the primary, but Cuomo was more consistent and sincere in his refusal to pledge support for the Democratic ticket.23

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But although Cuomo seemed to have the inside track—Koch had, after all, once referred to the Liberal Party as “slime”—the path to the Liberal nomination was not an easy one. Harrington and others clearly preferred Cuomo. But Harding resisted, openly flirting with Koch, who now explained that he was “warming up to the Liberal Party,” and had meant that only Harrington, and not the party as a whole, was slime. Harding later claimed that his feint toward Koch had been a ruse to help Cuomo by making the Liberal endorsement seem hard-won. Harding even claimed that he had discussed the strategy with the lieutenant governor at a private dinner at the leader’s Riverdale home. At the time, however, no one, least of all Cuomo, who remembered the dinner differently, seemed to be in on the plot. Rather, they believed Harding finally came around to Cuomo because he realized he had little choice, not only because of sentiment within the party, but also because a coalition of minority leaders had threatened to launch an anti-Koch party that would drive the Liberals to Row F.24 The Liberal Party eventually did back Cuomo, and when he won, the Liberals should have been sitting pretty. Harrington served on the transition team, and Harding began to prepare lists of party members for roles in the transition and the new administration, sometimes specifying locations (New York City, Nassau County, Albany), sometimes fields or agencies (“mental retardation,” “criminal justice,” Urban Development Corporation, Port Authority, governor’s office), levels of appointment (assistant commissioner), and salaries. Cuomo’s warning to Harding early in the campaign that “the gratitude he naturally might have expected because of his support will be diminished by the extent to which he delays and plays games” should have given the leader pause as a harbinger of tensions between the Cuomo camp and the Liberal Party that would last for two decades. In the short run, too, what should have been a triumphant dividing of the spoils instead underscored divisions in the party. In a note to himself, Harrington lamented that a meeting of the leadership group dissolved into “disorder, shouting, bad manners and rudeness,” as Harding and Harrington warred for control over patronage. Nevertheless, Harrington was forced to admit that Harding’s “followers, mostly people holding jobs from the State through his patronage,” seemed to have a majority on the Policy Committee and would likely carry the day.25

Struggle for the Soul of the Party, 1982–86 A struggle between Harrington and Harding had, in fact, been brewing since Harding’s public flirtation with Koch. The issues involved in the fight had

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deeper roots, however, than a simple disagreement about the gubernatorial race. Ben Davidson, who had retired to California, now reminded the party chair that he had warned “against the development of corruption in the Party; of the trend toward a ‘one man party’; how Harding was consumed with ambition, had a terrible hunger for power, in fact for monopoly power; wanting always to see his name in the paper; confusing manipulation and maneuvering with the role of leadership; using job control to get results.” Davidson ticked off the names of party leaders who had gotten jobs for family members, sometimes multiple family members, and complained of the “Bronx clique” that looked to Harding as its patron. He also complained that Harding had subtly and unilaterally altered long-standing party positions, dropping any reference specifically to “parochial” schools from a party statement in opposition to government aid to private education. “So it’s Ray Harding not only the boss of the Party,” he said, “but boss over our Program. Boss over our principles.”26 Harrington agreed with much of Davidson’s assessment, and now reconsidered his long-stated willingness to step down as chair. At a March Policy Committee meeting, Harrington instructed Harding to keep the chair “much better informed” of “political moves” and allow him to make all public pronouncements. Harrington also told Harding that all patronage was to be dispensed through executive director Notaro. Harrington acknowledged privately that Harding was a “brilliant political analyst” (the kind of label that had once been attached to Alex Rose) and put a tremendous amount of work into the party (in exchange for which he got legal work from the state), but he also reported that he had to “keep reminding Ray that he is not the Liberal Party,” which “is not and has never been a one person party.”27 Despite these rebukes, however, Harding was in a strong position, with support from the majority on the Policy Committee, some of whom owed him their jobs. At the same March meeting, Harrington reported, a resolution had been offered formalizing Harding’s role as “political leader.” When the chair reminded the members that the committee was purely advisory and could not name party officers, they instead voted to express confidence in Harding’s leadership. By the end of April, when Cuomo’s nomination seemed assured, Harrington let down his guard, satisfied that the crisis had passed. Davidson warned him—presciently—to be careful, since Harding was the master of the strategic retreat. Moreover, Davidson advised, Harrington should pay close attention to upcoming elections for state committee, and watch out for Harding-sponsored candidates.28 Over the summer and fall, the factional conflict escalated. Harding and his allies convinced Harrington to fire Notaro, a former roofer, on the grounds

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that he could not adequately run the party in the three days a week he spent in New York City, commuting from his home in Buffalo. But then, after meeting with Notaro and his upstate supporters, and feeling that Harding had manipulated him, Harrington backtracked and reinstated the director. The two remained allies from then on. In October, after the death of his wife, Vilma, Harrington began to take an even more hands-on approach to party work, setting up a desk for himself at Liberal headquarters and establishing a three-person “Administrative Committee,” consisting of himself, Notaro, and Harding, to supervise Harding’s work as the party’s informally acknowledged “political leader.” Harrington claimed to have the blessing of “Mario,” who, he said on the basis of a report from Notaro, refused to deal with Harding as the liaison between the new administration and the Liberal Party, in retaliation for Harding’s dalliance with Koch early in the year.29 Harding fought back, accusing Harrington of “McCarthyism” and Tammany-like behavior. Taking the high road, he charged the chair with pettiness and putting patronage ahead of principled politics. Moreover, he argued, the chairs’ job had always been to “articulate Liberal Party principles, attract new recruits and build bridges to the literary and scholarly world. It never occurred to them to waste their energies in sordid backroom maneuvers to undermine the work of those, who day by day, seek to build the party and keep it strong.” In short, the chair should leave politics to the professionals. Party activists called to complain about Notaro’s work and about Harrington’s persecution of Harding. Harrington also got no support from the governor, who met with Harding and wrote to Harrington that he had no problem working with the vice chair. Harrington apologized to Cuomo, but reiterated his criticisms of Harding and his demand that any communication from the governor go through the new three-person committee.30 In this atmosphere, Nicholas Gyory, another vice chair, called a meeting of the state committee for January 8, 1983. Harrington attempted to block the gathering through legal action, and immediately adjourned it when it did convene. But close to two hundred pro-Harding members continued to meet, turning the conclave into a faction rally featuring a burgeoning cult of personality. Gyory proclaimed Harding “our Party’s political leader, strategist, consensus builder, spokesperson and fund raiser, the inheritor of the role of Alex Rose.” And even Morrison called on Liberals to “fight to our death for our political leader.” Harding himself criticized the state office, and associated his opponents with the “forces of the irresponsible political left” that had always threatened the party. According to one report, Harding was interrupted by applause several times during his talk, “including two

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standing ovations.” The gathering cast a vote of no confidence in the chair and executive secretary.31 A tumultuous official state committee meeting finally took place on January 29–30, resulting in an uncomfortable truce brokered by Cuomo aides. In advance of the meeting, Harrington took an aggressive stance, accusing his rival of using his political contacts to gain “LUCRATIVE STATE CONTRACTS .  . . FOR HIS OWN LAW FIRM,” and called the idea that Harding was the new Alex Rose a “smear” against Rose. The gathering itself resembled the turbulent scenes during factional battles in the old American Labor Party forty years earlier. Called for one o’clock on Saturday afternoon, it did not end until six the next morning, after hours-long procedural fights, factional caucuses, and floor debates. Meanwhile, in the back rooms of the Sheraton Hotel, the governor’s son Andrew and longtime aide Fabian Palamino hammered out a compromise that would have removed Notaro from the directorship of the party (he would get a state job instead) and established an eleven-person leadership committee with representation in proportion to a vote by the state committee. But the compromise, which was never put into effect, satisfied neither side. “Sure, there’s a war,” Harrington told the press. “Believe me, it’s only just begun.”32 Integral to the struggle were charges and countercharges of corruption. The weekly tabloid the Village Voice intervened in the fight with an exposé of what it claimed were “almost $400,000” worth of payments to Harding, his wife Elizabeth (who held a series of state jobs), and his law firm, not counting an additional $75,000 retainer for the firm, Shea Gould. The state insurance commissioner told the reporter Jack Newfield, “Ray called me personally and said our agency hadn’t given his firm any legal work. He asked me for business directly.” Other agencies had doled out contracts and jobs to Harding friends as well, Newfield alleged, and Harding himself received $11,585 as a “consultant to the state on Indian affairs.” Harding threatened to sue. But if the report damaged his public image, it did not make any impression on his supporters in the party. “Whatever you say about Ray Harding,” wrote one state committee member to Harrington, “he has never taken any money from the state office treasury to benefit his needs. . . . Whatever Ray does on the outside is his business.” And Shirley Reiter, a Harding supporter who had recently been fired as office manager at Liberal Party headquarters, wrote to Harrington with vague allegations that state officeholders were doing political work for the party and the chair on state time.33 Control of party patronage was both a potent weapon and a significant issue in the factional battle. According to Newfield, sixty-two Liberals had served in important positions in the Carey administration. But now,

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at a moment when Liberals’ support of the victorious Cuomo should have brought them at least equivalent rewards, chaos in the party threatened to cut off the flow of jobs. “I don’t know who to deal with,” the governor told the Times. “I told them I can’t deal with any one part of you.” And so he held up appointments, including one rumored for Harding’s son Robert. Indeed, according to some reports, the governor threatened to “fire all your people” if a compromise could not be reached. Panic spread among Liberal officeholders, as they scrambled to save their jobs by aligning with the dominant faction. In a flurry of phone calls and private meetings, officials across the state, from the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board to the Division of Cemeteries, attempted to figure out which side that was. When, under pressure from Notaro, one Queens Liberal switched sides, brought the eight or ten state committee members he controlled with him, and convinced another official to do the same, Harding lost his majority and Harrington gained the upper hand.34 In March 1983, facing defeat, Harding seemingly conceded control of the party. Choking with emotion as he recalled Alex Rose, Harding announced his move in the name of Liberal unity. But this proved to be the kind of strategic retreat that Davidson had warned against. By August, he was back in the fight, with an eye to the next year’s primaries. Harding’s supporters organized the Committee for an Independent Liberal Party (CILP), their leader pledging to “recall our party to its faith” and actively defend liberal values against Reagan administration attacks. Over the next three years, CILP came to resemble a parallel party, releasing statements on issues and endorsements of candidates, and even holding competing fundraising and social events. In that time, CILP claimed the support of many prominent Liberal activists. Above all, it existed to wrest control of the official party back from Harrington and Notaro.35 Harrington and Notaro managed to keep control for three years, but it wasn’t easy. There were more “cruel” state committee meetings that lasted into the wee hours of the morning, which according to Harrington resembled “soap opera[s]” and left everybody “bleeding.” There were more lawsuits and threats of lawsuits, and more charges of corruption. There were knock-down, drag-out primary battles, in which both sides devoted most of their energy to battling each other rather than putting the Liberal program and candidates before the general public. There was even a Watergate-type incident in which a party staffer was convinced to steal documents from the office to turn over to the dissidents in exchange for help finding a job. Cuomo continued to intervene, primarily in support of the Harrington faction. Publicly, Notaro looked forward to “some high-ranking positions” for the party.

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Behind the scenes, Notaro and Harrington also hoped for a purge of some Harding loyalists still in government.36 At the end of 1983, the New York State Commission of Investigation, a highly politicized agency whose outgoing chair was “of counsel” to the Harding loyalist Herb Rubin’s law firm, began an inquiry into allegations that party members had been coerced into taking sides by threats to their jobs, and that Cuomo had improperly interfered in the party’s internal affairs. Its report, issued in March 1984, found that “threats of patronage dismissals” had been made by both factions, and that Democrats had indeed interfered in internal party affairs. Harding saw the report as a vindication, arguing that it showed that the Liberal Party under Harrington’s rule had engaged in “political thuggery.” The other side countered that with the report issued, the Cuomo administration could now freely declare its preference for the current leadership. Cuomo’s people regarded Harding as a “political grubber,” a “payroll liberal” who “wanted his law business, . . . wanted special license plates for his car, . . . wanted a police shield. He liked to drive around in his Cadillac and show off. Some Liberal.”37 At one point early in the dispute, Harding felt compelled to pen a long angry letter to Cuomo that demonstrated the entanglement of personal and political feelings. Someone had told Notaro, and Notaro had told Harding, that the governor had said he would “be around ‘to spit on Ray Harding’s grave.’ ” Harding defended himself against rumors that he had predicted that Palomino and Andrew Cuomo would be indicted, that he had expressed the wish to dump Cuomo and bring back Carey, and that he had made a deal with David Garth to support Anderson. The offended boss reminded the governor of his past support, and of their families’ close social ties. Now the governor’s people were smearing Harding in the press and Robert Harding had lost his state job. Harding even invoked his early experiences as a refugee, something he seldom did, writing that he believed he had been saved “for some purpose more important than mere survival.”38 Although they subsequently managed to work together, at least superficially, bad blood between Cuomo loyalists and Harding persisted. But by 1985, it was clear that both the party and its dominant leadership were also suffering from the internal discord. Walter Kirschenbaum, a longtime party member and functionary, complained of inaction and a “perception of chaos and nothing really happening on issues or politically.” Ed Morrison reported that old members were leaving and young potential volunteers were going over to the Democrats. One sign of the party’s turmoil was the decline of the annual dinner, which had always been crucial not only to its funding but also to its public relations and political prestige. The 1983

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affair was a disaster, with somewhere between 400 (according to the press) and 605 (according to the party office) people attending, compared to 2,000 the year before. Notaro was convinced that Harding had tried “to bomb” the gala, and if that was true, he succeeded, as many important political figures either skipped the event altogether or left early, despite Cuomo’s presence. Harding gleefully told the press, “I read it as a signal of the decline of the party unless someone rescues it.” By early 1985, Morrison agreed, telling Harrington that the party was “dead in the water.”39 That year, Liberals and outside observers alike could have been excused for being confused when Harrington and Notaro decided to support Koch in his bid for a third term as mayor. After all, not only had Koch once called Harrington “slime,” but the ostensible reason for the outbreak of factionalism in the party had been Harding’s dalliance with Koch’s 1982 gubernatorial effort. But in the spring of 1985, Harrington considered the mayor’s rehabilitation, if only liberals could “find some way to turn Koch around a bit and give him a more progressive face.” Soon Harrington committed publicly, along with other Liberals for Koch. Meanwhile, city council president Carol Bellamy had won the party’s official designation with the help of Harding’s CILP, which in the spring took control of the city executive committee. A primary was averted only when Bellamy’s supporters managed to knock Koch off the ballot. Even then, Liberals for Koch, including the party’s state chair and executive director, urged a vote for the Democrat over their own party’s nominee. Koch, they argued, had managed the city’s affairs well and remained a liberal when it came to housing, civilian oversight of the police, and other issues. Moreover, they contended, by endorsing him, Liberals could counteract the Republicans’ pull on the mayor.40 Harding ultimately defeated Harrington by outworking and outfoxing him. In March 1985, as he was preparing to support Koch for reelection, Harrington rejoiced prematurely that he had seen the Harding “danger in time,” and that his opponent “had to have it all or nothing, and it is going to be nothing.” But just a few months later, Harrington admitted that he was very “discouraged” at the lack of energy in the party and in his own faction. Meanwhile, Harding and his shadow party stepped into the vacuum, undertaking the hard work of organizing that the state office failed to do. They sent out mailings to all new party enrollees and met with them. Ray and Elizabeth Harding, as well as their sons Robert and Russell, traveled the state, rallying supporters. As Ray Harding put it, “Penn Yan, Oneonta, Tonawanda. . . . Ten people, eleven people at a time. Nuts, bolts: organizing the troops.” The work paid off, and in September 1986, Harding regained his position as vice chair and de facto boss of the Liberal Party.41

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For a City That Cares As the 1989 mayoral election approached, US Attorney Rudolph Giuliani was contemplating a run. An aggressive prosecutor of organized crime, he had also won the praise of liberals by pursuing corrupt Wall Street traders. Recently, his successful attack on political corruption in New York had toppled the Democratic bosses in the Bronx and Queens. These cases had reached uncomfortably close to Koch, who had once boasted that his own success was due to his reputation for “personal integrity.” Although no one thought the mayor himself was on the take, his apparent willingness to deal with crooked machines tarnished his image as a squeaky-clean reformer. Koch now seemed vulnerable. But for a Republican like Giuliani, Liberal backing was key to mounting a fusion-style campaign that could attract enough progressive support to overcome the Democrat’s natural advantage. The prosecutor therefore began talks with Ray Harding early in the year.42 Other potential candidates were also courting Harding. Manhattan borough president David Dinkins, for one, wanted Liberal backing for his effort to become the first African American mayor of New York. He wooed Harding aggressively, but his efforts were clumsy. Failing to show the requisite deference, Dinkins invited Harding to come to him, rather than offering to meet in a neutral location like a restaurant or hotel. The Liberal leader also worried that some tax issues in Dinkins’s past would sink his campaign. And so Harding made it plain that Dinkins would probably not get the Liberal nod.43 In any case, Giuliani seemed like a stronger candidate against Koch, and, as usual, the Liberals would likely gain more from backing a victorious Republican than they would from a successful Democrat. So Harding and Giuliani started to meet regularly, with the Liberal boss coaching the neophyte candidate not only on the ins and outs of electoral politics, but on how to talk like a liberal. Giuliani’s emergence as a progressive disappointed the leaders of the Conservative Party, with whom he had also been in conversation. But indeed, under Harding’s influence, Giuliani took a pro-choice position on abortion and, although he refused to come out for domestic partnership rights, advocated a more aggressive municipal policy to fight AIDS, an issue of importance to the gay community. In early speeches, Giuliani called for a “city that cares,” describing homelessness as an issue of “conscience” and promising a policy of racial outreach and inclusion. Although he continued to support the death penalty, he stressed that it should be only a rarely used last resort. In any case, he promised not to emphasize it as Koch had done in his first race.44

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With the Liberal leadership behind Giuliani, the party announced its support on April 8, even before the candidate’s official declaration that he was in the race. Judging from an unscientific survey of party members taken in February and March, the leaders had substantial support among rankand-file Liberals, who like other New Yorkers were much concerned with issues of public order such as drugs, crime, and homelessness. Giuliani led the other candidates with 43.2 percent to Dinkins’s 34.9 and Koch’s 15.2, and when the second-place votes of Koch supporters were distributed to the others, Giuliani won a clear majority. In announcing the party’s support, Liberal chair Frank Marin, who had been installed by Harding after Harrington’s departure, called for a “fresh approach” and “non-partisan government” to deal with the malaise of the city. He recalled the Liberals’ tradition of supporting moderate Republicans for the sake of the public good, and argued that Giuliani was in step with the Liberals’ core positions: “We found that Rudy Giuliani agreed with the Liberal Party’s views on a majority of . . . issues. He agreed with the Liberal Party’s views on affirmative action, gay rights, gun control, school prayer and tuition tax credits. As mayor, Rudy Giuliani would uphold the Constitutional and legal rights to abortion. We differed on only one issue, capital punishment. . . . On the fundamental issues of municipal management—competence, energy and integrity—we find Rudy Giuliani ‘highly qualified and preferred.’ ”45 The Liberals had to fend off some criticism of their decision. A New York Times editorial, for example, charged that the Liberal Party had become “little more than a political tool,” and that the Giuliani nod was the “work of one wily politician”—namely, Ray Harding. Harding countered in a letter to the editor that the Times should better “applaud” the party’s “enlightened public interest” in backing such a “consensus-building” candidate. Likewise, when the National Organization for Women criticized the choice, a group of Liberal women, including Manhattan cochair Fran Reiter, responded by stressing the candidate’s support for abortion rights, despite his reservations as a Catholic. Some grumbling came from within as well, but it never became very loud.46 In the Republican primary, Giuliani faced the millionaire cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder, who aggressively attacked him from the right. Lauder reminded GOP voters that not only had Giuliani accepted the Liberal nomination, but in his youth he had voted for George McGovern. “He’s a Liberal. He’s proud to be a Liberal,” charged one Lauder fundraising letter. The Wall Street Journal agreed with this assessment, calling the candidate “John V. Giuliani,” and arguing that “the last thing either the city or the national GOP needs is another Lindsay liberal to give Republicanism a bad name.”

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So did the Conservative Party, picturing a Giuliani “groveling at the boots of Ray Harding’s Liberal Party.” Despite these attacks, however, Giuliani easily won the primary, becoming the Republican as well as the Liberal nominee.47 In the meantime, Dinkins, hitherto a conventional machine politician, emerged as the progressive standard-bearer against Koch. Managing to put together a long-elusive coalition of African Americans, Latinos, and progressive whites, he upset the incumbent in the Democratic primary, changing the dynamics of the general election. Now Giuliani ran to the right as the champion of law and order. In a bitterly fought campaign that included many personal as well as political attacks, the Republican-Liberal made a particular effort to cut into Dinkins’s Jewish support by highlighting the Democrat’s ties to the civil rights leader Jesse Jackson (unpopular among Jews for an antisemitic comment he had made to a reporter during his 1984 presidential campaign) and to local Black militants in Brooklyn. He also called attention to financial improprieties and, in a move orchestrated by Harding, attempted unsuccessfully to prompt press coverage of several extramarital affairs on Dinkins’s part. In the end, Dinkins barely edged out Giuliani, who began preparing for a rematch.48 Almost a year later, the Liberal Party got a new chair. Frank Marin resigned, complaining that he had been nothing but a figurehead, and that the party had not allowed Hispanics to wield any real power. “The reality,” he argued, “is that . . . all the power lies in the hands of only one person, Ray Harding.” The Puerto Rican activist was succeeded by Fran Reiter, a Jewish woman and New York native with a background in theater who headed a marketing firm specializing in the distribution of television programs. She had joined the Liberal Party ten years earlier, backing Harding in the factional squabbles of the mid-1980s. Since 1986, she had been cochair of the Manhattan party. Taking the helm of the party, she proclaimed that it would be “an outspoken voice for traditional liberal values and honest and effective government.”49 The rematch between Giuliani and Dinkins came in 1993, after four rocky years for the mayor. Although Dinkins had increased the share of city contracting going to minority-owned firms, the need for fiscal austerity limited his ability to carry out his progressive program. Not much was accomplished to expand the supply of affordable housing, and crime peaked during his first year in office. Although it began to decline slowly thereafter, it remained high and many New Yorkers continued to regard it as a major problem. A widespread perception of weak leadership was exacerbated by several racially charged violent incidents that pitted Blacks against Koreans or Jews, and which critics asserted Dinkins did little to defuse. In the meantime, Giuliani prepared for a second try through a series of briefings on urban policy by

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an informal “brain trust.” Some who participated in these meetings, many of them lapsed liberals and radicals, experienced them as scenes of exciting intellectual ferment. The policy positions they developed were often conservative ones that stressed the limits of government ability to solve social problems. And indeed, one Giuliani letter to Liberal Party members called not only for a crackdown on low-level drug dealers, but also for a cut in business taxes in order to encourage private enterprise.50 This time, the Republican-Liberal coalition succeeded. Harding was once again in the candidate’s inner circle, joined in the campaign by Reiter as deputy manager and Liberal executive director Carl Grillo as head of the getout-the-vote operation. The Liberals helped bring David Garth to Giuliani’s team, and Garth, in turn, helped fashion a true fusion ticket that included the Democrats Herman Badillo for comptroller and Councilwoman Susan Alter for public advocate. With minority voting slightly down, a small shift among white voters away from Dinkins, and a large turnout on Staten Island because of a nonbinding referendum on secession from the city, the 1989 results were reversed, and the challenger nosed out the incumbent by a hair. Grillo, especially, got credit for the campaign’s well-oiled field operation, with Giuliani aide Peter Powers dubbing him “the best field operative in the city.” Most importantly for the Liberal Party, it could claim for the first time in a long time that its votes, in this case 62,469, had provided its candidate’s margin of victory.51 The Liberals wasted no time in claiming their share of influence and jobs in the new administration. Harding and Reiter played important roles in the transition, with Harding pushing for the swift dismissal of Dinkins appointees. According to one count, some twenty-three Liberals got posts in the new administration, headed by Reiter, who became deputy mayor. Henry Stern was back at Parks. More controversially, Ray Harding’s sons Robert and Russell both got jobs, Robert as director of the Office of State Legislative Affairs and Russell as head of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. “There are two ways that article can be written,” Robert Harding told one reporter. “One way is ‘Ray’s kids get jobs in the Giuliani administration.’ And the second way is ‘Ray’s kids get jobs in the Giuliani administration and they’re unqualified.’ As long as it’s not of the latter type, I’m not concerned by it.” This was a subtle shift from Alex Rose’s traditional line that as long as Liberal appointees were qualified, liberal patronage was legitimate. The election was good for Ray Harding’s business as well. He joined the firm of Fischbein and Badillo, and the number of clients he served as a lobbyist increased more than twentyfold. Attendance at Liberal Party functions boomed.52

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The Liberals also had influence on policy. Harding and Giuliani spoke often. According to party director Martin Hassner, it was Harding who convinced the mayor to appoint Rudy Crew as schools chancellor. Likewise, at a late-night meeting at Gracie Mansion, Reiter persuaded the mayor to veto a proposal to eliminate the Division of AIDS Services.53 The Liberals similarly played an important role in Giuliani’s 1997 reelection campaign. Until he passed away at the end of 1996 at the age of fortyone, the chain-smoking Grillo, who his Liberal colleague Fran Reiter said could look “a little schlumpy” at times, doubled as director of the Liberal Party and of Friends of Giuliani, drawing a third of his pay from the latter group. Reiter this time became campaign manager, despite tension between her and other high-level Giuliani aides. Liberal Party campaign literature, like the mayor’s general literature, emphasized his success in lowering crime and improving the economic health of the city through tax cuts. After his easy reelection, Giuliani rewarded the Liberals in part by promoting Robert Harding to director of the Office of Management and Budget, and eventually to deputy mayor. Russell was named head of the Housing Development Corporation. Some observers complained about their lack of qualifications, with the historian Richard Wade, a former Harding backer in the Liberal Party, grumbling, “Tammany Hall had higher standards than this.” Rumors began to circulate about Russell’s lavish personal spending.54

Future in Doubt With candidates it had supported in Gracie Mansion, the governor’s mansion, and the White House, the Liberal Party was better off in 1994 than it had been in years. The annual dinner program that year came with a special fiftieth-anniversary lapel pin. Guests dined on grilled poached salmon with caviar garnish and grilled breast of chicken chasseur, while listening to speeches by Governor Cuomo, Mayor Giuliani, Senator Moynihan, and others. The party’s new chair, Alberta Madonna of Schenectady, whose day job was deputy director of purchasing for the New York State Assembly, did not speak, but vice chair Harding did. Calling the Liberal Party a party of ideas, he stressed the need to fight against the conservative tide represented by the likes of the evangelical preacher Pat Robertson and the political pundit Pat Buchanan. Liberals, argued Harding, needed to defend progressive politicians like Cuomo and Giuliani from right-wing attacks. Such a joint appeal on behalf of the Democratic governor and the Republican mayor might have seemed incongruous in another year, but in 1994, Harding had helped to

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engineer Giuliani’s surprising endorsement of Cuomo in what turned out, even more surprisingly, to be a losing bid for a fourth term.55 But all was not well, as the Liberal Party’s vote counts dwindled. In 1990, despite backing the winning Cuomo, the Liberals had polled an anemic 71,017 votes statewide, dangerously close to the 50,000-vote threshold to remain on the ballot. Even in providing the margin of victory to Giuliani in the city, the Liberals attracted far fewer votes to their line than they had in earlier disastrous defeats. And the party remained relegated to Row E, behind not only the Democrats and Republicans but also the Conservative Party and the Right to Life (1990–94) and Independence (1994–98) Parties. The Liberals’ low bargaining power was evident in a 1996 letter by Queens Democratic state senator Emanuel Gold to Grillo. Whereas office seekers had once begged for party support, Gold now wrote that he was “considering” whether or not to ask for Liberal backing, and demanded, “What advantage would there be to me in running on the Liberal Party Line?”56 The Liberals clearly worried about the survival of their party. Publicly, their campaign literature compared the party to the Tyrannosaurus Rex, and pleaded, “Don’t let the Liberal Party become extinct.” Internally, Ray Harding received advice from political consultants such as the Republican operative Ron Maiorana, who suggested a complete makeover that would include a name change, a new emblem, and revisions in the program to support the death penalty in certain cases and to compromise on abortion rights. Harding resisted these suggestions, however, even as he steered the party toward a nebulous center.57 But by the 1990s, it was not clear what, if anything, the Liberal Party stood for, and whom, if anyone, it represented. Observers called it “a law firm with a ballot line,” or “little more than a one-man unincorporated business.” That matters of ideology and policy had been handed over to young student interns acting as “policy director” or “issues director” illustrates their relative unimportance to party leadership by the early 1990s. A strategic plan produced by one intern noted that the party failed to convey its views on issues even to its endorsed candidates, let alone the public, and called for stepped-up efforts to recruit and activate new members. But Martin Hassner, who took over as executive director after Grillo’s death, came to believe that Harding was interested neither in new members nor in positions on the issues. A smaller party was easier to control, and so Harding resisted proposals to increase outreach. Statements on issues he simply ignored, allowing Hassner to say whatever he wanted in letters to the editor or on the party’s new website.58

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Figure 8.  In 1992, Republicans attacked the Democratic-Liberal senatorial candidate Robert Abrams for being “hopelessly liberal.” Both the Liberal Party’s popular support and its sense of mission were on the wane, but the party received a new, if temporary, lease on life when it helped elect Rudolph Giuliani mayor the following year.

The party’s woes were further demonstrated in 1998. That year, the party looked to Betsy McCaughey Ross as its gubernatorial candidate to save its position on the ballot for the next four years. Ross, a Columbia history PhD, former conservative policy wonk, and charismatic public speaker, had been elected lieutenant governor four years earlier as a Republican-Conservative. But now she was in the process of reinventing herself as a liberal Democrat. For the Liberal Party, Ross held several attractions. Most importantly, she pledged to continue the race on the Liberal line even if she lost the Democratic primary. Second, Ross’s husband, Wilbur, a wealthy investment banker with business ties to Harding’s law firm, was bankrolling her campaign with millions of dollars. Moreover, Ross certainly presented herself as a liberal during the campaign, supporting abortion rights, gay rights, a higher minimum wage, and improved access to education from pre-K to college. The feminist New York NOW PAC endorsed her early on.

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After she lost the Democratic primary, Ross kept her promise to the Liberals and continued on as their candidate. Party campaign literature stressed her progressive positions, her policy expertise on health care (ironically, she had made a name for herself by opposing the Clinton health plan), and her identity as a “working mom” and an “independent, gutsy woman.” It asked voters to “tell the Republicans, the Democrats, and Senator D’Amato: ‘Liberal’ is not a dirty word.” The campaign ran into some hiccups along the way. Several staff shake-ups seemed to confirm Ross’s reputation for being an erratic manager. Most threatening, however, was Wilbur Ross’s decision right before the primary to stop the flow of money—indeed, to take back some of the approximately $4 million he had given the campaign. The banker’s move posed an existential threat to the Liberal Party more than to the candidate. According to Hassner, Harding prevailed on Donald Trump to convince Wilbur Ross to come up with at least some of the promised funds. It is not clear whether this worked, though according to Harding, the Liberals managed to spend nearly $1 million on commercials.59 The Liberal Party survived, but only barely. In an interview, Harding claimed victory in his main goal of electing the Democrat Charles Schumer in place of the Republican-Conservative Alphonse D’Amato. Still, he must have been relieved that Ross received 77,915 votes, 1.6 percent of the total, securing Row E once again for the Liberals.60 One ominous sign for the Liberals was the advent of a new party that sought to occupy the same left-of-center, pro-labor space in New York politics that the Liberals had occupied for decades. The Working Families Party (WFP) was the creation of several progressive unions, activist community groups, and the leftist New Party. Some Democratic politicians, most notably David Dinkins and former councilman Sal Albanese, also played roles in the WFP’s founding, looking in part to avenge the Liberal Party’s failure to support Dinkins in his bids for mayor. The communication workers’ Bob Master made the comparison to the Liberals explicit: “People look at Harding, see a guy with no organization and no troops but with tremendous political clout, and they ask, ‘Why aren’t we doing this? Why don’t we have this kind of clout for our kind of politics?’ ” The WFP decided to back the Democrat Peter Vallone for governor, mainly because they felt that would give them the best chance of getting the fifty thousand votes necessary to establish a permanent presence on the ballot. As Master put it, “It seems like it’s been a long time since the Liberal Party has really stood for anything. And obviously the Liberal Party has a lot to lose if we emerge with a lot more votes than they do in November.” The WFP did not beat the Liberals, but it

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did manage to cross the fifty-thousand-vote threshold to capture Row H on the increasingly cluttered New York ballot.61

Outmaneuvered: The End In the next four years, the Liberal Party only became more enfeebled. In 2000, the WFP easily outpolled the Liberals for their common candidates— Al Gore for president and Hillary Clinton for senator. The party’s growing irrelevance was demonstrated in 2001, when two leading Democratic candidates for New York City mayor, Mark Green and Fernando Ferrer, refused even to seek its nomination. The eventual Republican nominee, the businessman Michael Bloomberg, did court the party, but the candidate it chose instead, city comptroller Alan Hevesi, lost the Democratic primary and did not mount a general election campaign. By the spring of 2002, the largesse that the party had enjoyed under the Giuliani administration had ended. Ray Harding’s firm’s lobbying business declined, as did party fundraising. The gala that year was a more modest affair, with far fewer guests and smaller revenues.62 That year was another do-or-die gubernatorial election for the Liberal Party, and it did not begin well. The front-running Democratic candidate for governor, state comptroller Carl McCall, announced in January that he would not accept the Liberal nomination, mincing no words in calling Harding and his party “an embarrassment to New York’s political life.” McCall, New York’s first African American statewide elected official and the favorite that year of the Democratic political establishment, further indicated that he hoped to help get the Working Families Party better established by clearing the left-of-center decks of the Liberals. The sixty-six-year-old Harding accused the sixty-six-year-old McCall of being “tired and befuddled” and representing “the status quo, the old way of doing business.” But it was hard to take either of these accusations seriously coming from the Liberal boss.63 It did not get better for the Liberals as the year progressed. Harding acknowledged that with a ballot crowded with six parties, the election would “test the ability of political leaders to survive.” But the Liberals were left with little option but to back the Democratic challenger, Andrew Cuomo, Mario’s son and a former official in the Clinton administration. Cuomo’s campaign, however, failed to take off. Finally, trailing badly in the polls and under pressure from the Clintons and Black political leaders, Cuomo dropped out of the race just a week before the Democratic primary. Worse, Cuomo endorsed McCall.64

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The Liberals were now left with a candidate who was urging people to vote for someone else. Harding gamely continued to argue that a vote for Cuomo on the Liberal line would be more meaningful than a vote for the sure-to-lose Democrat McCall. Pointing to the fact that he himself had lost 130 pounds, Harding remarked that both he and the party were “leaner and in much better shape.” He continued to express confidence that even without an active candidate, the party would receive its fifty thousand votes. There were, in fact, a couple of different legal maneuvers available to replace Cuomo on the ticket, but, as Harding noted, they required the cooperation of the candidate, and he and Cuomo were not in touch. And despite the leader’s apparent confidence, the former candidate opined, “If I were Ray, I’d be concerned.”65 Concern was certainly warranted. On Election Day, the Liberal Party polled 15,761 votes for its noncandidate, and lost its ballot line. Harding called the moment an “hour of lead” in contrast to the “hour of gold” under Giuliani, and accepted responsibility for the defeat. Other observers gloated. David Dinkins averred, “I’m glad they are out of business.” And the Times celebrated the “happy deletions” that came from the “delicious case of betting the mortgage on the wrong horse.” The WFP pointed to its grassroots support, its affiliated unions, and its ability to mount a field operation, in contrast to the remnants of the Liberal Party. At least one observer, Ed Morrison, believed that Cuomo intentionally undermined Harding in payback for the unpleasant factional dispute of the mid-1980s.66 Uncharacteristically at a loss for words, Harding replied, “I don’t know,” when a reporter asked whether the election meant the end of the Liberal Party. But shortly thereafter, he called a meeting of the Policy Committee and announced that the party was shutting down.67 The Liberal Party was a force in New York politics for almost six decades. Much had changed in the world, the nation, the state, and the city in that time. But the party had hung on, its last moment of relevance coming with the election of Giuliani as mayor. But now, without a ballot line, without an office or staff, without a leader, without a social or political base, and without any philosophical reason for existence, the party was over.

Postscript The Afterlife of the Liberal Party

The Liberal Party’s afterlife took a number of forms, including persistent attempts by a few party loyalists to keep it going. An unsigned letter posted on the party’s website in January 2003 reported that the office had closed and that given the party’s inability to raise funds, the Policy Committee had decided to fold up. “This may be the last time you can be addressed as a capital ‘L’ liberal,” the anonymous writer wistfully stated. But a group of Liberals from Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk would not have it. As the Committee to Re-Organize the Liberal Party of New York State, they proclaimed, regarding the idea that the party was finished, that “nothing could be further from the truth.” After some confusion, a new leadership emerged, with Henry Stern as party chair, pledging to get the Liberal line back on the ballot in 2006 and to contest local elections in the meantime.1 But with little money, and without a clear social or organizational base, this proved difficult. A judge’s ruling in 2003 that voters could register as members of a party without official ballot status was a symbolic victory, but had no practical implications. In 2005, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, seeking to bolster his image as an independent reformer, sought the Liberal nod and agreed to help finance its petition drive. In the end, however, a court decision forced the Liberals to share the Republican line, depriving them of a separate vote count. Bloomberg expressed no interest in the party in 2009. Then and in subsequent New York City mayoral elections, the Liberals’ preferred 296

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candidates did not make it past their major-party primaries, and the party fielded no citywide general election tickets. More crucially, the party proved incapable of mounting a statewide gubernatorial campaign, the only way it could have regained a permanent spot on the ballot. “We need a candidate,” Stern lamented. “There aren’t people, there aren’t 50,000 people who vote for X just because he’s a Liberal Party candidate.” Despite the efforts of a small group of devotees, little was left of the party besides a website.2 The Working Families Party, on the other hand, thrived, occupying the political space that the Liberals had claimed for decades as a left-leaning labor party. One observer’s description of the WFP as a “full-time party with ideas” echoed what Ben Davidson had once liked to say about the Liberal Party in its heyday. Assemblyman Richard Brodsky’s comment that the WFP had “connected a set of clear and understandable moral and political principles to a political machine with enormous muscle” could also once have applied to the Liberals. Adept at grassroots campaigning, issue oriented, having appeal to working-class whites as well as people of color, and with the backing of powerful unions that could mobilize thousands of members, the WFP had by 2004 proved itself, as one observer put it, “an emerging political force statewide” that had “rekindled a New York tradition of strong third parties.” Although it, too, faced questions about the funding of its political operations, the WFP sought to avoid the moral decline that many saw in the Liberals by refusing to recommend members or friends for patronage positions. In 2020, the WFP managed to gain nearly three hundred thousand votes on its line for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, easily meeting a newly enacted, more stringent requirement for recognition as an official party in New York State.3 As the Liberal Party foundered, some former principals found other outlets for their energies. Fran Reiter registered as a Democrat as early as 1999, and contemplated a run for mayor in 2001. She later served as president of the NYC Convention and Visitors Bureau and in the administration of Andrew Cuomo after he finally became governor without Liberal help in 2010. Bruce Gyory, former Albany County chair and son of the former state vice chair, also advised Democratic governors—Cuomo’s predecessors Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson. Stern, though serving for years as party chair, devoted much of his energy to blogging for his two-person good-government group New York Civic.4 Unfortunately for the party, much of the news about prominent individual Liberals was not likely to burnish its image in the minds of voters. In 2002, even before the party lost its ballot line, the Village Voice revealed that Russell Harding had spent hundreds of thousands of public dollars on

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“travel, dining, and entertainment expenses” as head of the Housing Development Corporation under Giuliani. The abuses alleged by the weekly were spectacular not only in their scope, but also in their brazenness. Harding, the Voice charged, had bought expensive cars and furniture, thrown lavish parties, procured gifts of electronics for friends, and acquired World Series tickets— all on the city’s tab. He had raised his own salary 50 percent over four years and put in for tens of thousands of dollars in overtime, bonuses, and accrued vacation pay—despite having disappeared from his office for weeks at a time. On the way out of office after the 2001 election, he had booked one last trip at agency expense—a $10,000 jaunt to Singapore, Thailand, and Bali. Moreover, he had expressed racist views in online chats with friends while employees complained of racial discrimination in the HDC under his leadership.5 To make matters worse, when federal and city investigators raided Harding’s apartment, they found not only thousands of dollars’ worth of electronic equipment that belonged to his former agency, but also evidence of a sexual fetish for “dads and sons.” In 2003, Harding was indicted on charges of fraud and possession of child pornography. He at first pleaded not guilty on the basis of a history of psychological problems, including bipolar disorder. Ultimately, however, he conceded his guilt, and after a courtroom speech in which he admitted to being “screwed up in the head over my sexuality,” he was sentenced to sixty-three months in jail.6 Russell Harding’s case had political implications beyond the fodder it provided sensationalist tabloids like the Village Voice. Although Harding by this time identified as a Republican, he and his corruption remained closely associated with the Liberal Party in the public’s mind. Indeed, both the party and Harding became issues in Giuliani’s short-lived 2008 presidential run. At a time when “liberal” was practically a curse word in the Republican Party, opponents used the former mayor’s association with the Liberal Party to question his conservative credentials. At the same time, others raised his appointment and apparent toleration of Harding to cast doubt on his image as a good-government reformer and strong administrator. Harding himself did his best to fan the flames by starting a blog upon his early release from prison, dishing dirt on the corruption and pettiness within Giuliani’s administration.7 The bad news continued into 2009, when Ray Harding was implicated in an investigation into corruption in the office of state comptroller Alan Hevesi, the Liberals’ 2001 mayoral candidate. An inquiry into Hevesi’s improper use of a state car and chauffeur for his ailing wife ballooned

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into a major probe into the payment of finders’ fees by investment firms to associates of the comptroller in return for lucrative business with the state’s pension fund. The investigation, led by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, also revealed payments to personal projects and friends of Hevesi associates.8 In April, Ray Harding was accused of taking $800,000 for doing favors for Hevesi, including clearing the way for the comptroller’s son Andrew to run for the state assembly in Queens by getting the incumbent a job with the health maintenance organization HIP. The complaint alleged that Harding had collected finder’s fees as a “sham intermediary” for investment firms seeking to manage a portion of the pension fund. Harding did no actual work for the fees, which were really payoffs for political favors to Hevesi. In poor health, Harding pleaded guilty and cooperated with the prosecution, in return for which the felony charges were reduced to misdemeanors. He avoided prison time, but died in disgrace on August 9, 2012. Russell Harding committed suicide a month and a half after his father’s death, writing on his blog, “I will say I am glad I outlasted him, even by a few weeks,” and expressing the hope that he would not “have to see him in the afterlife.”9

Figure 9.  Former Liberal Party boss Ray Harding under arrest in 2009. In a sad coda to the party’s history, Harding pled guilty to charges in a statewide corruption scandal. Credit: John Marshall Mantel/The New York Times/Redux.

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The decline and ultimate (near) demise of the Liberal Party was the result of a long process of social change that deprived the party of its demographic base and intellectual purpose. A social democratic labor party, it was a product of the industrial economy of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and a response to the problems of that kind of society. It arose especially from the garment industry and its unions, from the Jewish labor and Socialist movements more generally, and from a strongly social democratic version of New Deal liberalism. It found its most consistent support in an immigrant Jewish working class, and in a second-generation middle class whose politics remained tied to working-class origins. Its brand of anti-Communist, bureaucratic social democracy was never much in vogue, not in its heyday and not among historians since. Nevertheless, the Liberal Party played an important role in building New York’s special brand of social democracy in one city. The Liberal Party, like its predecessor the American Labor Party, began as an attempt by labor leaders and radicals to enter a liberal political mainstream that they felt was converging with their own brand of moderate Socialist politics. The party thus struggled to balance its professed radical idealism with a pragmatic approach to politics that necessitated constant compromise. Indeed, its declared positions on issues were not infrequently at odds with those of the politicians it backed. This was one reason why critics believed from the very start that the Liberal Party was far too pragmatic and compromised, especially by its apparent interest in landing jobs for its members. But its leaders disagreed. What was wrong, they asked rhetorically, with getting good people positions in government from which to influence the direction of policy? Wasn’t that the point of politics? Whether or not the critics were right to begin with, however, they proved correct in the long run, as patronage became the party’s raison d’être, and the quality of appointees and the policy directions they might influence became less and less important. Never internally democratic, the Liberal Party was always a top-down enterprise. But what this meant for the party’s politics evolved as well. In the early years, leadership included intellectuals like Adolf Berle and John Childs, who offered substance to the party’s positions, as well as labor leaders like David Dubinsky and Alex Rose, who not only provided material resources but could mobilize tens of thousands of union members on behalf of the party’s campaigns. Dubinsky and Rose, whatever their failings, also helped keep the party somewhat true to its declared principles into the 1970s. But the tight control exercised by a few men also squelched creativity and drove away young people who could have infused new energy into the party.

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Ultimately, one-man rule led to the lack of principle and the corruption of the Harding years. With the decline of its social base, and its inability to find a new one, the Liberal Party gradually lost its effectiveness as a political organization. For a time, it retained value as a brand that certified for voters a candidate’s progressive credentials, and as the holder of real estate in the form of a line on the ballot. But after its support for Giuliani, its brand lost much of its luster. And after steadily falling farther and farther down on the ballot, it lost its spot altogether in 2002. Still, the Liberal Party’s legacy lives on, for now, not only with the Conservative Party, founded in explicit imitation of the Liberals, but in the progressive labor politics of the Working Families Party.

Acknow l edgme nts

This book took a really long time to write, and I received help from many individuals and institutions along the way. Thanks, first of all, to those who were gracious enough to speak with me about their experiences with the Liberal Party: Eldon Clingan, Martin Hassner, Edward Morrison, Herbert Rubin, and Henry Stern (and to those who helped arrange the contacts). Thanks also to Henry Foner, Ralph Reuter, and David Wells, whom I interviewed as part of the 21st Century ILGWU Heritage Fund Oral History Project. Mariah Adin, Donna Gallers, Alessandro Saluppo, Michael Sanders, and Elizabeth Stack all provided invaluable research assistance, as did the staffs of many libraries and archives, including the Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan; the Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin; the Columbia University Oral History Archives; Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University; the Kheel Center, Cornell University; the FDR Presidential Library; the La Guardia Archives, La Guardia Community College, CUNY; the Library of Congress; the New York Public Library, Manuscripts Division; the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University; the Tamiment Library, New York University; and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Thanks also to those who read all or parts of the manuscript, or various articles spun off from the main project, or who provided opportunities to 302

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present at various conferences and seminars: Peter Eisenstadt (especially), Robert Snyder, Rebecca Kobrin, Eric Arnesen, Tony Michels, Jack Jacobs, Markus Krah, Lauren Straus, Duane Tananbaum, and Gennady Estraikh. Michael McGandy, Eric Levy, and the anonymous readers for Cornell University Press made many helpful suggestions. Fordham University provided crucial material support all along the way. Many thanks to the 21st Century ILGWU Heritage Fund, and its director, Muzaffar Chishti, for supporting the publication of this book. Thanks to those whom I have forgotten to mention. (I did say that this project took a long time, longer than I can remember.) Finally, thank you to Roberta Newman and Moses Cohen-Soyer for putting up with me while I undertook this project.

Notes

Introduction

  1.  “1400 delegaten bay grindungs konvenshon fun nayer liberaler un arbeter partey,” unidentified clipping, May 20, 1944, f. 139, and convention call, f. 141, both in Forward Association Records, RG 685, YIVO; “New Liberal Party Formed Officially,” New York Times (hereafter NYT), May 20, 1944, 9; “Naye liberale partey nominirt Ruzvelt’n,” Forward, May 21, 1944, 1; Leo Egan, “New Party Fixes 400,000-Vote Goal for Roosevelt,” NYT, May 21, 1944, 1.  2. Brinkley, End of Reform; Brick, Transcending Capitalism; Rossinow, Visions of Progress; Stanley and Bell, “Introduction.”  3. Freeman, Working Class New York.  4. Zipp, Manhattan Projects, 272.  5. Mason Williams briefly notes the importance of Socialists in New York reform coalitions, but does not elaborate. Williams, City of Ambition, 34, 236–38.   6.  The new law mandated that a party receive 130,000 votes or 2 percent of the total vote, whichever was greater, every two years for its candidates for governor and president in order to keep its ballot line. The old law required only 50,000 votes every four years for a party’s candidate for governor. The Working Families Party and the Conservative Party easily surpassed the new threshold in 2020, but the Green Party and Independence Party succumbed. Dana Rubinstein, “Why a Progressive NY Party Is Fighting for Its Survival,” NYT, September 15, 2020; “New York State Unofficial Election Night Results,” New York State Board of Elections, accessed November 10, 2020, https://nyenr.elections.ny.gov.   7.  On ethnic politics, see McNickle, To Be Mayor; Bayor, Neighbors in Conflict; Zeitz, White Ethnic New York.   8.  Halpern, “Roots of American Jewish Liberalism”; Spinrad, “Explaining AmericanJewish Liberalism”; Fuchs, Political Behavior; Feingold, “From Equality to Liberty”; Glazer, “Anomalous Liberalism”; Katznelson, “Between Separation and Disappearance”; Levey, “Liberalism of American Jews”; Svonkin, Jews against Prejudice; Dollinger, Quest for Inclusion; Dollinger, “Exceptionalism and Jewish Liberalism”; Alexander, “Exile and Alienation”; Staub, Torn at the Roots; Walzer, “Liberalism and the Jews”; Greenberg and Wald, “Still Liberal”; Whitfield, “Famished for Justice”; Troy, Jewish Vote. See also Forman, “Politics of Minority Consciousness”; Fisher, “Continuity and Erosion”; Feingold, American Jewish Political Culture; Wald, Foundations of American Jewish Liberalism; Kranson, Ambivalent Embrace, 44–67. For Jewish political attitudes, see Portrait of American Jews, 95–106.   9.  For works that briefly mention the party, see, for example, Cannato, Ungovernable City; Siegel, Prince of the City; Garrett, La Guardia Years; McNickle, To Be Mayor; Shefter, Political Crisis, Fiscal Crisis. 305

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10.  Only a handful of MA theses and PhD dissertations, mostly from the 1950s and 1960s, focus on the party. See Link, “ ‘Every Day Was a Battle’ ”; Flournoy, “Liberal Party”; Ellwood, “Relationship”; Feigert, “Hierarchical Component.” On the Conservative Party, see Marlin, Fighting the Good Fight; Sullivan, New York State; Mahoney, Actions Speak Louder. 11.  See Heale, American Anticommunism; Rossinow, Visions of Progress; Bell, Liberal State on Trial; Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes. This school includes at least two past presidents of the Organization of American Historians: Hall, “Long Civil Rights Movement”; and May, “Security against Democracy.” For a brief overview of the literature of anti-Communism, see Selverstone, “Literature So Immense.” On whether this school of thought constitutes a “consensus,” see Lichtenstein, “Consensus? What Consensus?”; and Arnesen, “Final Conflict?” For local New York applications, see Biondi, To Stand and Fight; Link, “ ‘Every Day Was a Battle’ ”; Prosterman, Defining Democracy, 129–41; Gold, When Tenants Claimed the City. 12.  For studies that take Left anti-Communism seriously, see Powers, Not without Honor; Delton, Rethinking the 1950s; Arnesen, “Civil Rights”; Arnesen, “No ‘Grave Danger’ ”; Mattson, When America Was Great; Zimmer, Immigrants against the State. 13.  For example: Welch, King of the Bowery; Soffer, Ed Koch; Tananbaum, Herbert H. Lehman; Williams, City of Ambition; Chiles, Revolution of ’28; Zarnow, Battling Bella; Czitrom, “Underworlds and Underdogs”; Golway, Machine Made. 14. Parmet, Master of Seventh Avenue, 322–24, 328–36; Podair, Strike That Changed New York; Wishnoff, “Tolerance Point”; Lederhendler, New York Jews; Rieder, Canarsie; Phillips-Fein, Fear City. 15.  Danny Hakim, “Ex-Leader of New York State Liberal Party Charged,” NYT, April 15, 2009, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/nyregion/16indict.html. 1. Labor Politics in New York

 1. O’Donnell, Henry George, 199–276; Epstein, Jewish Labor, 1:147–54; Tcherikower, Geshikhte, 2:290–94.  2. Howe, World of Our Fathers; Rischin, Promised City; Polland and Soyer, Emerging Metropolis.   3.  Cannistraro and Meyer, “Introduction”; Italians of New York, 64; Guglielmo, Living the Revolution, 66–78, 139–75.  4. Zappia, “From Working-Class Radicalism,” 143–46; Zappia, “Unionism,” 160, 172–78; Guglielmo, Living the Revolution, 181–82, 197–98, 211–14, 243–55.  5. Shannon, Socialist Party, 11. See also Dubofsky, “Success and Failure.”   6.  On London, see Goldberg, Meyer London.  7. Hillquit, Loose Leaves, 182, 207; Epstein, Profiles of Eleven, 210–14; Szajkowski, Jews, Wars, and Communism, 141–61; Henderson, Tammany Hall, 193–219; Ribak, “ ‘For Peace, Not Socialism.’ ”   8.  Claessens and Feigenbaum, Socialists, esp. 3–4, 6, 41–48; Claessens, Didn’t We Have Fun, 103–35.  9. American Labor Year Book, 431–33. 10.  McClymer, “Of ‘Mornin’ Glories’ ”; Garrett, La Guardia Years, 20–47.

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11.  La Guardia, Making of an Insurgent, 96–101, 123, 145–46, 149–53, 198–200; Kessner, Fiorello H. La Guardia, 29–30, 57–59, 73–74; Mann, La Guardia, 54–60, 93–99, 126–27, 130, 162–63. 12. Slayton, Empire Statesman, 93–98; Orleck, Common Sense, 131–32; Greenwald, Triangle Fire, 156–59; Von Drehle, Triangle, 209–14. 13. Henderson, Tammany Hall, 221–36; Landesman, Brownsville, 304; Goldberg, Meyer London, 257–64; Claessens, Didn’t We Have Fun, 102–3, 107–9. 14.  See Nadel, “Reds versus Pinks.” 15. Parmet, Master of Seventh Avenue, esp. 4–80; Epstein, Jewish Labor, 2:395–401. 16. Fraser, Labor Will Rule, 230, 232; Epstein, Jewish Labor, 2:164; Epstein, Profiles of Eleven, 272, 289. 17.  A Bundist, “Interesante momenten in leben fun idishe arbayter fihrer,” Tog, November 4, 1919; Zalmen Zilbertsvayg, “Maks Zaritski,” Der Amerikaner, May 12, 1944; “Max Zaritsky,” Ullico Bulletin, November 1946; Max Zaritsky, “Independent Politics Called Labor’s Need,” New Leader, June 1, 1935, all clippings, b. 1, f. “Biography,” Max Zaritsky Papers, TL; Green, Headwear Workers, 165; Robinson, Spotlight on a Union, 187–94, 210–11; Epstein, Jewish Labor, 2:177–83. 18. Strouthous, US Labor, 29–47, 97–122; Fine, Labor and Farmer Parties, 377–97; “Labor Party’s Platform,” New York Times (hereafter NYT), March 4, 1920, 17; “City’s Unions Sever Labor Party Ties,” NYT, May 22, 1920, 5. 19. Fine, Labor and Farmer Parties, 265, 292–300, 424; “State Labor Party Adopts Platform,” NYT, July 17, 1922, 28. 20. MacKay, Progressive Movement, 60–71, 74–79, 116–22, 150–55, 197–224; Shannon, Socialist Party, 168–79; Fine, Labor and Farmer Parties, 363–64, 398–413; Hillquit, Loose Leaves, 300–320. 21. Kessner, Fiorello H. La Guardia, 103; Mann, La Guardia, 171–80, 257–60, 265; “N.Y. Labor Out to Win Seats in Congress,” New Leader, August 16, 1924, 1; “N.Y. Organizes Its Drive for La Follette,” New Leader, August 23, 1924, 1; “The Socialist Movement at Home and Abroad,” New Leader, October 25, 1924, 6; Fleischman, Norman Thomas, 103; “On WEVD,” New Leader, June 23, 1928, 6; “La Guardia Back in His Kennel,” New Leader, August 28, 1928, 10; “Hays and La Guardia for Goldberg in 23rd A.D.,” New Leader, October 27, 1928. 22. Fine, Labor and Farmer Parties, 414. 23. MacKay, Progressive Movement, 229–38; Shannon, Socialist Party, 179–81; Fleischman, Norman Thomas, 102–3; Fine, Labor and Farmer Parties, 414–16, 426; Hillquit, Loose Leaves, 322; Norman Thomas, “Timely Topics,” New Leader, November 14, 1925. 24.  Josephson and Josephson, Al Smith, 232–34; Chiles, Revolution of ’28, 26–69, 86–94; Slayton, Empire Statesman, 181; James Oneal, “The Tammany That Spawned ‘Al’ Smith,” New Leader, June 23, 1928, 4; Norman Thomas, “Smith as a Progressive,” New Leader, June 23, 1928, 5; Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 263–64. 25. Bellush, Franklin D. Roosevelt; McGuire, “From Socialism to Social Justice Feminism,” 1008; Williams, City of Ambition, 105–11. 26. Nevins, Herbert H. Lehman, 85–91, 121; Herbert Lehman Oral History, 198, OHAC; Parmet, Master of Seventh Avenue, 84, 86, 116; Ingalls, Herbert H. Lehman, 7, 134–35; Epstein, Jewish Labor, 2:155, 162; Tananbaum, Herbert H. Lehman, 6, 47–48.

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27.  “Voters Aroused by Citizens Union Aid to Thomas,” New Leader, September 14, 1929, 1; Fleischman, Norman Thomas, 103–4, 117–21; Kessner, Fiorello H. La Guardia, 160; Mann, La Guardia, 268–80. 28.  B. C. Vladeck, “Socialist Milwaukee and Tammany New York,” New Leader, October 5, 1929; Harry Laidler, “How the Tammany Tiger Can Be Tamed,” New Leader, November 2, 1929. 29.  “Charity Relief System Breaks Down; Demand for Job Insurance Grows— Tammany Hit for Ignoring the Jobless,” New Leader, April 4, 1931, 1; Blanshard, Personal and Controversial, 118–35; Fleischman, Norman Thomas, 121–22; “Cleaning Up New York,” Nation, April 8, 1931; Louis Waldman, “The Seabury Investigations,” New Leader, April 11, 1931, 6; Paul Blanshard, “Socialism and the ABC of Busses,” New Leader, January 2, 1932, 10; Garrett, La Guardia Years, 84; Kessner, Fiorello H. La Guardia, 226; “Text of Roosevelt’s Rebuke to Holmes and Wise,” New York HeraldTribune (hereafter Herald-Tribune), April 1, 1931, f. 11, Paul Blanshard Papers, BHL. A notable product of the CAC’s work was Thomas and Blanshard, What’s the Matter with New York? 30.  William Feigenbaum, “While We’re on the Subject of Voting,” New Leader, October 15, 1932, 5. 31.  James Oneal, “Our Answer to the New Deal,” New Leader, May 27, 1933, 3; “Labor’s Fight for Security,” New Leader, September 9, 1933, 1; L. Fogelman, “Di hoypt taynes vos vern nokh itst aroysgeshtelt kegn dem n.r.a. plan,” Forward, October 22, 1933, sec. 2, 1; Shannon, Socialist Party, 229; Warren, Alternative Vision, 128– 33; Dubinski, “Farbeserungen vos di froyen kleyder arbayter hoben gevunen in di letste por monaten,” Forward, October 19, 1933, 3; Parmet, Master of Seventh Avenue, 86–93; Epstein, Jewish Labor, 2:193–206; Fraser, Labor Will Rule, 289–323; “Di goldene gelegnhayt vos der rikoveri ekt git di yunyons tsu organizirn nit organizirte arbeter,” Forward, August 6, 1933, sec. 2, 3; “Ruzvelt’s nyu dil un di sotsialistn,” Forward, July 6, 1933, 4; “Di tsayt iz rayf far an enderung,” Forward, July 1, 1933, 8; “Der gantser rikoveri—plan in gefar,” Forward, July 10, 1933, 6. On the attitude of Left historians, see, for example, Bernstein, “New Deal”; Ferguson, “Industrial Conflict,” 4, 17–18. 32. Epstein, Jewish Labor, 2:244; “Statement by Abraham Cahan to Forward Association,” n.d., f. 266, and “Report of Committee on Ab Cahan Speech Appointed by the City Central Committee, S.P.,” n.d., f. 191, both in Abraham Cahan Papers, YIVO; “Tsendlike toyznter dresmakher fayern oyflebung fun yunyon mit riziker demonstratsie in medison skver garden,” Forward, October 5, 1933, 1, 2; “Der sotsializm marshirt forverts,” Forward, November 5, 1933, 4. 33.  “Dinstik iz elekshon un di oygn fun gantsn land zaynen gerikhtet oyf 3 steyts: Nyu York, Viskonsin, Kalifornie,” Forward, November 4, 1934, 4; “Elekshon ibern land,” Forward, November 6, 1934, 10; “Di nekhtike valn,” Forward, November 7, 1934, 6. 34.  “A katoylisher bishof vegn dem sof fun kapitalizm,” Forward, October 5, 1933, 4; Hillel Rogoff, “Di ‘rekhte’ un ‘linke’ in Ruzvelt’s administratsie,” Forward, December 21, 1933, 4; L. Fogelman, “Dos Amerikaner lebn hot ongefangen tsu redn mit der shprakh fun sotsializm,” Forward, June 30, 1935, 4; “Dem prezident’s mesedzsh un di tsvey arbeter bils in kongres,” Forward, June 21, 1935, 6; L. Fogelman, “Ruzvelt’s radikaler mesedzsh vegn tekses oyf raykhe,” Forward, June 21, 1935, 6.

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35. Brick, Transcending Capitalism, 2–3, 6. 36. Schwarz, Liberal, 51–91; Brick, Transcending Capitalism, 56, 73. 37. Henderson, Housing, 8–117. 38.  Thomas and Blanshard, What’s the Matter with New York?, 85, 92, 107, 179. 39. Schwarz, Liberal, 69–103; Mann, La Guardia Comes to Power, 72–87, 108–10; Berle and Jacobs, Navigating the Rapids, 88–89; Kessner, Fiorello H. La Guardia, 240–49. 40. Blanshard, Personal and Controversial, 135, 139–43; Mann, La Guardia Comes to Power, 103–4, 151, 155–56; Kessner, Fiorello H. La Guardia, 269, 280, 323; Rose Feld, “A Reformer Strikes Hard for Reform,” NYT Magazine, May 6, 1934, 5; Allan Keller, “A Record of Achievement,” New York World-Telegram, n.d., clipping, f. 13, Blanshard Papers; “La Guardia Names Three Justices,” NYT, December 11, 1934, 5; “Bench Appointees Sworn In by Mayor,” NYT, December 17, 1935, 26; “La Guardia Names New Commission to Draft Charter,” NYT, January 13, 1935, 1. 41. Epstein, Jewish Labor, 2:244; Shannon, Socialist Party, 211–14, 235–46; Hertz, Di yidishe sotsialistishe bavegung, 311–23; Waldman, Labor Lawyer, 259–61, 284–86; Waltzer, “American Labor Party,” 51, 56; Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 265; Parmet, Master of Seventh Avenue, 129. 42.  “Reaktsionere bizneslayt fardamen reformen; Ruzvelt vet itst geyn links, zogt men,” Forward, May 3, 1935, 1; P. Lazar, “Ruzvelt in zayne ershte por yor als prezident un Ruzvelt itst,” Forward, July 21, 1935, 5; “Prezident Ruzvelt farteydikt nyudil: Tshalendzsht reaktionere kegner,” Forward, January 5, 1936, 1, 2; L. Fogelman, “Di reaktsionern fun beyde alte parteyen zaynen kegn Ruzvelt,” Forward, January 26, 1936, sec. 2, 3; Ab. Kahan, “Farvos yeder emeser sotsialist darf arbetn mit ale kreftn far Ruzvelt’s vidererveylung,” Forward, October 7, 1936, 8. 43. Robinson, Spotlight on a Union, 273; Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 262–65; Fraser, Labor Will Rule, 363; Epstein, Jewish Labor, 2:228; Waltzer, “American Labor Party,” 76–78, 81–82; Parmet, Master of Seventh Avenue, 131; “Former Socialists Join Labor Party,” NYT, August 2, 1936, clipping, scrapbook 2, Liberal Party of New York State Records, NYPL (hereafter LP Records). 44. Scarrow, Parties, Elections, and Representation, 1–2, 23–25, 55–79. 45.  Carter, “Pressure from the Left,” 13–14; Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 266. 46.  Waltzer, “American Labor Party,” 82–84. On Antonini, see “Luigi Antonini Is Dead at 85,” NYT, December 30, 1968, 31; Zappia, “From Working-Class Radicalism,” 143–53; Parmet, Master of Seventh Avenue, 156. 47. Robinson, Spotlight on a Union, 131, 151–52, 161–62, 166–70, 185, 192–94, 210– 11; “School of Politics: A Man Who Knows How,” Public Guardian, May 28, 1949, clipping, scrapbook 22, Records of Liberal Party, NYPL; “Labor Profiles: Who’s Who in the A.L.P.,” New Leader, March 20, 1937, clipping, scrapbook 6, LP Records; A. H. Raskin, “Alex Rose Revisited,” typescript, b. 441, f. 3, Dubinsky Presidential Records, 5780/002, ILGWU Records, KC (hereafter Dubinsky Records). 48. Robinson, Spotlight on a Union, 131; Raskin, “Alex Rose Revisited”; Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 269–70; Waltzer, “American Labor Party,” 130–31. 49.  “Declaration of Principles”; Program of the American Labor Party. 50.  Waltzer, “American Labor Party,” 94–95; “Don’t Be a SCAB at the Ballot Box,” flyer, scrapbook 1, LP Records; ALP press releases, September 14, 1936, scrapbook

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4, LP Records; “New Deal Bids for Labor Vote at Rally Here,” New York Daily Mirror, October 28, 1936; Stuart Rogers, “La Guardia Joins 50,000 in Labor Pledge to F.D.R.,” New York Daily News (hereafter Daily News), October 28, 1936; “Decry False Charges against President,” Amsterdam News, October 31, 1936; “American Labor Party Hails La Guardia Pledge,” New York Post (hereafter Post), October 28, 1936, clippings, all in scrapbook 2, LP Records. 51. For Forward endorsements of Roosevelt, see Ab. Kahan, “Farvos yeder emeser sotsialist darf arbetn mit ale kreftn far Ruzvelt’s vidererveylung,” Forward, October 7, 1936, 8; “Far vos ir zolt shtimen far Ruzvelt un Lehman oyfn tiket fun der Amerikaner leybor parti,” Forward, October 24, 1936, 10. Alexander Kahn to Abraham Cahan, September 3, 1936, f. 172, Cahan Papers. 52.  Waltzer, “American Labor Party,” 96–100, 147, 149, 152, 156; “Analysis of 1932–1936 Election Returns,” n.d., b. 144, f. 3d, Dubinsky Records; Bayor, Neighbors in Conflict, 41; George Sokolsky, “The American Labor Party,” Herald-Tribune, October 19, 1936, and George Ritchie, “Angry Tammany Braves Boast They’ll Beat ‘Red’ Labor Party,” Sun, October 19, 1936, clippings, both in scrapbook 2, LP Records. 53.  Waltzer, “American Labor Party,” 79–81, 88; Parmet, Master of Seventh Avenue, 156; Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 268; Luigi Antonini, Alex Rose, Gustave Strebel to “Dear Brothers,” February 25, 1937, b. 144, f. 3d, Dubinsky Records; “Don’t Be a SCAB at the Ballot Box”; “New Labor Party Formed in State to Back Roosevelt,” NYT, July 17, 1936, and “N.Y. Peoples Party Defends Labor Link,” New Leader, August 8, 1936, clippings, both in scrapbook 2, LP Records; Gus Claessens, “Labor Party News,” New Leader, January 2, 1937, and “Labor Profiles: Who’s Who in the A.L.P.,” New Leader, February 27, 1937, clippings, both in scrapbook 6, LP Records. 54.  “The Mayor’s Political Plans,” NYT, September 3, 1936, clipping, scrapbook 2, LP Records; Waltzer, “American Labor Party,” 113–17; “La Guardia Acclaimed by Labor at ‘Victory Rally’ Filling Garden,” Herald-Tribune, October 29, 1937, clipping, scrapbook 7, LP Records; “Detailed Vote by Parties for Mayor,” Herald-Tribune, November 4, 1937, clipping, scrapbook 8, LP Records. 55.  “Labor Party Talks of 1940,” Daily News, November 3, 1937; Lowell Limpus, “Labor Party Looms as New Power in City,” Daily News, November 4, 1937; “Mayor Enrolled as A.L.P. Member,” Post, December 1, 1937; “La Guardia Needs More Than A.L.P. in National Race,” Press, December 4, 1937; Dick M’Cann, “Success of American Labor Party Interests Leaders in 48 States,” Elmira Star Gazette, December 17, 1937, clippings, all in scrapbook 8, LP Records; Luigi Antonini, “Old Parties Doomed as Labor Forges Political Realignment,” New Leader, n.d., clipping, scrapbook 7, LP Records. 56. “Vladeck to Lead Minority,” Sun, December 1, 1937; “Baldwin Pledges Vladeck Support,” NYT, December 9, 1937; “ALP Legislators Start Fight for Social Laws,” New Leader, January 8, 1938, clippings, all in scrapbook 8, LP Records. 57.  Waltzer, “American Labor Party,” 109–10, 219–22; minutes, Executive Committee, ALP, March 7, 1938, b. 145, f. 6, Dubinsky Records. 58. Klehr, Heyday of American Communism, 186–206, 266; Waltzer, “American Labor Party,” 63–66, 123–28, 223–26; “American Labor Party, New York: By-Laws, Rules, and Declaration of Principles,” n.d., b. 146, f. 1a, Dubinsky Records; S. W. Gerson, “The Tiger Snarls—and Whines,” Daily Worker, August 15, 1937, clipping, scrapbook 7, LP Records; Epstein, Jew and Communism, 271; “Red Play Denied by

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Labor Party,” NYT, May 16, 1939, and Paul Sann, “Waldman Seeks A.L.P. Purge but Gets It Himself,” Post, May 16, 1939, clippings, b. 145, f. 6, Dubinsky Records; Carter, “Pressure from the Left,” 89–92, 102–3, 110. 59.  Ben Davidson Oral History, 76, OHAC; Isserman, Which Side, 38, 64; Epstein, Jew and Communism, 356–59; Klehr, Heyday of American Communism, 397–98, 405; “Labor Must Find Its Political Independence,” Sunday Worker, October 27, 1940. 60.  Waltzer, “American Labor Party,” 235–36, 561n39; “Laborites of City Brand Communists Foes of Workers,” NYT, October 5, 1939, and “Statement by the American Labor Party on Its Anti-Communist Resolution,” n.d., both in b. 145, f. 6, Dubinsky Records; “N.Y. Communist State Committee Replies to War Incitement of A.L.P. Executive,” Daily Worker, October 6, 1939; “Indignation Mounts against ALP WarMongering Clique,” Daily Worker, October 12, 1939. 61.  “ALP Clubs in Three Boroughs Rebuke Warmongers’ Clique,” Daily Worker, October 18, 1939; “More ALP Clubs Flay War-Mongers, Back Mike Quill,” Daily Worker, October 21, 1939; “Group Fights ALP Drive on Communists,” Post, October 7, 1939, clipping, b. 145, f. 6, Dubinsky Records; “Rose Fights ALP Leftist Victors,” Post, March 1940, clipping, b. 141, Dubinsky Records. 62.  Resolution of Left, b. 2, f. “Memoranda,” LP Records; Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 272; “Labor Party Girds for Primary Fight,” NYT, September 16, 1940, b. 141, Dubinsky Records; “FDR Gets Dubious OK and ALP Old Guard Riots,” Daily Worker, September 16, 1940. 63.  “Wallace Tells Labor Rally ‘Agents of Hitler’ Aid Willkie,” Herald-Tribune, November 1, 1940, 14; Waltzer, “American Labor Party,” 244. 64.  William Vogel Jr., “ALP Cracks Wide Open . . . Left and Right Go to Mat This Week,” PM, September 29, 1941; minutes, “Meeting of Trade Union Leaders on Problems of ALP,” Saturday [sic] 21, 1942, b. 140, f. 2c, Dubinsky Records; flyer, Post reprint, “Mrs. Roosevelt Rejects ALP Left Wing; Supports Rightists,” August 6, 1942, b. 140, f. 2c, Dubinsky Records; “Mrs. Roosevelt Hits Left ALP,” PM, August 6, 1942; William Vogel Jr., “ALP Right and Left Wings Fight for Control Tomorrow,” PM, August 10, 1942. 65.  Waltzer, “American Labor Party,” 260, 283–85. 66.  “Left Wing Seeks Control of A.L.P.,” NYT, May 15, 1943, clipping, scrapbook 12, LP Records. For a more detailed account, see Soyer, “Executed Bundists.” 67.  Romanish, “Historical Analysis”; Davidson Oral History, 41–42, 46. 68.  “Campaign Notes for ALP Primaries”; “A Message to the Enrolled Voters of the American Labor Party, An Opportunity and a Duty,” n.d., b. 140, f. 1c; “300 Trade Union Officers Back ALP Progressive Group,” n.d., b. 140, f. 1d; “Dear ALP Voter,” n.d., b. 140, f. 1b; “200 Union Heads Hit Dubinsky-ALP Disruption,” Daily Worker, July 23, 1943, clipping, b. 140, f. 1d; “Intimidation Seen in Labor Primary,” NYT, August 7, 1943, b. 140, f. 1d; “A.L.P. ‘Left Wing’ Assailed by Rose,” NYT, May 16, 1943, b. 145, f. 4b, all in Dubinsky Records; Waltzer, “American Labor Party,” 286–87; “ALP’s New Convention in Brooklyn Stalled for Hours in Admittance Snarl,” PM, October 12, 1943; “ALP Wings Fly In and Out, with Left Landing Safely,” PM, October 21, 1943. 69.  “CIO Getting Ready for ALP Primary,” NYT, August 21, 1943, b. 140, f. 1d; Morris Makin to David Gingold, February 14, 1944, b. 143, f. 3c, both in Dubinsky Records.

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70. Parmet, Master of Seventh Avenue, 196–97; Morton Goodman to David Dubinsky, January 11, 1944, b. 143, f. 3b, Dubinsky Records; Davidson Oral History, 84–88. 71.  Davidson Oral History, 1–67, 83, 89–90, 99–100; “Red Issue Flares in Teachers’ Union,” NYT, October 7, 1940, b. 146, f. 3c, Dubinsky Records. 72.  “Choose Your Political Company,” flyer, b. 145, f. 4b, and “Let’s Get Together,” flyer, b. 145, f. 4b, both in Dubinsky Records. See also “The Hillman Plan: Speakers’ and Canvassers’ Outline #2,” 1944, b. 1, f. “1944,” LP Records. 73. Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 274–75; Parmet, Master of Seventh Avenue, 197–98; Waltzer, “American Labor Party,” 295–97; “Peace in ALP Seen Still Remote despite Hillman’s Acceptance of Mayor’s Plan,” PM, March 23, 1944; press release, March 24, 1944 (text of address by David Dubinsky, March 24, 1944), b. 145, f. 4a, Dubinsky Records. 74.  “Voters Shun ALP Old Guard,” Daily Worker, April 4, 1944; untitled clipping, Daily Worker, April 9, 1944; Freda Kirchway, “American Labor Pains,” Nation, April 8, 1944; “A Word to Both Wings,” New Republic, April 17, 1944; untitled clipping, Nation, April 15, 1944; Victor Riesel, “Labor News and Comment,” Post, April 11, 1944; “Another ‘Labor’ Party?,” New York Journal-American, April 10, 1944, clippings, all in scrapbook 15, LP Records; Parmet, Master of Seventh Avenue, 198. 75.  Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 276. 2. “Fighting Liberals” at the Polls

  1.  “Naye liberale partey nominirt Ruzvelt’n,” Forward, May 21,1944, 1; Leo Egan, “New Party Fixes 400,000-Vote Goal for Roosevelt,” New York Times (hereafter NYT), May 21, 1944, 1.  2. Arnold Beichman, “ALP Right Wing Quits; May Act Independently,” PM, March 30, 1944, 10; “ALP Rightists Map a Party,” PM, April 6, 1944; “Statement by David Dubinsky,” n.d., b. 145, f. 4a, Dubinsky Presidential Records, 5780/002, ILGWU Records, KC (hereafter Dubinsky Records); Robert Hoffman to David Dubinsky, April 1, 1944, b. 143, f. 3b, Dubinsky Records; Alex Rose to Edward Goodell, April 12, 1944, b. 2, f. “NY City Clubs,” Liberal Party of New York State Records, NYPL (hereafter LP Records).   3.  “Di konvenshon tsu shafn a naye parti,” editorial, Forward, May 7, 1944, 4; “Naye liberale partey nominirt Ruzvelt”; James A. Hagerty, “Machinery Set Up for New Party by Group Seceding from the ALP,” NYT, April 24, 1944, 13; Isidor Shaffer to Max Lerner and Victor Riesel, March 14, 1944, b. 143, f. 3c, Dubinsky Records; Adolph Warshow to Alex Rose, March 30, 1944, b. 143, f. 3b, Dubinsky Records; Max Sherover to Rose, April 19, 1943, b. 150, f. 2b, Dubinsky Records. On “liberal” as a political term, see Rossinow, Visions of Progress, 3–5, 14–15, 32–33, 53–57; Brinkley, End of Reform, 5–14; Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 353–55; Rotunda, “ ‘Liberal’ Label”; Gerstle, “Protean Character.”   4.  Pearl Willen to Alexander Kahn, May 31, 1944, f. 137, and Kahn to Willen, June 9, 1944, f. 141, both in Forward Association Records, RG 685, YIVO.  5. Max Gordon, “New ‘Liberal Party,’ ” Daily Worker, May 22, 1944; Louis Budenz, “New Help to Hitler,” Daily Worker, June 5, 1944; Louis Budenz, “Dubinsky Connivings Menace Unity of Labor and of Nation,” Daily Worker, November 1944, clippings, all in scrapbook 15, LP Records.

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  6.  Norman Thomas, “FDR’s Triple Indorsement and the Three Great Issues That Are Really Important,” New York Call, June 2, 1944, clipping, scrapbook 15, LP Records.   7.  Dorothy Norman, A World to Live In, New York Post (hereafter Post), April 21, 1948, clipping, scrapbook 21, LP Records.  8. See Dennis, From Prayer to Pragmatism. See also Liberal Party, press release (text of Childs speech), June 28, 1944, f. 138, and “A vout far Ruzvelt’n afn tiket fun liberal parti hot a dopeltn vert, zogt dr. Tchaylds,” undated clipping, f. 139, both in Forward Association Records; William Kilpatrick, “Why I Joined the Liberal Party,” New Leader, October 7, 1944, clipping, b. 1, f. “1944 Election Campaign,” LP Records; “Discuss Resolution to Support Liberal Party,” 338 News, June 1944, clipping, scrapbook 15, LP Records; Bernard Rosenberg, “New York Politics and the Liberal Party,” Commentary, February 1964, 70.  9. Dennis, From Prayer to Pragmatism, 44, 187. 10. Dennis, From Prayer to Pragmatism, 73; Wyona Dashwood, “Professor in Politics,” Christian Science Monitor, July 22, 1944, clipping, scrapbook 15, LP Records; Ben Davidson Oral History, 126–28, OHAC. 11. Lewis, Improbable Wendell Willkie, 301–2; David Dubinsky to ILGWU general executive board, first quarterly meeting, October 2–5, 1944, b. 150, f. 2b; Isidor Shaffer to Dubinsky, November 6, 1944, b. 150, f. 2a; Lem Jones to Dubinsky, November 11, 1944, b. 150, f. 2a, all in Dubinsky Records. 12.  “David Dubinsky and the Founding of the Liberal Party,” typescript by John Childs, appended to Childs to Dubinsky, March 10, 1972, Dubinsky Records. 13.  Max Gordon, “New Leader, Forward = New ‘Liberal Party,’ ” Daily Worker, May 6, 1944, clipping, scrapbook 15, LP Records; Janet Sabloff to David Dubinsky, May 1, 1944, b. 150, f. 2b, Dubinsky Records. 14.  “Sotsial demokratishe federatsie bashlist af kovenshon onteyl tsu nemen in nayer partey,” Forward, May 15, 1944, 8; “SDF Will Help to Build New Party,” New Leader, May 6, 1944, and Louis P. Goldberg, “What Sort of a New Party Do We Need?,” New Leader, May 13, 1944, clippings, both in scrapbook 15, LP Records. 15.  Alexander Kahn, “A brivl tsu undzere lezer fun Aleksander Kahn, menedzher fun Forverts,” undated manuscript labeled “Sunday,” f. 137, Forward Association Records. 16.  Davidson Oral History, 99; press release, October 12, 1944, f. 138, Forward Association Records; membership record, May 15, 1945, b. 2, f. “1945 unsorted”; Alice Beal Parsons to Alex Rose and David Dubinsky, April 9, 1945, b. 2, f. “NY City Clubs, etc.”; “Alfange to Address Young Liberal Groups,” Brooklyn College Vanguard, April 16, 1948, clipping, scrapbook 22, all in LP Records. 17.  Davidson Oral History, 117–18; Pearl Willen to club chairman, October 12, 1944, b. 55, f. “Liberal Party of New York State,” Ephemera Collection, TL; Liberal Party News, May 15, 1945, b. 2, f. “Liberal Party News,” LP Records; Willen to Varian Fry, January 9, 1945, R7124, frame XI:B:44, Records of American Labor Conference on International Affairs, TL; Norman, World to Live In, April 21, 1948, clipping; “Liberals Urge Price Control” and “Schulz Calls Price Controls Sole Weapon against HC[],” undated clippings, scrapbook 22, both in LP Records.

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18.  “Bronx Directory of Liberal Party Clubs,” n.d., b. 1, f. “Bronx County misc.,” scrapbook 21, LP Records; Norman, World to Live In, April 21, 1948, clipping. 19.  Mary Braggiotti, “ ‘Little John Q’s’ Friend,” unidentified clipping, n.d., scrapbook 15, LP Records; Sonia Ellis, “Notas Civicas y Culturales,” El Diario, February 14, 1948; “Plan Spanish Fete,” Post, n.d.; “Baile en el Club Liberal de Manhattan, esta noche,” unidentified clipping, n.d.; “Puerto Ricans Rally against Rent Gouging,” Home News, February 25, 1949; “El Partido Liberal dice que el problema Boricua en N.Y. es el idioma,” El Anunciador, October 16, 1948, clippings, all in scrapbook 22, LP Records; “Attempt to Form ‘Negro Club’ the Lower Seventh Assembly District in the Bronx,” n.d., b. 1, f. “Bronx County, misc.,” LP Records; “338 and Liberal Party Club Opened in Harlem” and “Liberal Youth Club Founded in Queens,” 338 News, December 12, 1944, clippings, both in scrapbook 15, LP Records. 20.  “Roosevelt without Illusions,” New Leader, July 15, 1944, clipping, scrapbook 15, LP Records. 21. Markowitz, Rise and Fall, 97–110; Culver and Hyde, American Dreamer, 345–84. 22.  Alex Rose to Henry Wallace, August 9, 1944, b. 44, f. “Liberal Party,” Wallace Papers, FDRPL. 23.  Sidney Hillman to Eleanor Roosevelt, April 17, 1944, and David Dubinsky to Eleanor Roosevelt, May 23, 1944, both in b. 376, f. 2c, Dubinsky Records; “Mrs. FDR Calls Unions ‘Great Hope of Liberalism,’ ” PM, August 3, 1944, 19. 24.  “Liberal Party Power Shown in City Vote,” PM, November 9, 1944; “1944 Election Campaign Report . . . ILGWU Campaign Committee for Roosevelt-Truman,” n.d., and “1944 ILGWU Campaign Committee Financial,” January 15, 1945, both in b. 139, f. 1A, Dubinsky Records; “Our Secret Weapon,” flyer; “Are Women Important?,” flyer; “Dewey and His Record: Excerpts from Liberal Party Radio Program,” all in b. 55, f. “Liberal Party of New York State, 1944,” Ephemera Collection. 25.  “Ring the Bell on Election Day,” and “Make Your Vote Count . . . Twice,” flyers, f. 138, Forward Association Records. 26.  “Wallace and Truman Get Ovation in Packed Garden,” PM, November 1, 1944; undated advertisements for rally; Abraham Chapman, “Rally Cold to Dubinsky Redbaiting,” Daily Worker, November 2, 1944; George Morris, “Dubinsky Booed at Own Rally, Cheered at Dewey’s,” Daily Worker, November 3, 1944, clippings, all in scrapbook 15, LP Records; “Program, Liberal Party Rally,” n.d., b. 55, f. “Liberal Party of New York State, 1944,” Ephemera Collection; Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 279–81; Hamby, Beyond the New Deal, 50. 27.  “Liberal Party Power Shown in City Vote”; Arnold Blechman, “ALP and Liberal Votes Look Bad for Democrats,” PM, November 10, 1944; “Analysis of 1944 Presidential Election Results in Brooklyn, as Affecting the Liberal Party,” f. 137, Forward Association Records. 28.  David Dubinsky to Ab. Cahan, November 9, 1944, b. 150, f. 2a, Dubinsky Records. 29.  Untitled report, n.d., b. 139, f. 1c, Dubinsky Records. 30.  J. C. Rich, “Why Labor and Liberals Oppose La Guardia,” New Leader, March 31, 1945, clipping, b. 2, f. “Periodicals,” LP Records; “Riesel on Labor,” Post, March 29, 1944, clipping, scrapbook 15, LP Records; Kessner, Fiorello H. La Guardia, 546.

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31.  Davidson Oral History, 139–43; Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 285–87; Lewis, Improbable Wendell Willkie, 301. 32.  Alex Rose, report to citywide mayoralty conference, June 14, 1945, b. 1, f. “Citywide Mayoralty Conference,” LP Records; John Childs to David Dubinsky, August 23, 1945, b. 2, f. “1945 unsorted,” LP Records; John Childs, “Let’s Look at the Record,” 338 News, November 1945, and “Says Tammany Spiked Reform Ticket Project,” New York World-Telegram (hereafter World-Telegram), October 31, 1945, clippings, both in scrapbook 18, LP Records; Davidson Oral History, 144–55; O’Dwyer, Beyond the Golden Door, 210–15; “Dewey and Mayor Trade Oral Blows in Campaign Talks,” NYT, November 11, 1945, clipping, scrapbook 19, LP Records; Sanford Stanton, “Goldstein Endorsed by Liberal Party,” New York Journal-American (hereafter Journal-American), June 10, 1945; Ray Ghent, “McGoldrick Won’t Run for Mayor,” World-Telegram, June 7, 1945, clippings; “Three Groomed to Contest Democrat Choice O’Dwyer,” unidentified clipping, June 7, 1945, all in scrapbook 16, LP Records; The Liberal Party Selects Its Good Government Ticket for the City of New York (New York: Liberal Party, 1945), b. 55, f. “Liberal Party of New York State, 1944,” TL; Morris, Let the Chips Fall, 205–7. 33.  “Jonah J. Goldstein Is Named for Mayor,” Liberal Party News, June 15, 1945, b. 2, f. “Liberal Party News,” LP Records; Liberal Party Selects; “Tammany Rebels Confident of Ousting Neal and Stand,” PM, June 15, 1945, 11; Ben Davidson to Alex Rose, June 21, 1945, b. 2, f. “Memoranda,” LP Records; Frederick Woltman, “TammanyRed Tie Called Peril to City,” World-Telegram, October 30, 1945, clipping, scrapbook 19, LP Records; Copal Mintz to John Childs and Alex Rose, May 23, 1945, b. 2, f. “Mintz, Copal,” LP Records. 34.  “Your City: Your Candidates,” flyer, b. 1, f. “Campaign 1945,” LP Records; “Biographical Sketch of Judge Jonah J. Goldstein,” n.d., and “Judge by the Record,” n.d., both in b. 1, f. “Goldstein, JJ Campaign,” LP Records; Khaym Ehrenraykh, “Dzhodzh Dzhona Goldshteyn, kandidat far meyor iz a kind fun der ist sayd,” Tog, June 30, 1945, and George van Slyke, “Judge Goldstein to Head City Fusionist Ticket,” Sun, June 7, 1945, clippings, both in scrapbook 16, LP Records. 35.  John Crosson and Dick Lee, “G.O.P. Hints Goldstein May Run for Mayor,” New York Daily News (hereafter Daily News), June 8, 1945, clipping, scrapbook 16, LP Records. See also Francis Stephenson, “Republicans Put Goldstein Up for Mayor,” Tribune, June 9, 1945; Ray Ghent, “Morris Blast Seen as Bid to LaGuardia,” WorldTelegram, June 9, 1945; Frank Doyle and William Henderson, “Morris Bolts GOP Ticket,” New York Daily Mirror (hereafter Mirror), June 9, 1945, clippings, all in scrapbook 16, LP Records. 36.  “Morris Is Not Running—Yet,” Sun, July 19, 1945; James A. Hagerty, “Morris Denies Aim to ‘Raid’ for Votes: Wants Only to Win,” NYT, August 6, 1945; Ray Ghent, “No Deal Party Drives to Get 25,000 Names,” World-Telegram, August 6, 1945; “Boomerang Is Likely in Race,” Sun, August 6, 1945; Denis Tilden Lynch, “Morris Predicts He’ll Be Elected ‘If Voters Think,’ ” unidentified clipping, n.d.; Dick Lee, “Morris Won’t Name Manager, Asserting Only Dopes Need ’em,” Daily News, August 6, 1945; Frank Doyle, “Goldstein Calls Morris, Ticket ‘One-Man Deal,’ Post, August 10, 1945, clippings, all in scrapbook 16, LP Records.

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37.  John Crosson and Dick Lee, “9,000 Pay to See Goldstein Ride the Tiger,” Daily News, September 27, 1945; Francis Stephenson, “Garden Rally Gets Goldstein Job Program,” New York Herald-Tribune (hereafter Herald-Tribune), September 27, 1945; “Goldstein Outlines Six-Point Job Plan,” PM, September 27, 1945; “Goldstein’s Speech at Garden,” Herald-Tribune, September 17, 1945, clippings, all in scrapbook 16, LP Records; “Liberal Party at Garden Sets Fusion Victory Goal,” Justice, October 1, 1945, and advertisement for Liberal rally, Post, September 26, 1945, clippings, both in scrapbook 18, LP Records. 38.  John Childs to Jonah Goldstein, September 11, 1945, b. 1, f. “State Executive Committee”; Richard Childs, letter to the editor, NYT, October 6, 1945, b. 1, f. “Goldstein, JJ Campaign”; Sidney Strongin to Alex Rose, November 9, 1945, b. 2, f. “1945 unsorted”; H. Doggweiler to Rose, Election Day, 1945, b. 2, f. “1945 unsorted,” all in LP Records. Stephenson, “Republicans Put Goldstein Up”; Ray Ghent, “Morris Blast Seen as Bid to La Guardia,” World-Telegram, June 9, 1945; Frank Doyle and William Henderson, “Morris Bolts GOP Ticket,” Mirror, June 9, 1945; Dorothy Norman, A World to Live In, Post, July 20, 1945; William Henderson, “LaG. Opens Morris Drive, Sees Victory,” Mirror, October 8, 1945; Robert Spivack, “Schieffelin Supports Morris,” Post, October 10, 1945; “Moses for Morris, Assails Goldstein,” NYT, October 22, 1945, clippings, all in scrapbook 16, LP Records; “For Mayor-Newbold Morris,” NYT, October 4, 1945, and “Support the Liberal Party,” World-Telegram, October 29, 1945, clippings, both in scrapbook 18, LP Records; Robert Spivack, “Davenport Calls on Dewey to Repudiate Goldstein,” Post, October 26, 1945, and Robert Spivack, “Mrs. Thackery Praises Morris as Only One Qualified to Be Mayor,” Post, October 26, 1945, clippings, both in scrapbook 19, LP Records; Davidson Oral History, 153–55. 39.  “O’Dwyer Endorsed by Citizens’ PAC,” NYT, July 17, 1945; Ray Ghent, “Citizens PAC Called Apologist for Communists,” World-Telegram, July 17, 1945; “Labor Is Split over O’Dwyer,” Sun, July 20, 1945; “Three Good Men for Mayor,” Daily News, August 7, 1945; “Democrat Backed by Mrs. Roosevelt,” NYT, August 9, 1945; “Morris Opposed by Citizens Union,” NYT, August 10, 1945; “Votes for O’Dwyer Urged by Hillman,” NYT, August 9, 1945; “C.I.O. Executive Board Backs O’Dwyer,” HeraldTribune, August 10, 1945; “Wallace Gives Full Backing to O’Dwyer,” PM, September 14, 1945; “Herlands, Childs Attack Wallace,” NYT, September 15, 1945; “Roosevelt Group Supports O’Dwyer,” NYT, September 21, 1945; “Wagner Raises Progress Issue, Backs O’Dwyer,” Herald-Tribune, October 14, 1945; “Hillman Takes Fling at Dewey,” Sun, October 25, 1945, clippings, all in scrapbook 16, LP Records; “Judge Jonah J. Goldstein Is a Roosevelt Democrat,” advertisement, Post, October 23, 1945, clipping, scrapbook 17, LP Records; “On the Mayoralty Campaign,” PM, October 16, 1945, and Max Gordon, “Social Democrats on PM Switch Paper to Morris,” Daily Worker, November 4, 1945, clippings, both in scrapbook 18, LP Records; Ray Ghent, “Truman Will Indorse O’Dwyer Candidacy on Visit Tomorrow,” World-Telegram, October 26, 1945, clipping, scrapbook 19, LP Records. 40.  Eleanor Roosevelt to David Dubinsky, August 9, 1945; Dubinsky to Eleanor Roosevelt, August 24, 1945; Eleanor Roosevelt to Dubinsky, August 27, 1945; Dubinsky to Eleanor Roosevelt, September 20, 1945; Eleanor Roosevelt to Dubinsky, September 24, 1945, all in b. 3281, f. “Dubinsky, David, 1945–1952,” Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, FDRPL.

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41.  Robert Spivack, “A Fight on Ed Flynn’s Hands; Rebuff to Foley Is Resented,” Post, June 22, 1945; “Pal of Griffin Backs Goldstein,” Daily Worker, June 23, 1945; “Tammany Picks Connolly of ALP,” NYT, June 23, 1945; “Tammany Assailed on Connolly Deal,” NYT, June 24, 1945; “Connolly Gets Tammany Spot,” Sun, June 23, 1945, clippings, all in scrapbook 16, LP Records. 42.  Leo Egan, “O’Dwyer Is Victor in Fight on Mates,” NYT, June 13, 1945; Ray Ghent, “Strange Group Aids O’Dwyer, Rose Asserts,” World-Telegram, June 14, 1945; Leo Egan, “Goldstein Pledges Fight on Bossism,” NYT, June 15, 1945; Francis Stephenson, “Goldstein Says City ‘Bossism’ Is Main Issue,” Tribune, June 15, 1945; Robert Spivack, “Rose Sees Hillman-Tiger Plot,” Post, June 27, 1945; “Hillman Assails Dewey for Hand in City Election,” Herald-Tribune, June 27, 1945; Robert Spivack, “ ‘My Own Boss,’ Says O’Dwyer,” Post, June 27, 1945; Ray Ghent, “O’Dwyer Tax Talk Hints Shifting Attack from Goldstein to Dewey,” World-Telegram, October 16, 1945; “Goldstein Speech Charging Underworld Support of O’Dwyer,” NYT, October 18, 1945; Dexter Teed, “O’Dwyer Visited Costello in His Home—Goldstein,” Post, October 18, 1945; Joseph Schmalcker, “Goldstein Will Add Charges,” Brooklyn Eagle, October 18, 1945, clippings, all in scrapbook 16, LP Records; “O’Dwyer Accused of Costello Link,” NYT, October 28, 1945, clipping, scrapbook 19, LP Records. 43.  “Senate Censure of Bilbo Asked by Liberal Party,” Post, July 31, 1945; “Liberal parti fodert-oyf senatoren tsu protestiren gegen Bilbos hetses,” Forward, July 31, 1945; “Goldstein Bids City Name Own Anti-Bias Board,” Herald-Tribune, August 28, 1945; “Goldstein Assails Bilbo in Brooklyn,” NYT, August 22, 1945; “A City Antidiscrimination Board,” Herald-Tribune, August 23, 1945; “Goldstein to Seek Help for Negroes,” NYT, September 24, 1945, clippings, all in scrapbook 16, LP Records. 44.  Jonah J. Goldstein to Willard Johnson, October 7, 1945, b. 1, f. “Goldstein Campaign File”; Benjamin Gassman to Alex Rose, July 7, 1945, b. 1, f. “Goldstein, McGoldrick, Pette, Dems for”; George Sokolsky, “The Days,” Sun, July 15, 1945, clipping, scrapbook 16; Martin Kivel and Dick Lee, “Goldstein Says 5c Fare Must Stay,” Daily News, October 26, 1945, clipping, scrapbook 19, all in LP Records. 45.  John Crosson and Al Binder, “O’Dwyer Whisper Shouted Down,” Daily News, September 10, 1945, clipping, scrapbook 16, LP Records. 46. “On the Mayoralty Campaign,” PM, October 16, 1945; Robert Spivack, “New York’s Mayoralty Election,” New Republic, October 20, 1945; “O’Dwyer’s Victory,” Post, November 7, 1945; William Bohn, “New York Apologizes,” New Leader, November 10, 1945; “Tammany Wins—What Now?,” Justice, n.d.; “O’Dwyer Wins Mayoralty,” Herald-Tribune, November 11, 1945, clippings, all in scrapbook 18, LP Records; William Henderson, “All 3 Vitriolic as Mayor Race Nears Windup,” Mirror, October 30, 1945, and “Defeated Parties Are Bitter at La Guardia, Tammany,” NYT, November 7, 1945, clippings, both in scrapbook 19, LP Records. 47.  Howard Rushmore, “Find ALP Power at the Polls,” Journal-American, November 7, 1945; Frederick Woltman, “McGoldrick Far Outpolls Goldstein Total,” WorldTelegram, November 7, 1945; “O’Dwyer Vote 57.7%, Official Canvass Shows,” NYT, December 5, 1945; George Van Slyke, “O’Dwyer’s Plurality 685,175,” Sun, November 7, 1945; “ ‘Liberals’ Spent Twice ALP Fund in City Race,” Daily Worker, November 28, 1945, clippings, all in scrapbook 19, LP Records. 48. Prosterman, Defining Democracy, 3; Annual Report, 26–29.

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49.  “McLaurin Put Up for Council with Kaplan,” Liberal Party News, August 15, 1945, b. 2, f. “LP News,” LP Records; Claudia Jones, “Ben Davis: Symbol of New York People’s Unity,” Daily Worker, September 22, 1945, clipping, scrapbook 18, LP Records; Benjamin McLaurin Oral History, 215–24, OHAC; Liberal Party press release, July 27, 1945; McLaurin campaign press releases, August 3, 1945, October 29, 1945, November 3, 1945, all in b. 106, f. “McLaurin Campaign-NYCC,” Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters Records, LOC; “Me? Well . . ., ” flyer, n.d., b. 2, f. “1945 unsorted,” LP Records; Annual Report, 30–33. 50.  “Ira J. Palestin Addresses Riverdale Women Voters,” Home News, October 24, 1945, clipping, scrapbook 19, and “Endorsements,” Post, November 2, 1945, clipping, scrapbook 18, both in LP Records. 51.  “Louis P. Goldberg, Lawyer, 68, Dead,” NYT, December 12, 1957, 30; “Campaign to Re-elect Louis P. Goldberg,” New Leader, October 27, 1945, and “Elect These Leaders to the City Government,” 338 News, November 1945, clippings, both in scrapbook 18, LP Records; Louis Goldberg, “What Marx Believed,” letter to the editor, Herald-Tribune, June 3, 1949, clipping, scrapbook 22, LP Records; “Louis P. Goldberg,” Forward, clipping, n.d., f. 140, Forward Association Records. 52.  Alex Rose to Sidney Strongin, December 7, 1945, b. 2, f. “1945 unsorted,” LP Records. 53. Davidson Oral History, 163–69; “Liberals Must Organize,” New Leader, November 24, 1945, clipping, scrapbook 18, LP Records; “Excerpt from Statement Read before State Executive Committee, December 12, 1945, by Dr. John Childs,” n.d., and “Decisions of the State Executive Committee, December 12, 1945,” n.d., both in b. 6, f. “Council,” LP Records. 54. “Tyrants Remain, Truman Asserts,” NYT, June 6, 1946; “Truman Views Democracy as Facing Big Test,” Herald-Tribune, June 6, 1946; Robert Spivack, “Liberal Party Decides on ’46 Grand Offensive,” Post, June 6, 1946, clippings, all in scrapbook 19, LP Records; “Program: Second Annual Dinner, Liberal Party of New York State,” June 5, 1946, b. 55, f. “Liberal Party of New York State, 1945–1946,” Ephemera Collection; Davidson Oral History, 170–75, 199–213. 55.  “The Liberal Party, International and National Program, 1946,” n.d., b. 55, f. “Liberal Party of New York State, 1945–1946,” Ephemera Collection. 56.  “Berle Cautions Liberals on Split; Urges Keeping Tie with Democrats,” NYT, June 15, 1946, 13. 57.  “Mayor, Rose Reach Political Entente; New Coalition Seen,” NYT, July 22, 1946; “O’Dwyer Ends His Rift with Liberal Party,” Herald-Tribune, July 22, 1946, clippings, all in scrapbook 19, LP Records; “ALP Denies O’Dwyer Shift,” Post, July 23, 1946, clipping, and Alexander Feinberg, “Democratic Deal Irks Labor Party,” unidentified clipping, n.d., both in scrapbook 18, LP Records. 58.  “Probable Starters in State Political Sweepstakes,” PM, n.d., clipping, scrapbook 19, LP Records; Nevins, Herbert H. Lehman, 303; Tananbaum, Herbert H. Lehman, 269–84. 59.  Culver and Hyde, American Dreamer, 419–31; Markowitz, Rise and Fall, 181–92; Hamby, Beyond the New Deal, 127–32. 60.  “Mrs. Roosevelt Scolds Childs,” Sun, September 19, 1946; “Mead Vows to Battle Reaction,” PM, September 19, 1946; “Mrs. F.D.R. Urges Unity on Liberal Front,”

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Post, September 19, 1946; Francis Stephenson, “Mrs. Roosevelt Enters Dispute over Wallace,” unidentified clipping, n.d.; “No Policy Rift Seen by Mrs. Roosevelt,” NYT, September 19, 1946; “Liberal Party Drops Wallace,” unidentified clipping, n.d.; “Wallace Abandons One World, Liberals Charge in Break,” unidentified clipping, n.d.; “Liberals Assail Wallace,” unidentified clipping, n.d.; “Liberals Break with Wallace on Soviet Stand,” Herald-Tribune, n.d.; “State Democrats Caught in Middle by Wallace Talk,” World-Telegram, September 20, 1946, clippings, all in scrapbook 19, LP Records. 61.  “A.L.P. Endorses Wallace Speech as Major Issue,” Herald-Tribune, September 20, 1946; “PAC Calls Action a Blow to Peace,” NYT, September 21, 1946; “Wallace Issue Hits Mead,” PM, September 21, 1946; Francis Stephenson, “Dewey and Mead Are Silent, Leftists Protest Wallace Ouster,” Herald-Tribune, September 21,1946, clippings, all in scrapbook 18, LP Records. 62.  “Lehman Asks Immediate Opening of Palestine to 100,000 Jews,” PM, September 1946; “Lehman Urges Soviet Accord in P.A.C. Talk,” Herald-Tribune, September 25, 1946; James A. Hagerty, “Policy of Truman Backed by Lehman,” NYT, September 29, 1946; “Lehman Gives Views on Our Foreign Policy,” NYT, September 29, 1946, clippings, all in scrapbook 18, LP Records; Robert Williams, “Faith Has Fled, Says Ives,” Post, October 10, 1946, and Robert Williams, “Ives Warns Foes to Avoid 3 Issues,” Post, October 17, 1946, clippings, both in scrapbook 21, LP Records; Ray Ghent, “Democrats Lose 2 Top Speakers in Final Lap,” World-Telegram, October 19, 1946, clipping, scrapbook 19, LP Records. 63.  “Liberal Party Expects 300,000 Votes,” Post, November 2, 1946; LP supplement, Justice, November 1, 1946; Warren Moscow, “Democrats Shy at Leftists but Won’t Go Conservative,” NYT, November 9, 1946; Ray Ghent, “Routed Democrats Plan to Shun ALP in Future,” World-Telegram, n.d.; “Minority Party Role Seen Strengthened,” PM, November 10, 1946, clippings, all in scrapbook 19, LP Records; “In the Party Tepees,” PM, November 6, 1946; Victor Riesel, “Liberals, ALP Gain 200,000 as Many Democrats Go G.O.P.,” Post, November 6, 1946; Max Gordon, “Demos’ Weakness, ALP, Communist Strength, in the State Elections,” Daily Worker, November 10, 1946; Jerry Bakst, “ALP Death Notices Called Premature,” PM, November 10, 1946; James A. Hagerty, “3 Big State Factors,” NYT, November 7, 1946, clippings, all in scrapbook 21, LP Records. 64. Javits, Javits, 1–46, 88, 92–111; “Liberals to Aid 2 Republicans for Congress,” Herald-Tribune, August 8, 1946, clipping, scrapbook 19, LP Records; John Weiss, “Javits, GOP Liberal, Has Fighting Chance to Win,” PM, October 21, 1946, and “Javits Reports on Results of Opinion Survey,” Herald-Tribune, September 22, 1948, clipping, both in scrapbook 21, LP Records. 65. Javits, Javits, 111, 132–52; “Rose Sees Victory for Javits in 21st,” unidentified clipping, n.d.; “Yavits, kandidat fun liberal parti, ervehlt kongresman,” Forward, November 6, 1946; Oliver Pilat, “From East Side to Capitol Hill,” Post, January 30, 1947, clippings, all in scrapbook 21, LP Records; Ralph Reuter, interview by the author, March 4, 2009. 66. Hamby, Beyond the New Deal, 137. 67.  “A.L.P., Liberals Split over Wilson-Pekula,” unidentified clipping, n.d.; Ray Ghent, “New Primary Rule Blocks Leftist Raids to Control Liberal Party,” World-

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Telegram, March 22, 1947; Edward Bates, “Minor Parties Assail Proposed Curbs on Them,” Herald-Tribune, n.d., clippings, all in scrapbook 21, LP Records. 68.  Dave Post, “Political Post-scripts,” Home News, October 8, 1947, clipping, scrapbook 21, LP Records. 69. Prosterman, Defining Democracy, 181–200; Amos Landman, “Pressure on O’D in Drive against PR,” PM, April 3, 1947; David McConnell, “Fight on P.R. Puts Life in Off-Year Vote,” Herald-Tribune, October 17, 1947; Ray Ghent, “Swing from Left Spurs Democratic PR Drive,” World-Telegram, August 31, 1947; “Tammany Seen behind Fight on PR,” Post, September 8, 1947; Ray Ghent, “PR Fight Sizzles into Final Week,” World-Telegram, n.d.; Warren Moscow, “Vote on Ending PR in City Planned for Fall Election,” NYT, n.d.; “Keep P.R. Week Opened; 1000 Talks Planned,” unidentified clipping, n.d.; Dave Post, “Political Post-scripts,” Home News, October 8, 1947, clippings, all in scrapbook 21, LP Records; “Democratic Heads Join Fight on PR,” Herald-Tribune, October 2, 1947, clipping, scrapbook 22, LP Records; “P.R.’s Latest,” World-Telegram, November 19, 1945, clipping, scrapbook 18, LP Records; Annual Report, 26. 70.  “Politicians and P.R.,” Herald-Tribune, April 5, 1947; ad for LP radio broadcast, NYT, October 2, 1947; “Fight on P.R.”; “Step Up Drive to Keep PR,” Post, October 27, 1947; “Keep P.R. Week Opened,” clippings, all in scrapbook 21, LP Records; “Palestin Says P.R. Is Truly Representative,” Home News, October 29, 1947, and “Roosevelt Quoted as Supporting PR,” clippings, both in scrapbook 22, LP Records; Ben Davidson, Speakers’ Bulletin #4, September 1947, b. 7, f. “Correspondence to All Clubs, 1947,” LP Records; press release, April 8, 1947, and For Our City: 1945 Municipal Program, State Legislative Program for 1945, both in b. 55, f. “Liberal Party of New York State, 1945–1946,” Ephemera Collection. 71.  “The Results on PR,” NYT, November 6, 1947, 26; “PR Lost by 349,125,” NYT, November 21, 1947, 29. 72. Kessner, Fiorello H. La Guardia, 395. 73. Schwarz, Liberal, 55–68. 74.  Berle Diary, May 13, 1947, XIII-1, 33, Berle Papers, FDRPL; Schwarz, Liberal, 290, 293. 75.  Berle Diary, July 9, 1947, XIII-1, 51–52; Schwarz, Liberal, 38; Fiorello La Guardia, “LaGuardia: Liberals Must Unite NOW,” PM, May 18, 1947, clipping, scrapbook 21, LP Records. 3. New Deal Legacy at the Crossroads

 1. Hamby, Beyond the New Deal, 29–59.  2. Hamby, Beyond the New Deal, 60–67, 74–77, 91–93, 100.  3. Party Newsletter/Party Builder, February 12, 1945, b. 2, f. “Newsletter, LP Records”; press releases, January 25, 1945, January 31, 1945, March 3, 1945; John Childs to Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, et al., January 25, 1945; Ben Davidson to H. P. Nelson, February 5, 1945; Childs and Alex Rose to Henry Wallace, March 2, 1945; Wallace to Childs, April 9, 1945, all in b. 3, f. “Wallace Appointment”; speeches by Alfange, Mead, Niebuhr, Celler, Childs, and McLaurin, and resolution of meeting, February 1, 1945, all in b. 5, f. “Wallace Meeting,” all in Liberal Party of New

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York State Records, NYPL (hereafter LP Records); Frank Kent, “The Great Game of Politics,” Wall Street Journal, December 11, 1944, 6.  4. “U.S. Labor Party Asked by Dubinsky,” New York Times (hereafter NYT), June 5, 1946, clipping, scrapbook 18, LP Records; Hamby, Beyond the New Deal, 158– 59, 162–63, 197; Robert Glasgow, “Berle Compares Soviet Aims to Those of Hitler,” New York Herald-Tribune (hereafter Herald-Tribune), June 18, 1947; “Bishop Sheil Hits Taft Bill,” New York Post (hereafter Post), June 18, 1947, and “Truman Doctrine Upheld by Porter,” NYT, June 8, 1947, clippings, both in scrapbook 19, LP Records.  5. John Childs, America’s First Need: A Political Realignment (New York: Liberal Party of New York State, 1946), b. 55, f. “Liberal Party of New York State, 1945– 1946,” Ephemera Collection, TL.  6. Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 287; “U.S. Labor Party Asked by Dubinsky”; “Dubinsky Outlined 9-Day Agenda,” Justice, June 15, 1944, and Harry Laidler, “Platforms to the Left,” Common Sense, August 1944, clippings, both in scrapbook 15, LP Records.   7.  A. Philip Randolph, “An Independent Party,” 1944, clipping, scrapbook 15, LP Records; “Calls for New Party,” NYT, May 30, 1946, clipping, scrapbook 18, LP Records; “Randolph Calls Truman Strike-Breaker—Urges New Party,” press release, May 28, 1946, b. 30, f. “NECNP-Statements,” A. Philip Randolph Papers, LOC (hereafter Randolph Papers); “Minutes of the National Educational Committee for a New Party,” November 16, 1946, b. 30, f. “NECNP Minutes,” Randolph Papers.  8. Ideas for a New Party; August Claessens to A. Philip Randolph, November 29, 1945, b. 1, f. “1945”; Randolph to “Dear Friends,” circular, April 18, 1946, b. 30, f. “NECNP Announcements of Meetings”; “Summary of Discussion at Hotel New Yorker,” December 1, 1945, b. 30, f. “NECNP Statements”; “Minutes-Resident Members of Nat’l Educational Committee for a New Party,” May 27, 1946, b. 30, f. “NECNP Minutes,” all in Randolph Papers, LOC; “A Letter from Ben Davidson,” n.d., clipping, scrapbook 19, LP Records.   9.  “Minutes of the National Educational Committee for a New Party,” November 16, 1946, b. 30, f. “NECNP Minutes,” and “Statement of the National Educational Committee for a New Party on the ADA,” May 24, 1947, b. 30, f. “NECNP-Statements,” both in Randolph Papers. 10.  A. Philip Randolph to Murray Lincoln, December 29, 1945, b. 1, f. “1945,” Randolph Papers; Carl Hirsch, “Socialist Cabal Launches Drive for Anti-CIO Party,” Daily Worker, April 9, 1946, clipping, scrapbook 18, LP Records; Lewis Corey to Randolph, May 12, 1947; C. J. McLenahan to Randolph, May 14, 1947, and July 21, 1947; and Randolph to McLenahan, July 29, 1947, all in b. 1, f. “1947,” Randolph Papers. 11.  “Blumberg, Berle Hail Truman Veto,” NYT, June 23, 1947; “Liberals Favor National Body,” Sun, July 24, 1947; “Liberals Blast 3d Party Ticket as Red,” Bronx News, July 24, 1947; “Liberals Urge Expansion to National Party,” Herald-Tribune, July 24, 1947; “3d Party Can’t Win Union Labor’s Aid in ’48—Solomon,” Brooklyn Eagle, August 4, 1947; “Lays 3rd Party to Communists,” PM, July 9, 1947; “Berle Is Dubious on ’48 Third Party,” NYT, July 20, 1947, clippings, all in scrapbook 19, LP Records. 12.  Frederick Woltman, “Reds Make Bronx Election a Test of Wallace Power,” New York World-Telegram (hereafter World-Telegram), February 10, 1948, and “Wal-

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lace Urges Election of Isacson,” Post, February 11, 1948, both in scrapbook 21, LP Records; Murray Snyder, “Wallace Talks Draw 25,000 in Harlem, Bronx,” HeraldTribune, February 15, 1948, clipping, scrapbook 22, LP Records. 13.  Berle Diary, n.d., XIII-1, 65–69, Berle Papers, FDRPL; John Weiss and Tom O’Connor, “First Wallace Test Due in N.Y. Special Election,” unidentified clipping, n.d.; “Bronx Democrats Nominate Propper,” unidentified clipping, n.d.; Al Sostchen, “Congress Needs Shot of Real Liberalism, Says Alfange,” Home News, February 4, 1948; “Candidates in 24th C.D. Discuss the Key Issues,” Home News, February 15, 1948; “Mayor to Support Bronx Democrat,” NYT, February 4, 1948; Al Sostchen, “Flynn Accepts Wallace Defy for Poll Test,” Home News, February 5, 1948; “Wallace Urges Election of Isacson,” Post, February 11, 1948; Ray Ghent, “Democrats in Bronx Move,” World-Telegram, n.d.; Frederick Woltman, “Reds Make Bronx Election a Test of Wallace Power,” World-Telegram, February 10, 1948; “4 Ex-ALP Heads Hit Wallace,” advertisement, Post, February 13, 1947; Edward Katcher, “Isacson’s Unexpected Victory Boosts Wallace Campaign,” Post, February 17, 1948; Dave Post, “How ALP Won in the 24th,” Home News, February 24, 1948, clippings, all in scrapbook 21, LP Records; Victor Riesel, “Inside Labor,” Post, February 16, 1948; Murray Snyder, “Wallace Talks Draw 25,000 in Harlem, Bronx,” Herald-Tribune, February 15, 1948; “How Bronx Campaign Is Waged . . ., ” PM, February 15, 1948; George Bernstein, “What Happened in the Bronx,” letter to the editor, Herald-Tribune, February 23, 1948; Murray Snyder, “Wallace Man Is Elected to House in Bronx Upset,” HeraldTribune, February 18, 1948; “Isacson, Backed by Wallace, Wins in Bronx Almost 2–1,” PM, February 18, 1948, clippings, all in scrapbook 22, LP Records. 14.  “Wallace Race Denounced by Liberal Party,” New York Daily Mirror, January 11, 1947, clipping, scrapbook 22, LP Records; “Statement on Taft-Hartley Act,” June 25, 1947, Berle Diary, XIII-1, 46; Berle Diary, July 9, 1947, XIII-1, 54; Hamby, Beyond the New Deal, 169, 180–90. 15.  Berle Diary, January 19, 1948, XIII-1, 62–64; Clayton Knowles, “President Clears Way to Augment Link with Liberals,” NYT, January 19, 1948, and “Liberal Party OK’s Truman Anti-inflation Program; Opposes Wallace,” Local 66 News, February 1948, clippings, both in scrapbook 22, LP Records. 16.  “U.S. Zionists Plan Mobilization against ‘Betrayal’ on Palestine,” Herald-Tribune, March 23, 1948, and A. H. Raskin, “New Labor Revolt Opens on Truman,” NYT, March 25, 1948, clippings, both in scrapbook 21, LP Records; “Liberal Party Hails Trieste Return; Hits U.S. Shift on Palestine,” Our Local 66, April 1948, clipping, scrapbook 22, LP Records. 17. Hamby, Beyond the New Deal, 209, 226–29, 242–43; McAuliffe, Crisis on the Left, 33–37; Parmet, Master of Seventh Avenue, 221; “Friedman Forces Join Truman Bolt,” Brooklyn Eagle, March 30, 1948; Dorothy Norman, A World to Live In, Post, May 7, 1948; “Ike-Backers Told: Truman Would Run Last in 3-Way Race,” PM, April 26, 1948, clippings, all in scrapbook 21, LP Records; “Liberal Party Calls for Draft of Ike as Democratic Nominee,” PM, March 30 1948, and “Liberals Boom Douglas for V.P.,” Bronx Home News, April 19, 1948, clippings, both in scrapbook 22, LP Records. Ben Davidson later recalled that there was no enthusiasm for Eisenhower in the Liberal Party, but the record does not seem to bear out this recollection. Ben Davidson Oral History, 218, OHAC.

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18. Hamby, Beyond the New Deal, 243–44, 247, 256; Robert Spivack, “Liberal Party and ADA Ready to Back Truman,” Post, July 18, 1948; “Liberal Council Endorses Truman,” NYT, August 12, 1948; “Liberal Party to Back Truman Ticket,” unidentified clipping, n.d.; Robert Spivack, “Truman Gets Endorsement of Liberals,” Post, September 2, 1948; James A. Hagerty, “Truman Endorsed by Liberal Party,” NYT, September 2, 1948, clippings, all in scrapbook 22, LP Records. 19.  Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 279; Davidson Oral History, 223; Parmet, Master of Seventh Avenue, 223, 249; Ray Ghent, “Truman-Barkley Ticket to Lean on Liberals Here,” World-Telegram, September 17, 1948, clipping, scrapbook 21, LP Records; press releases with program and texts of addresses, October 28, 1948, and n.d., b. 7, f. “Madison Square Garden,” LP Records; Oliver Pilat, “Truman Makes Swing around City—Reaffirms His Stand on Israel,” Post, October 29, 1948, and “Truman Urges a Strong Israel at Garden Rally,” Herald-Tribune, October 29, 1948, clippings, both in scrapbook 22, LP Records. 20.  Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 282; Adolf A. Berle to Senator McGrath, November 19, 1948, Berle Diary, XIII-1, 97–99; Warren Moscow, “Balance of Power Lost by City ALP,” NYT, November 4, 1948, and John Weiss, “Dewey’s State Margin of 46,529 Is Closest in N.Y. Vote History,” New York Star, November 4, 1948, clippings, both in scrapbook 21, LP Records. 21.  “The Liberal Party: 1948–1949 Position,” December 1, 1948, Berle Diary, XIII1, 100–106. 22.  Berle speech, WOR, November 7, 1949, Berle Papers. 23.  James A. Hagerty, “ ‘Interloper,’ Cries Roosevelt Rival,” NYT, March 20, 1949, 57; “New York,” NYT, March 27, 1949, E2; Warren Moscow, “Dewey Will Order 20th District Poll,” NYT, April 5, 1949, 24; “Thriller in the 20th,” Herald-Tribune, April 9, 1949; John Crosson and James Desmond, “Dems Charge Plot in 20th,” New York Daily News (hereafter Daily News), May 17, 1949; Ray Ghent, “Frenzied Tiger Battles to Stop Roosevelt Push,” World-Telegram, May 13, 1949, clippings, all in scrapbook 23, LP Records. 24.  Warren Moscow, “Roosevelt Jr. Seeks Bloom’s Seat,” NYT, March 15, 1949, 1; “Lehman, CIO Group Back Roosevelt Jr.,” NYT, March 19, 1949, 8; Hagerty, “ ‘Interloper’ ”; “Revolt Is Widened in Blaikie District,” NYT, April 21, 1949, 19; Robert G. Whalen, “Another Roosevelt Enters the Lists,” NYT, April 24, 1949, SM14; “4 Open Campaigns for Bloom’s Seat,” NYT, April 26, 1949, 21; Warren Moscow, “Roosevelt Wins House Seat by Majority over 3 Rivals,” NYT, May 18, 1949, 1; Murray Snyder, “Shalleck Named by Tammany for Bloom’s Seat,” Herald-Tribune, April 12, 1949; “Another F.D.R. for New York,” Post, May 8, 1949; Robert G. Spivack, “For Congressman: Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr.,” Post, May 12, 1949; “Liberal Party Holds Key to Success of Fusion Drive to Oust O’Dwyer,” Post, May 19, 1949; James A. Hagerty, “Roosevelt Victory Starts Open Fight on Tammany Chief,” NYT, May 19, 1949, clippings, all in scrapbook 23, LP Records; Davidson Oral History, 251–53, 259–60; Ben Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs, April 9, 1949, b. 8, f. “1949 Correspondence—All Clubs,” LP Records. 25.  “In the Great Tradition,” Post, May 16, 1949, clipping, scrapbook 23, LP Records.

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26.  “F.D. Roosevelt Jr. Named by Liberals,” NYT, April 14, 1949, 22; Warren Moscow, “Shalleck Ex-rival to Be His Manager,” NYT, April 19, 1949, 21; James A. Hagerty, “Invaders to Push Congress Contest,” NYT, May 8, 1949, 46; Warren Moscow, “Campaigns Noisy in Congress Race,” NYT, May 13, 1949, 21; Warren Moscow, “Roosevelt Wins House Seat by Majority over Three Other Rivals,” NYT, May 18, 1949, 1; Davidson Oral History, 254–55; Ray Ghent, “Tiger Hints Court Case on Roosevelt Jr.,” World-Telegram, April 30, 1949; “Tammany Steps Up Its Drive to Elect Shalleck in 20th C.D.,” Post, May 6, 1949, and “Demos Sign Pledges for Dr. Rubinstein,” Daily Worker, May 18, 1949, clippings, both in scrapbook 23, LP Records; Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs, April 9, 1949, and June 1, 1949, both in b. 8, f. “1949 Correspondence—All Clubs,” LP Records; The Bronx Liberal, n.d., b. 8, f. “Bronx County HQ,” LP Records. 27.  Moscow, “Shalleck Ex-rival”; Hagerty, “Roosevelt Victory Starts Open Fight”; Murray Schumach, “Victor Tours Area Pouring Out Charm,” NYT, May 18, 1949, 3; “Blow to Tammany Is Seen in Victory,” NYT, May 18, 1949, 3; Murray Snyder, “Rogers Is Facing Tammany Ouster in Election Defeat,” Herald-Tribune, May 1949 [sic]; “Congressman Roosevelt,” Washington Post, May 19, 1949; Marcus Duffield, “Roosevelt Licks Tammany,” Herald-Tribune, May 22, 1949, clippings, all in scrapbook 23, LP Records; Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs, June 1, 1949; “School of Politics: A Man Who Knows How,” Public Guardian (New York), May 28, 1949, clipping, scrapbook 22, LP Records; Ben Davidson to Ira J. Greenhill, July 20, 1949, b. 9, f. “R misc. 1949,” LP Records. 28.  “From May to November,” editorial, Post, May 24, 1949, scrapbook 23, LP Records. 29.  ILGWU general executive board minutes, November 11–14, 1949, b. 136, f. 2a, Dubinsky Presidential Records, 5780/002, ILGWU Records, KC (hereafter Dubinsky Records); Adolf A. Berle Jr. to C. C. Burlingham, Berle Diary, August 4, 1949, XIV, 24a–25a. 30.  Berle speech to Liberal Party dinner, May 25, 1949; Berle speech to Liberal Party state convention, September 15, 1949; Berle speech to canvassers’ convention, October 25, 1949, all in b. 147, f. “Speeches, 1949,” Berle Papers; Berle Diary, June 13, 1949, XIV, 17. 31.  Lewis Mumford and Mark Starr, “City Hall and Queens College,” letters to the editor, Herald-Tribune, February 23, 1949; “Tead Defies Mayor in College Dispute,” NYT, March 4, 1949; “Mayor’s Intervention Debated at Hearing on Queens College,” Herald-Tribune, March 4, 1949, clippings, all in b. 8, f. “1949 Queens College/Hovde, Bryn,” LP Records; Loy Warwick, “Protest O’Dwyer’s College Board Slap,” Post, February 20, 1949, clipping; “Anger Mounts against Mayor over College,” World- Telegram, February 19, 1949, clipping; “Mayor Attacked in College Dispute,” unidentified clipping, n.d., all in scrapbook 21, LP Records; Benjamin Fine, “O’Dwyer Attacked in College Stand,” NYT, February 21, 1949, 25; Ben Davidson to Adolf A. Berle, February 24, 1949, b. 8, f. “Berle,” and Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs, March 8, 1949, b. 8, f. “1949 Correspondence—All Clubs,” both in LP Records. 32.  “Liberal Party Seen Holding Balance in Early Mayoralty Race Jockeying,” World-Telegram, January 18, 1949, clipping, scrapbook 21, LP Records; Robert G. Spivack, “Liberal Party Split Slows Fusion’s Trend,” Post, March 6, 1949, and Joseph

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Lash, “Liberal Notebook,” Post, July 10, 1949, clippings, both in scrapbook 23, LP Records; ILGWU general executive board minutes, November 14–16, 1949, b. 136, f. 2a, Dubinsky Records; McNickle, To Be Mayor, 66. 33.  Daniel James to Ben Davidson, March 13, 1949, b. 8, f. “1949 J misc.,” and Louis Goldberg to Davidson, June 27, 1949, b. 9, f. “1949-Municipal Affairs,” both in LP Records; Goldberg to David Dubinsky, March 4, 1949, b. 136, f. 2c, Dubinsky Records. 34.  Murray Snyder, “Political Notes,” Herald-Tribune, May 23, 1949; Robert Spivack, “O’Dwyer Indicates He’s Willing to Run,” Post, July 10, 1949; “O’Dwyer Ready to Run Again after Talking to Truman,” NYT, July 13, 1949; Tom O’Hara, “O’Dwyer Agrees to Run, Wins Leaders’ Support in Switch from Hogan,” Herald-Tribune, July 13, 1949; Don Irwin, “Republicans and Liberals Meet against O’Dwyer,” HeraldTribune, July 14, 1949; “Fusionists Active in Mayoralty Race,” NYT, July 14, 1949, clippings, all in scrapbook 23, LP Records; Berle Diary, July 7, July 12, and July 21, 1949, XIV, 19–24; Adolf A. Berle to C. C. Burlingham, Berle Diary, XIV-25-25a, August 4, 1949; minutes of State Executive Committee of Liberal Party, July 11, 1949, b. 9, unlabeled folder, LP Records; John A. Wells interview, New York Political Studies (C): Oral History, 1949 (hereafter NYPS), 15, OHAC. 35.  Eleanor Roosevelt to David Dubinsky, October 20, 1949, b. 136, f. 2b, Dubinsky Records; Robert G. Spivack, “Liberal-Fusion Candidate Confident He’ll Win,” Post, July 25, 1949; George F. Sokolsky, “These Days,” Sun, July 26, 1949; “Heard around City Hall,” World-Telegram, September 9, 1949; Daniel James, “Liberals Key to NY Election,” New Leader, October 29, 1949, clippings, all in scrapbook 23, LP Records; Julius Isaacs interview, 9–10, and George S. Combs Jr. interview, 59, both in NYPS; Kessner, Fiorello H. La Guardia, 570; Young Liberal, Summer 1949, b. 8, f. “1949 College Division,” LP Records; Newbold Morris, “My Position on Labor,” October 25, 1949, b. 136, f. 2b, Dubinsky Records. 36.  Dubinsky speech to local managers, October 2, 1949, b. 136, f. 2c, Dubinsky Records; “Newbold Morris for Mayor: An Editorial,” Post, July 25, 1949; James A. Hagerty, “ILGWU Heads Back Morris for Mayor,” NYT, July 29, 1949; Ray Ghent, “Sharkey Refutes Morris Attacks on City Rent Controls,” World-Telegram, September 26, 1949; “Citizens Union Backs Morris,” Sun, September 30, 1949, clippings, all in scrapbook 23, LP Records; “Morris Endorsed by ADA Delegates,” NYT, September 18, 1949, 52; Mary McLeod Bethune, “I Am Voting for Newbold Morris for Mayor Because . . ., ” Pauli Murray Papers, SL; Guy Brewer, letter, n.d., b. 8, f. “B Misc.,” LP Records. 37.  Eleanor Roosevelt to David Dubinsky, October 20, 1949, b. 136, f. 2b, Dubinsky Records; press release, Citywide Independent Citizens’ Committee for the Reelection of O’Dwyer-Joseph-Impellitteri, September 27, 1949, b. 136, f. 2c, Dubinsky Records; “Newbold, It just won’t fit,” flyer, n.d., and Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. speech, October 27, 1949, both in b. 236, f. 2e, Dubinsky Records; “Text of President Truman’s Radio Address . . ., ” November 5, 1949, b. 136, f. 2e, Dubinsky Records; Tom O’Hara, “O’Dwyer Agrees to Run, Wins Leaders’ Support in Switch from Hogan,” Herald Tribune, July 13, 1949; “Antonini Quits Liberal Post, Is against Morris,” Herald-Tribune, July 21, 1949; “Mrs. Roosevelt, Son Franklin, Pledge Aid to Lehman-Wagner-O’Dwyer Slate,” NYT, October 7, 1949, clippings, all in scrapbook 23, LP Records.

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38.  Carter, “Pressure from the Left,” 276, 290–92, 297–98, 305–6, 383–84; Warren Moscow, “Labor Party Plans a Separate Ticket,” NYT, June 20, 1949, clipping, scrapbook 23, LP Records. 39.  Arnold Sroog, “ALP Slate Puts Dems-GOP on Spot,” Daily Worker, July 24, 1949, and Michael Singer, “O’D, Morris Have Single Target—Marcantonio,” Daily Worker, September 13, 1949, clippings, both in scrapbook 23, LP Records; Kessner, Fiorello H. La Guardia, 138–40, 387, 395, 409, 477, 570; Newbold Morris and Mrs. La Guardia radio speech, November 6, 1949, NYPS, 129. 40.  Combs interview, NYPS, 42; “O’Dwyer in Opening His Campaign Defies Foes to Discredit Record,” NYT, October 5, 1949, 1; Alexander Feinberg, “Mayor Links Race to Fair Deal’s Fate at Polls in 1950–52,” NYT, October 25, 1949, 1; Morris and La Guardia radio speech, 126–27; David Dubinsky, “For the Liberal Fusion Team,” Justice, October 1, 1949, b. 136, f. 2c, Dubinsky Records. See also McNickle, To Be Mayor, 66, 75–77. 41.  Some of the Facts in the Case against O’Dwyer, pamphlet, b. 136, f. 2e, Dubinsky Records; “Mrs. La Guardia Criticizes Mayor,” NYT, October 6, 1949, clipping, scrapbook 23, LP Records. 42.  Walter Kirschenbaum to Ben Davidson, July 20, 1949, b. 8, f. “1949 Bronx County Headquarters,” LP Records. 43.  Gus Tyler to Jacob Javits, September 27, 1949, b. 136, f. 2c, and Mrs. Paul Esserman to David Dubinsky, November 3, 1949, b. 136, f. 2b, Dubinsky Records. 44. “Results for Senator, Mayor, Controller, City Council and Local Judicial Offices,” NYT, November 10, 1949, 6; ILGWU general executive board minutes, November 14–16, 1949, b. 136, f. 2a, Dubinsky Records; Frank Kingdon, To Be Frank, Post, November 9, 1949; Ray Ghent, “Democrats Eyeing ’50 Race,” World-Telegram, November 10 1949; Tom O’Connor, “Results Boost Fair Deal and Liberal Stock,” Compass, November 10, 1949; Robert Spivack, “Morris ‘Too Much Like F.D.R.’ — So GOP Knifed Him,” Post, November 10, 1949, clippings, all in scrapbook 24, LP Records; “In the FDR-Wagner Tradition,” Justice, September 15, 1949, clipping, scrapbook 23, LP Records; Morris, Let the Chips Fall, 231–32. 45. Tom O’Hara, “Wagner, 72, Quits Senate over Health,” Herald-Tribune, June 29,1949, clipping, scrapbook 23, LP Records. On the campaign, see Tananbaum, Herbert H. Lehman, 297–320. 46.  Davidson Oral History, 282–90; Ben Davidson, June 24, 1949, b. 8, f. “1949 Correspondence—All Clubs,” LP Records; Ray Ghent, “Full Fusionist Slate to Include City Council,” World-Telegram, June 23, 1949, clipping, scrapbook 23, LP Records; Epstein, Jewish Labor, 2:137, 155, 188; Herbert Lehman Oral History, 198, OHAC. 47.  “Board Weighs Ban on Nation,” Sun, June 3, 1949; James A. Hagerty, “Lehman Hesitancy on Race Is Hitch in O’Dwyer Draft,” NYT, July 11, 1949; Robert G. Spivack, “F.D.R. Jr. Opposes Hogan Nomination,” Post, July 12, 1949; “Lehman Still in Race,” Post, July 18, 1949, clippings, all in scrapbook 23, LP Records. 48. Cooney, American Pope, 176–84; “My Day in the Lion’s Mouth,” Time, August 1, 1949, 11; Nevins, Herbert H. Lehman, 308–9. 49. Nevins, Herbert H. Lehman, 309; O’Dwyer, Beyond the Golden Door, 312–13; Davidson Oral History, 284; Herbert Lehman to Adolf A. Berle Jr., August 5, 1949, b. 136, f. 2c, Dubinsky Records; Cooney, American Pope, 182; Robert Spivack, “Top

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Democrats Cool toward Lehman as Senate Nominee,” Post, July 26, 1949; “ADA and ILGWU Urge Lehman to Be Nominee,” Post, July 29, 1949; Robert Spivack, “Democratic Leaders Fail to Contact Lehman,” Post, August 8, 1949; John Crosson and Dick Lee, “Leaders Fear Lehman Race May Hurt O’Dwyer,” Daily News, August 30, 1949; “Lehman, Democrats to Confer; Decision on Senate Race Near,” Post, August 31, 1949; Charles Van Devander, “Lehman Decision to Run Averts Democratic Split,” Post, September 1, 1949; Daniel James, “Liberals Key to NY Election,” New Leader, October 29, 1949, clippings, all in scrapbook 23, LP Records. 50.  James A. Hagerty, “Meany Confident of Lehman Victory,” NYT, October 15, 1949, clipping, scrapbook 23, LP Records; Lehman speech, November 2, 1949, NYPS, 29, 31–32, 34–35; Lehman Oral History, 769–70. 51.  “Domestic Policy Decried by Dulles,” NYT, September 19, 1949; Leo Egan, “Dulles Says Lehman Pulls Punches in Fight to Bar Communism Spread,” NYT, September 20, 1949; “Dewey Acts ‘Shock’ Lehman Manager,” NYT, October 5, 1949; Don Irwin, “Dulles Decries Move in Prague to Rule Church,” World-Telegram, October 6, 1949; “Seek to Stir Vote Interest,” Sun, October 7, 1949; “Dulles Sees Reds on Lehman’s Side,” NYT, October 8, 1949; Tom O’Hara, “Dulles Sends Lehman Text of Attack on Him,” Herald-Tribune, October 8, 1949; Tom O’Hara, “Dulles Asserts Lehman Injects Religious Issue,” Herald-Tribune, October 11, 1949; “Lehman Assailed on Medical Stand,” NYT, October 18, 1949; Walter Lister Jr., “Dulles Charges Lehman Tries to Stir Racial Hate,” Herald-Tribune, October 20, 1949; Daniel James, “Liberals Key to NY Election,” New Leader, October 29, 1949, clippings, all in scrapbook 23, LP Records; “All-American Committee for the Election of Dulles and O’Dwyer,” flyer, b. 136; f. 2d, Dubinsky Records; Dulles interview, NYPS, 1194. 52.  “Results of Contests . . ., ” NYT, November 9, 1949, 6; George S. Combs Jr. interview, NYPS, 48; Mickey Levine, letter to the editor, Herald-Tribune, November 15, 1949, and Warren Moscow, “Lehman and O’Dwyer in Sweep,” NYT, November 9, 1949, clippings, both in scrapbook 24, LP Records; Lehman Oral History, 696. 53.  John Crosson and Dick Lee, “Wagner Due and Dem-Lib Entry,” Daily News, July 30, 1949; Ray Ghent, “Liberals Irk GOP Allies by Coming Out for Wagner in Borough Presidency Race,” World-Telegram, July 30, 1949; “The Wagner Deal,” HeraldTribune, August 5, 1949, clippings, all in scrapbook 23, LP Records. 54.  Max Gordon, “Ben Davis Makes ALP a Power in Harlem,” Daily Worker, November 10, 1949, clipping, scrapbook 24, LP Records; Walter, Harlem Fox, 111–14; Horne, Black Liberation/Red Scare, 232, 239–40, 242. Horne repeats the Daily Worker claim that Davis received almost 43 percent of the vote in the most solidly Black assembly district within the council district. But he also claims, without clear support, that Davis got a majority of the Black vote. 55.  “Only Row D Gives You All Three,” flyer, card, n.d.; “Elect Pauli Murray City Council,” card, n.d.; press release, Citizens’ Committee for the Election of Pauli Murray, n.d.; statement of contributions and expenditures, n.d.; Maida Springer to “Dear Friend,” December 1, 1949; “Memorandum on Pauli Murray,” n.d., all in Pauli Murray Papers; Murray, Pauli Murray, 103, 105–6, 133; Scott, Pauli Murray, 52; Azaransky, Dream Is Freedom, 4. 56.  Clubs and officers, b. 9, f. “1949,” LP Records; lists, b. 8, f. “1949 Membership File,” LP Records; various documents, b. 8, f. “1949-Bronx County Assembly Dis-

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tricts,” LP Records; Walter Kirschenbaum, Annual Report to the County Officers, January 3, 1949; press releases, January 31, February 1, and February 17, 1949; “Report on Bronx Bus Conditions,” February 1, 1949; The Bronx Liberal, March 1949, all in b. 8, f. “1949 Bronx County Headquarters,” LP Records. 57.  Encarnación Padilla de Armas, “In Answer to Statements Made about the Problems of the Puerto Ricans,” July 1948, b. 9, f. “1949,” LP Records. 58. Kirschenbaum, Annual Report, n.p.; “Report to Mr. Ben Davidson from Mrs. Encarnación Armas, Covering January 2/49 to January 9/49,” and “Report to Mr. Ben Davidson from Mrs. Encarnación Armas, Covering January 17, 1949 to January 31, 1949,” both in b. 8, f. “1949-Porto [sic] Rican Organization (Mrs. Armas),” LP Records; Ben Davidson to A. A. Berle, March 30, 1949, b. 9, f. “1949,” LP Records. 59.  Leonard Polisar to “Dear Friend,” October 12, 1948; clippings from Brooklyn College Vanguard, February 25, 1949; Rhoda Schwartz to Ben Davidson, October 26, 1948; Schwartz and Polisar to Davidson, October 15, 1948; Polisar to Arthur Garfield Hayes, September 27, 1948; membership lists, Polisar to Davidson, February 10, 1949; Helen Stein and Polisar to Davidson, March 26, 1949; “Slave Labor to Be Topic at 2 Rallies,” Brooklyn College Vanguard, n.d., clipping, attached to Stein to Davidson, May 16, 1949, all in b. 8, f. “1949, College Division,” LP Records. 60.  Rhoda Schwartz to Ben Davidson, December 10, 1948, with clippings; “Campus Rally to Ask Reduced Student Fare,” Brooklyn College Vanguard, n.d., clipping; “Attention All Brooklyn College Organizations,” circular, November 23, 1948; Davidson to Leonard Polisar and Gerald Walpin, December 2, 1948; Davidson to Polisar, December 7, 1948; “Liberal Party College Division Inaugurates Drive for Five Cent Fare . . ., ” press release, December 8, 1948, all in b. 8, f. “1949, College Division,” LP Records. 61. “Liberal Party’s Chairman Enters Race for Mayor,” Buffalo Evening News, May 24, 1949, clipping, scrapbook 22, LP Records. 62. “Salary Request Is Endorsed,” Buffalo Courier-Express, February 19, 1946; “Robert Selbst, Head of Liberal Party, Favors O.P.A.,” February 22, 1946, unidentified clipping; “Liberal Party Demands Restoration of Jobs to High School Cooks,” Olean Times-Herald, February 26, 1946; “Liberal Party Sponsors Tedd as Candidate for Mayor,” Rome Daily Sentinel, August 11, 1947, clippings, all in scrapbook 19, LP Records; “Mrs. Tully Enters Politics as Liberal Party Chairman,” Rome Daily Sentinel, August 15, 1947; “Health Plan Is Theme,” Olean Times-Herald, April 6, 1949; “Liberal Party Praised by Upstate Head,” Rome Daily Sentinel, October 3, 1947, clippings, all in scrapbook 22, LP Records. 63.  Alex Rose to Robert F. Wagner, July 6, 1944, and Isidor Lazarus to Ben Davidson, January 9, 1945, both in b. 2, f. “Isidor Lazarus,” LP Records; minutes of the Executive Committee, ALP, March 7, 1938, b. 145, f. 6, Dubinsky Records; Rose to Harry Truman, February 26, 1949, b. 8, f. “1949-Federal-President Harry S. Truman,” LP Records; Berle Diary, July 28, 1948, XIII-1, 74; “Liberal Party: 1948–1949 Position,” 100. 64.  Minutes, Executive Committee, ALP, March 7, 1938, b. 145, f. 6, Dubinsky Records; Ben Davidson, “Speakers Outline #2: Young Voters and the Liberal Party,” b. 7, f. “Speakers Outline #2, 1948,” LP Records; Ben Davidson to Alex Rose, January 1, 1949, b. 9, f. “Alex Rose,” LP Records; Eric Schiller to Davidson, n.d., and

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Davidson to Schiller, March 9, 1949, b. 8, f. “1949 Bronx County Assembly Districts,” LP Records. 65.  Ben Davidson to Alex Rose, November 16, 1950; Davidson to Rose, June 9, 1950; Davidson to Rose, November 15, 1950; Davidson to Murray Baron, April 26, 1950, all in b. 9, f. “1950: Applications for Positions,” LP Records; Davidson to Lillian Elkin, December 30, 1949, b. 8, f. “1949-Applications for Jobs,” LP Records; Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs, July 19, 1949, and February 18, 1949, both in b. 8, f. “1949 Correspondence—All Clubs,” LP Records. 66.  Ben Davidson to Gus Tyler, June 2, 1949; Davidson to Jay Lovestone, June 21, 1949; Davidson to Mark Starr and Max Danish, June 2, 1949; Davidson to Morris Novik, June 30, 1949, all in b. 8, f. “1949-Applications for Jobs,” LP Records; Davidson to John Griggs Jr., November 13, 1950; Davidson to George Tichenor, November 13, 1950; Davidson to Abe Bluestein, April 30, 1950; Davidson to A. A. Berle, May 24, 1950; Davidson to Nathan Margolies, May 15, 1950; Davidson to Charles Zimmerman and Adolph Held, May 5, 1950; Davidson to Andrew Demma, April 20, 1950; Davidson to Fred Umhey, March 22, 1950, all in b. 9, f. “1950: Applications for Positions,” LP Records. 67.  Louis Stulberg to Ben Davidson, December 18, 1950; Davidson to George Counts and John Childs, December 20, 1950; Murray Baron to David Dubinsky, April 17, 1950; Davidson to Fred Umhey, April 24, 1950; A. A. Berle to Davidson, July 12, 1950; Davidson to Baron, March 1, 1950, all in b. 9, f. “1950: Applications for Positions,” LP Records. 4. A “Year-Round Party”

  1.  “Di naye liberale partey,” editorial, Forward, May 23, 1944, clipping, f. 139, Forward Association Records, RG 685, YIVO.   2.  Ben Davidson Oral History, 105–6, OHAC; “Di naye liberale partey”; Liberal Party Declaration, 9, 11, 13, 16, 28–29, 32–44.  3. Liberal Party Declaration, 12–13, 21–23.  4. For Our City: 1945 Municipal Program, b. 55, f. “Liberal Party of New York State, 1945–1946,” Ephemera Collection, TL.   5.  Advertisements for Liberal Party municipal platform pamphlet, New York Daily Mirror, New York World-Telegram (hereafter World-Telegram), New York Times (hereafter NYT), New York Post (hereafter Post), Amsterdam News, Chief, Forward, September 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 22, 28, and October 1, 2, 18, 1945, clippings, scrapbook 18, Liberal Party of New York State Records, NYPL (hereafter LP Records); “Statement Made by Mark Starr . . . Second Annual Convention,” February 26, 1947, b. 55, f. “Liberal Party of Queens County, 1945–1959,” Ephemera Collection.  6. Hamby, Beyond the New Deal, 15; “For Victory and Lasting Peace: An Open Letter to President Roosevelt on American Foreign Policy,” December 27, 1944, b. 1, f. “Foreign Policy-Open Letter,” LP Records.   7.  James Loeb to David Dubinsky, October 17, 1944, and Hillel Rogoff, “A Few Questions to Our ‘Liberals on the Left,’ ” typescript, September 14, 1944, both in b. 430, f. 3, Dubinsky Presidential Records, 5780/002, ILGWU Records, KC (hereafter Dubinsky Records).

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  8.  “An Open Letter to the People’s Delegates at the San Francisco Conference from the Liberal Party,” n.d., clipping, scrapbook 15; “Statement of the Liberal Party on the United Nations Charter,” n.d., b. 1, f. “State Administrative Committee”; “Liberal Party Urges Charter Ratification,” Post, June 28, 1945, clipping, scrapbook 16, all in LP Records.  9. America and the Winning of the Peace (New York: Liberal Party, 1946), Ephemera Collection; “Atom Rule Backed by State Liberals,” NYT, October 9, 1946, 12; “There Need Be No War . . . If,” advertisements, Post, October 23, 1946, and WorldTelegram, October 24, 1946, clippings, scrapbook 21, LP Records. 10.  “Liberal Party Resolution on Post-War Compulsory Military Training,” 1945, b. 55, f. “Liberal Party of New York State, 1945–1946,” TL; Ben Davidson to Morris Milgrim, February 5, 1945, and press release, February 7, 1945, both in b. 3, f. “FedMay-Baily Bill,” LP Records; Davidson to William Kilpatrick, May 28, 1945, b. 3, f. “Fed-Compulsory Military Service,” LP Records. 11. McAuliffe, Crisis on the Left, 22–27; Hamby, Beyond the New Deal, 176–78; “Liberals Back Aid to Greece, Turkey,” NYT, April 4, 1947, and Robert Glasgow, “Berle Compares Soviet Aims to Those of Hitler,” New York Herald-Tribune (hereafter Herald-Tribune), June 18, 1947, clippings, both in scrapbook 19, LP Records; Davidson Oral History, 243–49. 12. McAuliffe, Crisis on the Left, 29–32; Bell, Liberal State on Trial, 100–109; Markowitz, Rise and Fall, 246–49. 13.  Davidson Oral History, 355; Adolf A. Berle Jr., “World Scene,” Liberal Party Newsletter, June 1950, b. 149, f. 2B, Dubinsky Records; “Statement by Adolf A. Berle, Jr., Chairman, Liberal Party . . ., ” November 30, 1950, Berle Diary, XIV, 69, Berle Papers, FDRPL; Hamby, Beyond the New Deal, 423–29; “Berle Bids U.S. Aid IndoChina If Reds Attack,” clipping, Herald-Tribune, February 24, 1952, scrapbook 26, LP Records. 14.  James A. Hagerty, “Liberals Reject Move to Ban Mead,” NYT, June 16, 1946, 1; “Statement of the Liberal Party Calling for the Support of the UN Committee Report on Palestine,” n.d., b. 7, f. “Correspondence to All Clubs, 1947,” LP Records; Ben Davidson to Mr. and Mrs. Louis Berger, October 5, 1948, b. 7, f. “1948,” LP Records; Berle Diary, November 28, 1947, XIII-1, 58, 60–61; Davidson Oral History, 830–31. 15.  Ben Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs, February 18, 1949, b. 8, f. “1949 Correspondence—All Clubs,” LP Records; John MacCauley, memo, March 14, 1949, and Davidson to Alex Rose, March 17, 1949, both in b. 9, f. “Alex Rose,” LP Records. 16.  Walter Kirschenbaum to Ben Davidson, June 10, 1949, and November 23, 1949, both in b. 8, f. “1949 Bronx County Headquarters,” LP Records; Davidson to Kirschenbaum et al., October 1, 1949; Davidson to Liberal Party County chairs, county directors, et al., January 10, 1949; Davidson to Abe Roth and Kirschenbaum, August 16, 1949, all in b. 8, f. “County Directors,” LP Records; Davidson to Alex Rose, Matthew Levy, and Leo Rosett, January 22, 1949, b. 9, f. “Alex Rose,” LP Records. 17.  Ben Davidson to Adolf A. Berle Jr., March 1, 1949, b. 9, f. “1949-Berle,” LP Records. 18.  “Labor Curbs Stand to Give Reds Chance to Smear U.S.—Dubinsky,” Brooklyn Eagle, May 22, 1947, 4; Schwarz, Liberal, 301; Morris Ernst, “Liberals and the Com-

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munist Trial,” New Republic, January 31, 1949, reprinted in Johnson, Should the Communist Party, 189–90. 19. Gillon, Politics and Vision, 106; “Berle, Waldman Back Mundt Bill,” NYT, May 19, 1948, 11; “Mundt Bill Opposed,” NYT, May 29, 1948, 6; Daniel Link, “ ‘Every Day Was a Battle,’ ” 314–16; Ben Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs, March 14, 1949, b. 8, f. “1949 Correspondence—All Clubs,” LP Records; “Liberals Hail Maimed Vet’s Job Victory,” Post, October 17, 1952; George Counts, letter to the editor, NYT, January 27, 1953; “Counts Charge of Red Front Stirs Dispute,” World-Telegram, January 20, 1953, clippings, all in scrapbook 26, LP Records. 20.  “Labor Curbs Stand”; “Ernst, Berle, Moley Heard on Red Issue,” NYT, February 12, 1948, 48. 21. Taylor, Reds at the Blackboard, 131–35; Oliver Pilat, “Counts Says Reds Have No Right to Teach,” Post, October 21, 1952, clipping, scrapbook 26, LP Records. 22.  “To All Liberal Party Clubs,” May 28, 1947, b. 7, f. “Correspondence to All Clubs, 1947,” LP Records; “Queens College Faculty Sustains Student Council’s Ban on the AYD,” NYT, April 18, 1947, 42; “Thomas for Inquiry of Queens Faculty,” NYT, May 6, 1947, 21; “Liberal Party Backs Queens Faculty Stand,” PM, May 21, 1947, clipping, scrapbook 19, LP Records; Link, “ ‘Every Day Was a Battle,’ ” 310–12; “Liberal Party Renews Demand for Hearing on Removal of Dr. Lenz,” Post, July 27, 1952, clipping, scrapbook 26, LP Records. 23.  “School Officials Hear ‘Nation’ Ban Protests,” PM, July 14, 1948, clipping, scrapbook 22, LP Records; Adolf A. Berle Jr. to William O’Dwyer, July 23, 1948, Berle Diary, XIII-1, 73; Blanshard, Personal and Controversial, 189–205. 24.  State Legislative Program for 1945 (New York: Liberal Party, 1945), TL; John Childs and Alex Rose to “Dear Sir,” April 10, 1945, b. 3, f. “Anti-lynching Discharge,” LP Records. 25.  Chen, “ ‘Hitlerian Rule of Quotas,’ ” Moses quote 1238; Biondi, To Stand and Fight, 18–20. 26.  Press release, December 4, 1944, and Copal Mintz to “Dear Legislator,” February 9, 1945, both in b. 4, f. “Anti-discrimination Bill,” LP Records. 27.  Alex Rose to Elmer Quinn and Irving Ives, February 13, 1945; Copal Mintz to Ives, February 10, 1945; press release, December 4, 1944; Copal Mintz to “Dear Legislator,” February 9, 1945; statement of Hebert Goldschmidt, December 5, 1944, all in b. 4, f. “Anti-discrimination Bill,” LP Records. 28.  Party Newsletter/Party Builder, January 4, 1945, and February 12, 1945, both in b. 2, f. “Newsletter”; Alex Rose to individual legislators, February 13, 1945, b. 2, f. “Legislation”; “The Party and the Ives-Quinn Law,” Liberal Party News, April 15, 1945, b. 2, f. “Liberal Party News”; Ben Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs and County Organizations, b. 4, f. “State Anti-discrimination Bill”; George Cranmore and Thomas Young statement, February 10, 1945, b. 4, f. “State anti-Discrimination Bill”; John Braun to Davidson, February 15, 1945, b. 4, f. “State Anti-discrimination Bill,” all in LP Records. 29.  “Liberal Party Legislative Bulletin,” March 2, 1945, and March 29, 1945, both in b. 3, f. “Legislative Bulletin”; Trade Union Courier, February 26, 1945, clipping; press release, February 20, 1945; John Braun to Ben Davidson, February 21, 1945, b. 4, f. “Anti-discrimination Bill,” all in LP Records.

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30.  Davidson Oral History, 196–97; “Memorandum of the Liberal Party of the State of New York to the US Senate Committee on Labor and Education,” March 14, 1945, b. 4, f. “State Anti-discrimination Bill,” LP Records. 31.  “25 Governors Reply in Poll on Anti-bias,” Liberal Party News, April 15, 1945, b. 2, f. “Liberal Party News,” and Will Maslow to John Childs, April 11, 1945, b. 4, f. “State Anti-discrimination Bill,” both in LP Records. 32. Henderson, Housing, 122–45; Biondi, To Stand and Fight, 121–35. 33. Henderson, Housing, 8–44, 52–53, 59–82, 100–101, 130–32. 34. Henderson, Housing, 136, 139–45; Biondi, To Stand and Fight, 124–29; Ben Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs, August 11, 1949, b. 8, f. “1949 Correspondence— All Clubs,” LP Records; Capeci, “Fiorello H. LaGuardia.” 35.  Douglas Dales, “Republicans Vote August Primary,” NYT, February 8, 1951, 36; Charles Abrams, letter to the editor, NYT, February 15, 1951, 28; “Liberals Fight Housing Bias,” NYT, January 23, 1957, 30; “Resolution [of ] the Trade Union Council,” September 18, 1957, and Charles Zimmerman to “Dear Brother,” September 19, 1957, both in b. 29, f. 5, Charles Zimmerman Papers, 5780/014, ILGWU Records, KC (hereafter Zimmerman Papers); Ben Davidson and J. Merrell to state legislators, March 19, 1958, b. 1, f. 41, Consumers’ League of New York City Records, KC (hereafter Consumers’ League Records). 36.  “Protest Grows over Slashing of SCAD Funds,” Post, February 19, 1956, and “17 Groups Ask Fund Rise for State Anti-bias Unit,” Herald-Tribune, March 6, 1956, clippings, both in scrapbook 27, LP Records; press release, March 21, 1956, b. 29, f. 5, Zimmerman Papers; Henderson, Housing, 157–63. 37.  Charles Abrams to Alex Rose, November 23, 1956, b. 5, f. “Liberal Party,” Charles Abrams Papers, RMC (hereafter Abrams Papers). 38.  Ben Davidson to Charles Abrams, March 27, 1957, and Abrams to Davidson, April 9, 1957, both in b. 5, f. “Liberal Party,” Abrams Papers. 39.  “Resolution on Municipal Action for Housing for the Middle Income Group,” May 6, 1947; “Resolution on the Taft-Wagner-Ellender Bill,” May 6, 1947; “To All Assembly District Clubs,” July 3, 1947, all in b. 7, f. “Correspondence to All Clubs, 1947,” LP Records; C. P. Trussell, “Senate Approves Rent Increases of 15% by Landlord-Tenant Pact,” NYT, May 30, 1947, 1; “Fears 15% Rise,” NYT, May 31, 1947, 21; Felix Belair Jr., “Truman Signs Bill for Rent Control as a ‘Lesser’ Evil,” NYT, July 1, 1947, 1; “Hotel Attorneys Map Rent Fight before Mayor,” unidentified clipping, n.d.; “Queens County ALP Organizes to Stem Rent Gouging Here,” unidentified clipping, n.d.; “L.P. Councilmen Urge City to Establish Tenants Advisory Bd.,” New York Age, July 19(?), 1947, clippings, all in scrapbook 19, LP Records. 40. Gold, When Tenants Claimed the City, esp. 21–22, 27–29; Schwartz, “Tenant Power,” 137–53. 41.  “Liberals Have Rent Bill,” NYT, January 6, 1950, 13; “Liberals Ask Dewey to Veto G.O.P. Bill, NYT, March 26, 1950, 65; “Liberal Party Rips GOP for Planned Rent Rises,” Post, January 4, 1951; “Liberal’s [sic] Albany Conference Draws Sixty Legislators,” Justice, February 1951; “Albany Bill Tightens Curb on Home Rents,” Post, January 10, 1951; “McGoldrick’s Rent Plan Hit on Two Counts,” NYT, January 20, 1951, clippings, all in scrapbook 25, LP Records; press release, February 28, 1951, b. 2, f. “Liberal Party Press Releases,” George Humphreys Tichenor III Papers, 5239, KC;

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Leo Egan, “Landlords, Tenants Clash Noisily at Albany Rent Control Hearing,” NYT, February 4, 1953, 1; Joseph Pomerlen to Moe Falikman, February 10, 1959, b. 13, f. 4, Local 10, Managers’ Correspondence, 5780/011, ILGWU Records, KC. 42. “Liberal Party Launches Rallies for Rent Control,” unidentified clipping, January 9, 1951; “Unified Group Formed to Fight Rent Increases,” Town and Village, January 18, 1951; “Overflow Crowd Attends Group’s Meeting on Rent,” Town and Village, January 25, 1951; “Rent Committee Is Turned Over to the Tenants,” Town and Village, March 8, 1951, clippings, all in scrapbook 25, LP Records; Ted Poston, “Landlords Seek Rent Rise as Liberals Gird for Fight,” Post, January 29, 1953; “Liberal Party Group to Attend Rent Hearing,” Troy Record, January 30, 1953; “Liberal Party Club Asks Stricter Controls,” Knickerbocker, January 30, 1953; Ted Poston, “Democrats, Liberals Step Up Rent Lid Fight,” Post, February 9, 1953; Al Sostchen, “Political Clubs Offer Free Rental Advice,” Post, April 27, 1953, clippings, all in scrapbook 26, LP Records; Abel Silver, “Liberal Rent Petition Gets Big Response,” Post, March 20, 1955, clipping; “Liberal Party Head Raps Rent Decontrol,” Schenectady Gazette, March 21, 1955, clipping; “Liberal Chairman Backs Rent Curbs,” unidentified clipping, n.d., all in scrapbook 27, LP Records; Ben Davidson to Charles Abrams, December 17, 1952, b. 5, f. “Liberal Party,” Abrams Papers. 43.  Charles Abrams to Herbert Lehman, April 27, 1951, and Charles Abrams, “Housing and Rent Control,” February 18, 1953, both in b. 5, f. “Liberal Party,” Abrams Papers; Vincent Austin, “Throggs Neck Fights Housing Project for Poor Families at Bitter Hearing,” Post, January 25, 1951, clipping, scrapbook 25, LP Records; Harold Baer and Ben Davidson to Israel Feinberg, June 8, 1949, b. 21, f. 9, Cloak Joint Board Records, 5780/020, ILGWU Records, KC; Davidson and J. Merrell to state legislators, March 19, 1958, b. 1, f. 41, Consumers’ League Records. 44.  Charles Abrams to Copal Mintz, January 10, 1945, b. 3, f. “Municipal Affairs,” LP Records; State Legislative Program; “Party Drafts Bold Postwar Housing Plan,” Liberal Party News, June 15, 1945, b. 2, f. “Liberal Party News,” LP Records. 45.  Charles Grutzner, “U.S. Talk on Slums Put Off by Mayor,” NYT, April 23, 1957, 33; “City Planners Aid 3 Slum Projects,” NYT, July 18, 1957, 26. 46.  Amos Landman and Barnett Bildersee, “10-Cent Fare Backers Jump Gun but Arguments Are Full of Bunk,” unidentified clipping, n.d.; “Plan to End Hearings Today,” unidentified clipping, n.d.; “Boro Liberal Party Signs 10,000 to Fight Fare Boost,” unidentified clipping, February 10, 1947; John Crosson and Jack Turcott, “Mayor Plans Drive to Sell City’s Voters on Transit Fare Rise,” New York Daily News, June 14, 1947; “Palestin Urges Mayor Seek State Aid, Not Fare Hike,” Home News, June 15, 1947, clippings, all in scrapbook 19, LP Records; Malcolm Logan, “Battle of the 5-Cent Fare Opens,” Post, February 10, 1947, clipping, scrapbook 21, LP Records; “Is Trend Shifting to 5c Fare?,” PM, February 18, 1948, and “Liberal Groups to Fight Rise in Transit Fare,” PM, February 20, 1948, clippings, both in scrapbook 22, LP Records. 47.  “O’D Lines Up Labor Backers for Fare Rise,” PM, April 16, 1948; Betsy Luce, “Transit Crisis Seen Forcing Higher Fare,” Home News, April 9, 1948; “Campus Rally to Ask Reduced Student Fare,” Brooklyn College Vanguard, December 3, 1948, clippings, all in scrapbook 21, LP Records.

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48.  Fiscal Policy and Full Employment (New York: Liberal Party of New York State, 1944), Ephemera Collection; Hamby, Beyond the New Deal, 53–65. 49.  “Pass Job Bill Immediately, Liberals Urge,” Liberal Party News, September 15, 1945, b. 2, f. “Liberal Party News,” LP Records; “Suggestions for Changes in the Revised Full-Employment Statement,” n.d., b. 55, f. “Liberal Party of New York State, 1945–1946,” Ephemera Collection. 50.  State Legislative Program. 51.  “Labor Curbs Stand”; “Liberal Party Unionists Ask Labor Bill Veto,” Post, June 14, 1947, and Robert Williams, “Big Business Assails, Liberals Praise Veto,” Post, June 21, 1947, clippings, both in scrapbook 19, LP Records; “Statement on Taft-Hartley Act,” June 25, 1947, Berle Diary, XIII-1, 46; Berle Diary, June 26, 1947, XIII-1, 47; Parmet, Master of Seventh Avenue, 215–16. 52.  “Commission Sought to Help Consumers,” NYT, January 5, 1951, clipping, scrapbook 25, LP Records; “Liberal Party Memorandum on a Bill Establishing a Consumers Protection Council,” n.d., b. 1, f. 41, Consumers’ League Records. 53. Alexander, Pandora’s Locks, 40–48; Caro, Power Broker, 403–4; Mabee, “St. Lawrence Seaway.” 54. Sen. Alexander R. Wiley, “For the St. Lawrence Seaway Project” (from the Congressional Record, 1948), 173–76; Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., “Against the St. Lawrence Seaway Project” (from the Congressional Record, 1948), 176–79; Carol Thompson, “More Authorities for River Valleys?” (from Senior Scholastic, 1949), 186– 90; Lachlan Macleay, “The Regional Authority Issue” (speech, 1946), 190–93; David Lilienthal, “An Alternative to Big Government” (from Reader’s Digest, 1947), 202–6; R. H. S. Crossman, “TVA’s for World Peace” (from NYT Magazine, 1947), 209–13, all in Daniels, Should We Have More TVA’s? 55.  “Liberals Call for Waterway,” Watertown Times, February 19, 1951; “Berle Urges U.S. Development of Seaway, Niagara Projects,” Albany Knickerbocker News, March 6, 1951; Alan Epstein, “Two Power Projects Urged by Berle,” Watertown Times, March 6, 1951, clippings, all in scrapbook 25, LP Records; “Liberal Party Hits Governor on Power,” Watertown Times, January 8, 1952, clipping, scrapbook 26, LP Records; “Liberal Party of New York State, National Legislative Program, 1950.” 56.  Davidson and Counts to Henry Herman, December 10, 1958, b. 1, f. 8, Consumers’ League Records; Davidson Oral History, 451–53, 456; “Liberals Oppose Power Plant Sale,” NYT, September 11, 1957, 28; “Power Plan Deal Is Urged on City,” NYT, October 23, 1957, 49; “Preusse Bids City Sell Con Edison 3 Power Plants,” NYT, April 9, 1958, 1; “Lefkowitz Rules on Quill Request,” NYT, December 17, 1959, 21. 57.  “Memo on Conference Held Thursday, January 24, 1946,” n.d., b. 6, f. “Council,” LP Records. 58.  “Resolution,” n.d., b. 55, f. “Liberal Party of New York State, 1945–1946,” Ephemera Collection; Proceedings of the Council . . . January 9 to June 25, 1946, 970 (May 21, 1946); “Quinn’s Fare Idea Hit by Liberals,” Long Island Press, January 29, 1946, and Robert Spivack, “Party Leaders Wary on Fare ‘Hot Potato,’ ” Post, July 3, 1947, clippings, both in scrapbook 19, LP Records; “15 of 23 in Council Favor Fare Rise Referendum,” PM, July 15, 1947, clipping, scrapbook 21, LP Records; “Statement by Councilmen Ira J. Palestin (L, Bronx) and Louis P. Goldberg (L, Brooklyn) against Proposed Increase in Transit Fare,” June 14, 1947, b. 55, f. “Liberal Party of New York

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State, 1947–1949,” Ephemera Collection; Amos Landman, “Council Places Fare Issue in Committee,” PM, December 5, 1947, clipping, scrapbook 21, LP Records. 59.  Proceedings of the Council . . . July 2 to December 23, 1947, 35 ( July 2, 1947), 167 (October 28, 1947); Proceedings of the Council . . . January 7 to June 22, 1948, 10–11 ( January 7, 1948); Proceedings of the Council . . . July 7 to December 28, 1949, 77–78 (August 30, 1949). 60.  “Resolution Appointing a Council Committee to Study a Proposed Educational Program. . . ,” n.d., b. 6, f. “Council,” LP Records; Proceedings of the Council . . . July 2 to December 23, 1946, 120 (October 8, 1946). 61.  “New York State’s a Sovereign, New York City’s a Sucker,” Home News, May 17, 1946, clipping, scrapbook 16, LP Records; John Wagner, “Bronx Councilman Fights City Tax,” and Murray Snyder, “Mayor Passes Buck to Council on Tax,” Post, May 16, 1946, clippings, both in scrapbook 19, LP Records; Proceedings of the Council . . . January 9 to June 25, 1946, 54–55 ( January 29, 1946), 967–69 (May 21, 1946); Proceedings of the Council . . . January 8 to June 24, 1947, 14–15 ( January 14, 1947), 91 (February 4, 1947), 122–23 (February 4, 1947), 284 (February 25, 1947); “Sharkey Demands Rise in State Aid,” NYT, February 5, 1947, 14. 62.  “Liberals Want 1% Sales Tax to Erase Slums,” NYT, February 17, 1946; “Tax for Housing Backed,” NYT, February 17, 1946; “Konferents fun liberal parti fodert optsushafen tenements,” Forward, February 18, 1946, clippings, all in scrapbook 19, LP Records; Davidson Oral History, 181–83. 63.  Louis Goldberg, “New York City’s Super-Mayor,” New Leader, June 15, 1946, clipping, scrapbook 18, LP Records; “Roadway for Park Assailed, Backed,” NYT, July 3, 1947, 23. 64.  “Resolution Petitioning Mayor O’Dwyer to Request the Resignation of Mr. Robert Moses. . . ,” n.d., b. 6, f. “Council,” LP Records; “Mayor Shrugs Off Boasts by Moses,” PM, May 22, 1946, clipping, scrapbook 18, LP Records; Proceedings of the Council . . . January 8 to June 24, 1947, 92 (February 4, 1947), 330–32 (February 28, 1947). 65.  Proceedings of the Council . . . January 7 to June 22, 1948, 289–90 (March 1, 1948). 66.  “Council Votes, 14–5, for Garden Plan,” NYT, March 2, 1948, 27. 67.  Proceedings of the Council . . . July 2 to December 23, 1946, 44 (August 27, 1946), 69 (September 17, 1946), 137 (October 10, 1946), 139–41 (October 16, 1946); Proceedings of the Council . . . January 8 to June 24, 1947, 444–45 (March 25, 1947); Proceedings of the Council . . . January 9 to June 25, 1946, 46 ( January 29, 1946), 203 (March 5, 1946), 228 (March 5, 1946), 229 (March 5, 1946), 301 (March 19, 1946), 388 (April 9, 1946), 1070 ( June 25, 1946). 68.  Proceedings of the Council . . . January 9 to June 25, 1946, 4–5 ( January 9, 1946), 72 (February 5, 1946), 246–47 (March 12, 1946), 390 (April 9, 1946), 1028–29 (May 29, 1946), 1056–57 ( June 25, 1946); Proceedings of the Council . . . July 2 to December 23, 1946, 66–67 (September 17, 1946), 114, 116–17 (October 8, 1946); “8 Minority Members of the Council Urge Restoration of Cuts in Child-Care Budget,” NYT, April 24, 1946, 30; Proceedings of the Council . . . January 8 to June 24, 1947, 166 (February 11, 1947), 388–89 (March 11, 1947); Proceedings of the Council . . . July 2 to December 23, 1947, 318–19 (November 13, 1947); Proceedings of the Council . . . January 7 to June 22, 1948, 9 ( January 7, 1948); “Council Asks State for Lottery to Build New Hospitals in City,”

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NYT, January 28, 1948, 1; “City Council Votes to Banish Pinballs; Blocks Censorship,” NYT, June 16, 1948, 1; “City Budget Wins Council Approval,” NYT, May 18, 1949, 29; Proceedings of the Council . . . January 8 to June 24, 1947, 1054 (April 22, 1947); “Barden Bill Scored,” NYT, October 5, 1949, 26. 69.  Proceedings of the Council . . . January 9 to June 25, 1946, 229–30 (March 5, 1946); Proceedings of the Council . . . July 2 to December 23, 1947, 309 (November 13, 1947); Austin Stevens, “Left and Right Groups in City Will March to Stress Ideals,” NYT, May 1, 1948, 1. 70.  “Communist Inquiry Is Demanded Here,” NYT, March 18, 1947, 3; Proceedings of the Council . . . July 2 to December 23, 1947, 150 (October 21, 1947), 351–53 (December 4, 1947). 71.  Proceedings of the Council . . . January 9 to June 25, 1946, 1064–65 ( June 25, 1946); Louis Goldberg, letter to the editor, NYT, December 4, 1947, 24; “Gerson Loses Test in Council, 13–5,” NYT, February 17, 1948, 19; Michael Singer, “Council Votes to Deny Seat to Gerson,” Daily Worker, February 17, 1948, scrapbook 21, LP Records; Proceedings of the Council . . . January 7 to June 22, 1948, 161–64 (February 16, 1948); Thomas Ronan, “Council Ousts Davis, 15–0; 2 Abstain,” NYT, November 29, 1949, 1; Neil Scott and Associates, press release, March 1, 1949, b. 8, f. “1949-New York County Headquarters,” LP Records. 5. Cold War Liberalism in City, State, and Nation

  1.  Flournoy, “Liberal Party,” 59–63, 74–79; Edward Morrison, interview by the author, May 6, 2013.   2.  “At a Conference . . ., ” n.d., b. 84, f. “Trade Union Council, Exec. Committee,” Liberal Party of New York State Records, NYPL (hereafter LP Records); “Delegates to Trade Union Council Meeting,” March 1, 1949, b. 83, f. “Trade Union Council Meeting, 3/1/49 . . ., ” LP Records; “Why We Need the Liberal Party” and “$2,500 Voted for Liberal Party Work,” Furriers Joint Council Reporter, May 1959, 6; “Recent Legislative Activities of the Liberal Party and the Trade Union Council,” March 19, 1959, all in b. 87, f. “Trade Union Council, 1959–1963,” LP Records. See letters, b. 83, f. “Appeals for Aid, 1944–1947” and f. “Appeals for Aid, 1948 and 1949”; Charles Zimmerman to Morris Pizer, October 12, 1954, b. 83, f. “1954 Campaign”; Zimmerman and Sam Eubanks to “Dear Senator,” March 12, 1949, b. 84, f. “Legislation”; “Digest of Minutes of Meeting, Executive Committee, Trade Union Council, Liberal Party,” March 16, 1949, b. 84, f. “Trade Union Council, Executive Committee Meet., March 15 . . ., ” all in LP Records.   3.  Albert Ney to Ben Davidson, March 18, 1950, b. 9, f. “Bx Young Voters League 1950”; Liberal Party, Tenants Advisory Service to aid tenants, 900 Howe Street, Boulevard Club, Liberal Party, b. 9, f. “1950-Bronx County Assembly Districts”; Walter Kirschenbaum to Davidson, January 4, 1950, b. 9, f. “Bx County Headquarters 1950”; 3rd AD News, February, March, and April 1950, and flyer, June 1, 1950, both in b. 9, f. “1950-Bronx County Assembly Districts”; “Liberal Party Seek Action on Escalator at Delancey-Essex St.,” unidentified clipping, n.d., scrapbook 26, all LP Records; Morrison, interview by the author; “Some Things We Can Do for You,” flyer, n.d., b. 4, f. 1, Local 22, Education Department Records, 5780/057, ILGWU Records, KC (hereafter

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Education Department Records); West Side Liberal Club activities, 1950–53, b. 55, f. “Liberal Party of New York State, West Side Liberal Club, 1950–1953,” Ephemera Collection, PE 036, TL.   4.  “Dressmakers Liberal Party Club—Local 22,” April 4, 1952; minutes of the General Council, Dressmakers’ Liberal Party Club, March 8, 1951; “Report on Series of Dressmakers Liberal Party Club Meetings Held in May, 1951,” n.d.; “Vetcherinka Report,” n.d.; “Report on Special Election for Congress 5th C.D.-Queens,” n.d., all in b. 4, f. 1, Education Department Records.   5.  Ben Davidson, “Party Life,” Liberal Party Newsletter, June 1950, b. 149, f. 2B, Dubinsky Presidential Records, 5780/002, ILGWU Records, KC (hereafter Dubinsky Records); Ben Davidson to Alex Rose et al., September 18, 1947, b. 83, f. “Inter-office Memos,” LP Records; “Liberal Party, Kings County,” November 11, 1947, and Joseph Pomarlen to Lena Sconzo, August 7, 1947, both in b. 83, f. “Kings County Committee Members, 1947,” LP Records; Flournoy, “Liberal Party,” 107–12, 125n27. The ethnic breakdown is rough, based on the names, and on knowledge of the background of some of the executive committee members. List, b. 9, f. “Bronx County Executive Committee 1950,” LP Records.   6.  Flournoy, “Liberal Party,” 112; Albert Ney to Ben Davidson, March 18, 1950; Executive Committee minutes, Young Voters League, March 1, 1950; Young Voters League Newsletter, April 1950, all in b. 9, f. “Bx Young Voters League 1950,” LP Records; Liberally Yours, June 1950, b. 9, f. “1950-Berle,” LP Records; Morrison, interview by the author.   7.  “School Aid Asked by Liberal Party,” New York Times (hereafter NYT), January 8, 1950, 36; “Disability Law Decried,” NYT, January 15, 1950, 55; “Liberal Party Hits Dewey on Schools,” NYT, February 2, 1950, 17; “Full Relief Demanded,” NYT, February 5, 1950, 53.   8.  Walter Kirschenbaum to Ben Davidson, April 14, 1950, and “Statement by Ben Davidson. . . ,” April 14, 1950, both in b. 149, f. 2B, Dubinsky Records; “Police Plane Flies Gambling Message,” NYT, January 12, 1950, 24; Leo Egan, “Dewey Holds City Can Bar Gambling,” NYT, January 18, 1950, 1.   9.  Warren Moscow, “O’Dwyer Rejects Tie with Liberals,” NYT, March 28, 1950, 13; “Mayor Threatens to Support Dewey,” NYT, April 22, 1950, 11; “Challenge Issued to Labor Leaders,” NYT, May 2, 1950, 13. 10. “Speaker’s Notes on Herbert H. Lehman,” n.d., b. 136, f. 1B, Dubinsky Records. 11.  James A. Hagerty, “Roosevelt Jr. Bid for Governor Seen,” NYT, January 27, 1950, 2; Clayton Knowles, “Liberals in State Ask Ewing to Speak,” NYT, April 17, 1950, 1; James A. Hagerty, “No Liberal Schism Seen on Candidate,” NYT, April 21, 1950, 16; Warren Moscow, “New York Democrats Search for Candidate,” NYT, June 4, 1950, E9; James A. Hagerty, “Ewing Is Reported Unwilling to Run,” NYT, June 12, 1950, 1; James A. Hagerty, “Wide-Open Race Is Created for Democratic Nomination,” NYT, June 18, 1950, 1; Alex Rose, “Politically Speaking,” Liberal Party Newsletter, June 1950, b. 149, f. 2B, Dubinsky Records. 12.  “Mayor and Rose Bury ’49 Hatchet,” NYT, July 22, 1950, 21; “Mayor O’Dwyer’s Decision,” NYT, August 16, 1950, 28; “Liberals Propose Tie to Democrats,” NYT, August 22, 1950, 22; “Dulles Bars Race for Senate in Fall,” NYT, August 18, 1950, 1;

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Warren Moscow, “Democrats Favor Pecora for Mayor,” NYT, August 18, 1950, 13; Warren Moscow, “DeSapio Adds Two to Mayoralty List,” NYT, August 21, 1950, 20. 13. Perino, Hellhound of Wall Street; Moscow, What Have You Done, 65–66; Moscow, “Democrats Favor Pecora”; Moscow, “DeSapio Adds Two”; “The Pecora Story,” n.d., b. 136, f. 1B, Dubinsky Records. 14.  Warren Moscow, “Agreement Is Seen on Pecora, Lehman,” NYT, August 26, 1950, 28; Warren Moscow, “Hanley Reluctant of Draft of Dewey,” NYT, August 28, 1950, 18; Douglas Dales, “3 Democrats Stir Liberal’s Revolt,” NYT, September 8, 1950, 19; “Speaker’s Notes on Walter A. Lynch,” n.d., b. 136, f. 1B, Dubinsky Records; Ben Davidson Oral History, 346–47, OHAC. 15.  Dales, “3 Democrats”; “We Were Right Then . . . We’re Right Now,” n.d., b. 136, f. 1B, Dubinsky Records; “Steytment . . . fun Dovid Dubinksi,” typescript sent to Yiddish press, October 9, 1950, and Ben Davidson to James Wechsler, November 10, 1950, both in b. 135, f. 2B, Dubinsky Records; Douglas Dales, “Liberal Party Set to Endorse Pecora,” NYT, September 7, 1950, 26. 16.  James A. Hagerty, “Impellitteri to Run ‘Independently’ If Kept Off the Democratic Ticket,” NYT, September 5, 1950, 1; James A. Hagerty, “Major Parties Act,” NYT, September 10, 1950, 1; “Mrs. La Guardia for Corsi,” NYT, September 24, 1950, 67; “Clergymen Aid Corsi,” NYT, October 18, 1950, 40; “Davenport Urges ‘Split’ for Corsi,” NYT, October 15, 1950, 72; “Seabury Supports Pecora for Mayor,” NYT, October 11, 1950, 37; Warren Moscow, “Politicians Upset by Seabury Move,” NYT, October 12, 1950, 36; “The Man Who Wasn’t There, the Man Who Will Be There,” n.d., b. 136, f. 1B, Dubinsky Records; “Majority Report of the Political Action Commission, 3rd Annual Convention of NYC Chapter of ADA,” n.d., b. 9, f. “1950-ADA,” LP Records; “Labor Unit Splits in Race for Mayor; CIO Backs Pecora,” NYT, September 13, 1950, 1. 17.  “Speaker’s Notes on Ferdinand Pecora,” n.d., b. 136, f. 1B, Dubinsky Records; “Political Ideals Defined by Pecora,” NYT, November 1, 1950, 38; “3 State Democrats Named by Liberals,” NYT, September 12, 1950, 18; “Pecora Asks Curb on Soaring Prices,” NYT, October 4, 1950, 27; Douglas Dales, “Police Supervision by Citizen Agency Is Asked by Pecora,” NYT, October 22, 1950, 1; “Pecora Stresses Corruption Fight,” NYT, October 12, 1950, 36. 18.  James A. Hagerty, “Impellitteri Says He Can’t Be Bought,” NYT, September 28, 1950, 25; “Impellitteri Links Pecora, Costello,” NYT, October 24, 1950, 24; James A. Hagerty, “Tammany District Chief Quits City Job to Back Impellitteri,” NYT, October 1, 1950, 1; “Corsi Denounces ‘Municipal Gangs,’ ” NYT, September 27, 1950, 26; “Pecora’s Backers Assailed by Corsi,” NYT, October 20, 1950, 22; “Corsi Challenges His Rivals to Enlist the Aid of O’Dwyer,” NYT, October 24, 1950, 1; John T. McManus to “Dear Enrolled Liberal,” October 31, 1950, b. 135, f. 2B, Dubinsky Records. 19.  James A. Hagerty, “Impellitteri Held Danger to Lehman,” NYT, October 12, 1950, 37; “Let’s Get It Straight,” flyer, n.d.; Willard Lewis to David Dubinsky, October 31, 1950; Gus Tyler to Dubinsky, n.d., all in b. 135, f. 2B, Dubinsky Records; “Impellitteri Seen as Republican Aid,” NYT, September 17, 1950, 66; “Liberals Say They Put Pecora Over,” NYT, October 7, 1950, 9; “Berle Clarifies His Support of Pecora; Declares He Is the Man the Liberals Wanted,” NYT, October 21, 1950, 8; “Corsi Gets Query on Leftist Stand,” NYT, October 10, 1950, 34.

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20.  “Excess Profit Tax Urged by Lehman,” NYT, September 17, 1950, 92; “Lehman Says G.O.P. Attack on U.S. Policy Aids Moscow,” NYT, October 3, 1950, 1; “Let’s Get It Straight.” 21.  Douglas Dales, “Anti-bias Job Law Held ‘Booby Trap,’ ” NYT, November 4, 1950, 8; Leo Egan, “Favor to Costello in Freeing Luciano Charged to Dewey,” NYT, November 4, 1950, 1; “Lynch Asks Voters to ‘Retire’ Dewey,” NYT, October 14, 1950, 8; “Lynch Scored on Red Bill,” NYT, September 26, 1950, 19; Warren Weaver Jr., “Dewey Ridicules Charges of Waste,” NYT, September 26, 1950, 29. 22.  ILGWU press release, September 14, 1950, b. 135, f. 2B, Dubinsky Records; “Pecora Stresses Corruption Fight,” NYT, October 12, 1950, 36; “Pecora Repeats His ‘Dare’ to Mayor,” NYT, October 26, 1950, 34; James A. Hagerty, “Ickes Tells Liberal Party’s Rally Acting Mayor Is a Tool of Dewey,” NYT, October 31, 1950, 1; “Rally Stonings Charged,” NYT, November 1, 1950, 32; “Liberal Club Attacked,” NYT, November 7, 1950, 29. 23.  “Marcantonio Assailed,” NYT, February 1, 1950, 1; “Marcantonio Foes Meet,” NYT, May 6, 1950, 5; Carter, “Pressure from the Left,” 408–13; Waltzer, “American Labor Party,” 276–78, 346, 447; Meyer, Vito Marcantonio, 35–47; Reinhold Niebuhr to Ben Davidson, February 23, 1950, and Davidson to David Dubinsky, March 2, 1950, both in b. 149, f. 2B, Dubinsky Records. 24.  “Marcantonio Foes Advance Coalition,” NYT, April 10, 1950, 12; “Murphy Is Ready for Congress Race,” NYT, May 23, 1950, 4; “Marcantonio Foe Urges Coalition,” NYT, April 24, 1950, 30; “Tammany Puts Ban on A.L.P. Support,” NYT, April 25, 1950, 24; “To Oppose Marcantonio,” NYT, April 29, 1950, 22; “Clements Enters 18th District Race,” NYT, May 8, 1950, 11; Warren Moscow, “Mrs. Willkie Put in Congress Race,” NYT, May 16, 1950, 39; “Liberals Ready to Help,” NYT, May 17, 1950, 1; James A. Hagerty, “Tammany Lists Hiss Prosecutor as Possible Foe of Marcantonio,” NYT, May 20, 1950, 1; “Bingham Is Urged for Congress Race,” NYT, May 22, 1950, 14; James A. Hagerty, “Marcantonio Foes Offer Candidates,” NYT, June 2, 1950, 19. 25.  Warren Moscow, “O’Dwyer Backs Donovan in Fight for Marcantonio’s Seat,” NYT, June 13, 1950, 1; “Donovan Assails Marcantonio Ties,” NYT, September 29, 1950, 22; James A. Hagerty, “Coalition Selects J.G. Donovan to Win Marcantonio Seat,” NYT, June 10, 1950, 1; James A. Hagerty, “Communism Issue, J.G. Donovan Says,” NYT, June 11, 1950, 1. 26.  Douglas Dales, “Marcantonio Race High in Invective,” NYT, November 1, 1950, 28; Martin Berger and Gerald Walpin, “Notes on the News,” Liberally Yours, June 1950, b. 9, f. “1950-Berle,” LP Records; “Marcantonio Foe Sees His Defeat,” NYT, August 18, 1950, 7; Meyer, Vito Marcantonio, 41–42, 140. 27. Warren Moscow, “Marcantonio to Run Again; Assails ‘Ganging Up’ Foes,” NYT, June 21, 1950, 1; Meyer, Vito Marcantonio, 106, 140–41, 213–14n103, 256–57n168; James A. Hagerty, “A.L.P. Will Ignore Subversives Act,” NYT, September 25, 1950, 10. 28. William Conklin, “Marcantonio Loses His Seat to Donovan, Coalition Choice,” NYT, November 8, 1950, 1; Waltzer, “American Labor Party,” 450; “Dear Friend and Neighbor,” August 13, 1951, b. 44, f. “American Labor Party Campaigns Misc. Correspondence, 1939–1953 . . ., ” Vito Marcantonio Papers, NYPL.

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29.  “Marcantonio Foes Advance Coalition”; “Liberal Leaders Back Democrats,” NYT, July 21, 1950, 20; unsigned, untitled memo, July 13, 1950, b. 29, f. 3, Charles Zimmerman Papers, 5780/014, ILGWU Records, KC (hereafter Zimmerman Papers). 30.  S. M. Levitas to “Dear Friend,” November 1, 1950; Levitas to Alexander Kahn, October 27, 1950; Ben Davidson to all members of the state Executive Committee, December 7, 1950, all in f. 143, Forward Association Records, RG 685, YIVO; Al Sostchen, “Liberal Party Sure of 2 Plums as Aides to Levy,” New York Post (hereafter Post), January 10, 1951, clipping, scrapbook 25, LP Records. 31.  Sam Markewich to Alexander Kahn, November 10, 1950, f. 143, Forward Association Records; “Dubinsky Is Not Down over Voting Results,” NYT, November 17, 1950, 24. 32.  Ben Davidson, “New York’s Liberal Party,” reprint from New Leader, January 22, 1951, scrapbook 25, LP Records. 33.  On Costello and the Kefauver hearings, see Moore, Kefauver Hearings; Walsh, Public Enemies. 34. Moore, Kefauver Hearings, 126, 172–205; Walsh, Public Enemies, 187–225. 35.  Press release, March 24, 1951, b. 2, f. “Liberal Party Press Releases,” George Humphreys Tichenor III Papers, 5239, KC (hereafter Tichenor Papers). 36.  Al Sostchen, “Plan Palestin Race as City Council Chief,” Post, January 19, 1951, clipping, scrapbook 25, LP Records; “Liberals to Back Javits or Morris,” NYT, May 24, 1951; Murray Snyder, “Liberal Chiefs Confer on City Council Choice,” New York Herald-Tribune (hereafter Herald-Tribune), May 24, 1951; Tom O’Hara, “Republicans Ask Coalition Backing Javits,” Herald-Tribune, June 6, 1951; “Mr. Javits and Coalition,” Herald-Tribune, June 6, 1951, clippings, all in b. 135, f. 1B, Dubinsky Records; Javits, Javits, 190; Davidson Oral History, 306–9. 37.  Davidson Oral History, 309–10; Dick Lee, “Hurry-Up Halley Aims High in First Try,” New York Daily News (hereafter Daily News), October 24, 1951; Ray Ghent, “Flynn Gibe Pushed Halley into Race,” New York World-Telegram (hereafter World-Telegram), October 24, 1951; Warren Moscow, “Halley Campaigns in La Guardia Role,” NYT, October 30, 1951, clippings, all in scrapbook 25, LP Records; “Halley Is Named for Council Head,” NYT, June 1, 1951, 1; James A. Hagerty, “Halley Will Run for Council Head,” NYT, June 2, 1951, 1; “Halley Stands by the Liberal Ticket,” NYT, June 9, 1951, 20; “Republicans Turn Down Halley; Ask Liberals to Nominate Javits,” NYT, June 6, 1951, 1; Berle Diary, July 18, 1951, XIV, 143–44, Berle Papers, FDRPL; “Halley Dies at 43; Ex-crime Counsel,” NYT, November 20, 1956, 37. 38.  “Speech of Rudolph Halley,” June 13, 1951, b. 135, f. 1B, Dubinsky Records. 39.  Press releases, September 9, 1951, September 11, 1951, September 28, 1951, September 30, 1951, October 5, 1951, October 6, 1951, October 11, 1951, October 13, 1951, October 16, 1951, October 25, 1951, November 1, 1951, all in b. 2, f. “Liberal Party Press Releases,” Tichenor Papers; “Crime in Politics Scored by Halley,” NYT, September 28, 1951; “Halley Demands Probe of O’Dwyer,” New York Journal-American (hereafter Journal-American), October 4, 1951; advertisement on civil rights issues, Amsterdam News, October 27, 1951; “Halley Favors a Police Union; For Strike Ban,” Herald-Tribune, September 30, 1951; Tom O’Hara, “Halley Rejects City Income Tax in Surprise Reply on TV Forum,” Herald-Tribune, October 29, 1951; “Halley Advo-

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cates Clean Up of Port,” NYT, November 2, 1951, clippings, all in scrapbook 25, LP Records. 40.  “Fight Anti-Semitism and Bigotry,” flyer, and Joseph Sharkey to David Dubinsky, October 28, 1951, both in b. 135, f. 1B, Dubinsky Records; campaign press release, October 30, 1951, b. 2, f. “Liberal Party Press Releases,” Tichenor Papers; Dick Armstrong and Fred Jaffe, “Halley Denies Link to N.J. Racket Boss,” Compass, October 19, 1951, and John Crosson and Dick Lee, “Sharkey Hits Halley ‘Slurs,’ Sees Failure,” Daily News, September 27, 1951, clippings, both in scrapbook 25, LP Records. 41.  “Defeat Halley, Ruin Liberals, Latham Urges,” Daily News, October 10, 1951; “Halley Links Mobs to Both Parties Here,” World-Telegram, September 25, 1951; “Latham Scores Liberals,” NYT [?], October 10, 1951; “Halley Demands Probe of O’Dwyer,” Journal-American, October 4, 1951; “Halley Is Prodded on Crime Hearings,” NYT, October 4, 1951; Tom O’Hara, “Halley Rejects City Income Tax in Surprise Reply on TV Forum,” Herald-Tribune, October 29, 1951, clippings, all in scrapbook 25, LP Records. 42.  Davidson Oral History, 310–12; Link, “ ‘Every Day Was a Battle,’ ” 325–26; Henry Stern, interview by the author, January 21, 2008; press releases, September 15, 1951, October 30, 1951, October 31, 1951, all in b. 2, f. “Liberal Party Press Releases,” Tichenor Papers; “Citizens Union Indorses Halley in Council Race,” Herald-Tribune, September 30, 1951; “For Halley,” NYT, October 2, 1951; “The Eagle Endorses Halley,” Brooklyn Eagle, October 30, 1951; “Dubinski ruft tsurikshlaydern morgn bilbul af Heli,” Forward, November 5, 1951, clippings, all in scrapbook 25, LP Records; Norman Thomas to David Dubinsky, August 24, 1951, and Thomas to Alex Rose, August 28, 1951, both in b. 135, f. 1B, Dubinsky Records. 43.  Berle Diary, November 1, 1951, XIV, 176; Davidson Oral History, 315–17; “Election Results in the City, Westchester, and New Jersey,” NYT, November 7, 1951, 20; Robert Spivack, “Even Foes Admit Halley’s In,” Post, November 2, 1951; Dick Lee, “Halley Winner by 163,000,” Daily News, November 7, 1951; Joseph Alvarez, “Halley Calm, Late at Victory Party,” World-Telegram, November 7, 1951; J. F. Wilkinson, “Hour of Jitters, Then a Roar for Halley,” Brooklyn Eagle, November 7, 1951; Fred Jaffe, “Halley Elected in City-Wide Upset,” Compass, November 7, 1951; “Editorial: Rudolph Halley Wins,” unidentified clipping, n.d.; Harold Harris, “Crime-Buster Seen Top Mayor Candidate after Stunning Upset,” unidentified clipping, November 7, 1951; Ted Thackrey, “Tammany Myth Deflated,” Compass, November 8, 1951; James A. Hagerty, “City’s Democrats Roused; Halley Gets Dissenter Role,” NYT, November 8, 1951; Murray Snyder, “Why City Democrats Lost,” Herald-Tribune, November 11, 1951; Warren Moscow, “City Election Reveals Basic Political Shifts,” NYT, November 11, 1951; Ben Davidson, “The Guest Room,” Hat Worker, November 15, 1951; Alex Rose, “Greatest Good for the Greatest Number,” Hat Worker, n.d., clippings, all in scrapbook 25, LP Records; Hillel Rogoff, “The Victory of the Liberal Party in the New York City Elections,” English typescript of article that appeared in the Forward, November 15, 1951, b. 135, f. 1A, Dubinsky Records. 44.  Jeanette Rachmuth to Rudolph Halley, December 14, 1951 (attached to Rachmuth to David Dubinsky, December 14, 1951); Joseph Tuvim to Dubinsky, November 7, 1951; Frank Nusbaum to Dubinsky, November 26, 1951; Sol Levin to Dubinsky, November 11, 1951, all in b. 135, f. 1A, Dubinsky Records; Murray Snyder, “Halley

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Favored by Liberals for Mayor in 1953,” Herald-Tribune, December 9, 1951, clipping, scrapbook 25, LP Records. 45.  “Halley Swears In 7 New Staff Members,” New York Daily Mirror [?], December 13, 1951, clipping, and “Halley to Work for Changes in Political Leader System,” unidentified clipping, n.d., both in scrapbook 25, LP Records; “Heard around City Hall,” World-Telegram, March 7, 1952; Betsy Luce, “Liberals, ADA Denounce City Misrule, Demand Ban on Transit Authority,” Post, April 15, 1953; Ted Poston, “Rent Steamroller Ready,” Post, March 17, 1953, clippings, all in scrapbook 26, LP Records; Davidson Oral History, 321. 46.  Arthur Krock, “Race Is Wide Open: Truman Decision Leaves Time for Intensive Party Contest,” NYT, March 30, 1952, 1; Abramson, Spanning the Century, 465; Schwarz, Liberal, 294–95; Berle Diary, July 3, 1952, XV, 59; July 16, 1952, XV, 62–63; July 17, 1952, XV, 64–65; Gillon, Politics and Vision, 83–103; Leonard Lyons, The Lyons Den, Post, May 22, 1952, and “Berle Outlines Liberals’ Stand,” NYT, June 12, 1952, clippings, both in scrapbook 26, LP Records. 47.  Davidson recalls a five-man delegation, but Berle mentions only three in his contemporary diary entry. Davidson Oral History, 352–57; Hamby, Beyond the New Deal, 496; Schwarz, Liberal, 295; Berle Diary, July 28, 1952, XV, 66–76. 48. Hamby, Beyond the New Deal, 488–91; “John Sparkman, 85, Ex-senator, Dies,” NYT, November 17, 1985, 44; “ADA Voting Records,” Americans for Democratic Action, accessed November 6, 2016, http://www.adaction.org/pages/publications/ voting-records.php; “Liberals’ Chief Gives Benediction to Adlai,” Daily News, July 30, 1952, clipping, scrapbook 26, LP Records; Berle Diary, July 28–29, 1952, XV, 66–79. 49. Berle Diary, July 29, 1952, XV, 80–81, 77–79; “Liberal Leaders Act to Pick . . .,” Post, August 6, 1952, and Murray Snyder, “N.Y. Campaign Test,” Herald-­ Tribune, August 10, 1952, clippings, both in scrapbook 26, LP Records; Adolf A. Berle Jr. to Wilson Wyatt, August 6, 1952; David Dubinsky to Benjamin McLaurin, August 6, 1952; McLaurin to Dubinsky, August 7, 1952; Berle to Dubinsky, August 11, 1952; Roma Gans to Dubinsky, August 14, 1952; McLaurin to Dubinsky, August 19, 1952; Gus Tyler to Dubinsky, August 13, 1952; Dubinsky to Ben Davidson et al., August 19, 1952; Dubinsky to Wyatt, August 19, 1952, all in b. 349, f. 1D, Dubinsky Records. 50.  Berle Diary, July 29, 1952, XV, 81; “Texts of Stevenson Addresses at Democratic and Liberal Meetings,” NYT, August 29, 1952, 12. 51.  Davidson Oral History, 357, 359, 366–69; Stanley Levey, “Liberals Put Off Choice for Senate,” NYT, August 29, 1952, 1; “Sparkman to Run on Liberal Ticket,” NYT, August 30, 1952, 10. 52.  Davidson Oral History, 362–64; “Political Action Report (1952),” b. 3, f. 2, Education Department Records; Alex Rose, “What Kind of President Do You Want,” Hat Worker, n.d., clipping, scrapbook 26, LP Records. 53.  “ADA Voting Records”; Dean Alfange to Alex Rose, August 29, 1952, and Irving Schuman to David Dubinsky, n.d. (copy to Ben Davidson, September 15, 1952), both in b. 349, f. 1E, Dubinsky Records; Davidson to editor of New York Times, August 31, 1952, and Davidson to editor of Herald-Tribune, September 10, 1952, both in b. 349, f. 1D, Dubinsky Records; Moscow, Politics, 132; Robert Spivack, “Fitzpatrick Pits Wagner or Roosevelt vs. Ives,” Post, January 15, 1952, clipping, scrapbook 26, LP Records; “Liberal Leaders Act to Pick . . .”

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54.  Leo Egan, “Draft of Harriman for Senate Fails, Cashmore Now in Lead,” NYT, August 29, 1953, and “Cashmore Wins,” Journal-American, August 30, 1952, clippings, both in scrapbook 26, LP Records. 55.  Levey, “Liberals Put Off Choice”; Davidson Oral History, 374–76; Estelle Rose Berg to David Dubinsky, August 29, 1952, and “Remarks by David Dubinsky, Introducing Dr. George S. Counts . . ., ” September 8, 1952, both in b. 349, f. 1E, Dubinsky Records; James A. Hagerty, “Cashmore Spurned by Liberal Party,” NYT, September 5, 1952, 1; James A. Hagerty, “Dr. Counts to Stay as Liberal Choice,” NYT, September 6, 1952, 1. 56.  Robert Spivack, “The Battling Professor,” Post, September 14, 1952; Margaret Parton, “Counts Giving Full Energy to ‘Losing’ Battle,” Herald-Tribune, November 1, 1952; “Counts Addresses Stevenson Groups,” Columbia Daily Spectator, October 17, 1952; “Prof. Counts, Liberal Nominee, to Visit Cornell as SDA Guest,” Cornell Daily Sun, n.d., clippings, all in scrapbook 26, LP Records. 57.  George Counts, “Seven Tasks,” Justice, September 15, 1952; “Liberal Candidate Supports Seaway,” NYT, September 30, 1952; Warren Weaver Jr., “Ives Hits Seaway in Malone Speech,” NYT, n.d.; Oliver Pilat, “Lives Helps Keep New York Light Bills High—Counts,” Post, October 5, 1952; “Counts Criticizes Ives on Price-Control Votes,” Herald-Tribune, October 8, 1952, clippings, all in scrapbook 26, LP Records; “Dr. Counts Urges Tideland Oil Revenues for Education Needs in All States,” October 16, 1952, b. 349, f. 1E, Dubinsky Records. 58.  Counts, “Seven Tasks”; “Counts Decries Treating Korea as a ‘Football,’ ” unidentified clipping, September 26, 1952, and Oliver Pilat, “Counts Says Reds Have No Right to Teach,” Post, October 21, 1952, clipping, both in scrapbook 26, LP Records; “Address by Dr. George S. Counts . . ., ” October 17, 1952, b. 349, f. 1E, Dubinsky Records. 59.  “A.D.A. State Board Endorses Counts,” NYT, September 15, 1952; “Halley’s Support Is Going to Counts,” NYT, October 6, 1952; Oliver Pilat, “Counts Group Led by Halley and Mrs. Schiff,” Post, October 15, 1952; advertisement, Independent Citizens Committee for the Election of George S. Counts, Post, October 29, 1952, clippings, all in scrapbook 26, LP Records; press releases, October 15 and October 21, 1952, both in b. 349, f. 1E, Dubinsky Records. 60.  Martin Kyne and Charles Zimmerman to David Dubinsky, October 20, 1952, b. 349, f. 1E, Dubinsky Records; John Roddy, “Donovan, Klein, FDR, Jr. Lose Liberal Backing,” Post, May 23, 1952; “Junior Gets Liberals’ Nod,” Daily News, July 18, 1952; “Liberals Relent—Finally Give Nod to Roosevelt and Donovan,” Post, July 18, 1952, clippings, all in scrapbook 26, LP Records; David Wells to Zimmerman, November 24, 1952, b. 29, f. 5, Zimmerman Papers. 61.  David Wells, interview by the author, April 1, 2009. 62.  Davidson Oral History, 376–78; Gus Tyler to “Dear Sir and Brother,” December 5, 1952, b. 349, f. 1A, Dubinsky Records; Berle Diary, November 5, 1952, XV, 140–40A; “Down Commies, Up Liberals,” Buffalo Evening News, December 10, 1952; Oliver Pilat, “Ives Plurality 1,300,000; Liberals Gain,” Post, November 5, 1952; Leo Egan, “Losses Add to Woe of City Democrats,” NYT, November 6, 1952, clippings, all in scrapbook 26, LP Records. 63.  Gus Tyler, “Analysis of the Erwin-Travia Bill,” n.d., and Ben Davidson, “Arguments against the Erwin-Travia Bills,” n.d., both in b. 86, f. 1952, LP Records; “State-

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ment on Floor of Assembly by Anthony J. Travia (D. Kings) on Point of High Personal Privilege concerning ‘Union Curb Bills,’ ” March 20, 1953, b. 86, f. “1945 Legislation,” LP Records. 6. Liberal Crusades and Backroom Deals

  1.  James A. Hagerty, “Liberals Forecast ’53 Victory in City,” New York Times (hereafter NYT), May 4, 1952; James A. Hagerty, “4 Democrats Seen in Race for Mayor,” NYT, December 22, 1952; “Leibowitz for Mayor Steps into Dem Spotlight,” New York Daily News (hereafter Daily News), January 8, 1953; “Liberals May Back Javits for Mayor,” NYT, May 22, 1953; “Liberals to Deny Backing to Either Party on Mayor,” New York Post (hereafter Post), April 27, 1953, clippings, all in scrapbook 26, Liberal Party of New York State Records, NYPL (hereafter LP Records); Berle Diary, November 7, 1952, XV, 142; November 12, 1952, XV, 146–47; December 8, 1952, XV, 176; February 5, 1953, XVI, 7; February 11–12, 1953, XVI, 8, Berle Papers, FDRPL; Richard Packard to David Dubinsky, December 9, 1952, and December 18, 1952; “Add Newbold Morris to Mayoral Race,” New York World-Telegram and The Sun (hereafter World-Telegram), February 23, 1953, clipping, all in b. 348, f. 2D, Dubinsky Presidential Records, 5780/002, ILGWU Records, KC (hereafter Dubinsky Records).   2.  Berle Diary, November 12, 1952, XV, 145–47; February 26, 1953, XVI, 12; April 23, 1953, XVI, 51; May 13, 1953, XVI, 57; Javits, Javits, 191–200.   3.  “Text of Address by Council President Halley before Hatters’ Union,” NYT, June 13, 1953; “Halley Bids Liberals to Shun Fusion,” New York Herald-Tribune (hereafter Herald-Tribune), June 13, 1953; Stanley Levey, “Halley Asks Liberals to Run Their Own Man; Puts in Bid,” NYT, June 13, 1953, clippings, all in scrapbook 26, LP Records.   4.  Abe Dolgen to David Dubinsky, June 17, 1953; Maurice Calman to Dubinsky, June 2, 1953; Charles Rubinstein to Dubinsky, June 2, 1953; Leonard Kandell to Dubinsky, June 15, 1953; Raymond Carr to Dubinsky, July 1, 1953; John Mullin to Dubinsky, postmarked June 22, 1953; Jack Helfand to “Dear Brother Ben B’rith,” May 1, 1953; Arthur Selig to “Dear Friend,” May 15, 1953, all in b. 348, f. 2D, Dubinsky Records; “Liberals Center Cheers on Halley,” NYT, June 18, 1953; Ray Ghent, “Pledge to Leibowitz in Mayoralty Race Denied by Democrats,” World-Telegram, June 20, 1953; “Liberals Dare Hogan to Give His Platform,” Post, June 2, 1953, clippings, all in scrapbook 26, LP Records; Ben Davidson Oral History, 322–25, OHAC.   5.  Berle Diary, May 29, 1953, XVI, 66–67; June 2, 1953, XVI, 68; June 18, 1953, XVI, 72; June 24, 1953, XVI, 74.   6.  Berle Diary, May 29, 1953, XVI, 66–67; June 10, 1953, XVI, 69–70; June 26, 1953, XVI, 75–77; July 1, 1953, XVI, 79; James A. Hagerty, “Liberals to Press for Fusion Mayor,” NYT, May 30, 1953; James A. Hagerty, “Liberals Will Ask G.O.P. about Javits,” NYT, June 26, 1953; “The Liberals’ Default,” Herald-Tribune, July 2, 1953, clippings, all in scrapbook 26, LP Records; Ben Davidson to Adolf A. Berle Jr., David Dubinsky, and Alex Rose, July 1, 1953; William Chanler to “Dear Fellow Member,” July 28, 1953; “Comparison of Poll Results,” all in b. 348, f. 2C, Dubinsky Records; Javits, Javits, 195–96.

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  7.  Davidson Oral History, 343; Robert Spivack, “Republican on Liberal Slate,” Post, July 19, 1953, clipping, scrapbook 26, LP Records; press release, July 15, 1953; biography of Chase Mellen, n.d.; Ben Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs and County Organizations, July 15, 1953, all in b. 348, f. 2C, Dubinsky Records.   8.  David McConnell, “Liberals, in Snag, Select Marchisio to Head Council,” Herald-Tribune, July 14, 1953; Dorothy Schiff, “Dear Reader,” Post, August 2, 1953; “Heard around City Hall,” World-Telegram, August 7, 1953; Harold Harris, “Politics and People,” Brooklyn Eagle, August 10, 1953; “Liberals Fill Gap, Choose Canudo as Council Candidate,” Post, August 12, 1953, clippings, all in scrapbook 26, LP Records; Berle Diary, July 7, 1953, XVI, 82; July 14, 1953, XVI, 8; July 24, 1953, XVI, 86.   9.  James A. Hagerty, “Wagner Wins Primary Vote,” NYT, September 16, 1953, 1; Leo Egan, “Impellitteri Joins Mayoralty Battle as an Independent: Appeals to ‘Real’ Democrats—Action Generally Viewed as Helping Only Halley,” NYT, September 30, 1953, 1; Milton Lewis, “Roosevelt Will Not Hit at Halley,” Herald-Tribune, October 8, 1953, and H. Grin, letter to the editor, Forward, October 6, 1953, clippings, both in b. 348, f. 2B, Dubinsky Records; Ray Ghent, “2 Republicans Warming Up for Mayoralty Race,” World-Telegram, April 2, 1953; James A. Hagerty, “City Campaign Opens as a Confused Race,” NYT, July 26, 1953; Gabriel Pressman, “Volunteer Group Opens Campaign for Halley,” World-Telegram, June 17, 1953; Walter MacDonald, “Wagner Wins Support of Young Dems,” World-Telegram, July 29, 1953, clippings, all in scrapbook 26, LP Records; Flanagan, Robert Wagner, 19–21. 10.  “We Believe in a New Deal for New York,” n.d., b. 348, f. 2D, Dubinsky Records; “Text of Rudolph Halley’s ‘Keynote Speech’ as the Liberal Party’s Candidate for Mayor,” NYT, September 22, 1953, 26; James A. Hagerty, “Halley and Wagner Vie for the New Deal Vote,” NYT, October 4, 1953, E6; “Halley Envisions Racketeer Ouster: He Names 3 Gangsters Whom He Would Seek to Drive from the City If Elected,” NYT, October 5, 1953, 22; “Riegelman, Halley Ask Housing Funds: Rival Candidates Each Propose U.S. Finance Building of 135,000 Units a Year,” NYT, October 9, 1953, 16; “Halley Endorsed by Mrs. La Guardia: Radio Audience Told Liberal Nominee Would Give the City ‘Clean, Honest Government,’ ” NYT, October 10, 1953, 10; James P. McCaffrey, “Liberals Promise New Deal for City: Half Billion-Dollar Bond Issue for Low-Rent Housing Is Part of Program,” NYT, October 17, 1953, 9; Alexander Feinberg, “Halley Asks End of City ‘Misrule’: People ‘Fooled’ Twice, He Says, Can’t Take 4 Years More—Pledges Ousting of ‘Bums,’ ” NYT, October 19, 1953, 164; “City Manager Plan Opposed by Halley,” unidentified clipping [NYT?], July 20, 1953, and Robert Spivack, “He Gets the Right People Mad,” Post, July 5, 1953, clipping, both in scrapbook 26, LP Records; Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs and County Organizations, July 15, 1953, b. 348, f. 2C, Dubinsky Records. 11.  James A. Hagerty, “Halley Shows Films of ‘Bookies’: Impellitteri’s Petitions Challenged,” NYT, October 9, 1953, 1; James P. McCaffrey, “Halley Sees Evil in Wagner Bureau: He Says Housing Agency Was Lax and Corrupt—Is Ready to Try City Lottery,” NYT, October 16, 1953, 17; Alexander Feinberg, “Halley Offers Aid to City Employes [sic]: Liberal Candidate Proposes Higher Take-Home Pay in 9-Point Plan of Benefits,” NYT, October 20, 1953, 24; Murray Schumach, “Halley Bids Foes Face a Showdown: Invites Wagner and Gerosa to Meet Him Tomorrow to Seek Opening of Inquiry Files,” NYT, October 25, 1953, 62; Emanuel Perlmutter, “Halley Gets

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Order on Gerosa Records: Argument Is Set for Today on Forcing State Body to Make Compensation Data Public,” NYT, October 29, 1953, 1. 12.  Earl Brown, “Halley’s Hurry,” Amsterdam News, July 11, 1953, 14; Leo Egan, “Double-Talk on Transit Laid to the Council Head by the Chief Executive: Mayor Denounces Halley on Transit,” NYT, September 9, 1953, 1; “Halley Will Cast Vote as Democrat: But Will Skip Mayoral Square in Today’s Primary,” NYT, September 15, 1953, 20; Leo Egan, “Opponents Deride Halley ‘Keynote’: Wagner Says Talk of Bosses Is Fake,” NYT, September 23, 1953, 1; James A. Hagerty, “Riegelman Depicts Opponents as Unfit,” NYT, September 25, 1953, 18; James A. Hagerty, “Halley Charges Wagner ‘Lied,’ ” NYT, September 26, 1953, 1; James A. Hagerty, “Halley ‘Envoy’ to DeSapio Tells of Nomination Feeler,” NYT, September 28, 1953, 1; Leo Egan, “Impellitteri Joins Mayoralty Battle as an Independent,” NYT, September 30, 1953, 1; “Mr. Halley Explains,” NYT, October 5, 1953, 26; Adolf A. Berle Jr., “Halley Vote on Transit Plan: State Chairman of Liberal Party Cites Record in Matter,” NYT, October 8, 1953, 28; James A. Hagerty, “Halley a Faker, Wagner Declares,” NYT, October 10, 1953, 1; Milton Bracker, “Halley Is Youngest in Mayoralty Race,” NYT, October 24, 1953, 17; A. A. Berle Jr., “Campaign Speech,” October 20, 1953, and Henry Latham to “Dear Queens Neighbor,” October 26, 1953, both in b. 348, f. 2A, Dubinsky Records; Robert Wagner to David Dubinsky, October 13, 1953, b. 348, f. 2B, Dubinsky Records; ALP press release, September 23, 1953, b. 44, f. “Speeches and Press Releases,” and “Facts About: Rudolph Halley, Liberal Party Candidate for Mayor,” n.d., b. 45, f. “Miscellaneous Campaigns,” both in Vito Marcantonio Papers, NYPL (hereafter Marcantonio Papers); Berle Diary, December 3, 1952, XV, 177. 13.  Davidson Oral History, 329–33; Moscow, What Have You Done, 94; James A. Hagerty, “Wagner Seeks to Put Ban on Mayor, Halley: Wagner Seeks Bar on Mayor,” NYT, October 3, 1953, 1. 14.  Leonard Ingalls, “4 Rivals Confident in Manhattan Race,” NYT, October 27, 1953, 21; “Passport Demanded from Harlem Pastor,” NYT, January 4, 1953, 49; “Pastor Fully Cleared,” NYT, June 12, 1954, 16; “Outlook on Reds Changed by Pastor,” NYT, January 12, 1965, 35; Biondi, To Stand and Fight, 214; Ray Connelly and Dick Lee, “Dems Making It All-Negro Boro Prexy Race,” Daily News, August 14, 1953, scrapbook 26, LP Records; Ransby, Ella Baker, 72, 94, 97, 156–60; Grant, Ella Baker, 97–98. 15. James A. Hagerty, “City Vote 2,205,662: Riegelman Runs Second,” NYT, November 4, 1953, 1; Adolf A. Berle Jr. to David Dubinsky, November 4, 1953, b. 348, f. 2A, Dubinsky Records; “Go It Alone and Lose,” NYT, November 5, 1953, 30; Berle Diary, June 11, 1954, XVII-1, 88. 16.  “Democrats Get Backing: Liberal Party Leaders Set to Support State Ticket,” NYT, June 25, 1954, 11; Leo Egan, “Democrats Force Liberal Coalition: DeSapio and Rose Work Out Alliance on City Candidates,” NYT, August 18, 1954, 1; Leo Egan, “ ‘Broad Political Coalition’ Goal of Harriman Backers: Rose’s Argument for Unity Swung Lehman and DeSapio to Winner’s Camp,” NYT, November 5, 1954, 7; Abramson, Spanning the Century, 506–9; Berle Diary, November 4, 1953, XVI, 108; Davidson Oral History, 402; Fred Ferretti, “A Rose Is A. Rose Is a Boss,” New York, undated clipping, b. 15, f. 11, Gus Tyler Papers, 5780/088, ILGWU Records, KC.

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17.  “Harriman Scores Ives as ‘Gliberal’: Speech Accepting the Liberal Party Nomination Gibes at Senator’s Voting Record,” NYT, September 24, 1954, 16; Peter Kihss, “Liberals Endorse Harriman; Ask End of Tax Forgiveness,” NYT, September 24, 1954, 1; “Recession Shield Urged upon State: Liberal Party, in a Broad Program, Calls for Setting Up an Economic Council,” NYT, January 18, 1954, 23; “Excerpts from Platform Adopted by Liberal Party,” NYT, September 24, 1954, 17; Davidson Oral History, 405; Abramson, Spanning the Century, 511–14; Douglas Dales, “Harriman Policy Termed ‘High Tax,’ ” NYT, October 3, 1954, 55; Leonard Ingalls, “Harriman Drops High Taxes Plank: Refuses to Accept Stand of Liberal Party,” NYT, October 10, 1954, 70. 18. Javits, Javits, 204–8; “Roosevelt’s Record Assailed by Javits,” NYT, October 15, 1954, 15. 19.  Robert Alden, “Stevenson Scores Ives in City Rally; Harriman Hailed,” NYT, October 30, 1954, 1; “Republican Women Stage Noon Rally in Garment Area,” Herald-Tribune, October 28, 1954, clipping; David Dubinsky to Newbold Morris, October 28, 1954; Morris to Dubinsky, November 1, 1954, all in b. 348, f. 1B, Dubinsky Records. 20.  Kihss, “Liberals Endorse Harriman”; Leo Egan, “Many If ’s Cloud Outcome in State: Both Sides Claim Victory but Polls Indicate Harriman,” NYT, November 1, 1954, 1; “Democrats’ Glow Changes to Gloom: Hopes for Big Victory Fade at Party Quarters as Foes’ Vote Upstate Mounts,” NYT, November 3, 1954, 12; Leo Egan, “Harriman on Top: 9,657 Lead Is Open to Change by Recanvass and Military Vote,” NYT, November 4, 1954, 1; “Harriman Margin Lowest since 1850,” NYT, December 17, 1954, 26; Abramson, Spanning the Century, 506–9, 514. 21.  “Democrats’ Glow Changes to Gloom”; Political Dep’t. to David Dubinsky, November 8, 1954, b. 348, f. 1B, Dubinsky Records. 22.  “A Liberal Victory,” Justice, November 15, 1954, scrapbook 27, LP Records; Egan, “ ‘Broad Political Coalition’ ”; “On the Liberal Line,” NYT, November 6, 1954, 16; “Liberals to Stage Recruiting Drive: Plan Scotches Rumors That Party Would Be Dissolved—Upstate Gains Cited,” NYT, November 24, 1954, 15. 23.  Edward Morrison, interview by the author, May 6, 2013; William Henderson, “Liberal Party to Get No City or State Jobs,” New York Daily Mirror, June 4, 1955; “Mediation Board,” NYT, December 21, 1955; “Liberal parti firer vert mitglid in voyrkmens kompenseyshon bord,” unidentified clipping, n.d.; “Scientist in State Post,” NYT, September 18, 1955, clippings, all in scrapbook 27, LP Records; Charles Grutzner, “Harriman Defers Decision on Asking Rise in Income Tax,” NYT, December 31, 1954, 1; “Palestin Named to State Tax Job,” NYT, March 9, 1955, 17; Davidson Oral History, 406–8; Abramson, Spanning the Century, 526, 529–30. 24.  A. H. Raskin, “Vote Costs A.L.P. Its Legal Status: Party Falls below the 50,000 Mark,” NYT, November 3, 1954, 1, 16; “Statement Issued by Hon. Vito Marcantonio on 11/4/53 . . ., ” November 4, 1953, b. 44, f. “Miscellaneous Campaigns A–L . . ., ” Marcantonio Papers; Richard Strasburger to Vito Marcantonio, May 2, 1953; [Illegible] to Marcantonio, July 18, 1953; Earl Price to Marcantonio, June 28, 1953; Marcantonio to Price, July 11, 1953, all in b. 45, f. “Miscellaneous Campaigns,” Marcantonio Papers; Waltzer, “American Labor Party,” 454–66; Carter, “Pressure from the Left,” 421–43.

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25.  Charles Grutzner, “President Chided at Liberal Rally,” NYT, May 26, 1955; Mary Hornaday, “Nostalgia Marks N.Y. Liberals’ Rally,” Christian Science Monitor, May 26, 1955; “Heard around City Hall,” World-Telegram, May 27, 1955, clippings, all in scrapbook 27, LP Records. 26.  “Rent Chief Expects to Continue Controls on Buffalo Housing,” unidentified clipping, February 2, 1955; James Peck, letter to the editor, Buffalo Courier-Express, February 6, 1955; Leo Egan, “Rent Rise Plan Is Scrapped,” NYT, March 23, 1955; William Longgood, “Abrams Scorned Politics to Preserve Rent Control,” WorldTelegram, April 1, 1955, clippings, all in scrapbook 27, LP Records; Nicholas Evans to Joseph Farbo, February 2, 1955; A. Gould Hatch to Harold Goldstein, March 15, 1955; Charles Abrams to Ben Davidson, March 28, 1955, all in b. 5, f. “Liberal Party,” Charles Abrams Papers, RMC. 27.  “Project Called Too Immense to Undertake,” World-Telegram, December 28, 1955; “Abrams Charges U.S. Housing Bias; Links Discrimination to Delinquency,” Post, May 5, 1955; Ted Poston, “Abrams Fights Racket in ‘Professional’ Rents,” Post, May 9, 1955; clippings, all in scrapbook 27, LP Records; Egan, “Rent Rise Plan Is Scrapped”; Henderson, Housing, 163. 28.  “Liberals Ask Harriman for Power Yardstick,” Post, January 10, 1955; Tom O’Hara, “Liberal Party for End of 10% Tax Abatement,” Herald-Tribune, January 10, 1955; Robert Spivack, “Moses Giving Alcoa 48-Year Power Pact,” Post, n.d., clippings, all in scrapbook 27, LP Records; Clayton Knowles, “St. Lawrence Power Dispute,” NYT, December 30, 1956, E4; Leo Egan, “Two Power Pacts Aired at Hearing,” NYT, February 7, 1957, 16; Clayton Knowles, “Governor Backs Power Contract as G.M. Joins Plan,” NYT, February 14, 1957, 1; “Liberals Adamant on 2 Power Pacts,” NYT, February 19, 1957, 18; Clayton Knowles, “Power Policy Hit by Liberal Party,” NYT, February 26, 1957, 20; Davidson Oral History, 453–54. 29.  “Power Surrender Seen,” NYT, January 30, 1957, 9; Leo Egan, “Harriman Backs Power Priority,” NYT, February 1, 1957, 9; “Bills on Power Backed,” NYT, March 17, 1957, 51; “Rights Bill Backed: Liberal Party Urges House to Approve Senate Version,” NYT, August 15, 1957, 14; C. P. Trussell, “Eisenhower Signs Bill to Develop Niagara Power,” NYT, August 22, 1957, 1. 30.  Peter Kihss, “Berle Quits Post as Liberals’ Head,” NYT, July 8, 1955, 1; “Speech of A.A. Berle, Jr. . . ., July 7, 1955,” Berle Diary, XVII-2, 172–82. 31.  Tom O’Hara, “Berle Ready to Resign as Liberals’ Chairman,” Herald-Tribune, February 3, 1955; S. Regensberg, “Liberal parti vet haynt gutheysen nayem steyt tsherman, prof. Dzhordzh Kaunts,” Forward, September 15, 1955; “Counts Pledges New Battle for Liberal Aims,” Post, September 11, 1955; Leo Egan, “Counts Slated to Head Liberals,” NYT, September 15, 1955, clippings, all in scrapbook 27, LP Records. 32.  Al Sostchen, “GOP Faces Fight on Bill to Stymie Liberal Party,” Post, January 7, 1951, clipping, scrapbook 25, LP Records; “Senators Battle on Bill to Clip Liberal Party,” Long Island Star-Journal, March 26, 1955; Benjamin Gassman, letter to the editor, NYT, May 4, 1955; “Liberals to Keep Status as Party,” NYT, May 7, 1955, clippings, all in scrapbook 27, LP Records; Kihss, “Berle Quits Post”; Parmet, Master of Seventh Avenue, 255–56; Dubinsky and Raskin, Dubinsky, 316. 33.  Flournoy, “Liberal Party,” 83–84; Chase Mellen Jr. and Stuart Scheftel to “Dear Friend,” September 26, 1955; “The Committee at Large . . ., ” n.d.; Ben Davidson to

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All Liberal Party Clubs, October 24, 1955, all in b. 86, f. “1955,” LP Records; draft invitation, b. 87, f. “1960 Campaign,” LP Records; “Liberals to Hear Humphrey,” NYT, March 1, 1957, 9; minutes of Officers Committee luncheon, March 26, 1965, b. 19, f. 2, Stulberg Correspondence, 5780/004, ILGWU Records, KC. 34.  Davidson Oral History, 399–400; Richard Amper, “Stevenson Scans Chances in State,” NYT, June 30, 1956, 9; “Leaving City for Missouri, He Envisions Convention’s Victory Role,” NYT, July 7, 1956, 8; C. P. Trussell, “Reuther Is Backing Stevenson in Split of Labor’s Leaders,” NYT, August 14, 1956, 1; Robert Bedolis, “Dubinsky Indorses Stevenson,” Herald-Tribune, June 9, 1956; “Bar Party Split in Harriman, Adlai Rivalry,” Post, June 19, 1956; “Harriman Notes Red ‘Trafficking,’ ” June 14, 1956; “Operation Will Force Ike to Make Another Decision on Second Term,” AFL-CIO News, June 15, 1956, clippings, all in scrapbook 27, LP Records; transcript of Rose and Harriman remarks, b. 347, f. 3C, Dubinsky Records. 35. Trussell, “Reuther Is Backing Stevenson”; “Liberal Party Unit Backs Stevenson,” NYT, August 15, 1956, 15; Davidson Oral History, 387–91, 395–98; Estes Kefauver to David Dubinsky, August 6, 1956, and September 4, 1956; David Siegel to Dubinsky, n.d., all in b. 347, f. 3B, Dubinsky Records. 36.  Davidson Oral History, 303, 380; Leo Egan, “Alfange Making G.O.P. Senate Bid,” NYT, August 6, 1956, 1; Douglas Dales, “State Democrats Face Test in the Selection for Senate,” NYT, August 23, 1956, 18; Richard Amper, “Mayor Restudies Race for Senator,” NYT, August 24, 1956, 1. 37.  Egan, “Alfange Making G.O.P. Senate Bid”; Javits, Javits, 213–35; Leo Egan, “Heck Lauds Javits, Denounces ‘Smear,’ ” NYT, September 1, 1956, 1; W. H. Lawrence, “Javits Denies Red Links; Senators Plan Full Inquiry,” NYT, September 6, 1956, 1; Leo Egan, “Rose Calls Javits Anti-Red,” NYT, September 7, 1956, 1; Leo Egan, “Javits Is Reported Choice of Republicans for Senate,” NYT, September 10, 1956, 1. 38.  William Blair, “Stevenson to Utilize Services of Truman,” NYT, August 20, 1956, 1; Douglas Dales, “Stevenson Puts Racial ‘Climate’ Up to President,” NYT, September 12, 1956, 1; “Texts of Stevenson and Wagner Addresses,” NYT, September 12, 1956, 28. 39. Javits, Javits, 239–49; “Javits vs. Wagner,” NYT, September 11, 1956, 34; William Henry Chamberlin, “Political Contrast,” Wall Street Journal, September 17, 1956, 10; “Mayor Says Rival Is an Ex-Liberal,” NYT, October 25, 1956, 21; “Mayor Scores U.S. on Genocide Pact,” NYT, October 5, 1956, 10; Peter Kihss, “Wagner Assails Foreign Policies,” NYT, October 11, 1956, 1; Alexander Feinberg, “Javits Questions Wagner’s Ability,” NYT, October 27, 1956, 22; Clayton Knowles, “Javits Stumps in Garment Area,” NYT, October 12, 1956, 27. 40.  Leo Egan, “This State Seen behind President,” NYT, October 26, 1956, 1; “President Scores New High in State,” NYT, November 7, 1956, 1; “Mayor Concedes,” NYT, November 7, 1956, 1; Leo Egan, “Both Parties Eye State Race in ’58,” NYT, November 8, 1956, 1; Oliver Pilat, “Wagner to Get Liberal Okay for Reelection,” Post, November 9, 1956, clipping, b. 19, f. 4, Stulberg Correspondence. 41.  Flournoy, “Liberal Party,” 191; Davidson Oral History, 419; Flanagan, Robert Wagner, 2–24; Pilat, “Wagner to Get Liberal Okay”; “Liberals Press Mayor on Race,” NYT, February 12, 1957, 56; Paul Crowell, “Wagner Will Run for Re-election,” NYT, March 1, 1957, 1; Clayton Knowles, “Liberals to Hold City Convention,” NYT,

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March 6, 1957, 26; Paul Crowell, “Wagner Seeking Aid for His Team,” NYT, March 25, 1957, 1; Clayton Knowles, “Liberals Support Mayor and Slate,” NYT, July 11, 1957, 1. 42.  “Mr. Christenberry Chosen,” NYT, June 29, 1957, 12; “Liberals Scored in Backing Mayor,” NYT, July 12, 1957, 14; Leo Egan, “City Election Paradox,” NYT, October 18, 1957, 14. 43.  Leo Egan, “Liberal Party Maps City Council Races,” NYT, July 1, 1957, 1; “Liberals to Select Own Council Slate,” NYT, July 9, 1957, 21; Knowles, “Liberals Support Mayor”; Leo Egan, “Alex Rose Urges Big Wagner Vote,” NYT, October 8, 1957, 28. 44.  Irving Spiegel, “Wagner Supports Housing Bias Bill,” NYT, October 20, 1957, 1; Alexander Feinberg, “Wagner Stumps Lower East Side,” NYT, November 4, 1957, 33. 45.  Leo Egan, “Democrats Count on Party Victory,” NYT, November 3, 1957, 1; “Size of Vote ‘Gratifies’ Mayor,” NYT, November 6, 1957, 24; Paul Crowell, “Democrats Add to Council Edge,” NYT, November 6, 1957, 25; Leo Egan, “Wagner Triumph Raises Stature in State Politics,” NYT, November 7, 1957, 1; Flanagan, Robert Wagner, 49. 46. Davidson Oral History, 475–77; “Delta Kappa Kappa—History,” Delta Kappa Kappa Fraternity, accessed June 19, 2017, https://deltakappakappa.org/ about.phtml; “Oswego ‘Liberal’ Really Democrat,” NYT, November 10, 1957, 62; “Mayor of Oswego Risks School Post,” NYT, January 2, 1958, 36; “Oswego Mayor Out as Teacher,” NYT, January 3, 1958, 25; “School Vote Backs Mayor of Oswego,” NYT, April 2, 1958, 19; “Who’s Whose Boss in Oswego,” Life, January 20, 1958, 46; “Corsall Honored by 3 Groups,” Oswego Palladium-Times, partial view, n.d. (April– June 1959), Old Fulton NY Postcard website, accessed May 24, 2021, https://www. fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html; “School Drops Suspect,” NYT, October 7, 1958, 32; “Court Here Clears Mayor of Oswego,” NYT, October 17, 1958, 18; “Two Freed in Upstate Death,” NYT, November 21, 1958, 58; Emanuel Perlmutter, “Gambling Issues Stirring Oswego,” October 23, 1959, 34; “Oswego Mayor Wins,” NYT, October 26, 1960, 24. 47.  “Summary of Liberal Party’s Platform,” NYT, August 26, 1958, reprint, b. 347, f. 1B, Dubinsky Records; Richard Amper, “Lehman, Hailed at Birthday Fete, Urges a Liberal Democrat for Senate,” NYT, March 30, 1958, 1; Peter Kihss, “Republicans Like Lane for Mayor,” NYT, May 3, 1957, 55; “State Democrats Defend Harriman,” NYT, January 14, 1957, 15. 48.  Leo Egan, “Liberals Weigh Endorsing Ives If Senator Seeks a Third Term,” NYT, January 5, 1958, 1; “Democrats Reject Bunche as Senator,” NYT, February 14, 1958, 4; “Bunche for Senate Urged on Liberals,” NYT, March 6, 1958, 14; “Liberals to Weigh Bunche’s Refusal,” NYT, March 7, 1958, 6; Richard Amper, “Murrow Backed for Senate Race,” NYT, March 11, 1958, 23. 49.  William McArdle to David Dubinsky, April 17, 1958; James Mead to Dubinsky, June 23, 1958; Dubinsky to Mead, June 27, 1958, all in b. 347, f. 1C, Dubinsky Records; Leo Egan, “Bitter Threat Exchange Made at Convention—Patronage Cut Hinted,” NYT, August 28, 1958, 1; “Mayor Held Open to Senate ‘Draft,’ ” NYT, April 14, 1958, 1; Clayton Knowles, “Finletter Enters Race for Senator,” NYT, July 24, 1958, 1; Warren Weaver Jr., “Harriman Backs Finletter,” NYT, August 15, 1958, 1; Douglas Dales, “Liberals Pushing Finletter Choice,” NYT, August 22, 1958, 1.

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50. Hamilton, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., 109, 115–16, 148, 151, 177, 300–312; Haygood, King of the Cats, 44–46, 98, 101, 132, 147, 239–50; Davidson Oral History, 433; Clayton Knowles, “Liberals May Aid Fight on Powell,” NYT, May 22, 1958, 24. 51. Walter, Harlem Fox, 124–36; Hamilton, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., 302–9; Haygood, King of the Cats, 244–48; Leo Egan, “G.O.P. in Harlem Leans to Powell,” NYT, May 28, 1958, 64. 52.  A. Philip Randolph to “Dear Fellow Liberal,” n.d., and A. Philip Randolph to Adam C. Powell, September 24, 1958, attached to Ben Davidson to David Dubinsky, Alex Rose, and Murray Baron, September 26, 1958, b. 347, f. 1b, Dubinsky Records; “Randolph Quits as Powell Aide,” NYT, September 30, 1958, 18; “Powell Victory Is an Old Story,” NYT, August 13, 1958, 18; Leo Egan, “Powell Demands Purge in Harlem of Tammany Men,” NYT, August 14, 1958, 1; “Powell Charges Fraud,” NYT, August 17, 1958, 44; “Liberal Backs Powell,” NYT, August 21, 1958, 49; Douglas Dales, “Brown Sidesteps Powell Contest,” NYT, September 29, 1958, 1. 53.  Douglas Dales, “Democratic Chiefs Weigh Choice for Senate Contest,” NYT, August 25, 1958, 1; “Liberals Uncertain on Finletter Stand,” NYT, August 25, 1958, 15; Douglas Dales, “Senate Choices Remain in Doubt,” NYT, August 26, 1958, 1; Douglas Dales, “Democrats Pick Hogan for Senate over Murray after a Party Split,” NYT, August 27, 1958, 1; Leonard Ingalls, “Liberals Choose Finletter for Senate, but Could Shift,” NYT, August 27, 1958, 1. 54.  Joe Aliaga et al. to David Dubinsky, August 29, 1958, b. 347, f. 1C, Dubinsky Records; Davidson Oral History, 409–13; Ingalls, “Liberals Choose Finletter”; Leonard Ingalls, “Finletter to Tell Liberals Today If He Will Take Party’s Nomination,” NYT, August 28, 1958, 1; Leo Egan, “Finletter Bars Race as Liberal,” NYT, August 29, 1958, 1. 55.  Egan, “Finletter Bars Race”; Leo Egan, “Hogan Makes Bid for Liberals’ Aid in Senate Fight,” NYT, September 3, 1958, 1; “Text of Hogan’s Answers to Liberals,” NYT, September 4, 1958, 19; Leo Egan, “Lehman Counsels Liberals to Back Hogan for Senate,” NYT, September 4, 1958, 1; Leo Egan, “Hogan Is Backed by the Liberals,” NYT, September 5, 1958, 1; Davidson Oral History, 409–13; Herbert Lehman to David Dubinsky, September 3, 1958; “Hogan’s Answers to Liberals’ Questions,” Herald-Tribune, n.d., with Policy Committee recommendation, September 3, 1958; “Voting Record of Kenneth Keating in Congress—1947–1958,” all in b. 347, f. 1B, Dubinsky Records. 56.  Leo Egan, “Liberals Pick Edward Goodell for State’s Attorney General,” NYT, September 9, 1958, 1; “Goodell Attacks Machine Politics,” NYT, September 26, 1958, 17; “Fare Plan Is Offered,” NYT, October 9, 1958, 34; “Liberal Scores Wilson,” NYT, October 16, 1958, 24. 57.  Douglas Dales, “Rockefeller Begins Attack on Harriman,” NYT, September 7, 1958, 1; Leo Egan, “Rockefeller Hits State’s Economy,” NYT, October 7, 1958, 29; Clayton Knowles, “Democrat Asks Mandate to Finish Work ‘in the Liberal Tradition,’ ” NYT, November 4, 1958, 1; Leonard Ingalls, “Harriman Greets Garment Workers on Tour in City,” NYT, October 11, 1958, 1; “Liberal Vote Held Edge for Harriman,” NYT, October 14, 1958, 25; “20,000 in the Garment District Hear Democratic-Liberal Candidates: Midtown Throng Hears Harriman,” NYT, October 31, 1958, 1; “State Race Seen as ‘Photo Finish,’ ” NYT, November 3, 1958, 44; Parmet, Master of Seventh Avenue, 283.

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58.  Leo Egan, “Both Sides Expect Close State Race, but Claim Victory,” NYT, November 3, 1958, 1; Leo Egan, “Harriman Routed,” NYT, November 5, 1958, 1; Gus Tyler to Dorothy Schiff, October 7, 1958; Arthur Massolo, “Rockefeller Says He Won’t Discuss National Questions,” Post, n.d., clipping; Schiff to Tyler, October 10, 1958; Tyler to Schiff, October 13, 1958, David Dubinsky to Schiff, October 31, 1958, all in b. 347, f. 1A, Dubinsky Records; Abramson, Spanning the Century, 566–67. 59.  Leo Egan, “Upheaval Looms in State Politics,” NYT, November 6, 1958, 1; Russell Porter, “Lefkowitz Wins by a Big Margin,” NYT, November 5, 1958, 30; Albert Margolies, letter to the editor, NYT, December 31, 1958, 18; “Harriman Concedes His Defeat as Party Aides Meet in Gloom,” NYT, November 5, 1958, 27; Clayton Knowles, “Liberals Line Up to Combat Nixon,” NYT, December 4, 1958, 34. 60.  “State Liberals Name Hays,” NYT, April 7, 1959, 29; “Liberals Pick Officers,” NYT, June 19, 1960, 66; Anthony Lewis, “Head of Liberals in Line for Bench,” NYT, June 1, 1961, 32; Marian C. McKenna, “Hays, Paul Raymond,” American National Biography Online, February 2000, https://doi.org/10.1093/anb/9780198606697. article.1101103; “Judge Paul R. Hays Is Dead at 76,” NYT, February 15, 1980, D17. 61. Joseph Pomarlen to the Joint Judiciary Committee of the State Senate and Assembly, February 21, 1949, b. 85, f. “Permanent Personal Registration,” LP Records; “Liberals Shift, for Permanent Registration,” Post, January 7, 1952, clipping, scrapbook 26, LP Records; Charles Bennett, “Permanent Form of Registration Is Voted for City,” NYT, December 14, 1956, 1; Peter Kihss, “Liberals and Conservatives Gain in Rolls as Major Parties Lose,” NYT, April 6, 1970, 30. 62. McNickle, To Be Mayor, 138–44; Glazer and Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot, 166–71; Shefter, Political Crisis, Fiscal Crisis, 44–46; Moscow, What Have You Done, 61–62. 63.  Davidson Oral History, 421–22, 425; Osman, Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn, 128–29, 150; Morrison, interview by the author; Robert Novak, “Boss Killer, 1961,” Wall Street Journal, September 7, 1961, 12. 64.  Morrison, interview by the author; Henry Stern, interviews by the author, January 21, 2008, February 21, 2008; Herbert Rubin, interview by the author, August 1, 2012. 65.  Morrison, interview by the author. 7. New Frontiers

  1.  Ben Davidson Oral History, 489–91, 493, OHAC.   2.  Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 290; Davidson Oral History, 485–86; A. H. Raskin, “Backstage Drive Helped Kennedy,” New York Times (hereafter NYT), November 13, 1960, 60; Gillon, Politics and Vision, 131–34.   3.  Davidson Oral History, 501–3; Raskin, “Backstage Drive Helped Kennedy”; Joseph Loftus, “Liberals Caution Rival Candidates,” NYT, April 22, 1960, 17.   4.  Leo Egan, “Mayor Not Bound to Back De Sapio,” NYT, May 26, 1960, 1; Leo Egan, “Kennedy Assures Liberals He Seeks No Help in South,” NYT, June 24, 1960, 1; W. H. Lawrence, “Kennedy Appeals to South to Support His Nomination,” NYT, June 28, 1960, 1; “Rose Says Kennedy Is Not Shunning South,” NYT, June 29, 1960, 18.

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  5.  Davidson Oral History, 508; “Stevenson Role Seen by Kennedy,” NYT, July 16, 1960, 1; Leo Egan, “Liaison Is Set Up,” NYT, July 17, 1960, 1; Leo Egan, “Kennedy Facing New York Split,” NYT, July 18, 1960, 1; Raskin, “Backstage Drive Helped Kennedy”; Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 292–93; “Vote Liberal Row C for Kennedy and Johnson,” n.d., b. 346, f. 1I, Dubinsky Presidential Records, 5780/002, ILGWU Records, KC (hereafter Dubinsky Records).   6.  “Liberal Chiefs Back Democratic Ticket,” NYT, August 12, 1960, 1; Leo Egan, “Liberal Party Formally Backs Democratic Presidential Ticket,” NYT, September 14, 1960, 28; Clayton Knowles, “Kennedy Stumps City for 8 Hours,” NYT, September 15, 1960, 1; Peter Kihss, “City Crowds Hail Kennedy on Tour,” NYT, October 28, 1960, 1; “Kennedy Draft,” October 18, 1960, attached to David Dubinsky to Mr. Reinsch, October 31, 1960, and “Report on Nixon’s Garment Center Rally,” n.d., both in b. 346, f. 1E, Dubinsky Records.  7. “Excerpts from Senator Lyndon Johnson’s Remarks at the Liberal Party Trade Union Council Meeting,” October 5, 1960, b. 346, f. 1E, Dubinsky Records; Anthony Lewis, “Liberals Cheer Johnson Speech,” NYT, October 6, 1960, 26.   8.  Donald Harrington Oral History, 107, 115–18, OHAC; Davidson Oral History, 504; John Wicklein, “Niebuhr and Bennett Say Raising of Religious Issue Spurs Bigotry,” NYT, September 16, 1960, 1; George Dugan, “Dr. Poling Rebuts Views of Niebuhr,” NYT, September 17, 1960, 14.   9.  Clayton Knowles, “Liberals Override Tradition and Back Republican Judge,” NYT, September 20, 1960, 1; “Liberal Party Independence,” NYT, September 24, 1960, 22; “Italian-American Assails Liberals,” NYT, October 9, 1960, 63; Douglas Dales, “Liberals Rebut Charges of Bias,” NYT, October 10, 1960, 15; “Bench Contests to Test Liberals,” NYT, November 6, 1960, 79. 10.  Clayton Knowles, “Liberals Oppose Reform Leader,” NYT, March 24, 1960, 21; “Liberal Party Gets Finletter Scolding,” NYT, March 25, 1960, 16; John Sibley, “Reform Democrats in 7th A.D. Reported Bolting to Rep. Teller,” NYT, April 2, 1960, 11; Alex Rose, letter to the editor, NYT, April 13, 1960, 38; Wayne Philips, “West Side Primary a Test for Lehman and De Sapio,” NYT, May 30, 1960, 1; Clayton Knowles, “Strife Blurring Election Issues,” NYT, July 11, 1960, 21; “A.D.A. Hits Role of Liberal Party,” NYT, September 25, 1960, 60. 11.  “Mrs. Roosevelt Hails Stevenson,” NYT, May 21, 1960, 9; “Liberals Reject Two,” NYT, April 1, 1960, 29; “Liberals Oppose 2 on Relief Bill Vote,” NYT, April 15, 1960, 10; “Liberals Back 4 Who Shift Stand,” NYT, May 19, 1960, 33. 12.  Douglas Dales, “G.O.P. Goes to Aid of Liberal Party,” NYT, March 7, 1960, 17; “Bill Voted to End Curb on Liberals,” NYT, April 1, 1960, 21; Leo Egan, “Liberal Disenchantment,” NYT, April 11, 1960, 37; Warren Weaver Jr., “Governor Signs Bill That Aids Liberals in Upstate Counties,” NYT, April 23, 1960, 11. 13.  “Liberals Assess 1960 Legislature,” NYT, April 7, 1960, 39; Leo Egan, “Liberal Disenchantment,” NYT, April 11, 1960, 37; Douglas Dales, “Governor to Keep Liberal on Board,” NYT, December 19, 1960, 1. 14.  Leo Egan, “Nelson Charges Stir Talk of Fusion in ’61,” NYT, February 7, 1960, E6; “Liberal Party Elects,” NYT, February 20, 1960, 44; Leo Egan, “Liberal Leaders Bypass De Sapio,” NYT, April 26, 1960, 1; “End of the Truce,” NYT, November 10, 1960, 46; “Wagner Assailed by Ryan as Reform ‘Fence Sitter,’ ” NYT, November 14, 1960, 1.

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15.  “Liberals Credited for Aid to Kennedy,” NYT, November 9, 1960, 19; “City Lead 791,333,” NYT, November 9, 1960, 1; Clayton Knowles, “Wagner Must Decide,” NYT, December 27, 1960, 17; Henry Stern, interview by the author, January 21 2008; Ed Morrison, interview by the author, May 6, 2013; Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 298; “Testimonial Luncheon . . ., ” February 18, 1961, b. 86, f. “n.d.,” Liberal Party of New York State Records, NYPL (hereafter LP Records). 16. McNickle, To Be Mayor, 148–54; Clayton Knowles, “De Sapio Suggests Coercion in Vote on Borough Chief,” NYT, February 13,1961, 1. 17.  Leo Egan, “City Campaign Begins,” NYT, January 29, 1961, E6; Peter Kihss, “Rockefeller Spurs G.O.P. on City Race,” NYT, February 13, 1961, 1; “Fusion Move Foreseen,” NYT, February 25 1961, 6; Douglas Dales, “Governor Invites Rose to a Parley,” NYT, May 13, 1961, 17; Douglas Dales, “Governor Seeks Liberal Support for City Fusion,” NYT, May 14, 1961, 1. 18. Javits, Javits, 371–72; Clayton Knowles, “Nixon Asks Javits to Run for Mayor,” NYT, May 7, 1961, 45; Leo Egan, “Javits’ Vague Words,” NYT, May 8, 1961, 42; Clayton Knowles, “Rockefeller Bids Javits Run in City,” NYT, May 8, 1961, 42; Leo Egan, “Campaign Begun to Draft Javits,” NYT, May 10, 1961, 1; Douglas Dales, “Javits Bars Mayoral Race,” NYT, May 11, 1961, 1; Leo Egan, “Lefkowitz Gains as Choice of Republicans for Mayor,” NYT, May 12, 1961, 1; Douglas Dales, “Republicans Due to Run Lefkowitz in Mayoral Race,” NYT, May 29, 1961, 1; Leo Egan, “Lefkowitz Heads City G.O.P. Slate,” NYT, June 7, 1961, 1; Clayton Knowles, “Liberals Invited,” NYT, June 27, 1961, 1. 19.  Leo Egan, “Liberal Party Plays Key Role,” NYT, May 7, 1961, E10; Leo Egan, “Top Democrats Join in Scoring Liberals,” NYT, April 28, 1961, 1. 20. Dales, “Governor Seeks Liberal Support”; Douglas Dales, “Liberals Demand Wagner Decision,” NYT, June 8, 1961, 1; Layhmond Robinson, “Hays Says That Support of Party Is Not Assured—Own Ticket ‘Possibility,’ ” NYT, June 12, 1961, 1; Leo Egan, “Wagner Will Meet Liberals Thursday on Election Plans,” NYT, June 13,1961, 31. 21.  Clayton Knowles, “De Sapio Is Silent,” NYT, June 23, 1961, 1; “No Bargain for the Mayor,” NYT, May 2, 1961, 36. 22.  Knowles, “De Sapio Is Silent”; McNickle, To Be Mayor, 159–60; Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 308. 23.  Leo Egan, “A Liberal Moves to Block Wagner,” NYT, May 4, 1961, 19; Knowles, “De Sapio Is Silent.” 24.  Clayton Knowles, “Sharkey Insists Mayor Run Stark for Council Head,” NYT, June 28, 1961, 1; Clayton Knowles, “Wagner Selected by Liberal Party, but Fight Is Due,” NYT, June 29, 1961, 1; Parmet, Master of Seventh Avenue, 287; Clayton Knowles, “Mayor Endorsed by Lehman Group; Gets Primary Aid,” NYT, July 26, 1961, 1; Leo Egan, “Levitt’s Petition Signed by 270,000, Mayor’s by 40,000,” NYT, August 8, 1961, 1. 25.  Douglas Dales, “Liberal Opposes Union Party Plan,” NYT, July 3, 1961, 32; “Freedom Party to Go on Ballot,” NYT, July 15, 1961, 12. 26.  Douglas Dales, “Brooklyn Party Endorses Levitt; Buckley Demurs,” NYT, July 6, 1961, 1; Douglas Dales, “Levitt to Oppose Wagner,” NYT, July 8, 1961, 1; Leo Egan, “Levitt Denounces Wagner for ‘Lie,’ ” NYT, August 1, 1961, 1; Richard Hunt,

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“Wagner Accuses De Sapio of Plot to Run City Hall,” NYT, August 6, 1961, 1; Douglas Dales, “Mayor Says Foes Plan to Use Bias,” NYT, September 4, 1961, 1; McNickle, To Be Mayor, 171–73. 27.  Knowles, “Mayor Endorsed by Lehman Group”; Richard Hunt, “Lefkowitz Hails La Guardia,” NYT, September 28, 1961, 36; Layhmond Robinson, “Wagner Charges G.O.P. Cheats City on State Aid,” NYT, October 2, 1961, 1; “Gerosa Presses Drive on Mayor,” NYT, November 1, 1961, 1. 28.  “Gerosa Says ‘Sinister Elements’ Are among Wagner’s Backers,” NYT, October 25, 1961, 27; “Gerosa Presses Drive on Mayor,” NYT, November 1, 1961, 1; Douglas Dales, “Gerosa Is Backed by Prendergast; Wagner Assailed,” NYT, November 2, 1961, 1. 29.  Davidson Oral History, 445; Leo Egan, “Wagner’s Predicament,” NYT, September 18, 1961, 33; Moscow, What Have You Done, 95; Emanuel Perlmutter, “Wagner, Lehman Tour Brooklyn,” NYT, October 31, 1961, 24; Edith Evans Asbury, “Lehman Attacks Lefkowitz ‘Pose,’ ” NYT, November 3, 1961, 26; Douglas Dales, “Mayor Opens Fight for Two Judgeships,” NYT, October 19, 1961, 1. 30. Leo Egan, “Liberals Back Republican for Bronx Borough Chief,” NYT, August 11, 1961, 1; Leo Egan, “New Labor Party Picks Republican,” NYT, August 17, 1961, 14; Richard Hunt, “Contest Is Close in Bronx Race for the Borough Presidency,” NYT, November 2, 1961, 32. 31. Flanagan, Robert Wagner, 50–55; “Mayor Is Backed on Charter Issue,” NYT, April 19, 1961, 79; Peter Kihss, “Ex-state Aide Calls Charter Plan ‘Dead,’ ” NYT, April 27, 1961, 1; “Mayor Confident on Charter Plan,” NYT, April 28, 1961, 25; Peter Kihss, “Witnesses Split on City Charter,” NYT, May 12, 1961, 1; Peter Kihss, “Appellate Court Upholds Wagner on Charter Plan,” NYT, May 19, 1961, 1; Peter Kihss, “3 Candidates Ask Charter Changes,” NYT, July 21, 1961, 1; Peter Kihss, “Charter Reform: Big Question for City after 25 Years without Change,” NYT, October 2, 1961, 26. 32.  Milton Bracker, “Democrats Upset in Bronx Contest,” NYT, November 8, 1961, 1; “Lefkowitz Sees ‘Vitality’ in Loss,” NYT, November 8, 1961, 24; Clayton Knowles, “Liberal Party to Reappraise Role as Independent Group in Light of Election Gains,” NYT, November 9, 1961, 25; Clayton Knowles, “Liberals [sic] Role in City,” NYT, November 12, 1961, E10. 33.  Davidson Oral History, 444; Paul Crowell, “Wagner Gives Jobs to 7 Who Helped Elect Him,” NYT, January 1, 1962, 1; Clayton Knowles, “Liberal Appointed City Marine Chief,” NYT, June 27, 1962, 1; “2 in Liberal Party Named to City Jobs,” NYT, January 13, 1962, 22; Paul Crowell, “Research Bureau Set Up by Beame,” NYT, January 15, 1962, 29; “Philip Beame Dies,” NYT, January 28, 1962, 76; Morrison, interview by the author; Stern, interview by the author; Charles Abrams to Alex Rose, November 23, 1956, b. 5, f. “Liberal Party,” Charles Abrams Papers, RMC. 34.  Warren Weaver Jr., “Mayoral Contest in Buffalo Close,” NYT, October 21, 1961, 22; “L.I. Village Elects 3,” NYT, June 11, 1961, 46; Roy Silver, “Five L.I. Liberals Indicted in Fraud,” NYT, May 2, 1961, 16; “5 Guilty in Poll Fraud,” NYT, June 8, 1961, 26; “Nomination of 40 in Putnam Voided,” NYT, October 22, 1961, 56; “2 Parties Divide Putnam Election,” NYT, November 12, 1961, 61; “Housewife Denied Plea to Quit Race,” NYT, October 6, 1961, 18; “Reluctant Nominee Backed,” NYT, November 6, 1961, 28.

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35.  Warren Weaver, “Governor Outlines Plans for New Social Benefits,” NYT, January 4, 1962, 1; Leo Egan, “Rockefeller’s Motives,” NYT, January 4, 1962, 19; “Rockefeller Wins Liberals’ Praise,” NYT, January 9, 1962, 19; “Liberals Decline to Aid Rockefeller,” NYT, June 25, 1962, 1. 36.  “Prendergast Accuses Liberals as Wreckers,” NYT, May 1, 1962, 30; “Wagner Is Accused of Ruling by Fear,” NYT, June 17, 1962, 35; Richard Hunt, “Democrats Get Liberal Support,” NYT, September 20, 1962, 1; “The ‘Liberal’ Convention,” NYT, September 21, 1962, 28; Bigger, Negotiator; Davidson Oral History, 752–53. 37.  Ira Henry Freeman, “Along the Trail with Rockefeller,” NYT, September 30, 1962, SM12; Smith, On His Own Terms, 356–57, 378–84; Leo Egan, “Morgenthau Says Rockefeller Helps G.O.P. Leaders to ‘Rig’ District Lines,” NYT, October 4, 1962, 33; Bigger, Negotiator, 122–27; Richard Hunt, “Donovan Clarifies Stand after N.A.A.C.P. Attack,” NYT, October 31,1962, 25. 38.  Alan Otten, “Rise of the Right,” Wall Street Journal, February 12, 1962, 1; Peter Kihss, “State Party Is Set by Conservatives,” NYT, February 14, 1962, 20; Peter Kihss, “New State Party Lists Principles,” NYT, February 16, 1962, 17; Robert Novak, “Conservatives’ Gamble,” Wall Street Journal, November 2, 1962, 10; J. Daniel Mahoney, letter to the editor, Wall Street Journal, November 6, 1962, 14. On the Conservative Party from its origins through the 1962 election, see Marlin, Fighting the Good Fight, 8–65; Sullivan, New York State, 9–30. 39.  “Liberal Support Shifted to Ryan,” NYT, June 26, 1962, 22; Peter Kihss, “Liberals Vying with Democrats,” NYT, June 28, 1962, 35; “Democrat Asks City Voters to ‘Crush’ Liberal Party,” NYT, July 3, 1962, 11. 40.  Richard Hunt, “Democrats Get Liberal Support,” NYT, September 20, 1962, 1; “Timothy Costello, 87, Educator and Deputy Mayor,” NYT, October 23, 2003. 41.  Leo Egan, “Lefkowitz Victor,” NYT, November 7, 1962, 1; Clayton Knowles, “Javits Leads G.O.P. Slate; Plurality Nearly a Million,” NYT, November 7, 1962, 1; Smith, On His Own Terms, 384; Marlin, Fighting the Good Fight, 67–71. 42. Parmet, Master of Seventh Avenue, 299–310; “Powell Planning Garment Inquiry,” NYT, July 8, 1962, 66; “Powell Sets Open Hearings on Garment Industry Friday,” NYT, August 8, 1962, 20; Richard Hunt, “Liberal Attacks Garment Inquiry,” NYT, August 11, 1962, 42; “Zelenko Assailed on Garment Inquiry,” NYT, August 14, 1962, 25; Stanley Levy, “Race Bias Denied in Garment Union,” NYT, August 18, 1962, 17; Stanley Levey, “Negro Defends I.L.G.W.U. on Bias,” NYT, August 23, 1962, 30; Stanley Levey, “Garment Inquiry Called Political,” NYT, September 4, 1962, 31; Warren Weaver Jr., “Dubinsky Gibes at House Panel with Colorful Replies on Stand,” NYT, September 22, 1962, 11. 43.  Layhmond Robinson, “Liberals to Seek Seats in Council,” NYT, June 20, 1963, 40; Richard Hunt, “Campaign Goes On for Disputed Seats,” NYT, August 9, 1963, 1; Paul Crowell, “Court Rules Out ‘At Large’ Raves for City Council,” NYT, August 9, 1963, 1; Peter Kihss, “O’Dwyer Asks Help for Minor Parties in Council Contests,” NYT, November 11, 1963, 1. 44.  Robinson, “Liberals to Seek Seats”; Leonard Ingalls, “4-Way Bronx Council Race Stirs Little Interest,” NYT, October 27, 1963, 86; Peter Kihss, “Two Negroes Testing Racial Issue in Fight for Seats on Council,” NYT, July 22, 1963, 44.

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45.  “Liberals Designate Basel for Council,” NYT, June 25, 1963, 67; Sanka Knox, “ ‘Village’ to Open Art Show Inquiry,” NYT, September 19, 1963, 21; “Ban on Confederate Flags Asked by Council Candidate,” NYT, July 27, 1963, 10; Clayton Knowles, “Mayor Asks Fair to Cut Pupil Fees,” NYT, October 3, 1963, 1; Charles Bennett, “Council to Press Fair on Pupil Fee,” NYT, October 4, 1963, 1; Leonard Buder, “Cut Rate at Fair Backed by Gross,” NYT, October 5, 1963, 1; “Council Weighs Cut Rate for Fair,” NYT, October 9, 1963, 42; Charles Bennett, “Moses Rejects Council Parley on 25c fee for Pupils at Fair,” NYT, October 10, 1963, 1; “Basel Asks Action on Fair’s Finances,” NYT, October 18, 1963, 16; Richard Hunt, “Liberal Party Testing Governor in Council Race,” NYT, October 25, 1963, 19; Clayton Knowles, “Labor Groups Back Aldrich for Council,” NYT, October 23, 1963, 1; Layhmond Robinson, “Liberals Appeal to Dissident Vote,” NYT, October 4, 1963, 23. 46.  Robinson, “Liberals Appeal to Dissident Vote”; “The City Council,” NYT, October 30, 1963, 38; Clayton Knowles, “Blaikie Supports Basel’s Election,” NYT, October 31, 1963, 22; “Communist Weekly Backs 4 in City Council Races,” NYT, September 24, 1963, 23; “Liberals and Socialists Reject Communist Support,” NYT, September 25, 1963, 29; James McCaffrey, “Apathy Marks At-Large Campaign in Brooklyn,” NYT, October 26, 1963, 12; Ingalls, “4-Way Bronx Council Race”; Layhmond Robinson, “Conservative-G.O.P. Alliance Hopes for Queens Upset,” NYT, October 29, 1963, 25; “Complete Results of the Election in City, Suburbs, State and New Jersey,” NYT, November 7, 1963, 28; Kihss, “O’Dwyer Asks Help.” 47.  Davidson Oral History, 462–65; “Action Is Urged on Breezy Point,” NYT, July 7, 1963, 37; Clayton Knowles, “2,000 at City Hall Protest Park Plan for Breezy Point,” NYT, July 23, 1963, 1; “Breezy Point Park Approval Is Urged by Liberal Party,” NYT, September 11, 1963, 40; Clayton Knowles, “He Must Choose Now between City Hall and Washington,” NYT, January 2, 1964, 1; Clayton Knowles, “Mapping Cleared at Breezy Point,” NYT, December 17, 1965, 21. 48.  Davidson Oral History, 519; Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 302–3; Clayton Knowles, “Power of the Liberals,” NYT, October 16, 1964, 22; Morrison, interview by the author; “Liberal Party Gives Johnson Its Support,” NYT, February 15, 1964, 8; Clayton Knowles, “Johnson to Speak at Liberal Rally in Garden Oct. 15,” NYT, June 5, 1964, 1. 49.  Clayton Knowles, “Liberals Attack Religious Issue of Catholic on Johnson Ticket,” NYT, January 23, 1964, 19; “The Choice of Humphrey, Step by Step,” NYT, August 27, 1964, 1. 50.  Pearl Firestone to Gentlemen, September 2, 1964, and Ben Davidson to Firestone, October 26, 1964, both in b. 59, f. “1964,” LP Records; “ADA Voting Records,” Americans for Democratic Action, accessed June 18, 2017, http://www.adaction. org/pages/publications/voting-records.php. 51.  Clayton Knowles, “Harriman Urged for Senate Race,” NYT, January 10, 1964, 1; Clayton Knowles, “Akers Plans Race for Seat in Senate,” NYT, April 14, 1964, 1; Thomas Ronan, “Liberals Pledge Aid to Stevenson,” NYT, April 17, 1964, 32; Thomas Ronan, “Liberals Caution on Senate Choice,” NYT, May 7, 1964, 22; Thomas Ronan, “Stratton Opposes Campaign Delay,” NYT, May 8, 1964, 42; Clayton Knowles, “Kennedy Race Welcomed by Liberals and Wagner,” NYT, May 15, 1964, 1; Clayton Knowles, “Kennedy Says Resident of State Would Be Preferable for Senate,”

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NYT, May 20, 1964, 57; Clayton Knowles, “Wagner Will Ask Political Treaty,” NYT, May 25, 1964, 37; Clayton Knowles, “Wagner Confers with Liberals as Kennedy Ponders Decision,” NYT, June 12, 1964, 21; Thomas Ronan, “Senate Race Open in the State Now,” NYT, June 24, 1964, 14; Thomas Ronan, “Liberals Dispute Stratton on Aid,” NYT, July 26, 1964, 39. 52. Taylor, Knocking at Our Own Door, 116–75; Robert Doty, “Negroes’ Allies Demur on Tactics,” NYT, February 8, 1964, 11; Peter Kihss, “Wide Opposition Is Found to Pupil Transfers Here,” NYT, March 12, 1964, 1; Ben Davidson to Whitney Young, March 24, 1964, b. 59, f. “Civil Rights,” LP Records; Louis Merrell and Davidson to Nelson Rockefeller, May 25, 1964, b. 60, f. “R 1964,” LP Records; “Education’s Stake in Politics,” pamphlet, n.d., and Davidson to Lloyd Garrison, September 4, 1964, both in b. 59, f. “Board of Education,” LP Records; “Compulsory Busing Opposed by Keating,” NYT, September 6, 1964, 1; Davidson to Robert Kennedy, September 10, 1964, b. 59, f. “K 1964,” LP Records. 53.  Gerald Coleman and Ben Davidson to Councilman Ross, April 29, 1964, b. 60, f. “R 1964”; statement, n.d., b. 61, f. “1964 (Unsorted)”; statement, May 26, 1964, b. 59, f. “Central Harlem Liberal Party Club-1964”; Davidson to Ed Morrison and Paul Greenberg, August 25, 1964, b. 60, f. “1964—Memoranda,” all in LP Records; Thomas Buckley, “Murphy Studying Changes in Method of Dealing with Accusations of Police Brutality,” NYT, May 22, 1964, 36; Charles Bennett, “Police Decry Bill for Review Panel,” NYT, June 17, 1964, 1. On the Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant riots and their political repercussions, see Flamm, In the Heat of the Summer, and, for Farmer’s role, 91–92, 101–2, 105, 107–8, 111–14, 132, 180, 243. 54. “We Do Not Apologize,” clipping, n.d.; Eli Diamond to Ben Davidson, August 7, 1964; Robert Cunningham to Robert Kennedy, September 16, 1964, all in b. 61, f. “Monroe 1964,” LP Records. 55.  Knowles, “Kennedy Race Welcomed”; R. W. Apple Jr., “Mayor Considering Delay in Endorsing Kennedy for Senate,” NYT, August 13, 1964, 1; R. W. Apple Jr., “How Kennedy Did It: 27 Days of Hard Politicking,” NYT, August 26, 1964, 1; Davidson Oral History, 524. On Kennedy’s campaign, also see Tye, Bobby Kennedy, 321–41. 56.  R. W. Apple Jr., “Liberal Leaders Endorse Kennedy,” NYT, August 19, 1964, 1; Ronald Sullivan, “Kennedy Named by Liberal Party,” NYT, September 2, 1964, 1; Robert Kennedy to Timothy Costello, November 6, 1964, b. 59, f. “1964 Campaign Committee,” LP Records. 57.  Ben Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs and County Organizations, October 23, 1964, b. 59, f. “Club Chairmen, Exec Dir Etc, 1964”; “Trade Union Council Leaflets,” July 1964, b. 87, f. “1964 Campaign—Leaflet Distribution”; Pomarlen and Zimmerman circular, July 16, 1964, b. 87, f. “1964-Campaign Correspondence”; Joseph Pomarlen to Alex Rose, June 24, 1964, and Leon Davis to Ben Davidson, July 21, 1964, both in b. 87, f. “Drug & Hospital Empl. Union-Local 1199”; Pomarlen to Moe Foner, September 22, 1964, b. 87, f. “Action Committee-1964”; Davidson to John Nolan and Justin Feldman, September 20, 1964, b. 59, f. “1964 Campaign Committee,” all in LP Records; Davidson Oral History, 525–26. 58.  Thomas Ronan, “Liberals Mapping Ardent Campaign,” NYT, September 13, 1964, 57; Homer Bigart, “Candidates Deny Split: Humphrey Joins Kennedy Here to Help in Campaign for Senate,” NYT, September 25, 1964, 1; E. W. Kenworthy,

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“Humphrey Calls Rivals Negative,” NYT, September 25, 1964, 28; Ben Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs and County Organizations, September 28, 1964, b. 59, f. “Club Chairmen, Exec Dir Etc, 1964,” LP Records; “Text Prepared by Senator Hubert Humphrey to New York Liberal Party,” September 24, 1964, b. 61, f. “1964 (Unsorted),” LP Records. 59.  “Costello Is Re-elected Head of Liberal Party in State,” NYT, June 13, 1964, 26; Bigart, “Candidates Deny Split”; Warren Weaver, “Kennedy Candidacy Stirs Wide Interest,” NYT, August 16, 1964, E10; Schmitt, President of the Other America, 105; Neil Sheehan, “Keating Reported Gaining Ground among Democratic and Liberal Jews,” NYT, October 3, 1964, 15; Firestone to Gentlemen, September 2, 1964. 60.  R. W. Apple Jr., “Kennedy Edge 6–5,” NYT, November 4, 1964, 1; Ronald Sullivan, “Liberal Party Stunned as Vote Declines 100,000 below 1960,” NYT, November 4, 1964, 33; Ben Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs and County Organizations, November 10, 1964, b. 59, f. “Club Chairmen, Exec Dir Etc, 1964,” LP Records; “Scattered Upsets Mark Elections in 41 Suburban Communities,” NYT, March 18, 1964, 37; Marlin, Fighting the Good Fight, 88. 61.  Max Horowitz to Ben Davidson, n.d., and Davidson to Joseph Stamberg, August 8, 1950, both in b. 9, f. “1950-Bronx County ADs,” LP Records; Flournoy, “Liberal Party,” 229; Lederhendler, New York Jews; Eldon Clingan, interview by the author, August 7, 2013. 8. Liberal Victory and Liberalism in Turmoil

  1.  Ellwood, “Relationship,” 43–45; Feigert, “Hierarchical Component,” 58–62, 71–72, 91, 93.  2. Freeman, Working Class New York, 143–76.   3.  Eldon Clingan, interview by the author, August 7, 2013; Feigert, “Hierarchical Component,” 80–82, 96.   4.  Ellwood, “Relationship,” 40, 43–47, 51–53, 60–65; Feigert, “Hierarchical Component,” 58–62, 80–82, 116–27, 134; Ed Morrison, interview by the author, May 6, 2013.   5.  Graham, “Liberalism after the Sixties”; Staub, Torn at the Roots, 76–152; Rieder, Canarsie, 6, 20–23, 51, 53, 141–54; Zeitz, White Ethnic New York, 146–47.  6. McNickle, To Be Mayor, 194–95; Cannato, Ungovernable City, 27–33; Roberts, “City in Crisis,” 12–16; Morrison, interview by the author.   7.  Ben Davidson Oral History, 546, 551–56, OHAC; Donald Harrington Oral History, 128–29, OHAC; Morrison, interview by the author; Moscow, What Have You Done, 66; McNickle, To Be Mayor, 187–88, 198–99, 202.  8. Cannato, Ungovernable City, 1–18; Kabaservice, “On Principle.”  9. Cannato, Ungovernable City, 48–49. According to Oliver Pilat, after Wagner withdrew, Pilat met with Rose and Harry Uviller, and Price met with Ben Davidson. Pilat, Lindsay’s Campaign, 40–41, 62–70. 10.  Harrington Oral History, 128–29; Morrison, interview by the author; Davidson Oral History, 194–95; Pilat, Lindsay’s Campaign, 82–85, 91; Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 309. 11.  Davidson Oral History, 547–49; Pilat, Lindsay’s Campaign, 100; Antonini open letter, June 28, 1965; Sidney Zion, “Liberals’ Vigor in Taking Sides Cheers ­Delegates,”

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New York Times (hereafter NYT), June 29, 1965; Mary McGrory, “Dubinsky Still Wows ’Em,” Newark Evening News, June 29, 1965, clippings, all in b. 3, f. 3, Local 155 Records, 5780/054, ILGWU Records, KC (hereafter Local 155 Records). 12. Pilat, Lindsay’s Campaign, 138; McNickle, To Be Mayor, 200–201; Cannato, Ungovernable City, 49. 13. Cannato, Ungovernable City, 47–48; McNickle, To Be Mayor, 204–5. 14. Sullivan, New York State, 56–62; McNickle, To Be Mayor, 197; Marlin, Fighting the Good Fight, 97–110; Buckley, Unmaking of a Mayor, 9–27, 132–35, 178; Cannato, Ungovernable City, 57. 15.  Press release, October 13, 1965, Local 155 Records. 16.  Clingan, interview by the author; Alex Rose Daybook, September 19, 24, 26, October 23, 1965, LGA (hereafter Rose Daybook); David Dubinsky to L. Fogelman, November 4, 1965, b. 430, f. 2, Dubinsky Presidential Records, 5780/002, ILGWU Records, KC (hereafter Dubinsky Records). 17. McNickle, To Be Mayor, 206; Cannato, Ungovernable City, 52, 63–65; Henry Stern, interview by the author, January 21, 2008. 18.  David Dubinsky to “Mr. President,” June 29, 1965, b. 441, f. 8, Dubinsky Records; Rose Daybook, September 17, 1965; McNickle, To Be Mayor, 206–7; Cannato, Ungovernable City, 66. 19. Pilat, Lindsay’s Campaign, 172–73, 210–11; Rose Daybook, September 16, 1965; Peter Kihss, “Roosevelt Is Planning to Spend $600,000 in Race for Governor,” NYT, September 16, 1966, clipping, b. 441, f. 2, Dubinsky Records; McNickle, To Be Mayor, 207–8; Cannato, Ungovernable City, 69–70; Feigert, “Hierarchical Component,” 23. 20. Rose Daybook, January 8, November 11, November 12, November 27, November 28, 1965; Morrison, interview by the author; Harrington Oral History, 44; Hentoff, Political Life, 95, 152–53. 21. Rose Daybook, November 7, November 8, November 20, November 21, November 23, November 26, December 20, December 22, December 24, 1965, and January 24, 1966; Ralph Blumenthal, “Hoving Planning Park Food Kiosks,” NYT, February 10, 1966, 39. 22.  Davidson Oral History, 569–71; Rose Daybook, December 17, December 18, December 22, December 24, December 27, 1965, and January 18, January 26, 1966; “Statement of Liberal Party,” August 9, 1966, b. 441, f. 8, Dubinsky Records; Cannato, Ungovernable City, 192–93. 23.  Harrington Oral History, 134; Rose Daybook, November 20, November 23, December 1, December 2, December 4, 1965, and January 8, January 9, and January 10, 1966; George Douris, “Liberals Support Lindsay’s Sanitation Strike Action,” Long Island Press, February 25, 1968, b. 15, f. 2, Gus Tyler Papers, 5780/088, ILGWU Records, KC (hereafter Tyler Papers). 24.  Feigert, “Hierarchical Component,” 17–18, 27; Watts, “Liberal Party,” 74–77, 98–99; Davidson Oral History, 769–70, 780–86, 793–95; Frank Lynn, “Declining a Second Line,” NYT, October 10, 1976, sec. 21, 2; Jules Aisoff to Ben Davidson, February 15, 1965, and November 15, 1965, b. 62, f. “Jules Aisoff (1965)”; Davidson to Raymond Greiner, August 18, 1965, b. 63, f. “Raymond Greiner (1965)”; Dan Klimowicz to Davidson, January 18, 1971, b. 75, f. “Erie 1971”; Joe Franczyk to Alex Rose, July 5, 1971, b. 75, f. “Erie 1971”; “Mrs. Drescher Seeks Backing for Executive,” unidenti-

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fied clipping, July 1, 1971, b. 75, f. “Erie 1971,” all in Liberal Party of New York State Records, NYPL (hereafter LP Records); Henry Prastein to Gus Tyler, June 16, 1971, b. 19, f. 7, Tyler Papers; Constance Cook to Richard Korf, May 4, 1972, b. 2, Tompkins County Liberal Party Records, RMC. 25.  Ben Davidson to James Peck and Angelo Cordaro, February 18, 1965, b. 62, f. “Miscellaneous 1965,” LP Records; Eli Diamond to Davidson, January 31, 1965, and February 6, 1965; Davidson to Diamond, February 5, 1965, and February 9, 1965, all in b. 62, f. “Eli Diamond,” LP Records; Cordaro to Davidson, October 24, 1965, and Davidson to Cordaro, December 31, 1965, both in b. 62, f. “Angelo Cordaro (1965),” LP Records. 26.  Ben Davidson to Angelo Cordaro, June 28, 1965, and September 22, 1965, both in b. 62, f. “Angelo Cordaro (1965),” LP Records. 27.  Harrington Oral History, 1–18, 26, 31, 39–40, 56, 80–82; Jerry Talmer, “Behind the FDR Jr. Campaign: Alex Rose of the Liberal Party,” part 5, New York Post (hereafter Post), October 28, 1966, clipping, b. 36, f. 6b, Stulberg Correspondence, 5780/004, ILGWU Records, KC; Sam Roberts, “Donald S. Harrington, 91, Liberal Crusader,” NYT, September 20, 2005, A26; Clingan, interview by the author. 28. Parmet, Master of Seventh Avenue, 296, 319–28; David Wells, interview by the author, April 1, 2009; Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 311; Don Ross, “Will ILGWU’s Stulberg Be a Tiger?,” New York World Journal Tribune (hereafter World Journal Tribune), September 25, 1966, clipping, b. 36, f. 6a, and James Wechsler, “A Private Drama,” Post, January 2, 1968, clipping, b. 34, f. 1a, both in Stulberg Correspondence. 29. Smith, On His Own Terms, 71, 473, 480–81; Charles Dumas, “No Details: Just Take Your Pick of Polls,” unidentified clipping, n.d., b. 354, f. “Gubernatorial Campaign Misc.—Research Correspondence,” and Howard Sigmand, “Roosevelt Jr. Makes Like a Candidate,” New York Herald-Tribune (hereafter Herald-Tribune), February 15, 1966, clipping, b. 237, f. “FDR (Gov),” both in Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. Papers, FDRPL (hereafter FDR Jr. Papers). 30.  Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 311; David Dubinsky to Moe Falikman, October 17, 1966, b. 13, f. 1, Local 10, Manager’s Correspondence, 5780/11, ILGWU Records, KC; Morrison, interview by the author; Terence Smith, “Liberals Decide to Bar O’Connor as Their Nominee,” NYT, August 10, 1966, 1; Terence Smith, “A Liberal Candidate,” NYT, August 18, 1966, 24. 31.  Terence Smith, “Liberals Charge O’Connor Raises Religious Issue,” NYT, August 19, 1966, clipping, b. 287, f. “Liberal Party,” FDR Jr. Papers; Pete Hamill, “The Irishman,” Post, October 15, 1966, clipping, b. 36, f. 6b, Stulberg Correspondence; Clingan, interview by the author. 32.  Smith, “Liberals Decide to Bar O’Connor”; James Wechsler, “Roosevelt: The Backstage Story,” Post, September 5, 1966, clipping, b. 36, f. 6a, and Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, “Alex Rose—Burden of N.Y. Democrats,” unidentified clipping, n.d., b. 36, f. 6b, both in Stulberg Correspondence; Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. to Edward Gold, July 28, 1966, b. 199, f. “Campaign (Gubernatorial 1966),” FDR Jr. Papers; Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 314–15; Davidson Oral History, 617–18. 33. Smith, On His Own Terms, 216n, 268–70, 283, 471–82; Dubinsky and Raskin, David Dubinsky, 311–12; David Dubinsky, “Text of Remarks at Liberal Party Annual Dinner,” October 13, 1966, b. 441, f. 8, Dubinsky Records; Harrington Oral History,

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103–5; Clingan, interview by the author; Murray Kempton, “Can Rockefeller Win,” New York World-Telegram, March 30, 1966, transcription, b. 260, f. “Gubernatorial Campaign Org,” FDR Jr. Papers. 34.  Davidson Oral History, 612. 35. Edward Katcher, “Liberal Party Panel Set to Urge Separate Slate,” Post, August 20, 1966, clipping, and “Notes on Liberal Party Press Conference—August 22, 1966–9:00 PM,” both in b. 287, f. “Liberal Party,” FDR Jr. Papers; Terence Smith, “Liberals, in Poll, Favor Own Entry in Governor Race,” NYT, August 20, 1966, 1; “Statement by the Liberal Party on the Gubernatorial Race,” August 22, 1966, and Ben Davidson, circular to county and club organizations, August 23, 1966, both in b. 441, f. 8, Dubinsky Records; Smith, “Liberal Candidate”; Jeremy Campbell, “FDR Jr. Yearns to be Governor,” New York World-Telegram and The Sun, January 25, 1966, clipping, b. 237, f. “FDR (Gov),” FDR Jr. Papers; “Politics in His Blood: Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr.,” NYT, September 8, 1966, 52; Michael Levitan, “The Rise, Fall and . . . of FDR, Jr.,” NYT Magazine, October 23, 1966, 49, 59–62. 36.  Peter Kihss, “Liberals Divided on State Nominee,” NYT, September 1, 1966, 1; Kenneth Gross, “Liberals to Quiz FDR Jr.,” Post, September 2, 1966; Jerry Talmer, “Behind the FDR Jr. Campaign: Alex Rose of the Liberal Party,” parts 1, 2, 4, Post, October 24, 25, 27, 1966, clippings, b. 36, f. 6b, Stulberg Correspondence; Lee Burton, “Marriage of Convenience,” Wall Street Journal, October 3, 1966, clipping, b. 441, f. 2, Dubinsky Records; Davidson Oral History, 610–11; James Wechsler, “Roosevelt: The Backstage Story,” Post, September 5, 1966, clipping, b. 36, f. 6a, Stulberg Correspondence. 37.  “Notes on Liberal Party Press Conference”; Katcher, “Liberal Party Panel”; Al Feller and Sylvia Weintraub to “Dear Brother,” October 25, 1966, and Adolf A. Berle Jr. to Donald Harrington, September 7, 1966, both in b. 441, f. 8, Dubinsky Records; Frank Lynn, “Lib Struggle Leaves FDR Jr. in Doubt,” Newsday, September 1, 1966; Peter Kihss, “Roosevelt Agrees to Run for Governor as Liberal,” NYT, September 8, 1966, 1; Louis Nelson, “Liberal Party at Crossroads,” Knitgood Workers Voice, October 1966; “Queens Liberals Split for O’Connor,” Long Island Press, October 19, 1966; Clayton Knowles, “Liberals Urged to Rebuild Party,” NYT, November 7, 1966; Talmer, “Behind the FDR Jr. Campaign,” parts 1 and 4, clippings, all in b. 36, f. 6a, Stulberg Correspondence. 38.  Murray Kempton, “Candle in the Window,” Post, August 31, 1966, and Murray Kempton, “The King in Exile,” Post, October 12, 1966, clippings, both in b. 36, f. 6b; Pete Hamill, “The Irishman,” Post, October 15, 1966, clipping, b. 36, f. 6a, all in Stulberg Correspondence. 39.  Terence Smith, “Roosevelt Wins Liberals’ Praise,” NYT, August 27, 1966, 26; Talmer, “Behind the FDR Jr. Campaign,” part 4; Levitan, “Rise, Fall,” 49; James Wechsler, “Dissenting Vote for Roosevelt,” Post, undated clipping, b. 36, f. 6b, Stulberg Correspondence; James Wechsler, “The Road Back,” Post, September 6, 1966, clipping, b. 441, f. 2, Dubinsky Records. 40.  Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, “The Liberal Party’s Roosevelt Ploy,” World Journal Tribune, September 12, 1966, clipping, and handwritten note from general executive board meeting, both in b. 36, f. 6a, Stulberg Correspondence; Martin McLaughlin and Richard Henry, “Libs Pick Negro for Att’y General,” Daily News, September 9, 1966; Edward Katcher, “FDR Jr. Hits Rivals on ‘Bosses,’ ” Post, Septem-

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ber 9, 1966; Peter Kihss, “Roosevelt Named by Liberal Party,” NYT, September 9, 1966, clippings, all in b. 441, f. 2, Dubinsky Records. 41.  Murray Kempton, “A Very Old Theater,” Post, September 10, 1966, clipping, b. 441, f. 2, Dubinsky Records; Katcher, “FDR Jr. Hits Rivals.” 42.  McLaughlin and Henry, “Libs Pick Negro”; Peter Kihss, “Union Will Limit Aid to Roosevelt,” NYT, September 13, 1966, 1. 43.  “Liberals Tap Roosevelt, but Some Leaders Vote No,” Rochester Times Union, September 8, 1966, clipping, b. 36, f. 6b, Stulberg Correspondence; “Four Contenders Waiting for RFK to Say ‘It’s You,’ ” Binghamton Evening Press, August 11, 1966; “Roosevelt Sees Himself Ahead of O’Connor,” September 26, 1966, clipping (identified as “White Plains”); “FDR Promises N.Y. New Deal,” Buffalo Evening News, October 5, 1966; clipping from Long Island Press, October 8, 1966, clippings, all in b. 354, f. “Gubernatorial Campaign Misc.—Research Correspondence,” FDR Jr. Papers; Kihss, “Roosevelt Named by Liberal Party.” 44. Emmet O’Brien, “Rockefeller, O’Connor Differ on Many Points,” Times Union, September 20, 1966; “Rocky Opposes Proposal to Limit Campaign Spending,” unidentified clipping, n.d.; Dale English, “Lottery Proposal Raises Questions,” Buffalo Courier-Express, October 4, 1966; Edmund Lambeth, “O’Connor for Civilian Panel,” Times Union, October 5, 1966, clippings, all in b. 354, f. “Gubernatorial Campaign Misc.—Research Correspondence,” FDR Jr. Papers; “Frank O’Connor’s ‘Liberal? Record: A New Definition of Liberalism,” Liberal Party advertisement, Post, November 3, 1966, clipping, b. 36, f. 6b, Stulberg Correspondence; Smith, On His Own Terms, 492. 45. Sullivan, New York State, 74–82; Marlin, Fighting the Good Fight, 125–28. 46. Frank Lynn, “Inside Politics,” unidentified clipping, n.d.; Jack Germond, “O’Connor Is Marking Time, but the Question Is ‘Why?,’ ” Binghamton Evening Press, September 21, 1966; “Roosevelt Name Still Has Magic,” Long Island Press, October 3, 1966; Edward Flattau, “O’Connor Lacks Personal Magic of Political Foes,” HeraldJournal, October 5, 1966; Robert Van Fleet, “Roosevelt-Rockefeller Race? Liberal Nominee Sure of It,” Middletown Record, October 7, 1966, clippings, all in b. 354, f. “Gubernatorial Campaign Misc.—Research Correspondence,” FDR Jr. Papers; Terence Smith, “The Race Still Is in the Skirmish Stage,” NYT, September 25, 1966, 193; Tom Wicker, “In the Nation: A Little Time for Losers,” NYT, November 13, 1966, E11; Richard Wilson, “Independents May Banish NY’s Democratic Remnants,” Dallas Morning News, October 20, 1966, clipping, b. 441, f. 8, Dubinsky Records; Levitan, “Rise, Fall”; Harrington Oral History, 121; Morrison, interview by the author. 47.  Davidson, circular to All Clubs and County Organizations, September 19, 1966, b. 441, f .8, Dubinsky Records; Peter Kihss, “Roosevelt Is Planning to Spend $600,000 in Race for Governor,” NYT, September 16, 1966, clipping, b. 441, f. 2, Dubinsky Records; Marlin, Fighting the Good Fight, 128; Victor Riesel, “Liberals Rocked by ‘Worst Split,’ ” World Journal Tribune, September 12, 1966, clipping, b. 36, f. 6a, Stulberg Correspondence; Paul Miller, “FDR Jr. Surprises the Experts by His Strong Showing in Early Poll,” Times Union, September 17, 1966, and Robert Van Fleet, “ ‘Spoiler’ Roosevelt Claims Million Voters Now,” Times Herald-Record (Middletown, NY), October 6, 1966, clippings, both in b. 354, f. “Gubernatorial Campaign Misc.—Research Correspondence,” FDR Jr. Papers.

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48.  Yankev Raykh, “A shmues mit Lui Stolberg,” Forward, October 4, 1966; Herman Morgenshtern, “Liberal parti shpilt kleyne, narishe politik, beys reaktsie bushevet, zogt Stolberg,” Tog-Morgn zhurnal, November 2, 1966; Paul Hoffman, “Biggest ILG Local Backs Roosevelt,” Post, October 22, 1966; Paul Hoffman, “FDR Jr. Gets Union’s 50G,” Post, October 21, 1966, clippings, all in b. 36, f. 6b, Stulberg Correspondence; Irving Astrow to Louis Stulberg, January 28, 1967, b. 36, f. 6a, Stulberg Correspondence; “2 ILGWU Locals Sit Out Election—Slap at FDR, Jr.,” Women’s Wear Daily, September 21, 1966, clipping, b. 36, f. 6a, Stulberg Correspondence; Ralph Blumenfeld and Paul Hoffman, “ILG Chief Raps FDR Jr.,” Post, September 13, 1966, clipping, b. 287, f. “Liberal Party,” FDR Jr. Papers; “Di liberal parti geshpolten iber Ruzvelt’s kandidirn far dem governor amt,” Tog-Morgn zhurnal, October 27, 1966, 1; Irving Astrow to Henoch Mendelsund, October 12, 1966; Robert Mindlin, “LI’s ILGWU Local Decides Not to Endorse Roosevelt,” unidentified clipping (Long Island Press), n.d.; Nelson, “Liberal Party at Crossroads,” reproduced on a flyer for Liberals for O’Connor; Ben Davidson to David Dubinsky, October 3, 1966, all in b. 441, f. 8, Dubinsky Records; Victor Riesel, “N.Y. Liberals Irritate LBJ,” World Journal Tribune, October 24, 1966, clipping, b. 441, f. 2, Dubinsky Records; Peter Kihss, “I.L.G.W.U. Backs 24 for Congress,” NYT, October 30 1966, 85; Dubinsky to Moe Falikman, October 17, 1966, b. 13, f. 1, Local 10, Manager’s Correspondence. 49. Walter, Harlem Fox, 202–6; Morrison, interview by the author; Richard Witkin, “Liberals Choose Republican Here,” NYT, May 12, 1966; Martin Arnold, “Lawyers Attack Klein Nomination,” NYT, May 27, 1966; Terence Smith, “Silverman to Get Liberals’ Support,” NYT, May 31, 1966; “The Silverman Coalition,” Post, June 2, 1966; James Wechsler, “Harlem Politics and RFK’s Trip,” Post, June 8, 1966; Edward O’Neill, “City Hall,” Daily News, May 30, 1966; James Wechsler, “Political Upset,” Post, May 24, 1966; Sidney Zion, “Surrogate Race Gets Kennedy ‘If,’ ” NYT, June 1, 1966; Richard Witkin, “Rose Breaks with Price over ‘Deal’ for Surrogate,” NYT, June 1, 1966, clippings, all in b. 36, f. 6b, Stulberg Correspondence. 50.  “Memo to Mr. Dubinsky on the Congressional Elections in New York State,” November 10, 1966; “To All Liberal Party Clubs and County Organizations,” November 21, 1966; Alex Rose to Hubert Humphrey, December 1, 1966, all in b. 441, f. 8, Dubinsky Records. 51.  “To All Liberal Party Clubs”; Ralph Goldberg to Donald Harrington, November 17, 1966; Naomi Boccio to Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., November 9, 1966, all in b. 441, f. 8, Dubinsky Records; Harrington Oral History, 102; Donald Harrington, “Victory in Defeat,” NYT, November 23, 1966, 10; Bernard Bard, “Liberal Party Sees a Bright Side,” Post, November 10, 1966, clipping, b. 36, f. 6b, Stulberg Correspondence. 52.  Richard Witkin, “The Liberals’ Outlook,” NYT, December 17, 1966, and “The Liberals’ Skid,” World Journal Tribune, December 18, 1966, clippings, both in b. 36, f. 6b, Stulberg Correspondence. 53.  Flamm, “ ‘Law and Order’ ”; Cannato, Ungovernable City, 155–88; Kabaservice, “On Principle,” 44–46, Taylor, “Race, Rights, Empowerment.” 54. Cannato, Ungovernable City, 165–75. 55.  “Liberal Party Recommendations on Proposition and Amendments to Be Voted On on November 8th 1966,” October 29, 1966, b. 441, f. 8, Dubinsky Records;

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Kahlenberg, Tough Liberal, 68; Sullivan, New York State, 78; Cannato, Ungovernable City, 169, 174, 179; Flamm, “ ‘Law and Order,’ ” 654, 657. 56. Cannato, Ungovernable City, 155, 163, 169, 181–84; Flamm, “ ‘Law and Order,’ ” 659–65; Rieder, Canarsie, 70, 76–77. 57. Dullea, Charter Revision, 35–71, 75, 91–93, 98–99, 101, 113–15; Wells, interview by the author; Davidson Oral History, 842–45; Marlin, Fighting the Good Fight, 125; “1966 State Legislative Program of the Liberal Party of New York,” n.d., and “State Platform (Constitutional Convention),” n.d., both in b. 287, f. “Liberal Party,” FDR Jr. Papers; Alex Benson, “Liberals in Deal with Democrats,” World Journal Tribune, September 14, 1966, b. 36, f. 6a, Stulberg Correspondence; Davidson, circular to All Clubs and County Organizations; Ben Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs and County Organizations, January 16, 1967, b. 441, f. 7, Dubinsky Records. 58. Minutes, meeting of Subcommittee on Constitutional Convention, January 23, 1967, b. 441, f. 7, Dubinsky Records; Wells, interview by the author. 59. Dullea, Charter Revision, 109–12, 217–40; Ben Davidson to Donald Harrington, David Dubinsky, Alex Rose, and Sidney Davis, June 6, 1967, and Charles Ford to Dubinsky, June 1967, both in b. 441, f. 7, Dubinsky Records. 60. Dullea, Charter Revision, 161–62, 184, 192, 215–16, 225, 234, 312; Davidson Oral History, 845–47. 61. Dullea, Charter Revision, 335, 338–39, 341; Davidson Oral History, 845–47. 62.  Kenneth Gross, “Liberals Plan Grass-Roots Drive,” Post, December 8, 1966, and Victor Riesel, “Rose Faces Fight for Liberal Rule,” World Journal Tribune, November 10, 1966, clippings, both in b. 36, f. 6b, Stulberg Correspondence; Donald Harrington to Louis Stulberg, January 22, 1967, and Charles Zimmerman to Harrington, January 17, 1967, both in b. 34, f. 1b, Stulberg Correspondence; Alex Benson, “Rose Seen Soothing Liberals,” World Journal Tribune, December 6, 1966, clipping, b. 441, f. 8; Victor Riesel, “Push Ouster of Liberal’s [sic] Alex Rose,” World Journal Tribune, December 8, 1966, clipping, b. 441, f. 2; Harrington to Policy Committee members, January 9, 1967; Ben Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs and County Organizations, January 16, 1967; Stulberg to Harrington, January 18, 1967, all in b. 441, f. 7, Dubinsky Records. 63.  “Report of the Special Planning Committee to the Liberal Party Policy Committee,” February 17, 1967, b. 441, f. 7, Dubinsky Records. 64.  Ellwood, “Relationship,” 55; Clingan, interview by the author; Morrison, interview by the author; Talmer, “Behind the FDR Jr. Campaign,” part 2. 65.  Talmer, “Behind the FDR Jr. Campaign,” part 1; Murray Kempton, “Dubinsky’s Legacy,” Post, September 15, 1966, b. 36, f. 6a, Stulberg Correspondence; Jack Newfield, “Running Scared,” Village Voice, December 8, 1966, b. 34, f. 1b, Stulberg Correspondence; Morrison, interview by the author. 66.  Ellwood, “Relationship,” 55; Stern, interview by the author. 67.  Richard Stone, “Liberal Party Swings Weight in New York despite Its Small Size,” Wall Street Journal, October 5, 1970; Clingan, interview by the author; Harrington Oral History, 48–50. 68. Morrison, interview by the author; Harrington Oral History, 31–32, 35, 37–38, 55, 272–74; Davidson Oral History, 561; Stone, “Liberal Party Swings Weight.” 69.  Stern, interview by the author; Clingan, interview by the author; Wells, interview by the author.

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70.  Riesel, “Push Ouster” ; Liberal Party expense budget, January 1 to December 31, 1967, b. 34, f. 1a, Stulberg Correspondence; Richard Witkin, “Gift Curb Sought in Liberal Party,” NYT, February 17, 1967, 13. 71.  Talmer, “Behind the FDR Jr. Campaign,” part 5. 72.  Morrison, interview by the author. 9. Wars in Vietnam and at Home

  1.  Donald Harrington, “David and Goliath in Vietnam,” April 17, 1966, b. 36, f. 6a, Stulberg Correspondence, 5780/004, ILGWU Records, KC.   2.  James Wechsler, “LBJ and Visitor,” Post, May 16, 1966, clipping, b. 36, f. 6b, Stulberg Correspondence; Victor Riesel, “Inside Labor: LBJ Angered by Defection,” Texarkana News, September 22, 1966, clipping, b. 441, f. 2, Dubinsky Presidential Records, 5780/002, ILGWU Records, KC (hereafter Dubinsky Records); Ed Morrison, interview by the author, May 6, 2013.   3.  Donald Harrington to Alex Rose, November 22, 1967, b. 70, f. “Lib. Party-Mr. Alex Rose-Correspondence re: Policy,” Donald Szantho Harrington Papers, NYPL (hereafter Harrington Papers); Eldon Clingan, interview by the author, August 7, 2013; Henry Foner, interview by the author, June 10, 2009; Morrison, interview by the author.   4.  Donald Harrington and Ben Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs and County Organizations, December 7, 1967, b. 34, f. 1a; Greater Newburgh Liberal Party, memorandum on meeting of February 14, 1968, February 16, 1968, b. 34, f. 1A, Stulberg Correspondence; Thomas Ronan, “Liberal Leaders Split on Johnson,” New York Times (hereafter NYT), November 29, 1967, 8; Clingan, interview by the author; “Resolution to the Policy Committee of the Liberal Party,” n.d., attached to Paul Siminoff to Harrington, March 13, 1968; Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs and County Organizations, April 23, 1968, all in b. 441, f. 6, Dubinsky Records; Siminoff to Paul Winslow, December 26, 1967; Winslow to Siminoff, October 10, 1968; Winslow to Gus Tyler, January 10, 1968; “Resolution on Vietnam,” n.d., all in b. 15, f. 1, Gus Tyler Papers, 5780/088, ILGWU Records, KC (hereafter Tyler Papers); James Lawrence to Harrington, January 10, 1968, b. 70, f. “Liberal Party-Vietnam Debate,” and Allen Kiefer to Harrington, April 25, 1968, b. 70, f. “Liberal Party-Correspondence 1968,” both in Harrington Papers.   5.  Ronan, “Liberal Leaders Split”; Y. Fogel, “ ‘Interneshonal’ mitglider gerufen tsu helfen aktiv arbet fun liberal parti,” Forward, January 4, 1968, and Murray Edelstein to LeRoy Bowman, January 11, 1968, both in b. 15, f. 1, Tyler Papers; Queens AD Clubs resolutions, January 30, 1968, and “Oswego County Backs LBJ,” n.d., both in b. 15, f. 2, Tyler Papers.   6.  Leo Koch to Irving Astrow, January 22, 1968; Astrow to Gus Tyler, February 6, 1968, February 25, 1968, and n.d.; Koch to Alfred Gustin, March 8, 1968, all in b. 15, f. 2, Tyler Papers; Astrow to Ben Davidson, April 20, 1968, and Astrow to David Wells, June 25, 1968, both in b. 15, f. 3, Tyler Papers; Astrow to Tyler, b. 21, f. 9, Tyler Papers; “Kochs’ Hearing Put Off by Liberal Committee,” Record, March 11, 1968, clipping, b. 15, f. 2, Tyler Papers; “Liberal Confirms Overthrow Fight,” Record, March 13, 1968, clipping, b. 15, f. 4, Tyler Papers; Astrow to Davidson, January 11,

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1968, and January 13, 1968, and Mary Koch to Policy Committee, with minutes of special meeting of the Liberal Party of Rockland County, January 9, 1968, all in b. 70, f. “Liberal Party-Vietnam Debate,” Harrington Papers.  7. Will Lissner, “State Liberals’ Leaders Urge Vietnam Cease-Fire,” NYT, June 30, 1968, 1.   8.  “Why We Liberals Are for McCarthy,” n.d., b. 15, f. 4, Tyler Papers; Paul Siminoff to State Committeemen, August 7, 1968, and Timothy Costello to Gus Tyler, April 12, 1968, both in b. 15, f. 3, Tyler Papers; “Liberal Bloc Backs McCarthy,” New York Post (hereafter Post), July 20, 1968, and “State’s Top Liberals Form Pro-McCarthy Group,” New York Daily News (hereafter Daily News), July 21, 1968, clippings attached to Costello et al. to “Dear Fellow Liberal,” July 26, 1968, b. 69, f. “Liberals for McCarthy,” Harrington Papers; petition, with Siminoff to Donald Harrington, December 17, 1967, and Harrington to Siminoff, December 27, 1967, both in b. 70, f. “Liberal Party Correspondence 1967,” Harrington Papers.   9.  “Stulberg to ILGers: Make Liberal Party Goal ‘Elect LBJ Team in ’68,’ ” Justice, January 15, 1968, 1. 10.  Ben Davidson Oral History, 534, 539–43, OHAC; Donald Harrington Oral History, 188–91, OHAC. 11.  Davidson Oral History, 540–43. Davidson reported a vote of 199 for Humphrey, with 22 abstentions, while the Times reported a vote of 199 for Humphrey, 11 against, and 11 abstentions. Ben Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs and County Organizations, September 10, 1968, b. 441, f. 6, Dubinsky Records; Clayton Knowles, “Liberal Platform Asks Bombing End,” NYT, September 5, 1968, 1. 12. Javits, Javits, 393–98; Clayton Knowles, “Liberals May Nominate Javits,” NYT, February 25, 1968, 44; notes on Liberal Party meeting, March 23, 1968, b. 15, f. 1, Tyler Papers; “Campaign 1968,” undated notes, b. 441, f. 10, Dubinsky Records. 13.  Notes on Liberal Party meeting, March 23, 1968; Paul Siminoff et al. to David Dubinsky, n.d., b. 441, f. 6, Dubinsky Records; James and Ann McNamara to Alex Rose, March 26, 1968, b. 2R578, James Farmer Papers, CAH (hereafter Farmer Papers); notes on Liberal Party Policy Committee meeting, March 28, 1968, b. 15, f. 1, Tyler Papers. 14.  Notes on Liberal Party meeting, March 23, 1968; Clayton Knowles, “Liberal Backing of Javits Opposed,” NYT, March 26, 1968, 23; Aaron Nussbaum to All Liberal Party Officers and County Chairmen, March 28, 1968, b. 441, f. 10, Dubinsky Records. 15.  Notes on Liberal Party Policy Committee meeting, March 28, 1968; Emanuel Perlmutter, “Liberal Faction to Oppose Javits,” NYT, March 31, 1968, 54. 16.  Perlmutter, “Liberal Faction to Oppose Javits”; notes on Liberal Party Policy Committee meeting, March 28, 1968; Douglas Martin, “Murray Baron, 94, Labor Lawyer and Head of Accuracy in Media,” NYT, September 26, 2002, B9; Davidson Oral History, 532, 538; Edward Katcher, “Primary Airs Liberal Party Power ‘War,’ ” Post, May 1, 1968, clipping, b. 34, f. 1a, and David Wells to Murray Baron, April 19 1968, b. 34, f. 1b, both in Stulberg Correspondence; “A Special Message to Liberal Party Voters,” advertisement, NYT, June 14, 1968, 24; Peter Kihss, “Liberal Party Nominates Javits for Senator in a Light Turnout,” NYT, June 19, 1968, 31; Moe Falikman to “Dear Sir and Brother,” June 13, 1968, b. 13, f. 1, Local 10, Manager’s Correspondence, 5780/11, ILGWU Records, KC.

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17.  Thomas Ronan, “Javits to Enter Liberal Primary,” NYT, May 12, 1968, 42; Sullivan, New York State, 89–90; Donald Harrington to “Dear Liberal,” May 1968, b. 441, f. 6, Dubinsky Records. 18.  Katcher, “Primary Airs Liberal Party Power ‘War’ ”; Kihss, “Liberal Party Nominates Javits”; Thomas Ronan, “Primary Fights Split Liberals,” NYT, April 28, 1968, 40; Saby Nehama and William Schwartz to “Dear Liberal,” n.d., b. 441, f. 6, Dubinsky Records; Edward Katcher, “Stulberg Raps Liberal Chief,” Post, May 17, 1968, clipping; Edward Katcher, “Rose Raps Stulberg, Hails GOP Choices,” Post, May 18, 1965, clipping; Edward Morrison to “Fellow Liberal,” April 5, 1968; Robert Mindlin, “Schwimmer’s Going to Get All GOP Financial Records,” unidentified clipping, n.d., all in b. 15, f. 3, Tyler Papers; Morrison to “Fellow Liberal,” May 27, 1968, b. 34, f. 1a, Stulberg Correspondence; Henry Schwartz to Isidore Levine, March 8, 1968, and Gus Tyler to Herbert Carr, July 8, 1968, both in b. 2R578, Farmer Papers; Stulberg to Harrington, April 30, 1968, and Harrington to Stulberg, May 2, 1968, both in b. 441, f. 6, Dubinsky Records. 19. Marlin, Fighting the Good Fight, 139; Sullivan, New York State, 97–99. 20.  See especially Podair, Strike That Changed New York; Ravitch, Great School Wars, 251–378; Cannato, Ungovernable City, 267–351; Taylor, “Race, Rights, Empowerment,” 63–64. 21. Podair, Strike That Changed New York, 42–47, 53; Freeman, Working Class New York, 203–4, 223; Taylor, Reds at the Blackboard, esp. 12–14, 20, 61–74; Lederhendler, New York Jews, 179–81; Ravitch, Great School Wars, 285, 317–18; Jack Schierenbeck, “Class Struggles: The UFT Story, Part 9,” United Federation of Teachers, originally published in New York Teacher, February 27, 1997, https://www.uft.org/your-union/ about-uft/our-history/class-struggles-uft-story/class-struggles-uft-story-part-9; Brier, “Ideological and Organization Origins.” 22. Ravitch, Great School Wars, 358. 23. Zeitz, White Ethnic New York, 163–66; Cannato, Ungovernable City, 328–29; Ravitch, Great School Wars, 369–72; Lederhendler, New York Jews, 178–79. 24.  Morrison, interview by the author; John Childs to Ben Davidson and Eve Davidson, December 12, 1968, attached to Davidson to Donald Harrington, Alex Rose, and David Dubinsky, December 17, 1968, b. 441, f. 6, Dubinsky Records. 25. Hentoff, Political Life, 244–61; Ravitch, Great School Wars, 373–74; Donald Harrington to Ben [Davidson], Alex [Rose], and David [Dubinsky], October 15, 1968, b. 70, f. “Liberal Party Correspondence 1968,” Harrington Papers; Morrison, interview by the author. 26.  “Statement of the Liberal Party on the Present School Crisis,” September 25, 1968, b. 441, f. 6, Dubinsky Records; Anthony Prisendorf, “Shanker Quits the Liberal Party,” Post, October 16, 1968, 3; Cannato, Ungovernable City, 340–41. 27. Podair, Strike That Changed New York, 145–46; Taylor, “Race, Rights, Empowerment,” 65; Cannato, Ungovernable City, 321, 348; Ravitch, Great School Wars, 376–77. 28.  Ben Davidson to James Farmer, July 26, 1966, b. 2R597, Farmer Papers; Val Coleman to Farmer, June 16, June 27, July 24, 1967; Davidson to Farmer, January 29, 1968; LeRoy Bowman to Farmer, March 4, 1968, all in b. 2R578, Farmer Papers. 29. Flyers, n.d., b. 2R579, Farmer Papers; “First Statement by James Farmer . . .,” March 21, 1968, and “Platform for James A. Farmer, Candidate for

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­ ongress 12th Congressional District, New York,” October 31, 1968, both in b. C 2R578, Farmer Papers; Chisolm, Unbought and Unbossed, 83. 30.  “First Statement by James Farmer . . .”; untitled draft statement, n.d., and “Campaign Debates,” transcript of WCBS debate, October 27, 1968, both in b. 2R578, Farmer Papers. 31.  “Campaign Debates”; Jimmy Booker to Simeon Golar, n.d.; Major Robinson to Booker, July 15, 1968; “Biographical Sketch,” n.d.; Bernadine to Lulu Farmer, June 16, 1968; statement, October 31, 1968, all in b. 2R578, Farmer Papers. 32.  Richard Madden, “Mrs. Chisolm Defeats Farmer, Is First Negro Woman in House,” NYT, November 6, 1968, 1. 33.  Ben Davidson to All County and Club Organizations, December 10, 1968, b. 441, f. 6, Dubinsky Records; Clayton Knowles, “Rose and Stulberg Disagree on Strength of Liberal Party,” NYT, December 15, 1968, 35; Sydney Schanberg, “Javits Assisted by Liberal Wing,” NYT, November 7, 1968, 40; Sullivan, New York State, 97–99. 34.  Jay Levin and Cy Egan, “Liberal Party Insurgents Defiant in Baron’s Defeat,” Post, June 19, 1968, clipping, b. 441, Dubinsky Records; “ILGWU to Chart Neutral Course in Political Sea,” Women’s Wear Daily, July 1, 1968, 21; Lissner, “State Liberals’ Leaders”; “Liberals Elect J.S. Shaw as Leader,” Long Island Press, clipping, July 9, 1968; David Wells to Gus Tyler, July 9, 1968; Eli Tannen to Tyler, July 9, 1968, all in b. 15, f. 3, Tyler Papers; Davidson Oral History, 576–77; Ben Davidson to Donald Harrington, July 11, 1968, b. 70, f. “Liberal Party-Ben Davidson, 1966–1967,” Harrington Papers; Shaw, I Rest My Case, 130–32; Clayton Knowles, “A Solo Campaign Seen for Wagner,” NYT, March 25, 1969, 55. 35. Y. Fogel, “Interneshonel bord hert vegn di ‘masters-agriment,” Forward, January 11, 1969, 7; “ILGWU Disaffiliates from Liberal Party,” Our Local (Local 66, ILGWU), May–June 1969, 1, b. 440, f. 10, Dubinsky Records; draft political statement for general executive board, n.d., and Reuben Lazarus to Louis Stulberg, n.d., both in b. 36, f. 5b, Stulberg Correspondence; “Selected Facts on Liberal Party Vote-1968,” n.d., b. 15, f. 4, Tyler Papers; Thomas Ronan, “I.L.G.W.U. Quits Liberal Party,” NYT, May 15, 1969, 37; Sol Lipnack et al. to “Dear Member,” May 29, 1969, b. 3, f. 2, Local 22, Education Department Records, 5780/057, ILGWU Records, KC. 36.  Ronan, “I.L.G.W.U. Quits Liberal Party”; Victor Riesel, “Inside Labor: New White House Headache,” January 15, 1968, b. 34, f. 1a, Stulberg Correspondence; Alex Rose to Pat Gorman, September 16, 1968, b. 441, f. 6, Dubinsky Records. 37. Cannato, Ungovernable City, 389–401; McNickle, To Be Mayor, 218–19. 38.  Jimmy Breslin, “The Distortion of John Lindsay,” New York, August 26, 1968, 26–29; Hentoff, Political Life, 339. 39. McNickle, To Be Mayor, 222–23; A. Lerner to David Dubinsky, December 3, 1968, b. 441, f. 6, Dubinsky Records; Leonard Littwin to Dubinsky, December 24, 1968, and Joseph Greenberg and Jacob Leschinsky to Dubinsky and Alex Rose, received April 21, 1969, both in b. 440, f. 10, Dubinsky Records; Martin Tolchin, “Lindsay Is Losing Liberal Support,” NYT, December 26, 1968, 26. 40.  Olivar Pilat to Louis Stulberg, March 21, 1969, b. 36, f. 5b, Stulberg Correspondence; Cannato, Ungovernable City, 403–8; Lizzi, “ ‘My Heart Is as Black as Yours.’ ” 41.  Tolchin, “Lindsay Is Losing Liberal Support”; untitled report, n.d., b. 15, f. 4, Tyler Papers; George Douris, “Most of the Liberals Seem Ready to Support Lindsay,”

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Long Island Press, March 23, 1969, clipping, b. 36, f. 5b, Stulberg Correspondence; Davidson Oral History, 581–82; James Wechsler, “Lindsay’s Fight: A Crucial Round,” Post, undated clipping; Judy Michaelson and Edward Katcher, “Wagner Seeing Rose on Liberals’ Support,” Post, April 15, 1969; Sidney Zion, “Wagner Took a Cue from Rose and Avoided Liberals’ Rebuff,” NYT, April 18, 1969, clippings, all in b. 15, f. 7, Tyler Papers; Martin Tolchin, “ ‘Nitty Gritty’ Alex Rose Is Influential Lindsay Advisor,” NYT, April 12, 1970, 70. 42.  Sidney Zion, “Rose Sees ‘Trend’ to Back Lindsay,” NYT, April 15, 1969; John P. Roche, “The ‘New’ Politics,” Long Island Press, May 1, 1969; Sylvan Fox, “Liberals to Meet on Future Mayor,” NYT, April 14, 1969, clippings, all in b. 15, f. 7, Tyler Papers; “Liberals’ Mastermind: Alex Rose,” NYT, April 16, 1969, 54; Edward Katcher, “Liberals Set to Pick Lindsay,” Post, April 16, 1969; Richard Reeves, “Liberals Praise Lindsay as They Open Convention,” NYT, April 16, 1969; Frank Lynn, “Liberal Party’s Charade,” Newsday, April 22, 1969, clippings, all in b. 36, f. 5b, Stulberg Correspondence. 43.  James Wechsler, “Liberal Test,” Post, n.d., clipping, b. 15, f. 7, Tyler Papers; Richard Reeves, “Liberals Praise Lindsay”; Katcher, “Liberals Set to Pick Lindsay”; Harry Schlegel, “Liberal Party, 276–36, Renominates Lindsay,” Daily News, April 17, 1969, 3; Edward Katcher, “ILG Chief Is Still for Wagner,” Post, April 17, 1969, 5; Ben Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs and County Organizations, November 11, 1969, b. 15, f. 4, Tyler Papers. 44.  Schlegel, “Liberal Party”; Tolchin, “ ‘Nitty Gritty’ Alex Rose”; Alex Rose Daybook, November 15 and November 22, 1965, LGA; Edward Katcher, “Lindsay Eyes Garelik for Fusion Ticket,” Post, March 19, 1969, clipping, b. 36, f. 5b, Stulberg Correspondence; Victor Riesel, “A Third Force,” Inside Labor newsletter, November 5, 1969, b. 440, f. 8, Dubinsky Records; “Sanford Garelik—a New Breed of Political Figure,” Civil Service Leader, November 18, 1969; Morrison, interview by the author; “Ask Liberals to Take New Vote on Garelik,” Post, May 7, 1969, clipping, b. 15, f. 7, Dubinsky Records; Thomas Ronan, “Liberals Endorse Lindsay’s Ticket,” NYT, April 19, 1969, 1. 45. McNickle, To Be Mayor, 223–30; Cannato, Ungovernable City, 401–16; Sullivan, New York State, 103–4; Marlin, Fighting the Good Fight, 155–57; Tom Wicker, “In the Nation: In New York, Who Knows?,” NYT, April 24, 1969, 46. 46.  Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs, November 11, 1969, b. 15, f. 4, Tyler Papers; Donald Harrington, “Statement of Policy,” advertisement, NYT, April 24, 1969, 12; Thomas Ronan, “Liberal Party Chiefs Dine, with Confidence of Big Victory,” NYT, October 9, 1969, 38. 47.  Tolchin, “ ‘Nitty Gritty’ Alex Rose”; Cannato, Ungovernable City, 411–12, 420– 24; McNickle, To Be Mayor, 222–23; Michael Harrington, “The Case for John Lindsay: More Pros Than Cons,” n.d., and James Wechsler, “Who, Me?,” Post, September 17, 1969, clippings, both in b. 440, f. 8, Dubinsky Records. 48.  Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs, November 11, 1969. 49.  Foner, interview by the author; Herman Morgenshtern, “Procaccino, Beame and Smith shtark aplodirt bay miting fun amalageyted yunyon,” Tog-Morgn zhurnal, October 17, 1969, clipping, b. 440, f. 8, Dubinsky Records. 50. Rieder, Canarsie, 128–30; Ronan, “Liberal Party Chiefs Dine”; John Lindsay, “The Summer of My Discontent,” New York, December 22, 1969, b. 15, f. 12, Tyler Papers; Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs, November 11, 1969; Zeitz, White Eth-

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nic New York, 176–85; Cannato, Ungovernable City, 424–26; McNickle, To Be Mayor, 222–23, 229–34; Taffet, “Snubs and the ‘Sukkah.’ ” 51.  “Why We, as Working People, Will Vote for Procaccino,” flyer, n.d., b. 440, f. 8, Dubinsky Records; Alfonso Narvaez, “Procaccino Gets Aid of Big Unions,” NYT, September 18, 1969, 1; Robert Mindlin, “6 ILGWU Locals Switch to Procaccino,” unidentified clipping, September 17, 1969, b. 15, f. 9, and “Minutes of N.Y. Managers Meeting,” n.d., b. 15, f. 4, both in Tyler Papers. 52.  “Labor Leaders Support Lindsay,” flyer, n.d., b. 441, f. 5, Dubinsky Records; Davidson Oral History, 578–79; Lindsay campaign advertisement, unidentified clipping, November 3, 1969, b. 15, f. 10, Tyler Papers. 53.  Fred Ferretti, “A Rose Is A. Rose Is a Boss,” New York, n.d., clipping, b. 15, f. 11, Tyler Papers; Davidson to All Liberal Party Clubs, November 11, 1969; David Dubinsky to Jimmy, December 11, 1969, b. 440, f. 8, Dubinsky Records. 54.  “Epitome of Fusion,” editorial, NYT, November 6, 1969, 46; Fern Marja Eckman, “Alex Rose Talks about the ‘Creative Campaign,’ ” Post, November 6, 1969, clipping, b. 15, f. 4, Tyler Papers; Ferretti, “Rose Is A. Rose.” 55.  Tulchin, “ ‘Nitty Gritty’ Alex Rose.” 56.  Morrison, interview by the author. 57.  Morrison, interview by the author. 58.  Harrington Oral History, 44; Morrison, interview by the author. 59.  Clingan, interview by the author; Morrison, interview by the author; “Liberal Is Minority Leader of Council,” NYT, November 18, 1969, 36. 60.  Clingan, interview by the author; Morrison, interview by the author. 61.  Clingan, interview by the author. 62.  Morrison, interview by the author; Clingan, interview by the author; “Liberal Is Minority Leader”; Edward Morrison to “Dear Officer,” December 4, 1970; Kenneth Haber to Eldon Clingan, August 21, 1970; Alvin Frankenberg to Clingan, August 12, 1970, attached to Ben Davidson to Donald Harrington, August 25, 1970, all in b. 69, f. “Liberal Party Correspondence, 1970,” Harrington Papers. 63.  Clingan, interview by the author. 64.  “Every Boss Has His Day,” NYT, April 14, 1969, 48; Pete Hamill, “The Liberals,” Post, April 6, 1970, clipping, b. 440, f. 7, Dubinsky Records; Ferretti, “Rose Is A. Rose”; Jack Newfield, “The Liberal Party Today: Alex in Wonderland,” Village Voice, July 16, 1970, clipping, b. 15, f. 5, Tyler Papers. 65. Hamill, “Liberals”; Phil Tracy, “The Insipid Insurgents of the Patronage Party,” Village Voice, April 6, 1972, clipping, b. 34, f. 1a, Stulberg Correspondence; Ferretti, “Rose Is A. Rose”; Newfield, “Liberal Party Today.” 66. Hamill, “Liberals”; Ferretti, “Rose Is A. Rose”; Newfield, “Liberal Party Today”; Pete Hamill, “Morgenthau and the Bosses,” Post, April 1, 1970, 49. 67.  “How ‘Liberal’ a Party?,” editorial, NYT, April 6, 1970, 38; Newfield, “Liberal Party Today.” 68.  Ferretti, “Rose Is A. Rose”; Donald Harrington, letter to the editor, NYT, April 10, 1970, 34. 69. Rossinow, Visions of Progress, 252; Hall, “On the Tail of the Panther”; Miroff, Liberals’ Moment, 23–24; Frank Lynn, “Liberal Reform Group Likely to Back Walinsky

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Candidacy,” NYT, July 23, 1970, 28; “Notes on Siminoff-Clingan Opposition,” n.d., b. 69, f. “Ben Davidson Correspondence, 1970,” Harrington Papers. 70.  Richard Reeves, “Liberals Accuse Rose of a ‘Purge,’ ” NYT, February 12, 1970, 33; Sondra Albert and Arthur Brook to “Dear Friend,” n.d., and attached flyer, b. 15, f. 4, Tyler Papers; Donald Harrington to All State Committeemen, All Liberal Party Clubs and County Organizations, March 5, 1970, b. 441, f. 5, Dubinsky Records; Clingan, interview by the author. 71.  Lynn, “Liberal Reform Group”; “Dear State Committee Member,” n.d.; Ben Davidson to Liberal Party Clubs and County Organizations, July 7, 1970; Davidson to David Dubinsky, July 13, 1970, all in b. 441, f. 5, Dubinsky Records. 72. Harrington Oral History, 34–35; Morrison, interview by the author; Clingan, interview by the author; Davidson to “Dear Friend,” July 15, 1970, b. 441, f. 5, Dubinsky Records; Cy Egan, “Liberal Party Contest in Doubt,” Post, July 14, 1970, and Frank Lynn, “Rose’s Domination of Liberals Is at Issue in Queens Court Test,” NYT, August 9, 1970, clippings, both in b. 15, f. 5, Tyler Papers; “Shaw, Liberal, Wins in Court of Appeals,” NYT, November 13, 1970, 2; Shaw, I Rest My Case, 87–92, 128–51, 178. 73.  Watts, “Liberal Party,” 100; Eli Diamond to Timothy Costello, June 13, 1965, b. 62, f. “Eli Diamond,” Liberal Party of New York State Records, NYPL; “Notes on Siminoff-Clingan Opposition.” 74.  Louise DeLaurentis to “Dear Cornellian,” n.d.; minutes, County Committee, June 28, 1968, September 19, 1968, July 2, 1970, September 30, 1970; minutes, Executive Committee, August 22, 1968; Rolena Adorno to “Dear Registered Liberal,” October 1974; Richard Korf to Members of the Executive Committee, November 10, 1977; Jack Kieffer to “Dear Friends,” n.d., all in b. 2, Tompkins County Liberal Party Records, RMC; Robert Gulden, “Candidates in Town: Local Liberal Party Rethinks Backing of Blair Ewing,” Cornell Daily Sun, September 26, 1966, 1, https://cdsun. library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/imageserver.pl?oid=CDS19660926-01&getpdf=true; Downs, Cornell 1969, 18, 319–20. 10. The End of the Rose Era

 1. Smith, On His Own Terms, 546–48, 563–64.   2.  James Wechsler, “Wide Open,” New York Post (hereafter Post), April 1, 1970, 49; Donald Harrington Oral History, 236–38, OHAC.   3.  Edward Morrison to David Dubinsky, April 16, 1970, and Dubinsky to Morrison, n.d., both in b. 440, f. 7, Dubinsky Presidential Records, 5780/002, ILGWU Records, KC (hereafter Dubinsky Records).  4. Sullivan, New York State, 112–13; Smith, On His Own Terms, 571–72; “Americans for Democratic Action: Senate Races in 1970,” n.d., b. 440, f. 6, Dubinsky Records.   5.  Edward Katcher, “Liberals Lean to Goldberg,” Post, April 4, 1970, 1.   6.  Katcher, “Liberals Lean to Goldberg”; Richard Reeves, “Liberals Confer on State Ticket,” New York Times (hereafter NYT), April 4, 1970, 1; Richard Reeves, “Liberals Name Chairman Gubernatorial Candidate,” NYT, April 5, 1970, 32; Ben Davidson Oral History, 620–27, OHAC.   7.  Arthur Goldberg to Donald Harrington, May 5, 1970, b. 440, f. 7, Dubinsky Records; Thomas Ronan, “Goldberg Makes Plea to Liberals,” NYT, May 6, 1970, 37;

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“Why the Liberal Party Supports Goldberg,” flyer, n.d., b. I62, f. 2, Arthur Goldberg Papers, LOC (hereafter Goldberg Papers).   8.  Harrington Oral History, 238–39.   9.  Press release, n.d., b. I64, f. 3; J. Stanley Shaw to David Dubinsky, May 15, 1970, b. I64, f. 3; letters, July 14, 1970, b. I63, f. 5; Alex Rose to Robert Benjamin, August 6, 1970, b. I62, f. 1, all in Goldberg Papers; Ben Davidson to Liberal Party Clubs and County Organizations, May 18, 1970, b. 441, f. 5, Dubinsky Records. 10.  Davidson to Liberal Party Clubs, May 18, 1970. 11.  Gloria Steinem, “The City Politic: Misgivings about Ottinger,” New York, undated clipping, b. 440, f. 7; Jack Newfield, “The Case for Ottinger: Goodell Doesn’t Deliver,” undated clipping attached to David Wells to David Dubinsky, October 5, 1970, b. 440, f. 6; Eldon Clingan to “Dear Friend,” n.d., b. 440, f. 7, all in Dubinsky Records; L. Hendin, “Val kampeyn in Nyu York un ibern land: Di dray kandidaten far senator fun Nyu York,” Forward, October 22, 1970, 4; Frank Lynn, “Liberal Reform Group Likely to Back Walinsky Candidacy,” NYT, July 23, 1970, 28. 12. Sullivan, New York State, 115–25, 134; Josh Greenfield, “The Conservatives Are Out to Beat—‘Rockeberg, Goldfeller, Ottindell and Goodinger,’ ” NYT Magazine, October 18, 1970, clipping, b. 15, f. 5, Gus Tyler Papers, 5780/088, ILGWU Records, KC (hereafter Tyler Papers); Marlin, Fighting the Good Fight, 162–70. 13. Sullivan, New York State, 134; Marlin, Fighting the Good Fight, 162–70; Smith, On His Own Terms, 563–65, 571; Paul Wieck, “Is New York Going Conservative?,” New Republic, October 10, 1970, clipping, b. 15, f. 5, Tyler Papers. 14.  Paul O’Dwyer to Richard Ottinger and Arthur Goldberg, July 24, 1970, b. I62, f. 1, Goldberg Papers; Shimen Veber, “Di liberal parti in di itstige valn,” Forward, October 27, 1970, 4; L. Hendin, “Far vemen darf a Nyu Yorker progresiver mensh shtimen,” Forward, October 30, 1970, 4. 15.  “For the Best Candidates of All Parties . . ., ” advertisement, NYT, October 15, 1970, 14; Donald Harrington to “Mr. President and Mr. Vice President,” November 1, 1970, b. 440, f. 6, Dubinsky Records. 16.  “NY Governor,” November 1970, Our Campaigns, accessed July 27, 2020, http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=37612; “NY US Senate,” November 1970, Our Campaigns, accessed July 27, 2020, http://www.ourcampaigns. com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=6551. 17.  “The N.Y. Mess,” John Herling’s Labor Letter, November 14, 1970, and “Rose Replies,” John Herling’s Labor Letter, November 21, 1970, both in b. 440, f. 6, Dubinsky Records; Ben Davidson to Liberal Party Clubs and County Organizations, December 11, 1970, b. 441, f. 5, Dubinsky Records. 18.  Davidson Oral History, 699–700; Edward Morrison, interview by the author, May 6, 2013. 19. Bloom, Public Housing That Worked, 158, 203–4; Wishnoff, “Tolerance Point,” 124–47; Cannato, Ungovernable City, 505; Edith Evans Asbury, “Single City Housing Head Proposed by Lindsay Panel,” NYT, January 16, 1966, 1. 20.  Sam Roberts, “Simeon Golar, Who Fought for Public Housing, Dies at 84,” NYT, August 14, 2013, A20; Joseph Fried, “Simeon Golar’s City-within-a-City,” NYT Magazine, April 30, 1972; Morrison, interview by the author.

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21.  Fried, “Simeon Golar’s City-within-a-City,” 50; Bloom, Public Housing That Worked, 160, 201–5. 22.  Wishnoff, “Tolerance Point,” 211–16, 229–30; Bloom, Public Housing That Worked, 205–6. 23.  Fried, “Simeon Golar’s City-within-a-City,” 16–17. 24. Wishnoff, “Tolerance Point,” 217–25; “Golar Quotes Colonial Document in Defending Forest Hills Project,” NYT, June 13, 1971, BQ102; Michael Kaufman, “ ‘Bigot’ and ‘Liar’ Mark TV Clash on Forest Hills Project,” NYT, November 22, 1971, 1; Walter Goodman, “The Battle of Forest Hills: Who’s Ahead?,” NYT Magazine, February 20, 1972, 64; Fried, “Simeon Golar’s City-within-a-City,” 59. 25. Bloom, Public Housing That Worked, 206; Martin Tolchin, “Forest Hills Compromise Is Assailed by Both Sides,” NYT, July 27, 1972, 35. 26. Soffer, Ed Koch, 109–11; Henry Stern, interview by the author, January 21, 2008; Roberts, “Simeon Golar.” 27.  Harrington Oral History, 133; Davidson Oral History, 589; Miroff, “From Friends to Foes”; Miroff, Liberals’ Moment; Brinkley, Liberalism and Its Discontents, 259–61. 28.  Davidson Oral History, 739–41; Harrington Oral History, 202–5. 29.  “Recommendation of the State Policy Committee . . . for an Immediate American Withdrawal from Vietnam . . ., ” June 27, 1972, attached to Ben Davidson to David Dubinsky, July 5, 1972, b. 441, f. 4, Dubinsky Records. 30.  Martin Tolchin, “Liberal Party for McGovern; Tactics of His Foes Denounced,” NYT, June 28, 1972, 35; “Recommendation of the State Policy Committee of the Liberal Party on the McGovern Candidacy,” June 27, 1972, attached to Ben Davidson to David Dubinsky, July 5, 1972, b. 441, f. 4, Dubinsky Records; “Dr. Donald Szantho Harrington—Nominating Speech for George McGovern,” August 12, 1972, b. 75, f. “1972,” Liberal Party of New York State Records, NYPL (hereafter LP Records); “Liberals Pick McGovern and Shriver,” NYT, August 13, 1972, 32. 31.  William Farrell, “At Liberals’ Dinner, He Intensifies Criticism—Backs Mrs. Abzug,” NYT, October 5, 1972, 97; Ben Davidson to Liberal Party Clubs and County Organizations, August 28, 1972, b. 441, f. 4, Dubinsky Records. 32.  Rieder, “Rise of the ‘Silent Majority,’ ” 262; Freeman, American Empire, 284–85. 33.  Thomas Ronan, “Voting for Conservative Party Running Far Ahead of Liberals’,” NYT, November 8, 1972, 38; Thomas Ronan, “Alex Rose Concedes That Liberals ‘Took a Beating’ in Election,” NYT, November 9, 1972, 41; Murray Schumach, “Rose Reported to Advise Lindsay to Enter Race for Governor in ’74,” NYT, October 6, 1972, 1. 34.  “Brooklyn Liberals Back 4 Democrats in House Contests,” NYT, April 14, 1972, 44; Tom Buckley, “Ryan-Abzug Primary Fight Fomenting Party Discord,” NYT, April 12, 1972, 47; “Abzug-Ryan Debate: Issue Is Advocacy of Change,” NYT, June 12, 1972, 37; Levy, Political Life of Bella Abzug, 154–62; Zarnow, Battling Bella, 160–66. 35.  “Liberals Back Ryan, Bingham,” NYT, April 5, 1972, 26; “Abzug-Ryan Debate”; “Ryan-Abzug,” NYT, June 21, 1972, 29. 36.  William Farrell, “Liberals Nominate Mrs. Ryan to Run for Husband’s House Seat,” NYT, October 3, 1972, 96; Maurice Carroll, “Mrs. Abzug’s Three Rivals Gang Up on Representative,” NYT, October 26, 1972, 33; Maurice Carroll, “Bella Abzug

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Re-elected by Wide Margin,” NYT, November 8, 1972, 36; Levy, Political Life of Bella Abzug, 179–87; Zarnow, Battling Bella, 173. 37. McNickle, To Be Mayor, 238–40; Schumach, “Rose Reported”; Murray Schumach, “Lindsay Meets with Rose on Mayoral Possibilities,” NYT, January 17, 1973, 21; Murray Schumach, “Lindsay Asserts He Will Not Run for a 3d Term,” NYT, March 8, 1973, 1. 38.  Frank Lynn, “Governor and Rose Meet to Discuss Fusion Mayor,” NYT, January 12, 1973, 66; Schumach, “Lindsay Asserts”; Maurice Carroll, “Rockefeller Calls Wagner the Man to Lead the City,” NYT, March 19, 1973, 1; Martin Tolchin, “How Wagner’s Name ‘Came Up,’ ” NYT, March 21, 1973, 24; Murray Schumach, “Javits, Not Rose, Initiated the Fusion Drive,” NYT, April 12, 1973, 1; Donald Harrington, “Statement on Behalf of the Liberal Party Policy Committee regarding the 1973 Mayoralty Election,” n.d., b. 76, f. “1973,” LP Records; Harrington Oral History, 57–59, 144; Davidson Oral History, 597. 39.  Davidson Oral History, 597–600; Schumach, “Javits, Not Rose”; Frank Lynn, “Liberals Choose Wagner as Part of 2-Party Deal,” NYT, March 20, 1973, 1. 40.  Carroll, “Rockefeller Calls Wagner”; Frank Lynn, “Brooklyn G.O.P. Opposes Coalition Race for Wagner,” NYT, March 15, 1973,” 1; Maurice Carroll, “Wagner Bars a Republican Offer,” NYT, March 26, 1973, 1; Frank Lynn, “Wagner, Wary of Impending ‘Dog Fight,’ Indicates He’ll Probably Stay Out of the Democratic Primary,” NYT, March 29 1973, 31; Frank Lynn, “Wagner Declines to Run for Mayor ‘on Any Ticket,’ ” NYT, April 12, 1973, 1; Schumach, “Javits, Not Rose.” 41. McNickle, To Be Mayor, 242–47; Frank Lynn, “Badillo and Koch Will Stay in Race,” NYT, March 5, 1973, 26. 42.  Davidson Oral History, 603, 653–54; Harrington Oral History, 154; Morrison, interview by the author; Frank Lynn, “Rose’s Fancy Footwork,” NYT, January 19, 1973, 68; Frank Lynn, “Liberals Decide on Blumenthal for Mayor’s Race,” NYT, April 13, 1973, 1. 43.  Thomas Ronan, “Liberal Party Formally Endorses Blumenthal for Mayoral Race,” NYT, April 15, 1973, 28; Davidson Oral History, 796; John Darnton, “A Liberal Faction Picks Own Slate,” NYT, March 11, 1973, 53; Frank Lynn, “Current Challenge to Rose’s Leadership of Liberal Party Could Affect Gubernatorial Race Next Year,” NYT, May 27, 1973, 34; Maurice Carroll, “Liberal in Queens Fighting Leaders,” NYT, April 1, 1973, 130; “Tonight’s Conference . . ., ” n.d.; “Dr. Donald Harrington . . . Statement on Primary to Liberal Enrollees,” June 2, 1973; “Majority Caucus of Liberal Party Reveals Facts about Shaw’s Support,” June 1, 1973, all in b. 76, f. “1973,” LP Records; “Results of the Primary Election Voting,” NYT, June 6, 1973, 52; Shaw, I Rest My Case, 192–93. 44.  Edith Evans Asbury, “Blumenthal Gives Beame Edge, but Does Not Count Out Badillo,” NYT, June 20, 1973, 35; Thomas Ronan, “Badillo Is Urged Not to Make Race,” NYT, July 25, 1973, 21. 45.  Frank Lynn, “Goldin Defeats Three,” NYT, June 5, 1973, 1; “Beame and Badillo Jab as Runoff Drive Is Begun,” NYT, June 6, 1973, 1; Alfonso Narvaez, “Blumenthal Attacks Opponents as Conservatives ‘Tied to Past,’ ” NYT, June 28, 1973, 52; Murray Schumach, “Blumenthal Will Stress Beame as ‘Mechanic,’’ ” NYT, June 27, 1973, 60; Maurice Carroll, “2 in Mayor’s Race Chide Each Other,” NYT, September 10, 1973,

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22; “Mayoral Candidates Confront the Issues—and One Another,” NYT, October 31, 1973, 47; “3 in Mayoral Campaign Tell Forum Why They Should Be Elected,” NYT, October 24, 1973, 25; “29th Annual Dinner Liberal Party–Donald S. Harrington, Chairman,” n.d., b. 76, f. “1973–Annual Dinner,” LP Records; McNickle, To Be Mayor, 253; Cannato, Ungovernable City, 563. 46.  “Golar for Council Head,” NYT, October 10, 1973, 46; Eldon Clingan, interview by the author, August 7, 2013; “City Council Choices,” NYT, October 23, 1973, 46. 47.  “1,000 Attend ‘Village’ Rally to Support Homosexual Bill,” NYT, May 5, 1974, L70; “ ‘Gas’ Price-Posting Readable to Drivers Is Voted by Council,” NYT, June 5, 1974, 45; “Council Committee Backs Full Disclosure for High City Aides,” NYT, October 24, 1974, 34; Stern, interview by the author; Morrison, interview by the author. 48.  Fred Ferretti, “Rose Denounces Reported G.O.P. Help to Liberal Slates as ‘Certainly Immoral,’ ” NYT, June 21, 1973, 36; Alfonso Narvaez, “Figure in Inquiry: A Man of Mystery,” NYT, June 16, 1973, 10; Frank Lynn, “Liberal-G.O.P. Entente: A Growing Alliance,” NYT, June 22, 1973, 41; Francis X. Clines, “A Strain on Liberal Credibility: Campaign Scandal,” NYT, June 24, 1973, 179; Mary Breasted, “U.S. Jury Studying Vote-Siphon Case,” NYT, February 13, 1974, 15; “Dismissing of Indictments on Alleged Vote Plot Upheld,” NYT, April 12, 1974, 29. 49.  “Alex Rose Denies Hugging De Sapio,” NYT, November 3, 1973, 30. 50.  Frank Lynn, “Crangle Asks Candidates to Pledge Party Loyalty,” NYT, January 8, 1974, 43. 51.  Matthew Troy to Joseph Crangle, n.d., b. 77, f. “1974,” LP Records. 52.  Frank Lynn, “Crangle and Roe Weigh Alliance,” NYT, January 28, 1974, 18. 53. Kramer, Days of Wine and Roses Are Over, 16–20; Lachman and Polner, Man Who Saved New York, loc. 183–1177 of 4728, Kindle. 54.  Lachman and Polner, Man Who Saved New York, loc. 1188, 1311–1496; Kramer, Days of Wine and Roses Are Over, 20–27; Davidson Oral History, 755–56. 55.  “4 Democratic Aspirants Ask Liberal Backing for Governor,” NYT, May 1, 1974, 24; Morrison, interview by the author; Davidson Oral History, 641–47; Harrington Oral History, 59–62, 205–7, 244; Emanuel Perlmutter, “Liberals Nominate Morrison, Ex-Lindsay Aide, for Governor,” NYT, June 16, 1974, 39. 56.  Francis X. Clines, “Senator Shies from Nixon,” NYT, June 4, 1974, 77; “Javits Wins Support of Liberal Party Units,” NYT, June 6, 1974, 33; Perlmutter, “Liberals Nominate Morrison”; Ben Davidson statement, attached to J. George Longworth to “Fellow Liberal,” November 15, 1974, b. 441, f. 4, Dubinsky Records; Davidson Oral History, 727–31. 57.  Maurice Carroll, “Carey Setting Up Unified Campaign; Asks Liberal Line,” NYT, September 12, 1974, 1; Frank Lynn, “Carey Forges Broad Union of Democrats and Liberals,” NYT, September 27, 1974, 1; Frank Lynn, “Carey Criticizes Fiscal Practices,” NYT, October 8, 1974, 32; Tom Buckley, “Carey Rejects Front-Runner Ro1e,” NYT, October 1, 1974, 43; Lachman and Polner, Man Who Saved New York, loc. 1513, 1567; Kramer, Days of Wine and Roses Are Over, 28–32; Ben Davidson to “Fellow Liberal,” November 19, 1974, b. 441, f. 4, Dubinsky Records.

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58. Javits, Javits, 415–33; Marlin, Fighting the Good Fight, 209–18; Martin Tolchin, “The Indefatigable Senator Javits, Jumping Jack of Nation’s Capital,” NYT, June 14, 1974, 70. 59.  “Clark Sues Liberals on Javits Endorsement,” NYT, June 18, 1974, 13; “Clark Suit Is Set before U.S. Panel,” NYT, July 13, 1974, 17; Davidson statement, attached to Longworth to “Fellow Liberal”; Davidson Oral History, 802–3; “Ramsey Clark Challenges the Liberal Party,” advertisement, Post, November 4, 1974, attached to J. George Longworth to “Fellow Liberal,” November 15, 1974, b. 441, f. 4, Dubinsky Records. 60.  David Andelman, “19 Candidates Lose Liberal Party Line,” NYT, August 21, 1974, 79; Linda Greenhouse, “3 Nominations by Liberal Party Ruled Invalid in Supreme Court,” NYT, October 17, 1974, 34; “Court Restores 19 to the Liberal Line,” NYT, October 19, 1974, 18. 61.  Thomas Ronan, “Carey Pledges Fast Action on Governmental Reform,” NYT, October 17, 1974, 34. 62.  Davidson to “Fellow Liberal,” November 19, 1974; Thomas Ronan, “ ‘Line C’ Lead Held by Conservatives,” NYT, November 6, 1974, 32; Steven Weisman, “Carey Victory Percentage Is Highest in the Century,” NYT, November 7, 1974, 1. 63.  “Liberal Party Calls for Nixon Impeachment,” April 20, 1974, and Ben Davidson to “Dear Member,” March 27, 1974, both in b. 77, f. 1974, LP Records; “Why? A Primary in the Liberal Party,” n.d., b. 441, f. 4, Dubinsky Records; Davidson Oral History, 727; Thomas Ronan, “Rose Says Rivals Were ‘Wiped Out,’ ” NYT, September 15, 1974, 39; Frank Lynn, “State G.O.P. Points to City with Alarm,” NYT, October 21, 1974, 26; Shaw, I Rest My Case, 194. 64. Kramer, Days of Wine and Roses Are Over, 132; Lachman and Polner, Man Who Saved New York, loc. 1655; Davidson Oral History, 647–50; Harrington Oral History, 265; Morrison, interview by the author. 65.  Robert McFadden, “Raymond B. Harding, 77, Liberal Party Power Broker, Dies,” NYT, August 10, 2012, A16; “Biographical Sketch of Raymond B. Harding,” n.d., b. 155, f. 15, LP Records; Joe Klein, “The Last Liberal,” New York, April 3, 1989, 14; list of Policy Committee members, n.d., b. 77, f. 1974, LP Records; Perlmutter, “Liberals Nominate Morrison”; Linda Greenhouse, “187 State Jobs Are Cut by Carey,” NYT, May 10, 1975, 33; Morrison, interview by the author; Stern, interview by the author. 66. Phillips-Fein, Fear City; Freeman, Working Class New York, 256–87; Shefter, Political Crisis, Fiscal Crisis; Moody, From Welfare State to Real Estate; Lachman and Polner, Man Who Saved New York, loc. 75–165. 67. Shefter, Political Crisis, Fiscal Crisis, xxvii, 81, 105–8, 122–23; Frank Lynn, “Jackson Accuses Ford on City Role,” NYT, October 10, 1975, 44; Wolfgang Saxon, “Liberals Praise Carey and Hint at Backing in ’76,” NYT, June 2, 1975, 23; Harrington Oral History, 272; Frank Lynn, “Carey Heralds Era of Austerity,” NYT, January 9, 1975, 31; Frank Lynn, “How Carey Got Enmeshed in ‘No-Win’ Fiscal Crisis,” NYT, August 29, 1975, 1; Frank Lynn, “Crisis Turns Democrats to Fiscal Conservatism,” NYT, September 14, 1975, 1. 68.  Frank Lynn, “Carey and Beame Aloof on the Race for Senate,” NYT, June 27, 1976, 32; Harrington Oral History, 92–95; Davidson Oral History, 742–43, 790–91;

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Frank Lynn, “Liberal Party Will Endorse Carter,” NYT, September 10, 1976, 19; Maurice Carroll, “Carter, in New York, Hails Liberal Party,” NYT, October 15, 1976, 1. 69. Hodgson, Gentleman from New York, 260–65; Schoen, Pat, 248–52; Andelic, “Daniel Patrick Moynihan”; Levy, Political Life of Bella Abzug, 245–67; Zarnow, Battling Bella, 229–63; Henry Foner, interview by the author, June 10, 2009; Morrison, interview by the author; Frank Lynn, “Moynihan Backing Off on Senate Bid,” NYT, June 4, 1976, 21; Thomas Ronan, “Conservatives Endorse Buckley, Liberal Party Picks Stern for U.S. Senate,” NYT, June 13, 1976, 35. 70.  Levine and Thom, Bella Abzug, 181–82; Harrington Oral History, 177–81, 211–15; Hodgson, Gentleman from New York, 266, 270; Thomas Ronan, “Liberal Party Split on Senate Race,” NYT, September 25, 1976, 36. 71.  Maurice Carroll, “The Region: Alex Rose; One Last Real Boss,” NYT, October 3, 1976, 148; Maurice Carroll, “Carey and Moynihan to Address Liberals,” NYT, September 27, 1976, 37; Linda Greenhouse, “Moynihan Is Given Liberal Nomination,” NYT, September 28, 1976, 1; Davidson Oral History, 721–26, 733–35; Ben Davidson to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, October 1, 1976, b. I383, f. 8, Daniel Patrick Moynihan Papers, LOC. 72.  “Court Orders Moynihan Removed as the Liberal Party’s Senate Nominee,” NYT, October 22, 1976, 11; “McCarthy Ordered Back on Ballot, Moynihan to Liberal Line, As of Now,” NYT, October 27, 1976, 1. 73.  Davidson Oral History, 744–47. 74.  Francis X. Clines, “About New York: The Last Calls to Alex Rose,” NYT, December 30, 1976, 34; Frank Lynn, “Political Leaders Pay Last Tribute in Eulogies at Services for Rose,” NYT, December 31, 1976, 28; A. H. Raskin, “Alex Rose of Liberal Party, a Power in Politics, Is Dead,” NYT, December 29, 1976, 1; “New York’s Political Leaders Laud Rose in Tributes,” NYT, December 29, 1976, 13. 75.  Davidson Oral History, 669–71, 674–75; Foner, interview by the author; Morrison, interview by the author. 76.  Raskin, “Alex Rose of Liberal Party”; Ben Davidson to Liberal Party State Committee Persons, Counties and Local Groups, January 13, 1977, b. 441, f. 3, Dubinsky Records; Harrington Oral History, 271; Morrison, interview by the author; Frank Lynn, “Without Rose, the Liberals May Face a Test,” NYT, December 29, 1976, 13; Clines, “About New York.” 11. Not Liberal, Not a Party

 1. “A Liberal Manifesto,” n.d., b. 441, f. 3, Dubinsky Presidential Records, 5780/002, ILGWU Records, KC (hereafter Dubinsky Records).  2. McNickle, To Be Mayor, 257–70; Soffer, Ed Koch, 121–44; Levy, Political Life of Bella Abzug, 8–37; Phillips-Fine, Fear City, 283–86; Zarnow, Battling Bella, 277–82.   3.  Henry Stern, interview by the author, January 21, 2008; Donald Harrington Oral History, 130, 158–62, 249–52, OHAC.   4.  Donald Harrington to “Dear Liberal Party Activist,” May 13, 1977, b. 441, f. 3, Dubinsky Records; notes, n.d., b. 134, f. “Liberal Party,” Donald Szantho Harrington Papers, NYPL (hereafter Harrington Papers); Jack Newfield, Runnin’ Scared, Village Voice (hereafter Voice), February 28, 1977, 12.

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  5.  Notes, n.d., b. 134, f. “Liberal Party,” Harrington Papers; Frank Lynn, “New Liberal Party Leaders Learning Fast,” New York Times (hereafter NYT), March 8, 1977, 42; Edward Morrison, interview by the author, May 6, 2013; Geoffrey Stokes, “Ravitch Speaks with Subsidized Tongue,” Voice, April 11, 1977, 19; Frank Lynn, “Liberal Party Chairman Accused of Favoring Cuomo’s Candidacy,” NYT, April 28, 1977, 32; Harrington to “Dear Liberal Party Activist”; Michael Daly and Henry O’Hagan, Runnin’ Scared, Voice, May 16, 1977, 18; Frank Lynn, “State’s Liberal Party Gives Cuomo Its Endorsement in Mayor’s Race,” NYT, May 20, 1977, 44.   6.  Nat Hentoff, “Cuomo Rising: Will New York’s Great Smart Hope Run for Mayor?,” Voice, April 18, 1977, 31; Jack Newfield, “Four Profiles in Courage,” Voice, July 18, 1977, 12; Nat Hentoff, “The Political Education of Mario Cuomo,” Voice, August 15, 1977, 31; Denis Hamill, “ ‘Hi, I’m for Capital Punishment. Are You?,’ ” Voice, September 5, 1977, 1; “Endorsements,” Voice, September 19, 1977, 4.   7.  Frank Lynn, “Aides Report Carey Will Support Koch and Scrap Pledge to Cuomo,” NYT, September 22, 1977, 1; Harrington Oral History, 276–80, 287–90; “Mario Cuomo Won’t Deal! Won’t Quit,” flyer, n.d., b. 152, f. 152.20, Liberal Party of New York State Records, NYPL (hereafter LP Records); Marlin, Fighting the Good Fight, 243–44.   8.  Frank Lynn, “Liberals: Somehow, Carrying On,” NYT, October 16, 1977, 173; Jack Newfield, “Council Scavengers Give Back the Loot,” Voice, December 26, 1977, 11; Donald Harrington, James Notaro, and Ben Davidson to State Committee Persons, County Organizations and Local Groups, December 22, 1977, b. 153, f. 6, LP Records.   9.  Stern, interview by the author; Morrison, interview by the author; Lynn, “State’s Liberal Party”; Harrington Oral History, 282–84; Donald Harrington, letter to the editor of the New York Times, April 18, 1984, b. 134, f. “Koch, Ed,” Harrington Papers; Koch, Mayor, 335. Harrington’s letter to the editor gives a slightly different version of the ad’s text than his oral history. 10.  Marianne Arneberg, “Council’s Henry Stern Picked for Parks Post,” Newsday, February 15, 1983, and Maurice Carroll, “Koch Selects Stern, a City Councilman, as Head of Parks,” NYT, February 15, 1983, clippings, both in b. 135, f. “Liberal Party Clippings,” Harrington Papers. 11.  Notes, n.d.; Frank Lynn, “Without Rose, the Liberals May Face a Test,” NYT, December 29, 1976, 13; Frank Lynn, “Preparing the Liberal Party for the Test: ‘Up’ or ‘Out of Business,’ ” NYT, June 10, 1980, B1; Lynn, “New Liberal Party Leaders”; Ken Lerer and Geoffrey Stokes, Runnin’ Scared, Voice, May 2, 1977, 24; Michael Daly, Denis Hamill, and Henry O’Hagan, Runnin’ Scared, Voice, September 26, 1977, 15; Harrington Oral History, 302–7; Stern, interview by the author; Herb Rubin, interview by the author, August 1, 2012; Martin Hassner, interview by the author, September 7, 2017; Morrison, interview by the author. 12.  Lynn, “Preparing the Liberal Party”; Joe Klein, “The Last Liberal,” New York, April 3, 1989, 14; Harrington Oral History, 303; Rubin, interview by the author; Hassner, interview by the author; Michael Daly and Henry O’Hagan, Runnin’ Scared, Voice, May 23, 1977, 17; Lynn, “Liberals: Somehow, Carrying On”; “Chronology of Events,” n.d., b. 153, f. 3, LP Records.

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13. Marlin, Fighting the Good Fight, 246–47; Frank Lynn, “Fledgling Right to Life Party Unseats Liberals as No. 4,” NYT, December 16, 1978, 27; Donald Harrington to Hugh Carey, November 8, 1978, b. 102, f. “Carey,” Harrington Papers; Maurice Carroll, “Liberal Leaders Acting to Revive Party’s Strength,” NYT, November 24, 1978, B4. 14.  Press release, December 9, 1978, b. 153, f. 1; Donald Harrington to Jimmy Carter, June 17, 1980, b. 153, f. 1; Raymond Harding, “A Time to Be Stubborn,” October 10, 1979, in James Notaro, “Seasons Greetings,” letter, n.d., b. 153, f. 1, all in LP Records. 15. Javits, Javits, 490–506; Sullivan, New York State, 174–76, 179–80; Stern, interview by the author. 16.  Document containing what appears to be an agenda, and a chronology of events, May 20, 1980, with subsequent amendments, and Harrington to Carter, June 17, 1980, both in b. 153, f. 1, LP Records; Donald Harrington to Raymond Rubinow, May 30, 1980, b. 111, f. “Rn-Rz,” and Harrington to Sidney Hertzberg, November 13, 1980, b. 110, f. “H-Hm,” both in Harrington Papers; Lynn, “Preparing the Liberal Party”; Mason, No Holding Back, 361–63; Frank Lynn, “Backing Might Be Factor Affecting New York’s 41 Electoral Votes,” NYT, September 5, 1980, 1; Maurice Carroll, “Liberals Follow Leadership and Back Anderson Ticket,” NYT, September 14, 1980, 32. 17. Mason, No Holding Back, 361–63; Gerald Seib, “Why Is Anderson Staying in the Race?,” Wall Street Journal, October 17, 1988, 30; “Independents, Progressive Democrats, Moderate Republicans, You Really Do Have a Choice for President,” flyer, n.d., b. 153, f. 1, LP Records; Albert Hunt, “Estranged Friends: Pivotal Jewish Voters Are Down on Carter Because of Israel Policy,” Wall Street Journal, September 22, 1980, 1. 18.  Sidney Hertzberg to Donald Harrington, August 30, 1980; Frank Hall to Harrington, September 12, 1980, and September 15, 1980; Harrington to Hall, September 25, 1980; Karl Hill to Harrington, September 29, 1980; Harrington to Hill, October 2, 1980, all in b. 110, f. “H-Hm,” Harrington Papers; Morrison, interview by the author. 19.  Harrington to Hertzberg, November 13, 1980. 20.  Donald Harrington to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, May 23, 1977, b. 129, f. “Moynihan,” Harrington Papers; Frank Lynn, “Moynihan Draws Liberals’ Rebuke on School Tax Credit,” NYT, June 3, 1979, 34. 21.  Timothy Russert, memorandums of conversation, January 15, 1982, March 12, 1982, May 17, 1982, all in b. II98, f. 7, Daniel Patrick Moynihan Papers, LOC (hereafter Moynihan Papers); Frank Lynn, “Liberals Support Cuomo and Senator Moynihan,” NYT, June 20, 1982, 30. 22.  Russert, memorandum, January 15, 1982. 23.  Russert, memorandum, January 15, 1982; Cuomo, Diaries, 118–20, 132, 164, 166, 169–70, 174, 221. 24.  Wayne Barrett and Joe Conason, “Will Libs Kiss Koch’s Feet?,” NYC, Voice, March 9, 1982, 5; Wayne Barrett, “Who Did Ray Harding Fool?,” NYC, Voice, November 16, 1982, 5; James Wechsler, “Behind the Liberal Party Split,” New York Post (hereafter Post), January 11, 1983, copy, b. 153, f. 3, LP Records; George Borrelli, “The Liberals: They Bought Their Ticket First . . . Now They Should Be Cashing In,”

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Empire State Report, November 1982, 23–24, and George Borrelli, “Cuomo Sketches Broad Plan to Aid Western New York,” Buffalo News, December 5, 1982, photocopied clipping, both in b. 134, f. “LP Clippings,” Harrington Papers; Cuomo, Diaries, 152, 161–62, 167, 169–70, 177, 181–82, 193. 25. Cuomo, Diaries, 181, 360; Raymond Harding to Mario Cuomo, November 10, 1982, b. 153, f. 5, and “Ray Harding Liberal Party Recommendations,” n.d., b. 153, f. 4, both in LP Records; Donald Harrington, “Memorandum—Confidential—to DH by DH,” n.d., b. 134, f. “Liberal Party Confidential,” Harrington Papers. 26.  Ben Davidson to Donald Harrington, May 3, 1982, b. 113, f. “Davidson,” Harrington Papers. 27.  Davidson to Harrington, May 3, 1982; Harrington to Davidson, April 5, 1982, August 4, 1982, and n.d., all in b. 113, f. “Davidson,” Harrington Papers; Fredric Dicker, “Top Liberal Rips Koch,” Times Union, March 9, 1982, 14, photocopied clipping, b. 134, f. “LP Clippings,” Harrington Papers. 28.  Harrington to Davidson, April 5, 1982; Davidson to Harrington, May 3, 1982; Donald Harrington to Ben Davidson, May 17, 1982, and Davidson to Harrington, June 13, 1982, both in b. 113, f. “Davidson,” Harrington Papers. 29.  Donald Harrington to James Notaro, August 30, 1982; Donald Harrington to Raymond Harding, September 15, September 22, and December 9, 1982, all in b. 153, f. 5, LP Records; Harrington to Harding, December 15, 1982, b. 153, f. 3, LP Records; State of New York Commission of Investigation, An Investigation of Allegations Arising from the Liberal Party Factional Dispute, March 1984, 4–7, b. 154, f. 2, LP Records; Allen Miller to Harrington, September 17, 1982, and Jay Kossof to Notaro, October 31, 1982, both in b. 135, f. “Liberal Party Correspondence,” Harrington Papers; “Liberal Party of New York State Allocation of Responsibilities among the Leadership,” n.d., b. 134, f. “Lib Party of N.Y. State Allocation of Responsibilities,” Harrington Papers. 30.  Mario Cuomo to Donald Harrington, December 11, 1982, and Raymond Harding to Harrington, December 14, 1982, both in b. 153, f. 5, LP Records; notes re. phone calls, December 20, 1982, and Mikki Portnoy to Harrington, December 21, 1982, both in b. 134, f. “Reaction to Letters,” Harrington Papers; Harrington to Cuomo, December 15, 1982, b. 135, f. “Cuomo, Mario,” Harrington Papers; Investigation of Allegations, 7. 31.  Dorrit Wahl and Nicholas Gyory, “Notice of Meeting,” December 27, 1982; Donald Harrington, “To All Members,” December 29, 1982; Harrington to State Committee Member, December 29, 1982; Gyory to Members of the Liberal Party State Committee, January 4, 1983; In the Matter of the Application of Marshall Jackson, Sr., and Rosalie Jackson vs. Nicholas Gyory, et al., Order to Show Cause and Documents, January 12, 1983; “Nick’s Report,” n.d.; Victor Lord to “Friend and Member of the State Committee,” January 12, 1983, all in b. 153, f. 3, LP Records; “Dear Fellow Member of the State Committee,” n.d., b. 153, f. 4, LP Records. 32.  Donald Harrington to “Dear Friend and Colleague,” January 15, 1983, and “Minutes of Liberal Party-State Committee Meeting,” January 29, 1983, both in b. 153, f. “Year 1983: Liberal Party Newsletters . . ., ” LP Records; Frank Lynn, “Cuomo Aides Move to Mend Split in Liberal Party,” NYT, January 30 1983, 21; Frank Lynn, “After 17 Hours of Tumult, Harding Is Liberals’ Boss,” NYT, January 31, 1983, B1;

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Frank Lynn, “For Liberals, Party’s Feud Still a Threat,” NYT, February 3, 1983, B8; Investigation of Allegations, 19–25. 33.  Jack Newfield, “Ray Harding and the Gluttony Party,” Voice, February 22, 1983, photocopied clipping; Dorothy Kaufman to Donald Harrington, n.d.; Harrington to Kaufman, February 25, 1983, all in b. 134, f. “Kaufman, Dorothy—LP,” Harrington Papers; Shirley Reiter to Harrington, March 22, 1983, and Harrington to Reiter, March 24, 1983, both in b. 134, f. “Reiter, Shirley (Lib Party),” Harrington Papers; Raymond Harding to “Gentlemen,” February 22, 1983, b. 153, f. “Year 1983: Liberal Party Newsletters . . ., ” LP Records. 34.  Newfield, “Ray Harding”; Lynn, “For Liberals”; Lynn, “Cuomo Aides Move to Mend Split”; untitled memo, February 25[, 1983], b. 153, f. 4, LP Records; Investigation of Allegations, 10, 13, 14, 16, 18–19, 26–38. 35.  “Statement by Raymond B. Harding, Vice Chairman, Liberal Party,” March 2, 1983; Raymond Harding to “Dear Fellow Liberal,” August 2, 1983; press release, n.d.; Carl Grillo to “Dear Fellow Liberal,” n.d., all in b. 153, f. “Year 1983: Liberal Party Newsletters . . ., ” LP Records; Alex Michelini, “Harding Rejoins Lib Power Fight,” New York Daily News (hereafter Daily News), August 3, 1983, copy, b. 153, f. “Mailings,” LP Records; Committee for an Independent Liberal Party, press release, n.d. (1985), b. 155, f. 1, LP Records; “Policy Leader Steps Down in Liberal Feud,” Staten Island Advance, March 3, 1983, photocopied clipping, b. 135, f. “Liberal Party Clippings,” Harrington Papers. 36.  Frank Lynn, “Liberals Choose Harrington in 19-Hour Albany Meeting,” NYT, September 19, 1984, B2; Frank Lynn, “Liberal Party Suffering a Severe Money Crisis,” NYT, October 11, 1985, B3; Susan Heller Anderson and David Dunlop, “Liberals’ ‘Break-In’ Dropped by Prosecutor,” NYT, November 16, 1985, 31; Frederic Dicker, “Fraud Charges over Liberal Party Slate,” Post, September 7, 1984, b. 134, f. “Robert Abrams”; Donald Harrington and James Notaro to “Dear Friend,” April 6, 1984, b. 134, f. “Lib Party Correspondence Summer 1983”; Harrington to Notaro, September 1984, b. 134, f. “LP 1984,” all in Harrington Papers; Raymond Harding to Harrington and Notaro, July 25, 1984; “Election Law Violations Revealed,” September 9, 1984; Liberal Party, “Theft in Broad Daylight: A Mugging in Albany,” press release, n.d., all in b. 154, f. 2, LP Records; Harding to Notaro, November 4, 1985; Harrington and Notaro to “Dear Colleague,” October 19, 1985; Harrington and Notaro to “Dear Colleague,” November 12, 1985, all in b. 155, f. 1, LP Records. 37.  Wayne Barrett, “Lola’s Latest Lunge: The Libs,” unidentified clipping, n.d., b. 134, f. “LP Clippings 1983–84,” and “Statement by Liberal Party Vice Chairman Raymond B. Harding,” March 28, 1984, b. 134, f. “Committee for an Independent Liberal Party,” both in Harrington Papers; Investigation of Allegations, 1–2, 37–38, 41–42, 57; “Statement by the Committee for an Independent Liberal Party on the SIC Liberal Party Report,” March 27, 1984, and Fredric Dicker, “Inside Albany,” Post, April 16, 1984, copy, both in b. 154, f. 2, LP Records. 38. It is not clear whether the letter was sent. Raymond Harding to Mario Cuomo, September 2, 1983, b. 153, f. 3, LP Records. 39.  Walter Kirschenbaum to Donald Harrington, November 27, 1984; Herbert Dicker to Harrington, November 28, 1984; Harrington to Pat Giagnacova, May 6, 1985; Edward Morrison to James Notaro, November 8, 1984; Morrison to Har-

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rington, January 22, 1985; Morrison to Harrington, January 10, 1985, all in b. 134, f. “LP Correspondence, 1984–1985,” Harrington Papers; Harrington and Notaro, letter to the editor, Post, November 8, 1983, copy, and Liberal News, January/February 1984, both in b. 153, f. “Mailings”; flyer, attached to Carl [Grillo] to Ron, November 3, 1983, b. 153, f. “Year 1983: Liberal Party Newsletters. . . ,” all in LP Records; Wayne Koonce to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, October 24, 1983, b. II98, f. 7, Moynihan Papers. 40.  Donald Harrington to Pat Giagnacova, April 22, 1985, b. 134, f. “LP Correspondence, 1984–1985,” and Harrington and James Notaro to “Dear Liberal Party Colleague,” July 8, 1985, b. 134, unlabeled folder, both in Harrington Papers; Frank Lynn, “Liberal Party Chiefs Consider Backing Koch,” NYT, May 16, 1985, B3; Frank Lynn, “Liberal Party, Looking for a Lift, Is Improving Relations with Koch,” NYT, May 17, 1985, B3; Frank Lynn, “Liberals Feuding on Mayoral Race,” NYT, July 14, 1985, 26; George James, “Koch Is Ordered Off Liberal Line in Primary Vote,” NYT, August 3, 1985, 27; Committee for an Independent Liberal Party, press release, May 29, 1985; Wayne Barrett, “The Lib’s Slimy Switch,” Voice, June 4, 1985, photocopied clipping; Committee for an Independent Liberal Party, press release, August 11, 1985; “Liberal Party Statement of the Formation of Liberals for the Election of Ed Koch” and attachments, October 9, 1985, all in b. 155, f. 1, LP Records. 41.  Donald Harrington to Ben Davidson, March 8, 1985, and Edward Morrison to Harrington, January 22, 1985, both in b. 134, f. “LP Correspondence, 1984– 1985”; Harrington to James Notaro and Pat Giagnacova, September 9, 1985, b. 134, unlabeled folder, all in Harrington Papers; Hassner, interview by the author; Klein, “Last Liberal”; Frank Lynn, “Liberals Starting Advertising Drive,” NYT, October 19, 1986, 42. 42. Siegel, Prince of the City, 25–26; Barrett, Rudy!, 73–90, 133–74; Koch, Politics, 24; Wayne Barrett, “Mario versus Rudy,” Voice, February 14, 1989, 10. 43.  Barrett, “Mario versus Rudy”; Kirtzman, Rudy Giuliani, 8–9. 44. Kirtzman, Rudy Giuliani, 10–12; Marlin, Fighting the Good Fight, 280; Siegel, Prince of the City, 28; Barrett, Rudy!, 189–200. 45.  Carl Grillo to New York State Board of Elections, April 18, 1989, and attachments, and statement by Frank Marin, chairman, Liberal Party of New York State, endorsing Rudolph Giuliani for mayor of New York City, April 8, 1989, both in b. 161, f. 4, LP Records. 46.  “Republican Rudolph, Liberal Giuliani,” NYT, April 15, 1989, 26; Raymond Harding, letter to the editor, NYT, April 18, 1989, photocopied clipping, b. 155, f. 15; “An Open Letter to the National Organization for Women,” April 8, 1989, b. 157, f. “Correspondence”; Carl Grillo to Members of the State Committee of the Liberal Party, September 14, 1990, b. 158, f. “State Committee, Notice of Meeting, Letters, 1990”; Frank Lombardi and Barbara Ross, “Inside Politics: Rudy’s Foes Threaten Liberal Primary Fight,” Daily News, April 11, 1989, photocopied clipping, b. 155, f. 18, all in LP Records. 47.  Ronald Lauder to “Dear Fellow Republican,” April 14, 1989, b. 155, f. 16, LP Records; “Review and Outlook: John V. Giuliani,” Wall Street Journal, August 1, 1989, A12; Siegel, Prince of the City, 27–28; Marlin, Fighting the Good Fight, 306. 48.  Reft, “Limits of Black Pragmatism,” 6–9; McNickle, To Be Mayor, 294–313; Barrett, Rudy!, 233.

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49.  Translation of Enrique Soria, “Marin dimite presidencia Partido Liberal,” El Diario/La Prensa, September 24, 1990; translation of “Marin dimite presidencia del Partido Liberal,” Noticias del mundo, September 24, 1990; “Biography,” n.d.; Fran Reiter to “Dear State Committee Member,” October 2, 1990, all in b. 158, f. “State Committee, 1990 Sept. 22, Officers, Etc.,” LP Records. 50.  Reft, “Limits of Black Pragmatism,” 11–14; Siegel, Prince of the City, 37–71; Barrett, Rudy!, 244–45; Rudy Giuliani to “Dear Liberal Party Member,” June 8, 1993, b. 161, f. 3, LP Records. 51. Kirtzman, Rudy Giuliani, 36–46; McNickle, Power of the Mayor, 300–304; Raymond Harding to “Dear Liberal,” April 1994, b. 162, f. 6; analysis of 1993 election, ca. 1995, b. 164, f. 4; Maurice Carroll, “Votemeister: Grillo a Key Player behind Scenes,” Newsday, June 25, 1995, A24, photocopy, b. 165, f. 20; Liberal Agenda, November 1994, b. 162, f. 19, all in LP Records. 52.  Bob Liff, “Not Get Cozy: Ethics Code for Transition Team Mulled,” Newsday, November 5, 1993, clipping, b. II2836, f. 7, Moynihan Papers; Kirtzman, Rudy Giuliani, 99; Moody, From Welfare State to Real Estate, 128, 210; Barrett, Rudy!, 296, 447–48; Kevin Stack, “A Liberal’s Patronage Divided,” NYT, February 15, 1994, B3. 53.  Hassner, interview by the author; Kirtzman, Rudy Giuliani, 79; Siegel, Prince of the City, 109. 54.  Carroll, “Votemeister”; Carl Grillo to “Dear Friend,” January 1996, b. 165, f. 7; Susan Rabinowitz, “Carl Grillo, Rudy’s Advisor in Liberal Party,” Post, December 5, 1996, 58, photocopy, b. 165, f. 20; flyers for Angel Rodriguez and Judy Rapfogel, n.d., b. 167, f. 7; “Rudy Giuliani, the Mayor for All New York,” n.d., b. 167, f. 11; Jonathan Reiter to “Mr./Ms. Biernoff,” May 23, 1997, b. 168, f. 1, all in LP Records; Kirtzman, Rudy Giuliani, 216–19; Elizabeth Kolbert, “At City Hall, Shades of All in the Family,” Metro Matters, NYT, July 13, 1998, B1; Hassner, interview by the author. 55.  Liberal Party dinner program, October 26, 1994, b. 162, f. 8; “Liberal Party Announces Election of State Chair,” press release, September 28, 1994, b. 162, f. 19; “Remarks by Raymond B. Harding . . . October 26, 1994,” b. 162, f. 8, all in LP Records; Kirtzman, Rudy Giuliani, 129–34; Barrett, Rudy!, 300–301. 56.  “NY Governor,” 1990, Our Campaigns, accessed December 10, 2017, https:// www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=7265; Emanuel Gold to Carl Grillo, March 14, 1996, b. 165, f. 13, LP Records. 57.  Tyrannosaurus Rex postcard, n.d., and “Keep the Dream Alive,” n.d., both in b. 161, f. 3; Ron Maiorana to Raymond Harding, November 27, 1989, b. 157, f. “Correspondence”; memorandum, unsigned to Raymond Harding, January 17, 1991, b. 159, f. 11, all in LP Records. 58.  For the first time that the quip about the Liberal Party being neither liberal nor a party appeared in the New York Times, see Frank Lynn, “Green and Dyson Exchange Accusations,” NYT, August 20, 1986, B4. Sifry, Spoiling for a Fight, 269; Barrett, Rudy!, 194; “Liberal Party of New York State: Strategic Plan,” n.d., b. 158, f. “Strategic Plan”; Fran Reiter to Douglas Muzzio, February 8, 1991, b. 160, f. 7; Liberal Agenda, Fall 1992 and March–April 1992, b. 160, f. 16, all in LP Records; Hassner, interview by the author. 59.  Elizabeth Kolbert, “Take Seriously Rich Populists Named Ross,” NYT, January 22, 1998, B1; Adam Nagourney, “Liberal Party Picks Democrat for Governor,”

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NYT, May 10, 1998, 1; Wayne Barrett, “Ray’s Waterloo,” Voice, May 26, 1998, 25; Adam Nagourney, “Betsy McCaughey Ross Is Not Kidding,” NYT, July 12, 1998, SM20; Wayne Barrett, “Governor Wilbur,” Voice, August 25, 1998, 23; “Betsy Revisited,” Liberal Voice, March 1999, b. 172, f. 3, LP Records; Jon Sorensen and Joel Siegel, “Betsy Starts Challenge to Pataki,” Daily News, March 20, 1998, photocopy; Tracey Tully, “NOW Backs McCaughey Ross for Governor,” Times Union, January 30, 1998, photocopy; “ ‘Liberal’ Is Not a Dirty Word,” flyer, n.d.; “For Governor, Betsy,” flyer, n.d., all in b. 169, f. 6, LP Records; Adam Nagourney, “McCaughey Ross Losing an Aide,” NYT, August 19, 1998, B8; Abby Goodnough, “Candidate’s Money Problems May Jeopardize Liberal Party,” NYT, September 4, 1998, B5; Adam Nagourney, “Rich Husband Cuts Campaign Support to McCaughey Ross,” NYT, September 4, 1998, A1; Hassner, interview by the author; Wayne Barrett, “Is the Party Over?,” Voice, September 29, 1998, 21. 60.  Wayne Barrett, “Going Broke with Betsy,” Voice, October 20, 1998, 21; Amy Waldman, “Race for 3rd Pits Golisano against McCaughey Ross,” NYT, October 29, 1998, B1; “Harding Reveals Campaign Strategy,” Liberal Voice, March 1999, b. 172, f. 3, LP Records; New York State Board of Elections, governor election returns, November 3, 1998, https://www.elections.ny.gov/NYSBOE/elections/1998/GOVWEb.pdf. 61. Sifry, Spoiling for a Fight, 229–63; Sirota, Uprising, 86–123; Doug Ireland, “Look for the Union Label,” Voice, April 21, 1998, 64; Abby Goodnough, “Unions and Local Groups Join to Form a New Political Party,” Voice, July 7, 1998, B6. 62. New York State Board of Elections, president and vice president election returns, November 7, 2000, https://www.elections.ny.gov/NYSBOE/elec tions/2000/wpres2000.pdf; New York State Board of Elections, United States senator election returns, November 7, 2000, https://www.elections.ny.gov/NYSBOE/ elections/2000/wussen2000.pdf; Adam Nagourney, “Bloomberg Joins Candidates in Courting Liberal Party,” NYT, May 6, 2017, 47; Tom Robbins, “Sundown on the Patronage Party,” NYT, November 13, 2002, 22; Tom Robbins, “Dead Man Running,” Voice, September 11, 2002, 22. 63.  Richard Pérez-Peña, “New York State: McCall Rejects a Party,” NYT, January 14, 2002, B5; Adam Nagourney, “On Defensive, Liberal Party Steps Up Fight with McCall,” NYT, January 15, 2002, B1. 64.  Adam Nagourney, “New York’s Smaller Parties Cloud the Race for Governor,” NYT, May 21, 2002, A1; Shaila Dewan, “Cuomo Quits Race and Backs McCall for Governorship,” NYT, September 4, 2002, A1. 65. O’Shaughnessy, More Riffs, Rants, and Raves, 148–52; Randal Archibold, “On the Ropes, Liberal Boss Tries to Keep Party Alive,” NYT, September 5, 2002, B1; Shaila Dewan, “New York State: From Cuomo and McCall, Vague Plans for Unity,” NYT, September 8, 2002, 37; Randal Archibold, “Cuomo Will Remain on Ballot as Liberal Party Candidate,” NYT, September 24, 2002, B4; Joyce Purnick, “Liberal Party: Missteps Risk Its Ballot Line,” NYT, September 26, 2002, B1. 66.  New York State Board of Elections, governor election returns, November 5, 2002, https://www.elections.ny.gov/NYSBOE/elections/2002/general/2002_gov. pdf; Joel Siegel, “Last Man at the Liberal Party,” Daily News, November 10, 2002, http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/man-liberal-party-article-1.494242; Richard Pérez-Peña, “Party Line: With Insufficient Votes, New York’s Liberal Party

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Loses Place on the Ballot,” NYT, November 6, 2002, B13; “Happy Deletions,” NYT, November 8, 2002, A30; Robbins, “Sundown on the Patronage Party”; Morrison, interview by the author. 67.  Pérez-Peña, “Party Line”; Hassner, interview by the author. Postscript

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Index

Abrams, Charles, 6, 22 – 23 on civil rights, 97 – 99 on patronage, 174 on rent control and public housing, 101 scatter-site public housing promoted by, 249 as state rent administrator, 144 – 45 Abrams, Robert, 292 Abzug, Bella, 254 – 55, 266 – 67, 271, 272 Adams, Paul, 204, 206 – 7, 247 Addams, Jane, 16 African Americans. See Blacks Agnew, Spiro, 228, 244, 246, 247 Albanese, Sal, 293 Albano, Vince, 205, 238 Albert, Sondra, 240 Aldrich, Richard, 178, 179 Alfange, Dean, 35, 62, 82 Allen, James, 181 Alter, Susan, 289 Alter, Victor, 32, 88 Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA), 12 in American Labor Party, 33 growth of, 16 American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 97 American Federation of Labor (AFL) American Labor Party (1919–1921) support in, 17 La Follette supported by, 18 American Federation of Teachers (AFT), 32, 132 American Labor Party (ALP), 3 Communist Party in, 29 – 35 in congressional election in 1948, 66 in congressional election of 1950, 121 – 23 in election of 1936, 26 – 28, 27 in election of 1944, 43 – 44 in election of 1948, 68 founding of, 11, 17, 24 – 26

Javits and, 148 Liberal Party program compared with, 85 loses ballot line and dissolves, 143 – 44 in mayoral election of 1937, 28 – 29 in mayoral election of 1945, 50 in mayoral election of 1949, 74, 75 on proportional representation on New York City Council, 58 Right faction leaves, 37 Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), 99, 118, 165, 244 American Youth for Democracy, 93, 110 Amter, Israel, 29 Anderson, John, 276 – 77 anti-Communism, 5 of Counts, 132 of Liberal Party, 91 – 94 of NECNP, 64 – 65 Antonini, Luigi, 12, 191 in American Labor Party, 24, 25, 28 during gubernatorial election of 1966, 205 Armas, Encarnación, 42, 79 – 80, 99 Arricale, Frank, 194 Astrow, Irving, 217 – 18 Aurelio, Richard, 228, 232 Badillo, Herman in comptroller election of 1993, 289 in mayoral election of 1969, 229 in mayoral election of 1973, 255 – 57 in mayoral election of 1977, 271 Baer, Harold, 207 Baker, Ella, 140 Baldwin, Beanie, 66 Baron, Murray, 137 on Corsi, 119 on election of 1950, 121 in election of 1956, 148 in Senate election of 1968, 220 – 21 Basel, Amos, 178, 179 Beagle, Simon, 83, 222

405

406    I N D E X

Beame, Abraham as city comptroller, 173 in mayoral election of 1965, 189, 191, 193 – 94 in mayoral election of 1973, 256 – 58 in mayoral election of 1977, 271 Bell, Daniel, 113 Bellamy, Carol, 285 Bennett, John, 164 Berle, Adolf A., Jr., 6, 22, 92, 300 anti-Communism of, 93 on banning The Nation, 94 as chair of Liberal Party, 59 – 60 on consumerism, 104 on DeSapio, 144 during election of 1948, 65, 67 – 69 on election of 1950, 117 on election of 1952, 128 – 30, 133 on FDR, Jr., 141 on gambling, 115 in gubernatorial election of 1966, 201 in La Guardia administration, 23 in mayoral election of 1949, 71 – 73, 75 during mayoral election of 1953, 135 – 37, 139 – 41 during mayoral election of 1961, 172 on patronage, 82 as postcapitalist, 64 resigns as Liberal Party chair, 145 – 46 on split in American Labor Party, 34 on support for Democratic Party, 53 on Truman’s foreign policy, 90 – 91 on Wallace, 63 Bethune, Mary McLeod, 73 Bevin, Ernest, 109 Biaggi, Mario, 255 – 57 Biden, Joe, 297 Bilbo, Theodore, 49 Bingham, Jonathan, 120 Birbach, Jerry, 249 – 51 Blacks, 7, 37, 47, 49, 65, 69, 70, 78 – 79, 129, 149, 156, 181, 189,196, 205 – 206, 208, 209, 219 – 220, 224 – 226, 271, 286, 288, 294 and community control of schools, 222 – 24 discrimination against in garment industry, 177 and Forest Hills controversy, 248 – 252 in Liberal Party, 42, 49, 51, 114, 182, 186, 220 employment discrimination against, 94 – 96 housing discrimination against, 96 – 98 and riots of 1964, 182 – 83 Blaine Amendment (New York Constitution), 209 – 10 Blanshard, Paul, 23, 94 Block, S. John, 23 Bloomberg,, Michael, 294, 296

Blumenthal, Al, 255, 256 – 58 Booth, William, 249 Bowman, Leroy, 218, 220, 225 Braun, John, 95 Breezy Point (Queens), 179 Breslin, Jimmy, 229 Brewer, Guy, 73 Brick, Howard, 2, 21 – 22 Brinkley, Alan, 2 Brodsky, Richard, 297 Broido, Louis, 173 Brotherhood Party, 170 – 71 Brown, Earl, 78, 140, 153 – 54 Brown, Leo, 173 Brownell, Herbert, Jr., 234 Brydges, Earl, 196, 221 Buckley, Charles, 145, 172, 192, 199 Buckley, James, 246 – 47 in Senate election of 1968, 221, 226 in Senate election of 1970, 246 – 47 in Senate election of 1976, 266 Buckley, William F., Jr., 191 – 93 Budenz, Louis, 38 Buffalo (New York), 81, 174, 196 Bunche, Ralph, 152, 180 Burlingham, C. C., 48 Button, Dan, 206 Cacchione, Peter, 109 – 11 Cahan, Abraham, 21 Calman, Maurice, 137, 154 Campbell, Persia, 104, 143 Canudo, Eugene, 138 capitalism and postcapitalism, 21 – 22 Carey, Hugh, 179 elected governor, 263 during fiscal crisis, 264 – 65 in gubernatorial election of 1974, 260 – 61 in gubernatorial election of 1978, 275 in gubernatorial election of 1982, 278 during mayoral election of 1977, 271 – 72 during Senate election of 1976, 267 Carter, Elmer, 122 Carter, Jimmy, 265, 275 – 77 Cashmore, John, 131, 133 Catholics, 94 on Blaine Amendment, 209 Buckley as, 192 in Conservative Party, 176 Costello as, 176, 180, 192 in election of 1964, 180 in election of 1965, 192 Kennedy as, 164 Lehman and, 76 – 77 in mayoral election of 1945, 50

I N D E X     407 opposition to CCRB among, 208 political culture of, 5, 50, 72, 76 – 77, 94, 138, 162, 164, 176, 180, 192, 199 – 200, 204, 209, 246, 253, 260 Celler, Emanuel, 62, 179, 254 Chanin, Hershel, 230 Childs, John, 146, 300 Berle replaces as chair of Liberal Party, 59 as chair of Liberal Party, 39 – 40 on mayoral election of 1945, 52 on teachers’ strikes of 1968, 223 with Truman, 45 on Wallace, 55, 63 on women in Liberal Party leadership, 41 Chisolm, Shirley, 225 – 26 Christenberry, Robert, 150 Christensen, Farley, 17 Citizens for Religious Freedom, 164 City Affairs Committee (CAC), 20 support for La Guardia among, 23 City Council. See New York City Council civilian complaint review board (CCRB), 204, 206 – 8 civil liberties, 91 – 94, 110, 132 civil rights, 86, 91, 94 – 98, 142, 148, 155 Buckley on, 192 in community control of schools, 222 – 24 in Democratic platform of 1952, 128 – 30 in election of 1948, 67 in election of 1964, 181 Clark, Kenneth, 205, 266, 267 Clark, Ramsey, 241, 261 – 62 Clingan, Eldon, 158, 186, 187, 211 as City Council member, 236, 237 on Davidson, 213 in Liberals for New Politics, 240 on Lindsay, 193 on O’Connor, 199 – 200 on Policy Committee, 212 switches to Democrat, 258 Clinton, Hillary, 294 Cloth Hat, Cap and Millinery Workers International Union, 12 Cold War, 88 Coleman, Gerald, 158, 250 Committee at Large (in Liberal Party), 146 – 47 Committee for an Independent Liberal Party (CILP), 283, 285 Committee for Democratic Voters (CDV), 157, 165 in mayoral election of 1961, 168 – 69, 171 Committee for Responsible Liberalism, 221 Committee to Re-Organize the Liberal Party of New York State, 296

Communism as issue in congressional election of 1950, 120, 121 Truman Doctrine on, 89 – 90 Communist Party (US) in American Labor Party, 29 – 35 attempts to outlaw, 93 on college campuses, 80 Counts on, 132 in election of 1948, 65 in election of 1950, 121 on founding of Liberal Party, 38 on Marshall Plan, 90 in mayoral election of 1945, 49 in New York City Council, 57 – 58, 110 – 11 pre-WW II peace movement dominated by, 197 Smith Act trials of members of, 92 split between Socialists and, 15 Conference on Progressive Political Action (CPPA), 17, 18 Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), 24 Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 182 Conservative Party, 4, 5, 160 on CCRB referendum, 207 in election of 1962, 175 – 77 in gubernatorial election of 1966, 204, 206 – 7 in gubernatorial election of 1974, 263 in gubernatorial election of 1978, 275 in mayoral election of 1965, 191 – 92 in mayoral election of 1989, 286, 288 in presidential election of 1972, 254 in Senate election of 1964, 186 in Senate election of 1968, 221 in Senate election of 1970, 246, 247 in Senate election of 1974, 262 Consolidated Edison (firm), 105 consumerism, 104 Cooper, John, 81 Cordaro, Angelo, 188, 196 Corsall, Vincent, 151 – 52 Corsi, Edward, 117 – 19 Costello, Frank, 74, 123, 124, 126 Costello, Timothy, 176 – 77 as deputy mayor, 195 – 97 on election of 1964, 185 in election of 1965, 191, 192 during election of 1968, 218 on Robert F. Kennedy, 183 in mayoral election of 1965, 193 meets with Johnson, 180 in Senate election of 1970, 244 – 46 Counts, George on academic freedom for Communists, 93 as American Labor Party chair, 32

408    I N D E X

Counts, George (continued) as Liberal Party chair, 39, 146 resigns as Liberal Party chair, 156 on Rockefeller, 155 in senatorial election of 1952, 131 – 33 on working with Communists, 92 Crangle, Joseph, 243, 259 – 60 Crew, Rudy, 290 cross endorsements, 3 – 4, 259 Crossman, R. H. S., 104 Crosswaith, Frank, 42 Crotty, Peter, 155 Cuomo, Andrew, 4, 282 as attorney general, 299 as governor, 297 in gubernatorial election of 2002, 294 – 95 Cuomo, Mario on Forest Hills housing project, 250 in gubernatorial election of 1982, 278 – 79 in gubernatorial election of 1994, 291 Harding and, 281 in mayoral election of 1977, 271 – 73 patronage in administration of, 283 – 84 Curran, Thomas, 116, 120 – 21 D’Amato, Alphonse, 276, 277, 293 Davidoff, Sid, 228 Davidson, Ben, 188, 213 on appeal of Liberal Party to young people, 82 – 83 in Communist Party, 33 – 34 on election of 1950, 117 on election of 1952, 130, 131 on election of 1964, 186 during election of 1968, 218 – 19 on election of 1972, 252 on election of 1976, 268 as executive director of Liberal Party, 41 on Greece, 90 during gubernatorial election of 1966, 201 – 3 on Halley, 127 on Harding, 280 Hitler-Stalin Pact, 29 – 30 on Keating, 180 “Liberal Manifesto” by, 270 in Liberal Party leadership after death of Rose, 274 on Liberal Party strategy, 122 – 23 during Lindsay administration, 194, 195 on Loyalty Day Parade, 91 on mayoral election of 1953, 140 during mayoral election of 1961, 172 during mayoral election of 1969, 234

on National Council for a Permanent FEPC, 96 on Policy Committee, 212 on purpose of Liberal Party, 85 retires as Liberal Party director, 268 – 69 on Samuels, 200 on Senate election of 1970, 248 on Willkie, 46 Davidson, Eve, 239, 268 Davis, Benjamin, 51, 78, 109, 111 Debs, Eugene V., 17, 188 Delaney, James, 176 Democratic Party American Labor Party and, 25, 28 in election of 1970, 247 Liberal Party support for, 4 in mayoral election of 1953, 135 – 36, 138 – 39 in mayoral election of 1961, 167 – 71 in mayoral election of 1965, 194 in mayoral election of 1969, 229 in mayoral election of 1971, 271 in mayoral election of 1989, 288 in presidential election of 1944, 42 – 43 in presidential election of 1948, 62, 67 in presidential election of 1952, 128 – 30 in presidential election of 1956, 98 – 99, 147 in presidential election of 1960, 160 – 67 in presidential election of 1972, 252 – 55 Reform movement within, 157 – 59 Tammany Hall in, 6 DeSapio, Carmine, 117 Berle and, 141 election of 1950 and, 120 – 21 in gubernatorial election of 1954, 142 in gubernatorial election of 1958, 156 in mayoral election of 1961, 167, 168, 171 Pecora and, 116 Rose and, 259 as secretary of state, 143, 144 in Senate election of 1958, 152, 153 Robert F. Wagner, Jr., and, 149 – 50 Dewey, John, 32, 39 Dewey, Thomas, 44, 54 Dulles appointed to Senate by, 75, 77 in election of 1948, 68 in election of 1950, 114, 119 on employment discrimination, 94 – 96 as governor, 105, 107 on mayoral election of 1953, 136 Diamond, Eli, 182 – 83, 197, 241 Dinkins, David on end of Liberal Party, 295 in mayoral election of 1989, 286 – 88

I N D E X     409 in mayoral election of 1993, 288 – 89 in Working Families Party, 293 discrimination in employment, 94 – 96 in garment industry, 177 in housing, 96 – 98 Dodd, Bella, 148 Dolgen, Abe, 136 – 37 Donovan, James, 121 – 22, 133, 175 Dontzin, Michael, 234 Douglas, Helen Gahagan, 41 Douglas, Paul, 128, 195 Dowd, Douglas, 241 Dubinsky, David, 300 in American Labor Party, 28, 32 – 35 as Constitutional Convention delegate, 208 in election of 1928, 19 in election of 1944, 37, 43 – 45 in election of 1946, 56 in election of 1948, 68 in election of 1952, 129, 130 in election of 1960, 160 – 61, 163 in election of 1968, 219 in employment discrimination hearings, 177 Goldberg and, 167 in gubernatorial election of 1966, 201, 202, 206 on Donald Harrington, 198 leaves Socialist Party, 24 Liberal Party under control of, 6 on Lindsay, 190, 191 during Lindsay administration, 195 in mayoral election of 1945, 48 – 49 in mayoral election of 1953, 136, 139 in mayoral election of 1961, 170 in mayoral election of 1963, 233 in mayoral election of 1965, 193, 194 in mayoral election of 1969, 234 on Morrison, 244 on Pecora, 117 retires from ILGWU, 198 rise of, 15 – 16 on Rose, 26 on Taft-Hartley Act, 103 on third party possibilities, 64 with Truman, 45 on Wallace, 62 – 63 Dudley, Edward, 173 Dulles, John Foster, 75, 77 Earle, Genevieve, 106 education, 106 – 7 aid to parochial schools as issue, 176 Blaine Amendment on, 209 – 10

school boycott of 1964, 181 – 82 tax credits for private school tuition, 277 teachers’ strikes of 1968, 221 – 24 Eisenhower, Dwight D. in election of 1948, 67 in election of 1952, 130 in election of 1956, 149 elections for governor of New York, of 1946, 53 – 56 for governor of New York, of 1950, 114 – 16, 119 for governor of New York, of 1954, 141 – 47 for governor of New York, of 1958, 152 – 53, 155 – 56 for governor of New York, of 1962, 174 – 77 for governor of New York, of 1966, 198 – 206, 210 – 11 for governor of New York, of 1970, 242 – 47 for governor of New York, of 1974, 259 – 61, 263 for governor of New York, of 1978, 275 for governor of New York, of 1982, 278 – 79 for governor of New York, of 1990, 291 for governor of New York, of 1994, 291 for governor of New York, of 1998, 292 – 93 for governor of New York, of 2002, 294 – 95 for House of Representatives, of 1946, 56 – 57 for House of Representatives, of 1948, 65 – 66 for House of Representatives, of 1949, special, 69 – 71 for House of Representatives, of 1950, 120 – 22 for House of Representatives, of 1952, 133 for House of Representatives, of 1958, 153 – 54 for House of Representatives, of 1960, 164 – 65 for House of Representatives, of 1962, 176 for House of Representatives, of 1966, 206 for House of Representatives, of 1968, 224 – 26 for House of Representatives, of 1972, 254 – 55 for mayor of New York City, of 1886, 10 for mayor of New York City, of 1917, 13 for mayor of New York City, of 1929, 19 – 20 for mayor of New York City, of 1932, special, 20 for mayor of New York City, of 1933, 23 for mayor of New York City, of 1937, 28 – 29 for mayor of New York City, of 1945, 46 – 51 for mayor of New York City, in 1949, 71 – 75 for mayor of New York City, of 1950, special, 116 – 20 for mayor of New York City, of 1953, 135 – 41 for mayor of New York City, of 1957, 149 – 52 for mayor of New York City, of 1961, 167 – 74

410    I N D E X

elections (continued) for mayor of New York City, of 1965, 189 – 94 for mayor of New York City, of 1969, 227 – 34 for mayor of New York City, of 1973, 255 – 58 for mayor of New York City, of 1977, 270 – 75 for mayor of New York City, of 1985, 285 for mayor of New York City, of 1989, 286 – 88 for mayor of New York City, of 1993, 288 – 89 for mayor of New York City, of 1997, 290 for mayor of New York City, of 2001, 294 for mayor of New York City, of 2005, 296 for president of the US, of 1920, 17 for president of the US, of 1924, 17 – 18 for president of the US, of 1928, 19 for president of the US, of 1932, 20 for president of the US, of 1936, 24, 26 – 28, 27 for president of the US, of 1940, 30, 31, 34 for president of the US, of 1944, 36, 42 – 45, 45 for president of the US, of 1948, 61 – 65, 67 – 69 for president of the US, of 1952, 128 – 30, 133 for president of the US, of 1956, 98 – 99, 147 – 49 for president of the US, of 1960, 160 – 67 for president of the US, of 1964, 179 – 80, 183 – 86, 184 for president of the US, of 1968, 218 – 21, 226, 228 for president of the US, of 1972, 252 – 55 for president of the US, of 1976, 265 for president of the US, of 1980, 275 – 77 for president of the US, of 2008, 298 for president of the US, of 2020, 297 for US Senate, of 1949, special, 75 – 78 for US Senate, of 1950, 119 for US Senate, of 1952, 131 – 33 for US Senate, of 1958, 152 – 55 for US Senate, of 1964, 180 – 81, 183 – 85 for US Senate, of 1968, 219 – 21, 226 for US Senate, of 1970, 242 – 48 for US Senate, of 1974, 261 – 63 for US Senate, of 1976, 266 – 68 for US Senate, of 1980, 276, 277 for US Senate, of 1982, 277 – 78 for US Senate, of 1992, 292 elections (other) CCRB referendum of 1966, 206 – 8 for City Council at-large seats in 1963, 177 – 79 for City Council in 1945, 51 – 52 for City Council in 1966, special, 206 for City Council president in 1951, special, 124 – 28, 125

for delegates to New York State Constitutional Convention in 1966, 208  – 9 for Manhattan borough president in 1949, 78 for mayor of Oswego, 151 – 52 permanent registration for, 157 referendum on New York State Constitution, 210 Socialist Party in, 12 – 13 for surrogate judge in 1966, 205 – 6 electric power, 104, 105, 145 Ellis, John, 120 Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, 92 employment discrimination in, 94 – 96 full employment, 102 – 3 Enterprise Finance Corporation, 103 Epstein, Melech, 13, 16 Erlich, Henryk, 32, 88 Ernst, Morris, 92, 93 Erwin, Austin, 134 Esposito, Meade, 243, 260 Evans, Rowland, 202 Ewing, Oscar, 116 Factory Investigating Commission, 14 Fair Deal, 61 Farley, James, 25, 115, 152 Farmer, James, 205 in congressional election of 1968, 224 – 26 in gubernatorial election of 1966, 202 – 3 during riots of 1964, 182 Farmer, Lulu, 225 – 26 Farmer-Labor Party, 17, 123 Feigenbaum, William, 20, 23 Feinberg law (New York), 93 Ferrer, Fernando, 294 Fine, Nathan, 18 Fine, Sidney, 133 Finestone, Leona, 170 Finletter, Thomas, 152 – 54, 165 fiscal crisis (1975), 264 – 68 Fitzpatrick, Paul, 115, 131 Flynn, Ed, 25, 65 – 66 Foner, Henry, 216 – 17, 232, 266 Ford, Gerald, 264 Forest Hills (Queens, New York City), 248 – 52, 251 Forward (Yiddish newspaper), 21 on founding convention of Liberal Party, 36, 40 Lindsay supported by, 193 on purpose and program of Liberal Party, 85 – 86

I N D E X     411 Roosevelt supported by, 26 – 27 on Senate election of 1970, 246, 247 splits from Socialist Party, 24 Foster, Sydney, 166 Franczyk, Joseph, 197 Frankenberg, Alvin, 236, 250 Fraser, Steve, 16 Freeman, Joshua, 2 Furness, Betty, 258 fusion voting, 3

Gorman, Pat, 227 Gosselin, Grace, 41 Graubard, Seymour, 170, 172 Great Britain, 87 – 88 Greece, 89 – 90 Green, Mark, 294 Greitzer, Carol, 237 Grillo, Carl, 289 – 91 Gyory, Bruce, 297 Gyory, Nicholas, 274, 281

Gans, Roma, 41, 129 Garelik, Sanford, 230 – 31, 255 garment industry decline in employment in, 187 general strike in (1926), 15 Jews and Italians in unions in, 12 Lehman and, 19 racial discrimination in, 177 Garth, David, 260, 274, 284, 289 George, Henry, 10 Gerosa, Lawrence, 139, 149, 150 in mayoral election of 1961, 169, 171 – 72 Gerson, Simon, 111 Giuliani, Rudolph Liberal Party and, 290 – 91 in mayoral election of 1989, 286 – 88 in mayoral election of 1993, 288 – 89 in presidential election of 2008, 298 Golar, Simeon, 220, 224 – 25 appointed to judgeship, 251 – 52 in attorney general election of 1966, 203 as chair of New York City Housing Authority, 248 – 50, 251 in election of 1973, 258 Gold, Emanuel, 291 Gold, Michael, 30 Goldberg, Arthur, 161 – 63, 216 in gubernatorial election of 1970, 243 – 47 as secretary of labor, 167 Goldberg, Louis as City Council member, 106 – 11 on cross-endorsements, 72 elected to City Council, 51 – 52 in Social Democratic Federation, 40 on tenant rights, 100 on transit fare, 102 Goldstein, Israel, 50 Goldstein, Jonah J., 46 – 50 Goldwater, Barry, 185, 190, 199 Gompers, Samuel, 17 Goodell, Charles, 242 – 48 Goodell, Edward, 155, 156 Goodman, Roy, 262, 271, 272 Gore, Al, 294

Haber, Kenneth, 236 Haiti, 91 Halley, Rudolph campaign banner for, 125 in City Council president election of 1951, 124 – 28 as Kefauver Committee counsel, 123 in mayoral election of 1953, 135 – 41 Hamill, Pete, 202, 238 Hanley, Joseph, 119 Harding, Elizabeth, 282 Harding, Raymond, 263 – 64, 269 arrest of, 8, 299, 299 corruption of, 298 – 99 dispute between Harrington and, 279 – 85 during election of 1974, 261 during Giuliani administration, 289 Giuliani and, 290 during gubernatorial election of 1982, 278 – 79 during gubernatorial election of 1998, 293 during gubernatorial election of 2002, 294, 295 in Liberal Party leadership after death of Rose, 274 – 75 during mayoral election of 1977, 272 during mayoral election of 1989, 286, 287 during mayoral election of 1993, 289 during presidential election of 1980, 275 during Senate election of 1982, 277 – 78 Harding, Robert, 283, 289, 290 Harding, Russell, 289, 290, 297 – 99 Harriman, Averill, 116 as governor, 104, 144 – 45 in gubernatorial election of 1954, 141 – 42 in gubernatorial election of 1958, 152, 155 – 56 in presidential election of 1952, 128 in presidential election of 1956, 147 in Senate election of 1964, 180 Harrington, Donald Szantho becomes Liberal Party state chair, 197 – 98 on Carter administration, 275 on CCRB, 207

412    I N D E X

Harrington, Donald Szantho (continued) as Constitutional Convention delegate, 208 – 10 dispute between Harding and, 279 – 85 in election of 1960, 164 during election of 1968, 219 during fiscal crisis, 265 during gubernatorial election of 1966, 201, 206 in gubernatorial election of 1970, 243 – 45, 247 during gubernatorial election of 1974, 261 on ILGWU leaving Liberal Party, 227 “Liberal Manifesto” by, 270 in Liberal Party leadership after death of Rose, 274 on Lindsay administration, 235 in mayoral election of 1965, 193 in mayoral election of 1969, 230, 231 during mayoral election of 1973, 257 on mayoral election of 1977, 271 on Policy Committee, 212 on presidential election of 1972, 252, 253 during presidential election of 1980, 277 on Rockefeller, 200 runs for lieutenant governor in 1966, 203, 204 during Senate election of 1968, 221 during Senate election of 1976, 267 on teachers’ strikes of 1968, 223 – 24 Harrington, Michael, 232 Harrington, Vilma, 281 Harris, Lou, 193, 194, 228 Hassner, Martin, 274 – 75, 290, 291, 293 Hays, Paul R., 151, 170 during election of 1960, 162 as Liberal Party chair, 156 – 57 named to judgeship, 166 – 67 Heckscher, August, 135 – 36 Hentoff, Nat, 228 Herling, John, 248 Hershfield, Harry, 185 Hevesi, Alan, 294, 298 – 99 Hevesi, Andrew, 299 Hill, Herbert, 177 Hillman, Sidney, 16 in American Labor Party, 28, 31 – 35 in election of 1944, 43, 234 Lehman and, 19 in mayoral election of 1945, 48 Roosevelt supported by, 24 Hillquit, Morris, 13, 20 Hirschfeld, Abe, 266 Hispanics, see Latinos Hoffa, Jimmy, 161 Hoffman, Robert, 81

Hogan, Frank, 116, 153 – 56 Hollander, Louis, 24 Holmes, John Haynes, 197 Holtzman, Elizabeth, 254, 276, 277 House Committee on Un-American Activities, 93 housing discrimination in, 96 – 98 Forest Hills public housing project, 248 – 52, 251 Public housing, rent control and housing policy, 3, 7, 22, 81, 86, 97, 99 – 102, 106 – 8, 144 – 45 Housing Act (US, 1949), 3 Housing Development Corporation, 298 Hovde, Bryn, 72 Humphreyz, Hubert in election of 1948, 67 in election of 1960, 160, 162 in election of 1964, 180, 184, 185 in election of 1968, 218 – 19, 226 during mayoral election of 1965, 194 in presidential election of 1972, 252 in presidential election of 1976, 265 Ickes, Harold, 119 immigrants, 11 – 12 Impellitteri, Vincent as mayor, 105 in mayoral election of 1953, 136, 138, 139 in special election for mayor of 1950, 117 – 19, 122 Independent Liberal Association, 201 International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), 12, 15, 19, 24, 27, 76 – 77, 103, 238 as base of support for Liberal Party, 2, 38 – 39, 42 – 43, 68, 83, 113 – 114, 187 and Constitutional Convention of New York State, 1966, 208 – 209 after Dubinsky, 7 in disputes with Liberal Party, 210 – 13, 215 – 221, 233 – 234, 240 dispute within, 15 Dubinsky becomes president of, 15 – 16 Dubinsky retires from, 198 in election of 1950, 115, 118 – 119, 122 in election of 1951, 127 in election of 1952, 129 – 130, 133 in election of 1958, 155 in election of 1960, 163 in election of 1965, 190 – 191 in election of 1970, 246 during gubernatorial election of 1966, 201 – 202, 205

I N D E X     413 leaves Liberal Party, 226 – 27, 230, 266 on mayoral election of 1949, 75 during mayoral election of 1969, 233 racial discrimination by, 177 in Senate election of 1968, 221 in Trade Union Council, 113 during Vietnam War, 216, 217 Isaacs, Stanley, 106, 109 Isacson, Leo, 66 Isenberg, Carol, 240 Italians in garment industry unions, 12 support for American Labor Party among, 27 Ives, Irving discrimination commission proposed by, 94 in gubernatorial election of 1954, 141, 142 in Senate election of 1946, 54 in Senate election of 1952, 131 in Senate election of 1958, 152, 155 Ives-Quinn Act (New York), 94 – 96, 119 Jackson, Henry, 265 Jackson, Jesse, 288 Jacobs, Jane, 108 Jaquith, David, 176 Javits, Jacob, 116 in City Council president election of 1951, 124 in congressional election of 1952, 133 as Constitutional Convention delegate, 208 in election of 1946, 56 – 57 in election of 1954, 142 – 43 in election of 1956, 148 – 49 in mayoral election of 1953, 136 in mayoral election of 1961, 168 in mayoral election of 1965, 190 in mayoral election of 1969, 231 in Senate election of 1962, 175, 177 in Senate election of 1968, 219 – 21, 226 in Senate election of 1974, 260 – 63 in Senate election of 1980, 276, 277 Jewish Labor Bund, 15, 16, 32 Jewish liberalism, 4 – 5 Jews as base for Liberal Party, 4 – 5, 7, 8, 37 – 38, 41, 80, 84, 187 – 189, 300 Bilbo on, 49 and CCRB, 207, 208 and constitutional convention, New York State, 209 in council president election of 1951, 127 disagreements between Catholics and, 72, 76 – 77, 94,176

and Forest Hills controversy, 248 – 250 as immigrants to US, 11 – 12 Lehman and, 54, 76, 172 in Liberal Party leadership, 80,187 in mayoral election of 1945, 49 – 50 in mayoral election of 1961, 172 in mayoral election of 1965, 191 – 194 in mayoral election of 1969, 228 – 229, 230, 232 – 33 in mayoral election of 1973, 256 – 257 in mayoral election of 1977, 271 in mayoral election of 1989, 288 murder of leaders of Jewish Labor Bund in Poland, 32, 88 in New York in 1969, 228 – 29 political culture of, 18, 24 – 25, 65 – 67, 69, 72, 76, 94, 109, 157, 171, 176, 180, 186 – 189, 222, 228, 236 in presidential election of 1980, 276 – 277 Roosevelt supported by through ALP, 26 – 27 in senate election of 1962, 175 state in Palestine for, 67, 90 – 91 socialist and labor movements, 11 – 13, 15 – 16, 27 as supporters of Henry George, 10 in UFT, 222 – 224 Johnson, Lyndon B. in election of 1960, 162 – 64 in election of 1964, 179 – 86, 184 in election of 1968, 218 during mayoral election of 1965, 194 Vietnam War during administration of, 216 Jones, Cora, 42 Jones, J. Raymond, 78, 153, 205 Jorgensen, Christine, 244 Kahn, Alexander, 24, 26 – 27, 38 Kaplan, Abraham, 58 Keating, Barbara, 262, 263 Keating, Kenneth, 155 in election of 1964, 180, 183, 185 Keenan, Joseph, 162 Kefauver, Estes, 123 in presidential election of 1952, 128 in presidential election of 1956, 147 Kefauver Committee (Senate Crime Investigating Committee), 123 – 25 Kelley, James B., 143 Kempton, Murray, 170, 202, 203 Kennedy, Edward (Ted), 253, 276 Kennedy, John F. in election of 1956, 147 in election of 1960, 160 – 64, 166

414    I N D E X

Kennedy, Robert F. on Constitutional Convention delegates, 208 in election of 1960, 162 during election of 1966, 205 – 6 in election of 1968, 219 meets with Rose, 166 – 67 in Senate election of 1964, 181, 183 – 86, 184 Kirschenbaum, Walter, 80, 91, 101, 284 Klehr, Harvey, 29 Klein, Arthur, 205 Koch, Edward I., 252 elected to City Council in 1966, 206 on Forest Hills housing project, 251 in gubernatorial election of 1982, 278 – 79 in mayoral election of 1965, 194 in mayoral election of 1977, 271 – 73 in mayoral election of 1985, 285 in mayoral election of 1989, 286 – 88 Koch, Leo, 203, 217 – 18 Korean War, 90, 119 Kowal, Chester, 174 Kruger, Lewis, 240 Kyriakakas, Basil, 244 La Follette, Robert, 17 – 18 La Guardia, Fiorello, 14, 18 on Berle, 60 on discrimination at Stuyvesant Town, 97 Marcantonio and, 74 as mayor, 23, 45 – 46 in mayoral election of 1937, 28 in mayoral election of 1945, 50 meets with American Labor Party leaders, 34 – 35 on Rose, 26 La Guardia, Marie, 74, 75, 139, 170 Lanzetta, James, 120 Latham, Henry, 126 – 27 Latinos, 7, 42, 114, 186, 208, 288 Lauder, Ronald, 287 Lazarus, Isidor, 82 Lazarus, Reuben, 227 Lefkowitz, Louis as attorney general, 203 in election of 1974, 260 in mayoral election of 1961, 168, 171 Lehman, Herbert, 19 American Labor Party’s support for, 27 Committee for Democratic Voters led by, 157 Committee on Discrimination in Employment appointed by, 94 in election of 1946, 54, 55 in election of 1958, 152

during mayoral election of 1961, 172 in Senate election of 1950, 115, 119, 122 in Senate election of 1956, 147 – 48 in special Senate election of 1949, 75 – 78 Lemlich, Clara, 14 Lenz, Harold, 93 – 94 Levin, Sol, 127 Levitt, Arthur, 156 in election of 1966, 203 in mayoral election of 1961, 171 Levy, Matthew, 82, 122, 158, 258 Liberal and Labor Committee for 1973, 255 – 57 liberalism, 2 – 3, 5, 7, 8, 37 – 38, 84, 94, 132, 148, 163, 217, 239, 252, 266 Cold War split among, 61, 63 – 64 crisis in, during 1960s and 1970s, 188 – 89, 207, 214, 224, 228, 271 “fighting liberals,” 36, 43, 56, 62, 70, 73, 119, 163, 165 “Liberal Manifesto,” 270 Liberal Party disbands in 2003, 8, 296 before founding convention, 37 – 40 founding convention of, 1, 36 – 37 ILGWU leaves, 226 – 27 loses ballot line in 2002, 295 purpose and program of, 85 – 87 Rose’s death and Davidson’s retirement from, 268 – 69 Liberals for Carter (organization), 277 Liberals for Koch (organization), 285 Liberals for New Politics (organization), 239 – 41 in mayoral election of 1973, 257 in Senate election of 1970, 244, 246 Lilienthal, David, 104 Lindsay, John on CCRB, 207 education under, 222 – 24 Forest Hills project during administration of, 248 – 52, 251 as mayor, 195 – 96 in mayoral election of 1965, 190 – 94, 193 in mayoral election of 1969, 227 – 34 in mayoral election of 1973, 255 in presidential election of 1972, 252 Rose and, 237 – 38 Liuzzo, Violet, 192 London, Meyer, 12 – 13 Lovestone, Jay, 33 – 34, 83 Lovestoneites, 34, 78, 140 Low, Seth, 13 – 14 Lowenstein, Allard, 254 Luce, Henry, 42

I N D E X     415 Lucey, Patrick, 276 Lynch, Walter, 117, 119, 122 Lynn, Frank, 204 MacCauley, John, 91 MacLeish, Archibald, 76 Madison Square Garden, 108, 109 Madonna, Alberta, 290 Mahoney, J. Daniel, 267 Mailer, Norman, 229 Maiorana, Ron, 291 Manes, Donald, 251, 260 Marcantonio, Vito, 33, 57, 78, 143 in American Labor Party, 27 in election of 1950, 120 – 22 leaves American Labor Party, 144 in mayoral election of 1949, 74, 75 during World War II, 31 Marchi, John, 231, 256, 257 Marchisio, Juvenal, 137, 138 Marin, Frank, 287, 288 Marshall, Thurgood, 153 Marshall Plan (European Reconstruction Plan), 90 Marx, Karl, 52 Master, Bob, 293 McAvoy, Clifford, 138, 139, 143 McCall, Carl, 294, 295 McCarthy, Eugene, 218 – 19 McCarthy, Joseph, 92, 130, 183 McCarthy, Richard, 196, 244 McCoy, Rhody, 222 – 23 McGlynn, Edward, 10 McGoldrick, Joseph, 46, 47 McGovern, George, 252 – 54 McGrory, Mary, 191 McIntyre, William, 70 McLaurin, Benjamin, 96 in City Council election of 1945, 51 on election of 1952, 129, 130 in Senate election of 1968, 220 McNamara, Ann, 219 McNamara, James, 219, 235 McReynolds, David, 237 Mead, James, 54 – 56 Means, Gardner, 22, 59 Meany, George, 77, 162 Meir, Golda, 233 Mellen, Chase, 137 – 38, 146 Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MetLife), 96 – 98 Mindszenty, József, 91, 110 Mitchel, John Purroy, 13 – 14 Molisani, Howard, 178

Mollen, Milton, 191 Mondale, Walter, 265 Morgan, Henry, 231 Morgenthau, Robert, 175, 177 Morris, Newbold as City Council president, 29, 45 – 48 in City Council president election of 1951, 124 on housing discrimination at Stuyvesant Town, 97 in mayoral election of 1945, 50 in mayoral election of 1949, 73 – 75 Morrison, Ed, 158, 221 on Blumenthal, 256 – 57 on Andrew Cuomo, 295 in election of 1974, 261 in election of 1980, 277 on Foner, 217 on Golar, 249 on Goldberg, 243 – 44 on Hays, 166 in Liberal Party leadership after death of Rose, 274 on Liberal Party Policy Committee, 112 during Lindsay administration, 194, 213 – 14, 234 – 35, 237 during mayoral election of 1977, 272 on patronage, 173 on Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., 204 on Rose, 211 on Ryan, 254 on Screvane, 190 on Shaw, 240 on teachers’ strikes of 1968, 223, 224 Morse, Wayne, 52 – 53, 147 Moscow, Warren, 70 Moses, Robert on discrimination in employment, 94 on discrimination in housing, 97 as head of 1964 World’s Fair, 178 Liberal Party opposition to, 108, 145 on proportional representation, 57 Moskowitz, Belle, 18 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick in election of 1976, 266 – 68 in election of 1982, 277 – 78 Murphy, Thomas, 120 Murray, Pauli, 78 – 79, 83 Murray, Thomas, 153 Murrow, Edward R., 152 Muskie, Edmund, 252 Nagler, Isidore, 24 Nathan, Edgar, 97

416    I N D E X

Nation (magazine), 94 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 177, 182 National Council for a Permanent FEPC, 96 National Educational Committee for a New Party (NECNP), 64 – 65 National Organization for Women (NOW), 287 National Recovery Administration (NRA), 20 – 21 Nelson, Louis, 191 neoconservatives, 266 New Deal, 3, 11, 20 – 25, 28 – 29, 36 – 38, 53, 59, 76, 87, 116, 121, 157 New Democratic Coalition (NDC), 256 Newfield, Jack on corruption in Liberal Party, 282 – 83 on election of 1970, 246 on mayoral election of 1977, 271 on Rose, 211, 238, 239 New Leader (magazine), 46 Newman, Bernard, 168 Newman, Pauline, 14 New Politics movement, 7, 215, 217, 239 within Liberal Party, 239 – 41, 244, 246, 257, 261 in presidential election of 1972, 252 New York (state) cross endorsements by minor parties in, 3, 25 See also elections, for governor of New York New York City fiscal crisis of 1975 in, 264 – 68 municipal reform in, 19 – 24 proportional representation in City Council elections, 57 – 59 revision of city charter of, 172 – 73 social democracy in, 2 – 3 See also elections, for mayor of New York City New York City Council election for at-large seats on, in 1963, 177 – 79 election of 1945 for, 51 – 52 Liberal Party members of, 105 – 11, 235 – 37 special election for president of, 1951, 124 – 28, 125 New York City Housing Authority, 22 Forest Hills project of, 248 – 52, 251 New York Metropolitan Council on Fair Employment Practices, 95 New York Post, 234 New York State Commission of Investigation, 284 New York State Constitutional Convention, 209 – 10 election for delegates to, in 1966, 208 – 9 referendum on Constitution, 210

New York Times on end of Liberal Party, 295 on Liberal Party, 234, 239, 287 Niebuhr, Reinhold, 6, 120, 164 on Blaine Amendment, 209 Nixon, Richard M., 142 Conservative Party and, 176 in election of 1960, 160 – 61 in election of 1972, 253 on Senate election of 1970, 246 Norman, Dorothy, 41, 95 Notaro, James, 273, 275, 280 – 85 Nothelfer, Mary, 240 Novak, Robert, 158, 202 nuclear weapons, 89 Nussbaum, Aaron, 178 Ocasio-Cortez, Alexandria, 8 O’Connor, Frank, 189, 199 – 205 O’Dwyer, Paul, 241 elected City Council president, 258 in mayoral election of 1965, 189 in Senate election of 1968, 221, 226 in Senate election of 1970, 244, 247 in Senate election of 1976, 266 O’Dwyer, William, 178 in election of 1946, 53 – 54 on fare hike, 102, 106 Halley on, 124 – 25 in Kefauver Committee hearings, 123 Liberal Party opposition to, 114 – 15 in mayoral election of 1945, 46, 48 – 50 in mayoral election of 1949, 71 – 75 resigns as mayor, 116 taxes under, 107 Olean (New York), 81 O’Leary, Joseph V., 95 Olmedo, Lucas, 257 Oswego (New York), 151 – 52 Ottinger, Richard, 244, 246, 247 Palamino, Fabian, 282 Palestin, Ira as City Council member, 106 – 11 elected to City Council, 51 named to state tax commission, 143, 166 on proportional representation, 58 on tenant rights, 100 on transit fare, 102 Palestine, partition of, 90 – 91 Panken, Jacob, 23 Parsons, Alice Beal, 41 Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA), 207 Patronage, 7 – 8, 82 – 83, 150, 189, 205, 213 – 14, 236, 239, 249, 257, 270, 297, 300

I N D E X     417 during Carey administration, 263 during Mario Cuomo administration, 278 – 79, 283, 284 during Giuliani administration, 289 during Harriman administration, 143 Harding and, 274, 279 – 84, 289 Liberal Party relying on, 213 – 14 during Lindsay administration, 194 – 95, 230, 235, 238 during Wagner administration, 166, 173 – 174 outside New York City, 196 – 97 Peale, Norman Vincent, 164 Pecora, Ferdinand, 116 – 20, 122, 123 People’s Party, 23 – 24 Periconi, Joseph, 172, 173 Perkins, Frances, 14, 18 Perrotta, Fiorvarante, 230, 231 police brutality, 91, 126,140, 182 civilian complaint review board on, 204, 206 – 8 Policy Committee (of Liberal Party), 112 – 13 end of, 296 on gubernatorial election of 1966, 200 Harding-Harrington dispute in, 280 in ILGWU attempt to reform Liberal Party, 210 – 11 Robert F. Kennedy endorsed by, 183 John F. Kennedy meets with, 161, 162 in mayoral election of 1965, 190 in mayoral election of 1969, 230 Rose’s control over, 212 – 13 on Robert F. Wagner, Jr., 169, 170 Poling, Daniel, 164 Polisar, Leonard, 80 Port Washington North (New York), 174 postcapitalism, 2, 21 – 22, 64 Potash, Irving, 30 Powell, Adam Clayton, Jr., 57, 122 in election of 1950, 122 in election of 1958, 153 – 54 employment discrimination hearings by, 177 on Liberal Party, 168 Powers, Gary, 175 Powers, Peter, 289 Poyntz, Juliet Stuart, 110 Prendergast, Michael, 171 – 72, 175 Preusse, Charles, 105 Price, Robert, 190, 191, 195 Procaccino, Mario, 229, 231 – 34 Progressive Citizens of America (PCA), 63 Progressive Party (1924), 17 – 18 Progressive Party (Wisconsin), 64, 123 proportional representation, 51, 57 – 59 public housing, 100, 101, 106 Forest Hills project, 248 – 52, 251

public transportation, 101 Puerto Ricans, 37, 42, 65, 69, 70, 79 – 80, 99, 114, 120, 186, 189, 222, 225, 229, 230, 271 discrimination against in garment industry, 177 Queens College, 72, 93 Quill, Michael, 110 Quinn, Elmer, 94 Randolph, A. Philip, 51, 78 in defense of ILGWU, 177 National Council for a Permanent FEPC of, 96 National Educational Committee for a New Party led by, 64 Powell and, 154 on third party, 65 Rankin, J. Lee, 208 Raskin, A. H., 269 Ravitch, Richard, 272 Reagan, Ronald, 277 Reform Democratic movement, 157 – 59, 188 in election of 1960, 164 – 65 during Lindsay administration, 239 in mayoral election of 1965, 193 – 94 in Senate election of 1964, 183 Reid, Ogden, 260 Reid, Sean, 50 Reiter, Fran, 287 – 90, 297 Reiter, Shirley, 282 Reitman, Sidney, 175 Relkin, Harold, 259 rent control, 99 – 101, 144 Republican Party Berle on, 73 in congressional elections of 1946, 57 Conservative Party and, 176 in election of 1956, 148 in election of 1958, 156 in election of 1962, 177 in gubernatorial election of 1966, 200 Javits in, 56 Liberal Party support for, 4 in mayoral election of 1945, 47 in mayoral election of 1953, 136 – 39 in mayoral election of 1957, 150 in mayoral election of 1961, 168, 171 in mayoral election of 1965, 189, 191, 192, 193 in mayoral election of 1969, 231 in mayoral election of 1973, 256 in mayoral election of 1989, 287 – 88 in Senate election of 1968, 219 – 21 Willkie excluded from, 46 Willkie Republicans in, 40

418    I N D E X

Reuther, Walter, 119, 147, 162, 185 Richards, George, 126 Rieder, Jonathan, 188, 232, 253 Riegelman, Harold, 138, 140 Riesel, Victor, 210, 227 Right to Life Party, 275 Rivers, Francis, 47 Robinson, Donald, 25 Robinson, James, 140 Rochester (New York), 182 – 83, 196 Rockefeller, Nelson in gubernatorial election of 1958, 155 – 56 in gubernatorial election of 1962, 174 – 75, 177 in gubernatorial election of 1966, 198 – 200, 203 – 4 in gubernatorial election of 1970, 242, 243, 245 – 47 Liberal Party and, 165 – 66, 168 during mayoral election of 1973, 255, 256 resigns as governor, 259 on revision of New York City charter, 172 Rogoff, Hillel, 233 Rome (New York), 81 Rooney, John, 254 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 31, 34, 43 on aid to parochial schools, 76 Committee for Democratic Voters led by, 157 in mayoral election of 1945, 48 – 49 in mayoral election of 1949, 73 – 74 on Reform Democratic movement, 165 on Wallace, 54 – 55 Roosevelt, Franklin D. American Labor Party’s support for, 26, 27, 31 Communist Party on, 30 in election of 1932, 20 in election of 1940, 34 in election of 1944, 36, 42 – 44 as governor, 16, 19 labor support for, 24 New Deal policies, 21, 23 nominated by Liberal Party in 1944, 1 Roosevelt, Franklin D., Jr., 115, 128 in attorney general election of 1954, 141 – 43 in congressional election of 1952, 133 in congressional special election of 1949, 70 – 71 in gubernatorial election of 1966, 201 – 6 Roosevelt, Theodore, 10 Rose, Alex, 25 – 26, 300

in American Labor Party, 25 – 26, 28 – 30, 33, 34 anti-Communism of, 92 – 93 as Constitutional Convention delegate, 208 death of, 7 – 8, 242, 268 – 69 DeSapio and, 259 during election of 1944, 43 during election of 1946, 53 – 54 during election of 1952, 130 during election of 1956, 147, 148 during election of 1958, 156 during election of 1960, 160 – 62, 165 during election of 1962, 174 – 75 during election of 1968, 219, 220 during election of 1970, 243, 244, 248 on employment discrimination, 95 during fiscal crisis, 265 in founding of Liberal Party, 37, 40 during gubernatorial election of 1966, 202, 205, 206 during gubernatorial election of 1970, 245 during gubernatorial election of 1974, 259 – 63 Donald Harrington and, 198 in hatmakers union, 16, 25, 115 Johnson meets with, 179 – 80, 216 Liberal Party under control of, 6, 211 – 214 Lindsay and, 190 during Lindsay administration, 194 – 95, 235, 237 – 40 during mayoral election of 1945, 46, 52 during mayoral election of 1953, 137 during mayoral election of 1957, 150 during mayoral election of 1961, 168 – 69, 172 during mayoral election of 1965, 193, 194 during mayoral election of 1969, 228 – 34 during mayoral election of 1973, 255 – 57 meets with Robert Kennedy, 166 – 67 on patronage, 82 patronage handed out by, 213 – 14 on Policy Committee, 113 on presidential election of 1972, 253 – 54 on proposals for Liberal Party to merge with other parties, 146 in rift between ILGWU and Liberal Party, 210 – 13 during Senate election of 1958, 153 – 55 during Senate election of 1968, 221 during Senate election of 1976, 266 – 67 on third parties, 65 with Truman, 45

I N D E X     419 Robert F. Wagner, Jr. and, 150, 173 Rose, Herbert, 239, 262, 274 Rosenman, Sam, 34 Ross, Betsy McCaughey, 292 – 93 Ross, Paul, 118 Ross, Wilbur, 292, 293 Rossinow, Doug, 239 Roth, Abraham, 166 Rubin, Herb, 158 Rubinstein, Annette T., 70 Rubinstein, Charles, 137 Russert, Tim, 277 – 78 Rustin, Bayard, 181, 237 Ryan, Priscilla, 254 – 55 Ryan, William F., 164 – 65, 176, 183 in election of 1965, 189, 190 in election of 1972, 254 St. Lawrence Seaway, 104 – 5, 145 Samuels, Howard, 200, 243, 260 – 61 Sanders, Bernie, 8 Santangelo, Alfred, 164 Scheftel, Stuart, 146, 169 – 70 Scheuer, James, 229 Schiff, Dorothy, 132, 135 – 36, 138 Schneiderman, Rose, 14, 19, 73 Schumer, Charles, 293 Screvane, Paul, 169, 189, 190 Seabury, Samuel, 48, 58, 118 Sedita, Frank, 174 Shalleck, Benjamin, 70 Shanker, Albert, 222 – 24 Shannon, David, 12 Shapiro, Jacob “Gurrah,” 118 Shapiro, Rose, 223 Sharkey, Joseph, 126 Shaw, J. Stanley defeated in 1974, 263 as Queens Liberal Party leader, 226, 244, 245, 257 Rose and, 240 – 41 Shea Gould (firm), 275, 282 Sherard, Robert, 178 Shore, Samuel, 36 Shriver, Sargent, 253 Sidamon-Eristoff, Constantine, 194 Siegeltuch, Isidore, 164 Silbey, Joel, 241 Silverman, Samuel, 205 Siminoff, Paul, 240 Simon, Caroline, 150 Simon, William, 264 Smith, Al, 14, 18 – 19

social democracy, 5, 7, 10,89 – 90, 222, 300 of American Labor Party, 26 in Liberal Party program, 85 – 87, 270 in New York City, 2 – 3,264 Social Democratic Federation (SDF) in American Labor Party, 25, 28 in Liberal Party, 40 splits from Socialist Party, 23 – 24 Socialist Party, 10 – 11, 38 decline of, 14 – 15 in elections of 1914 – 1920, 12 – 13 in election of 1920, 17 in election of 1924, 18 in election of 1928, 19 Halley endorsed by, 127 Donald Harrington in, 197 – 98 Liberal Party leadership drawn from, 187 in mayoral election of 1929, 19 – 20 Social Democratic Federation splits from, 23 – 24 social democrats in, 3 union support for, 12 Socialists and Socialism, 2,3, 8, 10 – 21, 23 – 24, 32 – 34, 38, 57, 63, 88, 104, 123, 127, 202, 227, 232, 266, 300 in American Labor Party, 24, 26 – 27 in Liberal Party, 40, 44, 51 – 53, 81, 122, 137, 140, 158, 186, 187, 197 – 198, 215, 220, 236 – 237 support for La Guardia among, 23 support for Roosevelt among, 24 Solomon, Charles, 23 Sorensen, Theodore, 244 Soviet Union, 4, 31, 32, 41, 65, 86 Cold War split among liberals over, 63 in Hitler-Stalin Pact with Germany, 30 Liberal Party on, 86 – 90, 92 Wallace and, 54 – 55, 63, 65 Sparkman, John, 128 – 30 Spellman, Francis (Cardinal), 76 – 77, 110 Spinelli, Anthony, 246 Spock, Benjamin, 253 Springer, Maida, 42 Stand, Murray, 109 Stark, Abe, 149, 150, 153, 169 Starke, George, 205 Starr, Mark, 72, 87 State Commission against Discrimination (SCAD), 98, 145 State Consumer Protection Commission, 104 State Economic Council, 103 Steinem, Gloria, 246 Steingut, Irwin, 199

420    I N D E X

Stern, Henry, 158, 173, 237, 297 as chair of new Liberal Party, 296, 297 on Davidson, 213 elected to City Council, 258, 273 during election of 1965, 194 in election of 1974, 262 on Harding, 264 on Koch, 251 on mayoral election of 1977, 271 as parks commissioner, 273, 289 in parks department, 195 Reform Democrats and, 157 on Rose, 212, 269 in Senate election of 1976, 266, 267 on Senate election of 1980, 276 Stevenson, Adlai, 142 in election of 1952, 128 – 30, 133 in election of 1956, 98 – 99, 147 – 49 in election of 1960, 160, 162 in Senate election of 1964, 180 Stratton, Sam, 180 Stulberg, Louis Dubinsky and, 7, 198 during gubernatorial election of 1966, 202, 205 on Liberal Party finances, 213 during mayoral election of 1969, 230, 233, 234 in rift with Liberal Party, 210, 226 on Senate election of 1968, 220, 221 on Vietnam War, 216 – 18 Stuyvesant Town, 96 – 98, 100 – 101 Sullivan, Timothy J., 191 Sutton, Percy, 219 – 20, 233 in mayoral election of 1977, 271, 272 Taft-Hartley Act (US), 103 Tammany Hall, 6, 13 – 14, 23 on American Labor Party, 27 in City Council president election of 1951, 124 – 25 in congressional election of 1949, 70, 71 Costello and, 123 in mayoral election of 1945, 50 Pecora and, 116 in special election for mayor in 1950, 118 taxes, in New York City, 107 – 8 Taylor, Charles, 236, 237, 240, 258 Teachers College (Columbia University), 32, 39 Tedd, Arthur, 81 Teller, Ludwig, 164 – 65 Temporary Commission against Discrimination (TCAD), 94 Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), 104 – 5

third parties cross endorsements by, 3 – 4, 25 in election of 1948, 64 – 65 Thomas, Norman, 110, 113 in election for mayor in 1929, 19 – 20 on Halley, 127 Hamill on, 202 on Liberal Party, 38 Tobias, Channing, 78 Trade Union Council (of Liberal Party), 113 transportation, transit fare, 101, 106 Travia, Anthony, 134 Tresca, Carlo, 110 Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA), 108 Trotsky, Leon, 110 Troy, Matthew, 259 – 60, 263 Trujillo, Rafael, 201, 202 Truman, Harry S. in election of 1944, 43, 44, 45 in election of 1948, 61 – 62, 66 – 68 Liberal Party on foreign policy of, 88 – 91 not running in 1952, 128 Taft-Hartley Act vetoed by, 103 Truman Doctrine, 89 – 90 Trump, Donald, 293 Tully, Alice, 81 Tyler, Gus, 75, 221, 230 on Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., 134, 202 Udall, Morris, 265 Ughetta, Henry, 164 Union Labor Party, 10 unions bill restricting political activities by, 134 ILGWU leaves Liberal Party, 226 – 27 Jewish labor movement in, 11 – 12, 16 Liberal Party leadership drawn from, 187 Liberal Party support in, 4 during Lindsay administration, 195 – 96 during mayoral election of 1969, 233 patronage positions in, 83 support for American Labor Party in, 17, 25, 28 support for Liberal Party in, 38 – 39 Taft-Hartley Act on, 103 in Working Families Party, 293 United Federation of Teachers (UFT), 181, 215 strikes of 1968 by, 221 – 24 United Nations, 88 Uviller, Harry, 91 Vallone, Peter, 293 Van Arsdale, Harry, 170 Van Nes, Mary, 174

I N D E X     421 Vietnam War, 7, 215 – 19 as issue in election of 1970, 243 – 44 as issue in election of 1972, 252, 253 Village Independent Democrats, 194 Village Voice, 282, 297 – 98 Vladeck, Charney, 23, 24, 29 voting, by eighteen-year-olds, 210 Wade, Richard, 290 Wagner, Robert F., Sr., 14, 28, 48, 75 Wagner, Robert F., Jr., 78, 144 declines to run in 1965, 189 on election of 1964, 185 in gubernatorial election of 1954, 141, 142 Liberal Party and, 166 as mayor, 105 in mayoral election of 1953, 135, 138 – 40 in mayoral election of 1957, 149 – 52 in mayoral election of 1961, 167 – 73 in mayoral election of 1969, 229, 230 in mayoral election of 1973, 255 – 56 during mayoral election of 1977, 271 – 72 in Senate election of 1952, 131 in Senate election of 1956, 147 – 49 in Senate election of 1958, 153 Waldman, Louis, 24 Walker, James, 20 Wallace, Henry A. in election of 1944, 42 – 44 in election of 1948, 65 – 68 on mayoral election of 1945, 48 Truman compared with, 62 – 63 “Way to Peace” speech of, 54 – 55

Wall Street Journal, 287 Weber, Simon, 247 Wechsler, James, 202, 230, 259 Weinkrantz, Herman, 100 Weiss, Ted, 182 Wells, David, 133, 208, 209 White, Walter, 129 Willen, Pearl, 38, 41 Willkie, Edith, 121 Willkie, Wendell, 46, 64 Willkie Republicans, 40 Wilson, Malcolm, 259, 261 Wilson-Pekula Act (New York state), 57, 120 Winokur, Meyer, 39 women, in Liberal Party leadership, 41 Workers’ Defense League, 89 Working Families Party (WFP), 4, 293 – 95, 297, 301 World’s Fair (1964–65), 178 Yonkers (New York), 174 Young, Thomas, 95 – 96 Young Liberals, 41, 80 – 81 Young People’s Socialist League (YPSL), 236 Zaritsky, Max, 16, 19, 115 in American Labor Party, 24, 25, 28 in mayoral election of 1949, 74 on Truman, 67 Zelenko, Herbert, 176, 177 Zimmerman, Charles, 113 – 14, 210 Zipp, Samuel, 3 Zwillman, Longie, 126