Already famous in a profession he entered only seven years ago, Mike Sullivan is Cambridge's most loved and also perhaps most hated politician. In 1935, a few of his friends asked him to run for City Councilor. Mickey accepted and won. He first rose to national fame by declaring that Cambridge would be a better place and its citizens purer if Lenin's name were scratched out of every book in the City limits. Mickey fought hard for this proposal and even though he lost, he is still gunning for "those radicals."

Before entering politics via the soapbox, this bombastic orator was a teamster, storekeeper, baker, and truck-owner, shuttling between Boston and Cambridge for a living. Today he still has his small trucking business, but it isn't this that keeps him on the go. "It's the politics," as Mike calls it. "It sort of gets in your blood, and you can't get it out." During one election, the word went around that if Mickey showed up at a certain rally he'd be tossed out the window by his enemies. Mickey showed up. He wasn't going to let anyone call him yellow. For ten minutes he growled at the hostile crowd, calling them all a "gang of damned cowards." In many a campaign this wily Irishman has had to use his fists before getting a chance to speak. All kinds of political tricks have been used against him, but Mickey always comes back for more with a newer gag than any of his opponents.

One of the secrets of his success as a local "pol" is the way he appeals to his constitutents. He incites race hatred to get a few votes, or maliciously builds up a fear of some bogey such as communism. On the other hand, many people follow him for what he has done for them. Time after time, he has arranged hospital care for those who couldn't otherwise afford it, and in more cases than not, for victims outside his own district. Many families have received free milk or fruits from him, seldom knowing where it came from.

Harvard, to this City Hall defender, is no big overgrown colossus, but an irresponsible, arrogant institution, that has to be tolerated since "education is a necessary thing." Mickey will talk any time about the underhanded way Harvard forced hundreds of people out of their homes in order to build some of the Houses, or the way the college sits complacently by paying nothing for the expensive upkeep of streets and sewerage. Yet his most stinging criticisms are saved for the students themselves. "Students of yesterday were honest, but that's not so today. They're more snobbish than they used to be, too," he says. Mickey Sullivan is the kind of American politician that, with all of his love for the people, and compassion for the down-trodden, must have something to use as a scapegoat to hold his "empire" together.