"You run a business for a profit; you should run a city to benefit the people," the city manager contends. One of his more spectacular savings involved purchase of an $18,000 truck for $1,000 through alert spotting of a war surplus deal. Actually the vehicle cost only a paltry $500 but it required an additional $500 to ship the thing from San Juan, Porto Rico.

Atkinson's biggest achievement in office has been pulling Cambridge out of its financial mess. Before Plan E, the city's debt was $11,559,500; at the end of 1950, the debt was down to $3,599,700. Despite this Atkinson also has given to fire and policemen seven pay raises and four raises to other city employees. In the five years preceding Plan E, there were no pay raises for any employee.

As of today, the CCA looks like a favorite in the race. For one thing, it has a battling president, James F. Mahan, a former F.B.I. man and presently a Boston attorney. He will probably attract a good chunk of Cambridge's Irish vote for the CCA.

Spencer himself is an essential element in the CCA's campaign. An unusually able political organizer, Spencer has been able to keep the CCA powerful. Several men the CCA sponsored could probably win the election without CCA support. These are Crane, Deguglielmo, Hyman Pill, and W. Donnison Swan '17. Other candidates that should run strong in their own areas are Chester A. Higley, Charles E. Freeman, and Thomas F. Myles '37. William E. McGuire and Benedict Fitzgerald are political novices and their chances are slim.

Eighteen independents are running. They have never been able to combine into a well-knit group but, if they should, might easily carry the election. On an individual basis, each has consistently received a larger vote than any one CCA candidate. Spencer believes that they will spread the vote by campaigning independently of one another and so defeat themselves. The only time that the independents tried to combine against the CCA, they failed. This was in 1949. The independents lead by former mayor John W. Lyons (now publisher of the weekly Cambridge Courier), held a secret meeting at the Hotel Continental to plan campaign strategy. Spencer had an informer at this caucus who telephoned him information every thirty minutes. When the independents realized their plans were known, they dropped the idea of forming an anti-CCA league.

Nevertheless, some independents will run strong without a sponsor of any sort. Lynch, with the impenetrable "Lynchville" section in North Cambridge behind him, will certainly be re-elected, and John J. Foley will probably get in again.

MacNamara and Sullivan are in danger of a split vote in their ward. Sullivan, however, is optimistic, predicting that the voters will sweep the CCA out of office, and put a majority of the independents in their places. Another candidate running as an independent is Christofer Carolina. He and Deguglielmo draw on the Italian vote, but for several elections, Carolina has failed to win.

Unlike the majority of the independents, the CCA has drawn up a definite agenda for the new City Council. This includes: a long-range tax improvement program, increases in parking area, better zoning procedures, redevelopment of slums, improvement of library and recreational facilities, and extensive street reconstruction.

But the issue between the CCA candidates and the independents is hardly one of black and white, good and evil. Some independent candidates have concrete platforms too, and have turned down CCA endorsement only because they feel that they would rather legislate without allegiance.

Although they have not united systematically, all the independents consistently bang away at the CCA and Plan E because it functions by proportional representation. Some independents have suggested that PR is "communistic" and "lottery-like." But the CCA has a powerful counter argument, at least with the Irish segment of the electorate, by pointing out that Ireland uses proportional representation.

The City Manager is an issue in a campaign which is fairly issue less. The independents claim that if Atkinson is not a dictator yet, he will greedily grab power and become one if the CCA wins another election. CCA men pooh-pooh the allegation. Whether Cambridge's 52,326 registered voters will agree remains to be seen.