It is barely possible that some Harvard students do not realize that a municipal election campaign is in full swing. The men and women who are running, however, are every day more aware that they are in a fight.
With 15 positions at stake and 65 candidates on the ballot it would seem to be anybody's race. Cambridge politicians, though, are almost perfectly divisible into four groups: the reformers, the longtime ins, the perennial outs, and the hardy newcomers.
Of these classifications the ins are, in most instances, fairly sure of re-election; the reformers will elect some of their slate; and the perennials and the newcomers are generally doomed to oblivion, this year at least.
The ins in the 1957 battle are headed by Mayor Edward J. Sullivan, who proclaims himself as the voters' "Around-the-Clock-Servant," humane, sincere, trustworthy, faithful, aggressive, honest, and capable. Sullivan predicted that he will "top the ticket," and that his group of so-called "independents" will keep control of both the City Council and the School Committee. In his clique are Al Vellucci and John Lynch, both incumbents on the City Council, Anthony Galluccio, John Briston Sullivan, and James Fitzgerald, School Committee members up for re-election. Joseph Maynard, a former School Committeman who automatically and unfailingly followed the Mayor's lead, is now trying for the City Council.
The reformers, all endorsed by the Cambridge Civic Association, are led by former Mayor Joseph DeGuglielmo '29 and two-term School Committeeman Judson T. Shaplin '42, associate dean of the Harvard School of Education. Other CCA incumbents are Mrs. Pearl K. Wise and former Mayor Edward Crane '35 on the City Council, and Mrs. Catherine Ogden on the School Committee. The CCA, however, has endorsed 13 others, all comparative newcomers to city politics, with the exception of Robert G. Conley, co-ordinator of two Stevenson campaigns, and William Galgay, former 3-term School Committee member.
There are two other incumbents running for the City Council--Charles A. Watson and Thomas McNamara--both of whom are real independents, in that they are neither tied to the Mayor nor to the CCA. Assuming that the CCA does not elect a majority of the Council, there is a good chance that either Watson or McNamara will receive the backing of the CCA minority for the mayoralty.
Among the perennials, Benedict Fitzgerald '08 is probably the hardiest. Most people have lost count of his unsuccessful runs for office. He is running for City Council, but his only chance for victory is through a sympathy vote or a case of mistaken identity, in which voters thought he was the Mayor's crony, James Fitzgerald. On the CCA side, there are three former perennials parading behind the standard of respectability. Gaetan Aiello and Robert Horan, School Committee candidates, are at least one-time losers, and Witold Pladziewicz, owner of an East Cambridge meat market and a City Council candidate, shares the same stigma.
One perennial and an independent who is out of action for this campaign is Edward Martin, a columnist for the Cambridge-Somerville edition of the Record-American. Some miss him.
Newcomers Varied
Within the group of newcomers George E. Squires stands out for the inaudibility of his speech. Squires has a record of helping retired people and is fighting for a recreation center for them and a similar center for potential juvenile delinquents. Another newcomer, Andrew Trodden is given a better than average chance for the City Council. His record seems to be mainly one of police and legal work, but he assures prospective supporters that he is a family man and a graduate of Rindge Tech, both of which are prized virtues in a Cambridge campaign.
Anthony Gargiulo, running for the School Committee, has led a double life as a school teacher and an attorney. He is advocating better teachers, better schools, and better public relations for the school system, which, he claims, has suffered bad publicity from the school appointments fight and from inaccurate charges that the teaching is of a low grade. Gargiulo, however, declines to take a position on the school appointments issue--the hottest in the campaign.
An independent aspirant to the City Council, John Cremens is concentrating much of his effort on securing a good many Number 1 votes in Ward 10, his home ground. He wants to be elected, he says, so that Ward 10 will have some representation on the Council, where its fate is decided.
In reality, though, few of the unknowns stand much of a chance in the November 5 election. The battle this fall is strangely enough, a more or less ideological one, and the battle lines were drawn almost a year ago. This factor effectively places the majority of the candidates on the sidelines.
The battle revolves around 17 highly publicized appointments made last December by the School Committee. Five members of the group, headed by Mayor Sullivan, suspended the rules and proceeded to make what their CCA opponents term appointments based on "petty political friendship, personal friendship, or relationship." The CCA charges that the "independents," among whom was Anthony Galluccio, a CCA-endorsed candidate now running wthout CCA support, made the appointments without the legally required approval of the Superintendent of Schools and without submitting the candidates to competitive examinations.
The Sullivanites counter that the CCA has ignored and refused to debate the qualifications of the 17 "promoted" to school system jobs. James Fitzgerald, one of the independents, says that no objections were raised to the people as individuals and none have been raised; therefore, there is no reason to believe that they will perform badly in their jobs.
The CCA, however, has gotten up a referendum to disapprove of the appointments, but the Mayor managed to arrange the wording of the referendum so that a "yes" vote, most common on referenda, will indicate support for the Sullivanite position.
To counteract the CCA-inspired referendum, the Mayor, through the efforts of State Senator Francis X. McCann, has managed to put an anti-proportional representation referendum on the ballot. By getting a "yes" vote on this question, the Mayor hopes to win the school appointments referendum at the same time. The CCA, relying as it does on proportional representation to elect its candidates, hopes to turn its "no" votes on the school question into a defeat of the anti-PR referendum.
Origins of CCA
The CCA, born in June, 1945, during the fight for Plan E government in Cambridge, feels that PR is very nearly a matter of life and death. Under PR, the normally outvoted wards around Harvard Square have a chance to elect representatives of their own. If PR were repealed and a city-wide plurality election put in its stead, it is doubtful that the so-called "better elements" of Cambridge could have a voice in city administration. The CCA has in the past been composed mainly of these better elements--to Harvard students, the intelligentsia of the community.
Although the board of directors of the CCA is largely Democratic, its membership is to a great extent Republican. In Cambridge, however, these Republicans might have been Democrats, had not the Democratic party been largely a party controlled by Irish and Italian Catholics. An obvious parallel to the Cambridge situation is the earlier (Mayor Curleyera) Back Bay Republican reform element, which still spasmodically asserts itself in Boston politics.
The CCA, in this campaign, has broadened its scope somewhat, more from a feeling of expediency than of sincerity. Some, certainly not all of its candidates were recruited, instead of coming to seek support. Last spring Shaplin told a Harvard audience that the CCA, to gain a majority on the School Committee or the Council, would have to broaden its electoral base substantially. A conscious effort to achieve this goal can be seen in the CCA's 18 endorsees. Four are blessed with Italian names, two, and possibly a third, are of Irish ancestry, four have Jewish ties, one is a Negro, one is a Pole, three are women, and only four are blatantly Yankee. Almost all of them, however, have Harvard ties of one sort or another--degrees from the college or graduate schools, teaching positions, or children at Harvard or Radcliffe. Six are lawyers, two are educators, one is a journalist, two are local merchants, one an engineer, one a labor leader, two are former government employess, and the three women all have long records of community service and civic activity.
The others on the ballot are mainly Irish or Italian; most are veterans, few have not served as pillars of their church; and they are almost unanimously family men. Al Vellucci probably holds the record with eight children--two in the Coast Guard. A fairly typical candidate is Joseph Lund, one of the newcomers. At a candidates' rally recently he described his activities as founder of three drum and bugle corps, an usher at St. Mary's for "the past 15 years," and a fighter for veterans' rights. Lund charged that Cambridge veterans were getting a "raw deal" on their ratings for positions as teachers and on the waste involved in two city departments' handling of the War Memorial. Lund is running for School Committee.
Despite some of the comic touches (One of the Sullivanites complained that the squabble over the school appointments had left the hockey team without a coach for its Boston Garden appearance.), the campaign is deadly serious. The Mayor, for instance, means it when he says that the CCA is run by "carpetbaggers," and that he could do as well in getting out the votes if he had a ward and precinct organization financed by payoffs from Cambridge industries. CCA leaders, Shaplin in particular, are just as bitter about the Mayor and his treatment of them in the School Committee.
The CCA campaign revolves almost entirely around the School Committee issue, which to the reformers has come to signify the worst sort of politics in the schools. Although the CCA platform contains other planks--"advancement of the long-range city-wide building program, co-ordination of the building program with urban renewal and highway development, activation of a new school advisory committee, increased co-operation between the Recreation and School Departments encouragement and support of P.T.A.'s, and active citizens' consulting committees"--its school committee candidates concentrate their attack on the appointments made last December. Its City Council platform also contains many planks for improvement of the streets, libraries, hospitals, playgrounds, "totlots," for better housing conditions, urban renewal, and less wasteful administration. The CCA non-incumbent ticket, however, will stand or fall on the strength of the school issue.
To James Vorenberg, CCA ward and precinct director, a heavier vote will be a "reflection of anger" and consequently a benefit to the CCA. Although Vorenberg did not have figures on the results of the CCA's recent drive to register voters, he felt confident that more had registered and more would turn out to vote than in a normal year. Vorenberg said that his organization had obtained complete coverage in roughly one-half of the city. He felt that its efficiency was "amazingly good" considering the lack of political canvassing experience of most of the workers. In Ward 2 of East Cambridge, Vorenberg said, one meeting brought 25 to 30 workers to the CCA, and "for every worker there are many who for some reason can't come out and work, but are aroused enough to vote with us."
Sullivan Confident
Mayor Sullivan has another story to tell. Although his campaign has been relatively quiet in the sense that his speeches do not make headlines every day, he has been working very hard and is confident of victory, and with good reason. He even went so far as to say that Galluccio, who gave up CCA endorsement to vote for the patronage appointments, is "assured of re-election."
Eric Hanson, Executive Director of the CCA and a "carpetbagger" from Newton, thinks differently. Galluccio, he said, is "gone," proof that "you can't play both ends against the middle."
While Sullvan and his "independents" are relying almost entirely on personal appearances at rallies and non-political functions as well as on their own ward organizations, the CCA candidates are forced to hang together to a great extent The people who worked for the referendum petition against the school appointments have carried over into the present campaign and are the base of the organzation. Some candidates who have strong organizations of their own in normally non-CCA wards rely mainly on their own workers, but for the non-incumbents the CCA setup is vital.
In some cases, such as that of Robert G. Conley, a candidate for School Committee, the individual has appealed for outside help. Conley has gained the endorsement of the Harvard Joint Committee for Non-Partisan School Appointments, an organization in which the HYDC, The HYRC, and potentially the Eisenhower Club participate. Although the endorsement came only three weeks before election day, the Harvard students will be useful as canvassers and office workers. The CCA, itself, is planning to use the Harvard group to distribute information on election eve and to campaign at the polls on election day.
Vellucci Mellows
Ironically, even Al Vellucci, whose proposals that Harvard Yard be made into a parking lot and that Harvard become a separate state "like the Vatican" made him anathema in Crimson eyes, is asking for Harvard help. He said recently that he had told a caller that he had no objections to Harvard students forming an "Al Vellucci for Councillor" club. He continued that "help from Harvard students would go a long way in helping my re-election." Vellucci is now claiming that he helped Harvard create parking space for students and that he worked to keep Harvardians out of the clutches of the "Harvard Gestapo and the Cambridge gendarmes." He plans to see to it, if he wins, that police do not misuse their powers in ticketing students who parked their cars illegally because they had no alternative.
A campaign does strange things to people. A mild-mannered college dean turns into a platform demon, and a Harvard-baiter suddenly mellows. The issue of politics in the Cambridge schools may not seem important to a student, but it is vital to the men and women on both sides of the question. Whether the "good guys" or the "bad guys" win probably won't matter much to the Russian satellite or the trouble in the Middle East, but it is the stuff of American politics, and it is a phenomenon that no participant or spectator is likely to forget.
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