John Moot '43, an ex-president of the CCA from Coolidge Hill, says he believes that proportional representation, with its emphasis on minority rule, is the scourge of the coalition makers. He says that p.r. enables "a group of 300 citizens to throw their weight around," and forces certain councilors to play to small interest groups--causing fragmentation that hampers progress.

But most city businessmen and political leaders today believe that p.r. just accentuates the fragmentation, making it easier to see. Cambridge Trust President Gardner Bradlee holds that the whole political base is simply too fragmented to get anything done. "There are 25 different points of view on each issue, and they all want to be represented," he says. "It's very difficult to get a consensus and there is no one today capable of forming a coalition."

City Manager Sullivan, struggling desperately to clear his office of the political tinge that his predecessors gave it, claims that before p.r. there was divisiveness "because in any town-and-gown community you will get fragmentation.

And since Crane departed from the scene no one person has been able to pull either neighborhood or business groups together. Moot notes that the CCA, once broad, powerful and shrewd, today is composed of inexperienced politicians, many incapable at the moment of mounting a coalition. And the community groups for the most part have yet to exercise the coherence or the political acumen to throw their weight behind a certain issue and get it done.

The Harvard Square Task Force is emblematic of a community action group that receives only fragmented support from its constituents. Established by the city manager in 1962 to draw comprehensive plans for Harvard Square and watch over the Square's development, the task force, headed by Oliver Brooks, recruited business and community leaders and in December released a preliminary draft for use of the Square. It was expected that if anyone planned to erect any structure in the Square the task force would be called in first to survey the situation. But while the force was finishing its policy plan Sheldon Cohen, a task force member himself, went about unobstructed in his unauthorized addition to the Out of Town News Service kiosk. Brooks admits that the task force "does not have a great deal of influence and only attempts to urge, cajole, persuade or convince when it can." But if the task force's own members don't respect its comprehensive policy plan or the force itself, there seems to be little reason to believe anyone else will.

Martha Lawrence, active in Neighborhood Ten--a Cambridge community association--and a Brattle area native, admits that the neighborhoods exert little political influence and are not in contact with the city manager. But she is quick to point out that associations did get together to fight the Kennedy Library and museum. "We have shown you really can fight city hall," says Lawrence of the battle to keep the complex out of Cambridge.

But the community groups aren't the only fragmented interests in town that coalesce only to kill an issue they don't like. The Harvard Square Businessmen, after several years of leaderless lethargy, quickly consolidated forces when the 1972 Brattle Street walk project apparently threatened their businesses. The Brattle pedestrian mall, a Cornelia Wheeler-backed project, closed off Brattle St. at Brattle Square to all but emergency traffic. The project lasted for six months until. Wheeler claims, Square retailers chose to brand the mall a scapegoat for slumping trade and successfully petitioned the council to scrap the measure.

It was not too long ago that the business interests, particularly the Harvard Square Businessmen's Association, were stronger. As restaurant proprietor Frank Cardullo says, "Up until five years ago we had a very strong association. But being as they are getting old we don't have the energy we had. In the old days we really got things done. We went to the mayor, the chief of police. But a few of the leaders have passed on, a few are retired, and now there are different types of business."

Different businesses are what Harvard Trust President Ernie Stockwell sees as being the problem. He says the moving out of blue-collar industry, coupled with a rise in absentee ownerships and mergers with out-of-town corporations, have caused businesses to care much less about the City's welfare. "You hear that companies are not attracted to Cambridge." Stockwell laments, "because the paralytic city government and a lack of businessmen have an effect on the price structure. A lot of people might consider moving in if more active political groups made concessions. But now they are going elsewhere. Other cities must be offering something better."

But as for his own role in city politics, Stockwell says, "If I had been accepted to this office to bring back Cambridge that would be one thing. But Harvard Trust is bigger than it was [in the days of ex-President Robert Duncan]. I've got meetings later today in Arlington and Belmont. Pre-commitments occupy my time--I can't dedicate my future to the reconstruction of Cambridge. But we do pay our taxes."

Stockwell says that part of the problem with coordination between business and government is that the council doesn't give what he calls "too many pounds of respect for those who shape the town's economy and commerce," a point to which insurance executive Jack Dyer readily agrees. "Politicians here tell you that you ought to be more involved," says Dyer, "and then when you get more involved they tell you not to interfere--I'm not convinced what goes on [in City Council] Monday night is the answer."

What do most leaders in Cambridge today think is the answer? Many businessmen are quick to place their hopes with Chamber of Commerce President Jones, whom Dyer calls "a man of missionary zeal." While other community leaders look towards city manager Jim Sullivan. "I think we have a strong and vital leadership in Robert Jones," Howard W. Davis, general manager of the Coop, says. "I support him in trying to get things done. He represents the business community and recognizes the need of collaboration with neighborhood groups and other groups."

But Jones, new to the job, already has encountered massive troubles. His biggest headache, he says, is that he doesn't live in Cambridge but in Belmont, a factor that considerably reduces his legitimacy in some Cantabrigian eyes. But Jones insists, "Just because I sleep 300 yards from Cambridge shouldn't mean anything. I spend most of my life here. My friends and job are here and the things I care about are here--so why should it matter?"

As for Sullivan, as city manager he is always in the precarious position of being able to be fired at the whim of the majority of the council but he has shown a wisdom and desire for cutting costs and trying to bring back blue-collar industry to Cambridge.

And who do these two leaders view as key resources to bring Cambridge around to fiscal sanity? Both men believe that it is Harvard that must exercise the biggest role. "Harvard is so god-damned paranoid that it is afraid to ask for anything, so there emerges a leadership crisis," Jones says. "As a businessman and Chamber of Commerce president I have chosen to lean heavily on Harvard and MIT for cooperation."

Sullivan sees the problem strictly in terms of money. "It is my belief," he says, "that universities should contribute more in the way of dollars. Although Harvard is trying to attract foreign investment for us, overall the relationship between the city and the University proper suggests that there is a long way to go."

But both acknowledge that Harvard can't exert the political leadership needed to unite the fragmented groups and "get Cambridge back on the tracks," as Jones says. However, Sullivan and Jones are optimistic. Sullivan speaks enthusiastically of the future because, although the city has no community power structure, Cambridge is getting out of the cut-rate service low-tax mire that Eddie Crane dredged it through. But Jones pins his hopes a different plane--he claims he is looking ahead to the future. He's waiting for the emergence of another power broker like Eddie Crane.