Chapter 34
THE MAYOR asked me if I’d like to come down to City Hall and spend a day with him. I sat at a corner of his desk for eight consecutive hours and twenty minutes, and took as full notes as I could on everything that happened.1
Fiorello Henrico LaGuardia, the most spectacular mayor the greatest city in the world ever had, has characteristics and qualities so obvious that they are known to everyone—the volatile realism, the rubber-supple grin, the flamboyant energy, the zest for honesty in public life, the occasional vulgarisms, the common sense. But the mayor I spent these uninterrupted hours with showed more conspicuously some qualities for which he is not so widely known. He picked what he called a “desk day” for me to sit in on. He did not inspect a single fish market or visit a single fire. What he did was work at his major job, administration of the city of New York. What he did was to govern, to put in a routine day as an executive. Routine? Yes—but wait.
“Everybody talks about the mayor’s ‘temperament’—which doesn’t exist!” Reuben A. Lazarus, one of his closest associates and his legislative aide, told me. Mr. LaGuardia really runs the entire machinery of New York City, in all its dazzling complexity, singlehanded or, let us say, with his own two good hands. Temperament? There’s no time for it—unless it happens to serve a useful purpose.
Just once during my ten hours the mayor lost his temper (ten because I had two more hours with him after his official day was done). Then in a second he was grinning. “When I get excited and blow off like that,” he winked, “it was all planned two days ago.”
The mayor said he’d pick me up at my apartment, and his car came by at 9:12 A.M. With him was Robert Moses, commissioner of parks, one of the ablest and most devoted public servants in the United States. It was seventeen above zero outside; the mayor wore no overcoat but he kept a warm rug on his knees. We swept downtown while Moses went through a pile of papers and the mayor rapidly gave his decision on point after point.
Sample of the talk:
Moses: “You can’t do that. There’s a constitutional inhibition.” The mayor: “Can’t I? Well, work it out yourself.” Moses congratulated him about something mildly. The mayor: “I know I’m good. Go on.” Then a difficult decision. The mayor: “Okay! But God Almighty!”
Then—in six or seven minutes as we rolled along—rapid questions and answers on subjects ranging from Brooklyn tenements to how to build a playground.
Mr. LaGuardia’s car is something. A steel desk swings out over the back seat, and a reading lamp that looks like a small searchlight can focus on it. A special radio of course—which intermittently barks out news of police alarms and fires. A fan, a locked compartment full of guns, and a telephone. I asked the mayor if it worked. He told me about an occasion when he had called the lord mayor of London, from the moving automobile in the streets of New York, to invite him over for a visit. “My dear fellow,” replied the lord mayor (and Mr. LaGuardia reproduced his accent with ripe and luscious flavor), “I’m only in office for a year, don’t-you-know, and I have 2,500 social engagements already!”
We arrived at City Hall at 9:29. A man was waiting for LaGuardia on the outside steps. The mayor bounced right past him; one might say he bounced right through him. Bits of conversation floated behind “Hizzonor” like darting minnows. “I want to talk to Patterson about that. Bob will follow up. Write him a sympathetic letter.” We were in the mayor’s office by 9:31.
It’s one of the pleasantest offices I’ve ever seen—a large room painted white, with a coal fire at one end; it’s on the ground floor, but is nevertheless extraordinarily quiet. Also it was hot—very hot. The mayor doesn’t like too much fresh air. The fire boiled and bubbled. On one wall hangs a portrait of President James Monroe, and on an easel is a charcoal sketch of Puccini. Next to the mayor’s desk is an immense wooden contraption built like a trough; it contains the active files for which there is no room downstairs. Then on a mantel I noticed a violin, a gift from Jascha Heifetz. It is made of aluminum and is the substitute violin Heifetz used when traveling in the tropics. He told LaGuardia that he wanted to contribute it to New York City’s scrap metal drive, but the aluminum is hardly worth more than a nickel or so, and the mayor decided to save it for auctioning to some charity after the war.
On the mayor’s desk are the following objects:
A large Bible, full of slips of paper to mark passages
A small clock
Calendar pad, conspicuously tilted on top of a couple of books
2 corncob pipes and a can of Rexey mixture
2 small snapshots of his children
A baby microphone
A couple of batons
Extra glasses
A model airplane
Bottle of white pills
Yellow ash tray, shaped like a rubber life raft
Marked copies of the New York Times
A miniature totem pole
A small silk American Flag
A big dark book, the New York City Charter and Administrative Code
A roll of maps
The mayor’s technique of work is this. First, he has no telephone—at least none is on his desk. During eight hours and twenty minutes, he only used the phone once. When he does use it, the call comes outside in the anteroom where Miss Betty Cohen, a secretary, who reads his mind with electric swiftness, stands faithful guard; the door between the office and this anteroom is always open, and the mayor marches briskly in to take the call. Miss Cohen leaves her cubbyhole and walks to Mr. LaGuardia’s desk fifty or sixty times a day. The distance between them is about seventy feet, so she must walk about three-quarters of a mile between nine and five. The mayor seldom leaves his chair. But while seated, he goes through a considerable amount of movement. He sits back, pounces forward, swings around. He leans back so far that his feet leave the ground. Without actually leaving the chair, he goes through practically every physical motion known to man. Meantime his face and hands are perpetually active. His glasses fly up over his forehead; he shoots his fists out; he grimaces, chortles, frowns, nods, shrugs, beckons, leers. There is never a lost second between one appointment and the next. I was fascinated to see how this was arranged, because there are no audible buzzers or bells. But a light flashes on Miss Cohen’s desk when the mayor wants something. A new visitor is announced by the expedient of Miss Cohen walking into the room and slipping a piece of paper with a name on it on top of the appointment pad. The name is never mentioned aloud. So there is no interruption of talk with whatever visitor is with him at the time.
I sat most of the day at the corner of the big desk. No one paid any attention to me except to smile. Sometimes the mayor introduced me; sometimes he did not. Only seldom did I get a chance to ask him some of the questions I badly wanted to ask. There was never enough time.
From this point on I shall try to give a picture of the LaGuardia day by listing each appointment and activity exactly as it came.
9:43. “Get me Judge Wallace on the phone.” This to Miss Cohen.
9:43. He started going through his mail. He gets five hundred to six hundred letters a day, which his secretaries winnow to forty or fifty. They attach to each of these a pink slip, summarizing the contents. The mayor goes through the forty or fifty with intent and conscientious care, but swiftly. I never saw anything more efficient. Three secretaries stand by the desk. Miss Cohen superintends operations generally, and Miss Beatrice Resnick and Miss Gertrude Keane take the dictation. Usually Goodhue Livingston Jr., the mayor’s executive secretary, hovers near by, and so do Charles F. Murphy, his legal secretary, and Inspector James Harten, his police aide. The group works like a casual yet beautifully co-ordinated machine.
This is the way the mayor’s talk went, more or less, as he went through the mail. “Tell him to work up something, quick.” “I’ll want to write to Stimson on this.” “Memo. Ed. See me.” “Tell Jones to come in today.” “All fixed for tomorrow at two?” (The mayor was going to Washington.) “When are you returning me?” Then picking up a letter he scowled and paused. It was from someone in San Francisco, asking advice on crime prevention. He dictated a succinct reply. Of twenty-odd letters this was the first he answered.
9:47. Judge Wallace was on the phone and the mayor left the room to talk to him.
9:49. More letters. He sorted them like playing cards. “I’ll want to talk to Anna Rosenberg about this.” “No.” “This is for Brundage.” “You can reach him in Washington if you want to.” “Just put this in his file with the voucher.” “Write a pleasant answer.” Then a long pause; he read a four-page letter, and put it aside carefully without comment. More short letters. “If it’s on the sidewalk, it’s the duty of the abutting owners to clear the sidewalk.” “Look into this; I don’t think it’s very serious.” “It’s my impression I asked you to comment on this tax memo, in re schools. Please return, with constructive suggestions.” A gesture of scornful dismissal: “Never heard of this guy.” Then: “Please investigate. Police to move for revocation.” “Give this to Newbold Morris.” “I want comment on this today.” “I don’t know if this is a police job or FBI job. Deserves careful study, skillful investigation.” Then (rattling a paper): “Please remember this name. Underline it. I want you to be able to identify him.” On something else: “Let it sleep.” Then: “Confidential.” “Children’s Museum, Brooklyn.” “Breaks in water main. Let’s get a special file on this. I want a comparison for the last ten years.” “Oh, for goodness’ sake, we never answered this. ‘My dear Mrs. X …’”
10:27. Letters seemingly finished. Then came one more, to his good friend Montemezzi, composer of the opera Love of the Three Kings. “Okay, girls, that cleans us up.” As the secretaries left the room, he called to Miss Cohen, “I want to see Chester Bowles tomorrow. If he says lunch, say ‘No’; it’s hard on him.” Then a second instruction: “Can I see Ickes? Tell him it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have X. X. there.” Then to somebody new who popped into the room and whom I was not able to identify. “This is manpower. This is testimony. This is very good on police.”
10:28. The mayor leaned back. I asked him about the big trough of files. “I’ll tell you a little story. Files are the curse of modern civilization. I had a young secretary once. Just out of school. I told her, ‘If you can keep these files straight, I’ll marry you.’ She did, and so I married her.”
10:35. Instructions to Miss Truda T. Weil, his education aide. “We’ve been planning a vocational high school for the maritime trades, to train stewards for the Merchant Marine and so on. … But will this be necessary after the war, considering the number of men to whom the Navy will have given training?” He and Miss Weil talked it over. He ordered her to dig up background.
10:39. Press conference. Eight or ten reporters, the men regularly assigned to City Hall, came in and asked questions about gambling in connection with basketball. The mayor demonstrated a fierce and aggressive puritanism. “We must protect amateur sports; we can’t have people corrupting kids who are playing games!” Then a violent onslaught against the “tin-horn chiselers, the big mouths, the procurers.” “What’s wrong with the newspapers and the courts?” “Sneers and jeers of editorial writers.” “People abuse the police for doing their duty and enforcing the law; they abuse me when what I am doing is to protect the home.” Then an onslaught again, “Dirty little pimps who say their constitutional rights are being violated when as a matter of fact all they’ve got is good connections!”
10:55. The mayor said, “This is a lull. I had planned to open a tunnel.” So I had a chance to ask some questions. But not many. Lull lasted until 10:58.
JG: “What’s the hardest decision you ever had to make?”
LaG: “Damn it all, I’ve never been able to keep a diary. The days are too crowded. There are tough decisions every day. I could write a book, about twenty of ’em. … When I came into office this city was bankrupt. Its revenue was hypothecated. I had to put it on a pay-as-you-go basis. Taxes. Everybody thought, ‘That damn fool of a new mayor is committing suicide’ … I didn’t give it a thought. Usually when you ask a public official what he plans to do, he’ll think in terms of the next election. I’ve never worried about the next election. I’ve never belonged to any political party for more than fifteen minutes. … Why do good public servants break with political parties? It’s so simple. The political people never ask you to do anything that’s right—and that you’re going to do anyway! No. What they want you to do is all the things that are wrong.”
10:58. Dr. Ernest L. Stebbins, commissioner of health, and Judge Robert McCurdy Marsh. Discussion of meatless days, enforcement, etc. The mayor was silent for six or seven minutes, listening to Stebbins hard; this was his longest period of silence during the entire day. The judge was about to be sworn in as a member of the Board of Health. Someone asked, “Are you going to ask the press?” and the mayor replied, “Let’s not make a secret of it.” The newspaper men entered, and he swore Judge Marsh into office. The mayor said: “You know why I picked Marsh for this job? Because he’s a fine upstanding fellow.”
11:35. I asked the mayor how he accounted for his own hold on the electorate. “There’s a fundamental political fact about the City of New York. The stratification isn’t by parties. Ultraradicals, ultraconservatives: they both vote for me! Otherwise I could never break through. A well-informed electorate understands that the essence of municipal government is housekeeping, to make a city clean and keep it that way. What am I proudest of? Oh, well!” He grinned, and then became serious. “That I raised the standard of municipal government everywhere in this country, by raising it in New York and so proving it could be raised!”
11:37. Man announced. “Oh, I don’t want to see him now.” Pause. “Well, if he’s here, let him in.” Man entered. “Hello, Fiorello.” Five minutes’ chat on textbooks, leading to the point that “education must not be rationed,” and on the curious fact that there seemed to be plenty of paper for racing sheets and stock market reports, but none for reprints of modern classics for the schools. “What I’m thinking of is the class of 1957. Teach ’em English from Grade IA up. Proper English. I don’t care what kind of accents they have. But English so that a kid can learn what language is for, that is, to convey thoughts.”
11:47. Miss Weil again. Maritime school again. Miss Weil said, “I drafted the report. Thought you wouldn’t have time to look. But … The mayor read through the draft. Miss Cohen came in. Signing checks, fixing up petty cash. Then a minor crisis. The mayor (an angry mutter): “If they don’t know my stand on that by this time!—”
11:50. Mary Dillon, president of the Board of Education. To me in parenthesis: “Remember, you’re to write about the city, not the mayor.” Then fifteen minutes of vivid argument with Miss Dillon. Expostulating, “Mary—after what we’ve gone through together!—” Points at issue: lunchroom situation; centralized purchase of food; transfer of personnel. “Let me handle him. You’d have trouble with that hombre.” Then a quarrel full of violent comedy over whether somebody should, or should not, be hired for a job which would entail raising his salary from $6,500 to $7,500 a year. The mayor fought like a tiger to keep the figure down. But Miss Dillon explained patiently that the man was, at the moment, indispensable and his appointment an absolute necessity. The mayor kept refusing. Miss Dillon suggested a compromise at $7,000. The mayor scornfully kept on saying “No!” Then she left the room after discussion of other matters and at the very last moment, at the door, she called over her shoulder, “$7,000?” The mayor grunted, “Well—okay!”
12:05. Dictated a memo on books. “Pick your books as you would your friends. Have Emerson in your home. Ever see a movie that was a bit over your head? Well—it was because you haven’t read enough.”
12:12. Henry M. Brundage, commissioner of markets. Quickly followed by—
12:15. Delegation of eleven retail butchers and chain store representatives. But interrupted by—
12:16. An official whom I did not identify. He popped in for exactly thirty seconds, breathless, saying only “How about ODT?” and then adding a quick interjection, “Yes, but the road to Rockaway!”
12:16½. Butchers’ delegation resumes. Long, tangled, tortuous discussion on the meat shortage. Problems: How about Kosher stores? Can chain stores just close their meat counters on meatless days? What about the unions? What about fish? (“Anybody here know anything on fish?”) How about the men who boned the meat the night before? What about local autonomy in the AF of L union? “We’ve screamed our heads off at OPA!” Why weren’t cod and haddock available at the retail prices the mayor gave during his last broadcast? Why can’t you use the neck bones that the Army discards? Long argument with butchers on just how a neck is boned. The mayor showed them how.
12:50. Miss Cohen and Miss Resnick. Dictation. “How do you spell calisthenics?”
12:53. Resumption of talk with me on municipal politics and what really makes power in New York. Everybody said in 1934 it was hopeless. Corruption and contagion. But was it hopeless? Look how municipal government has improved everywhere. Los Angeles; Boston under Tobin; Cleveland under Burton; Detroit, Seattle: all first class. A sudden bursting but modest smile. Politicians don’t like it. Of course not. “Why are the machine politicians against me?” (A bray of laughter.) “They’ve been on a very strict diet, and you know what it is to starve!” Basis of New York politics used to be patronage. Favoritism in contracts; fortunes out of nepotism. “But I harass the bums!” New York City today has $1,126,000,000 in war contracts. Think of the loot—if old-time crooks and gangsters could get their hands on it! “We need constant vigilance, constant supervision.”
12:54. Lunch. That is, the mayor had a cup of black coffee, nothing else, and I had a sandwich (of cheese, since it was a meatless day).
12:56. Last year, in 127 days of racing, 400 million dollars were spent on gambling in New York. Most of it in little bets—two dollar bets and so on. “So—I keep after it.” Why? “Because those two dollar bets should have been spent on food, clothes, shelter, and a smile at the family table in the evening. A guy loses his money; he’s ashamed to face his wife; so he drinks; he gets arrogant and they quarrel in front of their kids.”
12:58. I asked why New York City did not permit sharing of taxis. The mayor snapped, “Police problem.”
1:09. A representative of the Carey Coach Company. Talk on local transportation, how to ease the rush near Pennsylvania and Grand Central stations.
1:15. Four physicians, led by Dr. Edward C. Costelloe of the Fire Department. Discussion about men discharged from the army returning to work. After Dr. Costelloe left I asked, “Don’t you ever get tired, Mr. LaGuardia?”
“Toward sundown.”
1:58. Patrick Walsh, fire commissioner. A man with a lovely brogue: “So your specific orders, mayor, are—?” “My suggestion is to get a court decision.” But—“If we go into court on this with one of those political judges, we’ll get it in the neck!”
2:05. Miss Weil again. More statistics about maritime trades, and a projected curriculum for the school. I walked with Miss Weil to the door. She whispered in admiration, “All day long—just to get the proper background for whatever decision he will take. What a field he covers! What a grasp he has!”
2:06. Edwin A. Salmon, chairman of the City Planning Commission and city fuel administrator. Report on fuel supply. “What’s the temperature outside?” “Higher.” Eleven hundred carloads of coal in today, which is wartime normal. “But what is it going to be on Friday?” The theaters have a five-day supply at the moment: how to keep them open? Orders: “Get in touch with K. before he has kittens. Then see me once more.” Other complicated details. “Damned good, Salmon!”
2:09. An aide in shirt sleeves came in with a bag of tobacco to fill the humidor. “I didn’t want to disturb you before.” The mayor tossed him half a dollar and said, “Get me some matches.”
2:15. William Wilson, commissioner of housing and buildings. He stood while talking. “Well, major.” (Lots of people call the mayor “major.”) Up to this point, incidentally, except for one phone call and when he swore in Judge Marsh, LaGuardia himself had not once stirred from his chair. Mr. Wilson leaned over the desk, shuffled, paced, roamed around, prowled, edged forward on tiptoe, and presented about thirty different matters for attention, judgment, and decision. Most were in the personal sphere, like cases of dispossession and wrangles over property; the mayor took the most prodigious pains to be fair. “Interesting case here, major. Thought you’d like to hear about it.” LaGuardia looked at a chart describing a certain property, showing the sun area at 9 A.M., 6 P.M., and so on, for different days of the year. The mayor (awake to every tiny detail but impatient over one dossier): “Do you want to go on with the long-haired boys or the skinflint boys?” Then he took time out to dictate a memorandum to Reuben Lazarus, his aide in Albany: “Keep your eye on all bills affecting multiple tenancy.” Then to Wilson: “Call your file Special War File, Pending Availability, Impending Material.” Zoning orders. “God damn it, I don’t want to hear about it.” But he listened. He began to be restless, tapping his knuckles on the desk. Wilson: “Here’s a little headache.” LaGuardia: “Okay, you stick your neck out.” Glasses up on hair. Wilson: “I have my budget. I hope you won’t trim it.” LaGuardia: “I won’t trim it much.” Wilson: “I’m still coming back for more money on demolition, but the budget is smaller than last year.” LaGuardia: “I’ll give you every break I can.” Wilson: “You bawled me out over this last time, but listen, the man is over seventy; forty-two years in the service, an absolutely clean record. Here’s his card.” The mayor looked at the photograph attached. “When this picture taken?” Wilson shrugged. “Okay,” the mayor sighed. “If you want him another year, keep him on.”
2:38. A lull, arranged for my benefit.
JG: “Whom do you hate most?”
LaG (grunting): “Hitler.”
“What do you like most?”
LaG: “Music.”
“What do you believe in most?”
LaG (smiling): “Children.”
2:44. John McKenzie, commissioner of marine and aviation. Everything from the latest plans for Idlewild, which will be the biggest airport in the world, to an alleged injustice to a blacksmith. “Let’s smoke ’em out.” “Put a burr under that guy’s tail.” “Iron it between them if they’re competitors.”
3:03. Miss Cohen brought in a letter. “Well, for God’s sake! It’s from Eleanor!” He spoke warmly and admiringly of Mrs. Roosevelt. Then fished in his desk, pulled out the small green Official Directory of New York City, and carefully checked a detail.
3:03½. Inquiry from WPB, Washington, on statement about restricted lighting.
3:04. (By this time all appointments were about half an hour late). William W. Mills, president of tax commission. Made his report. LaGuardia (swiftly): “Congratulations!”
3:06. He rose abruptly, and retired for about a minute to wash his hands.
3:07. Brundage again. What’s to be given to the newspapers on meat crisis? Quick dictation of a memo.
3:10. Arthur Popper and Adrian Burke, representing Youth House. What to do with tough kids, thirteen or so. Very volatile; you can’t reason with them as you can with delinquents a few years older. Report on Public School Number X, which seems to have more incorrigible boys than any other. Report on an unsatisfactory teacher. The mayor broods: “I’m thinking big along those lines.” Suggestion. “Yes, that sure would help some.” Then a quick change of mood and a funny story.
3:36. Meeting of the Mayor’s Committee on Race and Religion; chairman, Charles Evans Hughes Jr. Points discussed: Pushcart peddlers and a new Harlem market; problems involving pickles in fancy glasses; Coney Island; what’s the best municipal library in this country; housing problems for families who live on less than $2,500 a year; savings bank mortgages and their relation to housing projects; discrimination against Negroes in employment; the numbers racket; origin of Irish and Italian gangs; how to build a proper community spirit. During this appointment (the longest of the day) the mayor ran every gamut of emotion and expression. He was arch—as when he said to Mr. Hughes, “Can I talk to the committee about the things you thought I was so emotional about last time?” He was gloomy—as when he wrapped his hands about his head and groaned about the need for social workers. He was anecdotal—as when he told a spirited and irreverent story about General Charles De Gaulle. He was ironic—as when he said, “Now, let’s be good Anglo-Saxons; don’t lose our heads like all those Latins (!) up in Albany.” He was contemptuous—and with highly appropriate gestures—talking about “the fakers in the housing racket, experts who couldn’t build a doghouse!” He was gay—again with fitting gestures—when he tantalized the committee by saying, “Now go ahead and make your own mistakes!” He was enigmatic—as when he said blandly, “The publishers say, ‘We have to print the news.’ But there are two ways to print it!” He was sacerdotal—as when he murmured, “I believe in what you will find in St. Luke, but don’t ask me what it is.” He was impish with paradox when he grinned wickedly, “The Republicans didn’t know me very well then, so they thought I was a member of their party, when I was!” And finally, he was intensely sober. His fist smashed down on the desk, and he called out angrily, “So long as I’m the mayor, regardless of race or religion, everybody in this city gets treated on merit and alike!”
4:42. A secretary entered the room and paused pointedly at the door, as if to indicate that time was slipping by. This was the only time this happened all day.
4:43. John Delaney, chairman of the Board of Transportation, and (4:44) Newbold Morris, president of the Council. Talk on budget. The mayor rapped an envelope. “There’s 72 million dollars in this stack of paper!” Then his feet went up on the desk and he yawned. He smiled at me questioningly: “Tired?”
5:01. Grover Whalen and a delegation. Whalen was the only man all day for whom the mayor rose. Civilian defense. Ice show at Rockefeller Center. Building projects. Gossip.
5:32. Signing the day’s letters; Miss Cohen and Miss Resnick stood next to him as he went through the pile. An official popped in. “Talk fast,” the mayor said. Then, not seriously, “What do you mean by coming in at this unseemly hour?” The official grunted, “I’ve been waiting since four-fifteen, major.” Then last-minute details. Miss Cohen to remind him about something regarding the St. Lawrence Waterway. Somebody dismissed as a Dummkopf. Wild rage—a literal frenzy—on discovering that liverwurst sandwiches had been available in the municipal cafeteria today, though it was meatless. Then good humor again: “Betty … change this. I said I wanted to write a sharp letter … well, never mind.”
5:39. C. R. Beardsley, Commerce Department. Last appointment. Then a final call to Miss Cohen. “What do I have to take home with me? Oh, say, don’t forget, prepare that second thing for Bowles.”
5:46. The mayor stretched and said to me, “Come on, let’s go.” Then to various aides and secretaries: “Have car ready. No curb interviews.” 5:58. Silly item from a news agency that demanded last-minute attention. Then: “I guess I’m tired too.”
5:59. Out of the building and into the car. The mayor took me home with him, to have a drink, eat some antipasto, and meet his wife and children. We rolled up the East River Drive and suddenly he grabbed the telephone, calling Miss Cohen on something he’d forgotten. We could hear her, but she couldn’t hear us; LaGuardia was as disappointed as a child that the phone didn’t work. We reached Gracie House. Then we talked till 7:55 about Tom Dewey, the war, Bill Bullitt, good food, what are the sources of Mr. Roosevelt’s power, summer camps for kids, Henry Wallace and Jesse Jones, Russian foreign policy and the Atlantic Charter.
I left at about eight. The mayor was going to have a bite of supper. Then he had paper work facing him till midnight and beyond. I felt that I had had one of the most remarkable—and remarkably full—days I’ve ever gone through. And that Fiorello H. LaGuardia is one of the most original, most useful, and most stimulating men American public life has ever known.
1 This sketch was written in February, 1945, when hiside U. S. A. was first getting underway. Of course Mr. LaGuardia is no longer mayor. But I am letting what I wrote stand as written. Most of the people in the chapter have changed, but the problems and issues remain the same.