Lehman v. LaGuardia

Lehman v. LaGuardia

"No man in this country has ever asked for or received the dictatorial powers which would be yours through enactment of this bill. . . . The powers you require go far beyond those granted even to the President during those unparalleled days."--The Governor of the State of New York in a letter, last week, to the Mayor of New York City.

To straighten out the city's muddled finances Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia had sent to the State Legislature an emergency economy bill giving him temporary blanket power to reorganize New York City's government, to fix salaries arbitrarily, to declare null & void any provisions of the city charter which conflicted with his program. Occupied with fighting opposition from Tammany legislators at Albany, he was not prepared to be stopped in his bold career by a high-minded Governor. As everyone knows, Democrat Herbert Henry Lehman is the great and good friend of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Very sick (appendectomy) last autumn when Mayor LaGuardia won the first reform vic tory in New York City in 20 years, mild-mannered Governor Lehman was dutifully on deck last week for the opening of his Legislature. A question affecting the governing laws of New York City (pop. 7,000,000) is always the most important question in New York State (pop. 12,600,000). Therefore, the Governor, himself a member of a rich, respectable banking family of New York City, eyed carefully all the LaGuardia proposals. Then he called in his stenographer and let fly the hottest statement in his career. Extracts:

"The situations in the City of New York and those confronting the President last March are scarcely analogous. . . . You propose that the Legislature give you the complete and unhampered power to take away from the officials of the City of New York, who were elected in just the same way that you were elected, powers which are theirs under the charter. It is not a delegation of power by the legislative body of the City of New York, as was the case in Washington. ... It is my strong belief that we cannot afford to set up a host of dictators, many of whom would be much more concerned with political considerations than with the welfare of the people. . . . Representative and democratic government, bestowed upon us by centuries of human struggle, should not be so hastily scuttled. "In the public press you are credited on a number of occasions with stating that you were going in as receiver of the City of New York and that the city is in virtual receivership and on the verge of bankruptcy and financial chaos. . . . The City of New York is not in receivership; it is not on the verge of bankruptcy." Point of Governor Lehman's vehemence was that he himself had sat down last summer with Manhattan bankers and arranged for loans and bond flotations to carry the city for four years. He felt that a simple reopening of the budget by the Legislature was all that was now needed. As to charter reform, he had already, in his annual message, recommended a charter commission composed of Alfred E. Smith, onetime Governor Nathan L. Miller, Nicholas Murray Butler, and Elder Statesman Elihu Root. To the Governor's proposals Mayor LaGuardia had a ready reply, which he delivered two days later with good humor but with equal vehemence: "It is difficult to find a distinction between the conditions of [the bankers'] agreement and any equity receivership. ... It imposes upon the city an additional . . . $57,000,000 amortization . . . and an interest rate which may be as high as 6%--an unreasonable price in the present money market. . . .

"The budget has already been opened once by special legislative act at your request with disastrous results. This was followed in the last weeks of office of the preceding administration by a scandalous indifference to public needs. ... To say the American institutions demand a continuance of this dreary and futile process comes as a shock and a disillusionment to the people of this city. . . . "You talk about dictatorship. None has been proposed. I am asking sound city management. Prudent businessmen . . . recognize it as business management. Politicians call it dictatorship. . . . We cannot effect economies with platitudes, nor can we balance our budget with an essay. . . . Your charge comes as a hollow mockery to the overburdened taxpayers ... of the City who, for more than a decade, have suffered as cruel and vicious dictatorship as has ever existed in an American community. . . ." Just as crisply Governor Lehman retorted that Mayor LaGuardia "missed the point" of his opposition to dictatorship. He stood pat, but proposed a meeting in Manhattan this week to hear any "better method" the Mayor might suggest.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.