Hell in Kansas City

Since Boss Tom Pendergast went to jail for income-tax evasion (TIME, May 29), the man more or less running turbid Kansas City, Mo. has been Mayor Bryce Bryan Smith. Last week Tom Pendergast's long political arm reached out of his jail cell. What was left of the Pendergast machine pulled a squeeze play in City Council, squeezed in a 73-year-old onetime insurance man named William M. Drennon as City Manager. Thus estopped in his valiant efforts to clean up dirty Kansas City, little (5 feet, 5 1/2 inches) Mayor Smith resigned. "Hell," said he, "it makes me hot just to think of it." Flap-jowled Mr. Drennon coolly surveyed his spacious new office, announced that he proposed to cooperate with "the efficient remains of the machine," comfortably added: "I like good living. . . . This place suits me fine."

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