Reform's End

"Every night," remarked Kansas City Councilman Charles W. Fisher, "I asked the Lord for guidance. When I saw that black cloud and the sheet of rain, I knew he sent it, and my prayers were answered.'' Those menacing black clouds, and the fierce thunderstorms accompanied by hailstones bigger than cherries, played an important role last week in answering the prayers of Councilman Fisher: he and the rest of his Democratic coalition slate, aided in part by the weather that kept many voters indoors, swept into office in Kansas City's municipal elections. In the process they knocked out the nonpartisan Citizens Association Party that had ruled the once corrupt city for 19 healthy years. Citizens Association survivor of the hail-battered election: popular Mayor H. (for Harold) Roe Bartle.

Bartle was not the coalition's target. The real enemy was City Manager L. P. (for Laurie Perry) Cookingham, 62, hired by the reform Citizens Association when it took over in 1940. In the pre-1940 high-flying days of Tom Pendergast's corrupt rule, after-hours liquor sales were a big business, and so were gambling and prostitution; the businessman's lunch hour at the popular Chesterfield Club on Ninth Street was famous for its stark-naked waitresses. City Manager Cookingham cleaned up the town, got going on new roads, schools, sewers, etc., created an environment that brought new industry and new, if less spectacular, vitality to the city. In so doing, Cookingham also made a nationwide name for himself; 35 men who served under him went out to become city managers in other cities.

Despite the good record, the city was just plain getting bored with the long-entrenched reformers; some complained that Cookingham himself wielded too much power, grumbled about new taxes following the annexation of outlying communities. Threats of new taxes simmered. So did resentment against the powerful Kansas City Star, whose editorials carried dramatic warnings that a coalition victory would bring back the gaudy old days of wholesale corruption.

Final boost of strength for the coalition was the candidacy of nimble, fast-talking Councilman Charles Shafer, who had been dropped by the Citizens Council, and had quickly switched to the other side. With Shafer leading the coalition bush-beating, the Citizens Association lost five of its eight members on the council, and the city was assured of a new kind of rule. Also assured: the eventual resignation of City Manager L. P. Cookingham, the man who gave Kansas City that clean look.

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