Wagner Is Wagner

Most of the time, a New York City municipal election has all the suspense and flavor of lunch at the automat--deposit the votes and out pops another machine-tooled Democrat. But two-term Mayor Robert Ferdinand Wagner has jammed the mechanism by breaking openly with the Democratic bosses (TIME, June 30) and choosing his own running mates for a third-term attempt in November. Ever since, the city's political future has been as confusing as a subway map.

Hardly had Wagner picked his ticket when the bosses he had defied selected their own slate, dared him to enter a bloody September primary. The Tammany organization's choice for mayor: State Controller Arthur Levitt, 61, a respected vote getter ever since he survived Nelson Rockefeller's 1958 Republican blitz into Albany. Levitt is a product of New York schools, from P.S. 19 to Columbia University; he served on the board of education before running for controller, and has won bipartisan praise for cautiously watchdogging state funds.

Sinister Evil. Wagner wasted no time labeling the Levitt choice as "a gang-up of callous political bosses headed by Carmine De Sapio," warned of "sinister evil" if Levitt were elected. What the mayor forgot was that he himself had also been a De Sapio selection (TIME cover, Oct. 1, 1956) and that there has been a lot of evil in the city under Bumbling Bob. Wagner's administration, among its many scandals, has been graced by a city purchasing agent who milked the city of $500,000 through rigged bidding on rock salt. Currently the city is flinching under charges of poor construction and payoffs in its school system. And last week the investigation reached to the school system's top. Superintendent John J. Theobald admitted he had a 15-ft. runabout built for him at cost by shop students, was vague about how, or to whom, he had paid the necessary $400 for the boat's materials.

Ragtag Army. Dumped by the regular Democratic organization, Wagner is desperately shopping for influential backers. But so far he has produced only former Senator Herbert Lehman, avuncular head of a small reform Democrat movement. James A. Farley, far removed from the inner circles of New York politics, and blustering Mike Quill, president of the Transport Workers Union. With such a ragtag army, Wagner is almost sure to lose to Levitt if he insists on entering the Democratic primary. But the mayor is also the Liberal Party candidate, and can run on the Liberal ticket in the general election. At that time voters will have to make their choice from a list including not only Wagner and Levitt, but also Republican Candidate Louis J. Lefkowitz and City Controller Lawrence E. Gerosa. Gerosa has broken with both the mayor and the Tammany bosses, will run as an independent beholden only to "God and the good people." Said one reform Democrat in Manhattan last week: "We're stuck with four hacks. Gerosa is a sham. Lefkowitz is a mediocrity. Levitt is Carmine's boy. And Wagner is Wagner."

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