Bob & the Bosses

New York was not the only city where it could have happened, but it was certainly the most likely. Last week Mayor Robert Ferdinand Wagner swept to a landslide Democratic primary victory at the head of a reform slate sworn to clean up the municipal mess that had grown up during Wagner's own eight hapless years in office. Wagner won by 160,000 votes over State Controller Arthur Levitt, the candidate of New York City's regular Democratic organization. And in the process of rolling up that plurality, Wagner dealt a mortal blow to the bosses who had twice previously helped him get elected mayor--and whose virtues he had, in past years, praised lavishly.

Bob Wagner earned his win. Having turned against the bosses in order to ensure the support of the surging reform Democrats, Wagner managed to make bossism the campaign's big issue. Pale and drawn, his smile appearing as though it would fracture his face, Wagner campaigned tirelessly against such bosses as The Bronx's Charles Buckley, Brooklyn's Joseph Sharkey--and, particularly, Tammany Hall's Carmine De Sapio. Returning to his Greenwich Village apartment late one night, De Sapio was asked by a neighbor: "How's it going?" Replied De Sapio wearily: "It would be going all right if Wagner would just quit talking about bosses and discuss the issues."

Career's End. De Sapio's forebodings were well taken. Election Day was pleasantly mild--just the sort of weather to attract voters--and colorless Candidate Levitt's chances rested on a small turnout, in which his organization support might be decisive. More than 743,000 voters, a record for a Democratic primary in New York City, swarmed to the polls. They swamped the organization: Charley Buckley's once-mighty Bronx machine was able to muster only 46,000 Levitt votes against 75,000 for Wagner; in Joe Sharkey's Brooklyn, Levitt got 103,000 against Wagner's 136,000. Even in Harlem, where Preacher-Politician Adam Clayton Powell Jr., whose word is usually accepted as gospel, was supporting Levitt, Wagner won handily.

As for Tammany's De Sapio, last week's primary spelled the end of a long career as a political leader. Manhattan went for Wagner by an overwhelming 122,000 votes against 67,000. De Sapio himself was defeated in his race for leader in his own district by James Lanigan, 43, a lawyer and a good friend of such reform-minded Democrats as Eleanor Roosevelt, Herbert Lehman and Adlai Stevenson.

Top Man. In the Nov. 7 election, Wagner will face State Attorney General Louis Lefkowitz, the Republican nominee. During his primary campaign, Lefkowitz campaigned quietly, saying little about the scandals that have studded Wagner's administration, and plainly holding his fire for the general election. But New York is an incorrigibly Democratic city, and Wagner is a distinct favorite to be returned to city hall for another four years. And he is already the top Democrat in the most populous state.

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