Carmine DeSapio

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Carmine Gerard DeSapio (born December 10, 1908 in New York City , † July 27, 2004 there ) was an American politician ( Democratic Party ). He was Secretary of State of New York from 1955 to 1959 . He was also the last boss of Tammany Hall .

Career

Carmine Gerard DeSapio was born in 1908 in Greenwich Village , a neighborhood in Manhattan . His mother was the daughter of Italian immigrants and his father was an Italian immigrant who ran a fleet of horse and carts. In the morning hours before Carmine went to denominational school, he loaded the wagons in the docks on the Hudson River and later brought the horses back to the stable. After school, he helped his parents in the family business. He then went to the Huron Club, the outpost of Tammany Hall in Greenwich Village. He was later quoted in the Tigers of Tammany as follows:

"My most vivid memory is that long line of people - women and children, everybody standing all the way down the block from the Huron Club, waiting for baskets of turkey at Christmastime."

In the years before the social welfare programs were introduced, Tammany Hall was known for caring for its followers. Many of them were immigrants and their families. In addition to arranging free turkey and coal in winter, there were free blocks of ice in summer. Tammany Hall negotiated profitable city contracts for business partners and placed patronage posts for their supporters from the common people. In return, Tammany Hall expected a high turnout in favor of its candidates. DeSapio worked his way up the tiers of Tammany Hall. He began his political career as an errand boy for the political leaders. This activity ensured that the politically deserving, needy families received their food baskets promptly. The New York Times quoted him as follows in 1997:

"To put it simply, in those days we had leadership, respect, discipline. There was such a thing as party loyalty. "

At the beginning of his political career, his loyalty to the party was seriously tested. In 1939 he won the district leadership with 51 votes, but the Tammany Hall, which was then still dominated by Irish-American politicians, refused to accept the election of an ethnic-Italian candidate. Two years later, in 1941, he ran again. He was defeated. He subsequently claimed that the election was cheated. In 1943 he easily won the district election. DeSapio became the boss of Tammany Hall in 1949. He was the youngest person to ever hold this post. During his tenure, the Tammany Hall underwent a demographic change, which explains the numerous Italian-Americans from the common people. The presence of underworld figures, such as Frank Costello , was becoming increasingly noticeable at Tammany Hall. Their concern was to get the same protection from police raids in gambling, prostitution and other crimes as the Irish and Jewish gangsters in previous years. Oliver E. Allen wrote the following in his 1993 book The Tiger: The Rise and Fall of Tammany Hall :

"In every instance in which Costello made his desires known to the Hall, Carmine voted to go along."

DeSapio later admitted to journalists that he had met Costello several times but never discussed politics. DeSapio was spotted with Costello at a Salvation Army fundraising gala at the Copacabana Club in 1949 . Here's what he said to reporters for the New York Times after the event:

"I have no apologies to make for that. It was a good cause. I attend many dinners. "

When asked if Costello had any influence on Tammany Hall, DeSapio replied:

"Decidedly not."

Two years later, in 1951, the United States Senate Committee, chaired by US Senator Estes Kefauver , conducted investigations into organized crime . Costello appeared as a key witness. The gangster admitted that many New York Democratic district leaders, including DeSapio, whom he called a friend, and others, often did him favors.

The negative headlines did not stop DeSapio's rapid political rise in the period that followed. Unlike other Democratic party leaders in New York City, he supported the candidacy of Robert F. Wagner junior against incumbent Mayor of New York City Vincent R. Impellitteri in the 1953 primaries. Supporting him was daring. DeSapio previously conducted a survey of the registered Democrats. In this connection he sent postcards asking them if they favored the re-election of Impellitteri. With 40,000 replies, the quota was 5 to 1 against the incumbent mayor. Wagner went out of the running as the winner in the primaries and later won the mayoral elections. DeSapio, his only patron among the city's political leaders, was the main puller.

DeSapio's influence even rose in 1954 when he dissuaded Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr. , the eldest son and namesake of the late US President Franklin D. Roosevelt , from running for governor of New York . Instead, he persuaded him to run for the post of Attorney General . The Democratic Party then nominated, through DeSapio W. Averell Harriman , a former investment banker and diplomat, as a candidate for governor of New York. Harriman won the gubernatorial election, while Roosevelt was defeated in his candidacy for the office of Attorney General. Eleanor Roosevelt has never forgiven DeSapio for believing that he brought down her son's political career. Murray Kempton published her remarks many years later, in 1991, when he was a columnist on Newsday :

"I told Carmine I would get him for what he did to Franklin. And get him I did. "

DeSapio had reached the political leadership ranks. Within a year he got the elections for New York City Mayor and New York Governor. He later expanded his influence in New York City by placing loyal supporters in political positions beyond the borders of Manhattan in the Bronx , Queens and Staten Island . Democrats with national political ambitions courted him. In 1955, Adlai Stevenson , who lost to Dwight D. Eisenhower in the presidential election three years earlier, claimed the following:

"If it were my ambition to seek the Democratic presidential nomination, I would welcome the support of Carmine De Sapio and Tammany Hall."

A year later, in 1956, Joseph and Stewart Alsop, both national political columnists, wrote the following:

"Mr. De Sapio could name the next president. "

In the same year DeSapio also graced the cover of Time with the following words:

"The worldly and weighted mien of a Medici ."

DeSapio managed to preserve the spirit of Tammany Hall and establish himself as an intellectual, enlightened, and modern politician. He preferred well-cut dark suits and striped ties. He always looked like he'd just come from the hairdresser. The only disagreement was the dark sunglasses he always wore because of his chronic uveitis . His speaking style was perfect and his political message reassuring. In 1955 he told Life Magazine :

"You're living in the past if you think you can still force the public to swallow any candidate you nominate. This is a new day and we need a new formula. We have to offer the public what it wants - a slate of reputable officials who will give them good government and after they're in office we'll follow through to see that the people get what we promised them. "

DeSapio was popular as a public speaker. In 1955 the Israel Bond Organization presented him with the Distinguished Leadership Award. He was a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and the Knights of Columbus . During that time he lectured on politics at colleges across the Northeast. In this context, he was booked in 1956 for an appearance at New York University . The performance fell on the day before Yom Kippur , the holiest Jewish holiday. His speech writer, Sydney Baron, therefore panicked, fearing that few students would show up. On the day in question, the university auditorium was full of attentive students and professors. In reality, the audience was almost entirely made up of garbage collectors, each given a college-style brush haircut and a tweed jacket. They were secretly recruited at the last moment by the DeSapio representatives so as not to disappoint them.

At the height of his power between 1954 and 1958, DeSapio held half a dozen political offices, the highest of which was that of Secretary of State of New York under Governor Harriman. He operated four offices, including a lavish suite in the State Office Building in New York City, the Secretary of State office in Albany, New York, the National Committeemans office in the Biltmore Hotel, and the modern suite in Tammany Hall on Madison Avenue . During this time he continued to live with his wife, Theresa Natale († 1998), in a medium-sized apartment on Washington Square Park . The couple married in 1937 and had an only daughter named Geraldine. Mother and daughter worked as unpaid helpers and political confidants of DeSapio. His humble lifestyle earned him the nickname "The Bishop". He stayed true to the image. In connection with this, in 1957 a taxi driver found an envelope containing $ 11,200 in $ 100 bills in his back seat  after he dropped DeSapio at the Biltmore Hotel. The taxi driver was able to keep the money in the end when DeSapio denied it was his. The public skepticism about the statement made was expressed in an ironic editorial by The Herald Tribune :

"It's a wonderful city, New York, where people have so much money they can absent-mindedly leave packages of hundred-dollar bills in taxicabs."

As a result of his enormous political power, DeSapio usually preferred extensive consultation and consensus building regarding unilateral decisions. His 16-18 hour day began with phone calls before breakfast at home, where he was still wearing pajamas and a bathrobe. As a result, he received information from his political staff. DeSapio then visited his various offices for further meetings. In addition to his half dozen public offices, which he held, he took part in radio and television appearances as well as a late-night political dinner.

He was notorious for his attention to detail. For example, he insisted on personally arranging the seating arrangements for the annual New York County Democratic Donation Dinner , which was attended by more than 2,000 guests. That way each person knew how DeSapio rated his or her current political position.

Prior to his third term as Mayor of New York City, Wagner denounced Tammany Hall as autocratic and corrupt. In the following mayoral election, Wagner easily defeated his challenger Arthur Levitt senior , DeSapio's candidate. After that, Mrs. Roosevelt considered the time ripe to redeem her vows and take revenge on DeSapio. To do this, she rallied democrats willing to reform. DeSapio lost three consecutive elections, 1961, 1963, and 1965, to Greenwich Village district manager. He lost the first election to the Democrat James Lanigan and the two following to the Democrat Ed Koch , who later became Mayor of New York City.

Whatever hopes DeSapio had for his political comeback, these were dashed in 1969. A federal court found him guilty of bribing former New York City Water Commissioner James L. Marcus and extorting contracts with Consolidated Edison, which resulted in kickbacks. In 1971 he was served a two-year prison sentence.

Towards the end of his life, DeSapio showed little nostalgia for politics or resentment for his enemies. The walls of his Washington Square Park apartment no longer had photos or plaques of his political heyday. Every now and then he ran into his old enemy Ed Koch, who lived just a block away. He told the New York Times the following about the former mayor in 1997:

"We are very pleasant when we meet. He was a hard worker and he tried to do a good job. "

In the same interview, he lamented the demise of his party after the end of Tammany Hall. When asked why he thought so, he pointed out the election of Rudolph Giuliani as Mayor of New York City:

"You have a Republican mayor in a Democratic city. That should give you the answer. "

Trivia

DeSapio appointed the first Puerto Rican district manager in Manhattan, Anthony Mendez, and supported the election of Hulan Jack as Manhattan's first African American borough president . He spoke out in favor of the progressive legislature. He advocated the Fair Employment Practices Law of President Harry S. Truman . He also advocated fixed rental prices and lowering the voting age to 18 years.

In his role as the boss of Tammany Hall, he awarded lucrative city contracts for street lights and parking meters to the Broadway Maintenance Corporation, a company that, according to the State Investigation Commission, defrauded taxpayers of millions of dollars.

Alfred Connable and Edward Silberfarb authored Tigers of Tammany, a book published in 1967. Afterwards, DeSapio said the following at a lecture astonished students at Harvard Law School :

"I am the leader of Tammany Hall. I bear this title with gratitude and pride. I am proud of the tradition, the heritage, the record of Tammany Hall. "

literature

personal data
SURNAME DeSapio, Carmine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES DeSapio, Carmine Gerard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician (Democratic Party)
DATE OF BIRTH December 10, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH July 27, 2004
Place of death New York City