Joseph Alioto

Joseph Alioto (1975)

Joseph Lawrence Alioto (born February 12, 1916 in San Francisco , † January 29, 1998 ibid) was an American Democratic Party politician who was mayor of San Francisco between 1968 and 1976 .

Life

Joseph Lawrence Alioto, son of the fishmonger Giuseppe Alioto, who immigrated from Sicily , and his wife Domenica Mae Lazio Alioto, first completed an undergraduate degree at Saint Mary's College of California in Moraga , which he completed in 1937 with a Bachelor of Arts (BA). A subsequent postgraduate studies of law at the Law School ( Law School ) of the Catholic University of America he concluded (CUA) from 1940 and was then a lawyer in the US Department of Justice and the Office of Economic Warfare (Board of Economic Warfare) as well as Lawyer specializing in competition law. He was also between 1948 and 1953 initially a member and finally from 1953 to 1954 Chairman of the Board of Education of San Francisco . In addition, he was temporarily involved in the committee for the Senate election campaign of the Democratic Party (Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee) .

As the successor to his fellow party member John Shelley , Joseph Alioto became mayor of San Francisco on January 8, 1968 . His candidacy came about by chance, as the original candidate and former State Senator J. Eugene McAteer died in 1967 just two months before the mayoral election. Then he could in choosing a designated by it "kind of New Deal - coalition of workers and minorities, plus flags swinging Italians" ( , a kind of New Deal coalition of labor and minorities, plus flag-waving Italians'. ) Against to prevail against the candidate of the Republican Party Harold Dobbs. At the beginning of his tenure, he managed to maintain public order in the wake of the emerging protests against the Vietnam War and declared that he would not tolerate violence. Rather, he urged young militant colored people “to come to me with your problems before he takes them out onto the streets” ( 'come to me with your problems before you take them to the streets.' ). As a result, his political influence grew so quickly that he gave the nomination speech for Hubert H. Humphrey at the 1968 Democratic National Convention , the Democratic Party's convention for the nomination of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates . At the convention he was seen as a possible candidate for the vice presidency, with Humphrey choosing Edmund Muskie .

In 1969, however, its political weight lost its influence after Look magazine linked it to organized crime in an article on September 23, 1969 . The Cerrito family and the Lanza family are said to have cultivated good relationships and friendships with him, which he always denied. He reacted by filing a defamation suit in the amount of 12.5 million US dollars , which he eventually won and was awarded a compensation in the amount of 450,000 dollars. Around the same time accusing him of the state of Washington and several other authorities because he had taken a share of 2.3 million US dollars to the attorney fees for a gained him 16-million dollar price-fixing case. He was later also charged with bribery by the federal government . However, he was eventually acquitted of all civil and criminal proceedings. The ongoing proceedings led him to renounce a Democratic nomination for governor of California in 1970 . Nonetheless, Alioto was re-elected Mayor of San Francisco in 1972. In 1974 he applied for the post of governor of California in the Democratic Party primaries, but lost in the internal party primaries with 544,007 votes (18.9 percent), but clearly against the later governor Jerry Brown (1,085,752 votes, 37.8 percent) ). In April 1974 the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed another lawsuit against him. He was also President of the United States Conference of Mayors from 1974 to 1975 . In 1976 he renounced a renewed candidacy for the office of mayor and was replaced on January 8, 1976 by his party friend George Moscone . After finishing his tenure as mayor, he resumed his practice as a lawyer.

From his first marriage to Angelina Genaro on June 2, 1941 and divorced in 1977, five sons and daughter Angela Alioto, who ran for the office of mayor of San Francisco on November 4, 200e, left, albeit with 16.1 percent in the first ballot her fellow party member and later mayor Gavin Newsom (41.4 percent) and the candidate of the Green Party , Matt Gonzalez (20.1 percent) lost. In 1978 he married Kathleen Sullivan Alioto, who ran for a seat in the US Senate in the 1978 Democratic Party primary election in Massachusetts , but Paul Tsongas (35.55 percent) and Paul Guzzi (31, 01 percent). From this marriage two more children were born. After his death he was buried in the Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in Colma .

Web links

Commons : Joseph Alioto  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Joseph Alioto in nndb (English)
• Entry in The Political Graveyard
• Entry in Rulers
• Joseph Alioto in the database of Find a Grave (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cosa Nostra News - Jimmy Lanza: West Coast's Preeminent Mobster
2. ↑ San Francisco: Mayors
3. ↑ United States: November 4, 2003 (rulers.org)