Hen-yard Pagliaccio

Fiorello LaGuardia has never had high marks for decorum. Last week his misbehavior became so shrill and noisy that even tolerant New York took down its strap and went after its "Butch."

For some time Butch had been skimping his Mayoralty to work at the Office of Civilian Defense. By the same token he was skimping OCD. Even Mr. Roosevelt, according to a persistent report, shared this view, but could think of no painless way of easing LaGuardia out. Meantime hen-shaped Fiorello continued to fly back & forth between Washington and New York, always a little out of breath and red in the face. At a ceremony marking the start of his third Mayoralty term, he flapped his wet wings and exploded with bantam wrath.

Japs? His critics were "two-by-four editors," "swivel-chair scribes." They lied. Criticism of him was only "creating confusion," had some dark and unpatriotic (probably Japanese) purpose.

Of course he had rushed to the West Coast when the Coast was scared at the thought of an air raid. "Where would the people of this city want me to be when a neighboring city needed my help? Oh," clucked Mr. LaGuardia, "I suppose some Jap will say, or friend of a Jap will say, we want you to be here."

Many a non-Jap in New York had just that thought. Said the New York Times, severely: "Of course we want him to be here. . . . The place for the Mayor of New York to be in time of war is in New York."

Bully. It was over a mix-up right in his own yard that Butch was shrillest and worst behaved. For years, colleagues and subordinates at City Hall had endured his bullying and abuse. Said Columnist Westbrook Pegler: "LaGuardia, in his years in office [has] . . . emphasized his vulgar irascibility, his bullying intolerance" and his inability to cooperate even with his own appointees."

One of those appointees, Social Registerite William Fellowes Morgan Jr., an original member of the Little Flower's "cabinet" (and the best dressed), had been an able commissioner of markets for eight years. Recently the Mayor began picking Mr. Morgan's aides without consulting him. Once when Mr. Morgan objected that he did not even know the appointees, the Little Flower retorted: "Try reading the telephone book instead of the Social Register, you might get to know more people." He also began screeching about some of Mr. Morgan's appointments. He had not time to see Mr. Morgan, straighten things out. Mr. Morgan's slowly heating choler reached boiling point.

It boiled over when the Little Flower said that one of Mr. Morgan's unpaid assistants, Mrs. Preston Davie, must go. Eugenie Mary Ladenburg Davie, rich, beauteous, energetic, is no ordinary woman. A onetime leader of the Landon Volunteers, active in the G.O.P., she is vice president of the American Women's Voluntary Services, Inc. Enlisting in Mr. Morgan's department as head of a wartime food-conservation program, big May Davie soon made feathers fly.

Most pained by the sudden bustle was Socialite Harriet Aldrich. Wife of Chase National's Winthrop, she had been appointed by LaGuardia to run the city's whole civilian-defense program. In the interests of unity, earnest Harriet Aldrich thought that all civilian-defense jobs should clear through her. She wrote to Butch. The Mayor sent word to Mr. Morgan to fire Mrs. Davie.

Mr. Morgan sent word back that he would do no such thing. The Mayor replied that he would, then. "All these things grated on my good nature," Mr. Morgan explained later. "And so I went to the Mayor's office at City Hall. . . ."

In the feather-filled air he finally cornered Butch. As Mr. Morgan described the interview: "He began hollering at me and yelling for me to dismiss Mrs. Preston Davie. . . . 'Fire that dame! Fire that dame!' he kept yelling." Mr. Morgan decided that the time had come. He handed over his resignation. LaGuardia snapped it up. Shouting, "La commedia e finita!,"* opera-loving Fiorello waved Mr. Morgan goodby, threw Mr. Morgan's secretary out after him and demoted Mr. Morgan's chief inspector. Gritted Mr. Morgan: "A complete and utter outrage."

New Yorkers, whom Mr. LaGuardia had been advising to keep calm & cool, decided that it was time Butch took some of his own advice. His friendliest critics, the Manhattan press went to work swatting the Mayor's bottom, a new experience for New York's little cock-of-the-walk. Smacked the Herald Tribune: "The work of the Office of Civilian Defense cannot, in fairness to the nation, be left in such hands." Smacked the Mirror: "The Mayor . . . frenziedly advising people to 'be calm,' draws more raucous laughs than Abbott and Costello." Smacked the World-Telegram: "If the Mayor would only cool down, resign his national defense job and devote himself to his full-time duties in City Hall, he would be surprised, we think, by resultant public approval--and calm."

*The last line of I Pagliacci, sung by a clown who has just stabbed a man and a woman.

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