The Sentimentalists

YOU'RE THE Boss (243 pp.)--Edward J. Flynn--Viking ($3).

Democracy gives the people more power than they want to exercise directly. In the U.S., this surplus power normally falls into the hands of bosses who may be morally good, bad or indifferent; what they have in common is a fulltime love of power.

Philadelphia's Boies Penrose was a great, hearty extravert, whose lust for power was as obvious and simple as his appetite for oysters and wine. At the other end of the scale was Baltimore's John S. ("Frank") Kelly; though he ruled a state, he spent his life in one of the meanest little houses in the city, and took his pleasure from the fact that judges and governors and business leaders waited in his basement to be called into his presence.

Edward J. Flynn, boss of The Bronx, is far less colorful and articulate than Penrose, far more aware of the significance of his job than Kelly and his kind. Flynn is the new-style boss, well-educated, personable, thoroughly equipped to understand the more complex aspects of modern government. His machine is run from an office building, not from a hotel lobby or a clubhouse. It has a filing system, bylaws and rigidly constructed channels of command.

Although Flynn's streamlined machine is as clean as a political organization can be, it has some essentials in common with all other machines, from Julius Caesar's to Bathhouse John Coughlin's. Its external principle is the exchange of political favors in return for popular support; its internal principle is group devotion to the idea of more power for the group.

In You're the Boss, the story of his political life, Flynn becomes truculently self-righteous in defense of his calling. The people can always replace him, he says, if they do not like the way he runs their business. Since he keeps winning elections, Flynn reasons, they must like his work.

The Law of the Pack. The pursuit of political power in a democracy raises curious ethical problems. Although Flynn boasts again & again that his Bronx machine does not buy votes, he tells with disarming candor how he once adapted himself to the prevailing standard of another community:

"Many years ago a committee came to see me from an upstate rural county. . . . They then told me that they would let me know what the Republicans were paying for votes that year, and that if we would add a small amount to the price, we could probably elect the Democrat. A few days before the election they . . . told me that the Republican buying-price was a dollar and a half a vote, and that if we could raise the ante to a dollar seventy-five we would be successful. It is hard to admit that I was as gullible as I was. But I gave them the money, and the Democrat was beaten worse than any candidate in years. Shortly thereafter, however, he blossomed out in a new Buick automobile."

Clearly, Flynn regards as immoral this candidate who pocketed money intended to bribe voters. The candidate sinned against organizational "loyalty." This preoccupation with the law of the pack, and a resultant spinning of endless judgments on "right" and "wrong" deals, wraps the practical politician in unreality.

A Tear in the Eye. Flynn believes that graftless government is good politics (at least in The Bronx). Politicians of Flynn's kind, knowing that they are more honest than they have to be, are disappointed when the public withholds full acclaim from politicians who take their main pay in power rather than in boodle.

Out of the consciousness of their own unhonored self-denial, out of their peculiar "loyalty," comes the sentimentality which is a distinguishing mark of professional politicians. Flynn, in telling of his hero, Charles F. Murphy of Tammany Hall, recalls with typical sentimentality a typical political maneuver:

"Practically every year there is a contribution of a thousand dollars from young Nathan Straus, the genesis of which goes back to Charles F. Murphy's day. There was a vacancy in the Court of Appeals. Before filling it, many things had to be discussed. Mr. Murphy and I were sitting alone one night, going over names, for no one had been decided upon. Mr. Murphy was told that Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Straus had come to see him. When Mrs. Straus, who was a dear old lady, saw Mr. Murphy, she looked up at him in her most appealing manner and said, 'Mr. Murphy, you are going to make my boy the judge of the Court of Appeals, aren't you?' (She referred, of course, to her son-in-law. Irving Lehman.)

"Mr. Murphy swallowed hard, and . . . replied, 'We will see.' Both Mr. Murphy and I were Irish, and highly emotional. When the Strauses had gone, he turned to me, as near to tears as he probably had ever been, and said, 'How could anyone refuse that sweet old couple?' Their son-in-law, Judge Irving Lehman, was nominated.

"Mr. Murphy told me later that the first check he received each year was one for a thousand dollars from Nathan Straus. . . . Since the death of the old people young Nathan Straus has continued his parents' traditional contribution."

Attention to Details. Not the least important element in this story of how a judge was appointed is the fact that Murphy and Flynn were genuinely worried over the choice--whereas the majority of their fellow citizens were doubtless unaware that the vacancy even existed. Flynn's book, a record of such attention to detail, demonstrates again that eternal vigilance is the price of bossism. Ed Flynn "took care" of plain people in The Bronx so well that he became one of Roosevelt's closest political advisers and hobnobbed with history on missions to Moscow, Yalta and the Vatican.

You're the Boss is a useful book if only because it explains how and why Flynn and his kind get where they are. They care enough about power to work like beavers for it, and (as Sentimental Tommy reminded Mr. Pym) where the heart is there also the treasure lies.

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