STATES & CITIES: LaGuardia v. O'Brien v. McKee

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tails. His practice of having all Aldermanic meetings opened with prayer earned him the nickname "Holy Joe." As Acting Mayor, he announced before a patronage conference with Tammany Leader John Francis Curry: "I am an organization Democrat, always have been, always will be." But he dismissed a Tammany department chief for incompetence, disbanded the fleet of expensive city-owned motor cars, was on his way to effect $80,000,000 in municipal economies when the Tammany-controlled Board of Estimate took the budget out of his hands. As a result of his regularity, when his candidacy was announced organization Democrats defected from Tammany in wholesale lots. It was reported that 15 out of 24 Brooklyn district leaders had bolted to the Recovery ticket. The Tammany candidate for Borough President of Staten Island came out for McKee. In Queens County, Tammany was faced with further desertions. When Candidate McKee awakened to the fact that rats from Boss Curry's sinking ship endangered the buoyancy of his own, he announced that "only fine, decent people" would be tolerated in the Recovery Party, that far from welcoming bolters, in many cases he was in favor of abolishing the jobs they were running for.

"Holy Joe" McKee tried hard to renounce ALL party affiliations, including his connection with his next-door neighbor, Bronx Boss Flynn. He had previously told reporters that if they saw him on the 29th floor of the Lincoln Building, he would not be going to see Flynn but to rest in another friend's neighboring office. He promised to reduce the budget "by instituting real economies," abolish duplicating departments in the city government by having the charter revised, unify the subway system to provide an honest 5¢ fare. Explaining the formation of his independent party, he said: "I would not have served on the [Fusion] ticket because I would have had to accept the support and laid myself under obligation to Boss Koenig, whom the decent Republicans have just driven from power [TIME, Oct. 2]. ... I could not in conscience support the stupid, arrogant [Tammany] leadership that forces upon the city the well-intentioned but impotent figure of the present Mayor. ... As I stand before you, I owe allegiance to no political boss, nor am I hampered or fettered by any allegiance to leader or machine.

"During recent months we have seen the city sink lower under an increasing load of stupidity and incompetence and when an arrogant leadership asked the citizens of this city to put its stamp of approval on such a record, resentment became widespread and deepseated. . . . To whom could they turn? To the candidate named by the Fusion group? His record is the answer to that question. No one can have any confidence in him because his whole record has been a record of opportunism, instability and explosiveness unparalleled in politics."