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Back in the U. S. after the War both Democrats and Republicans elected him to the 66th Congress. Then he began to kick up his heels in earnest. He adhered to no party, ran with Democrats, Republicans, Sons of the Wild Jackass, Farmer Laborites, at will. On "Calendar Wednesdays," when his colleagues left the clerk of the House to drone away hundreds of petty little bills to keep the folks back home happy, LaGuardia was usually pres-ent to object to the more flagrant bits of logrolling. He made Prohibitionist William David ("Earnest Willie") Upshaw's life a burden, advocated $150,000,000 enforcement appropriations to make the nation rebel against Prohibition. In 1919, on a Republican ticket with Socialist backing, he was elected President of New York's Board of Aldermen. He was returned to Congress in 1923. Back in New York politics in 1929, he ran on the Republican ticket against Jimmy Walker for Mayor, bringing charges of malfeasance against Walker which initiated the Seabury investigations. Last week his downtown Italian district went Democratic, failed to return him to Congress. He likes to mix salads, play the trombone and will fight at the drop of a hat. Making four speeches to McKee's one, he did not let his opponent's charges go long unnoticed. He, too, had pledged charter reforms and at the Harvard Club had impressed many of his conservative listeners, to whom his past radicalism was the cause of grave suspicion, with a plan to refinance the city's indebtedness at lower interest rates. He now stepped up to a microphone, radioed a paragraph-by-paragraph critique of the McKee address. Facts at his chubby fingertips, the tousle-headed little candidate barked: "Let us see how Mr. McKee 'instituted real economies.' " LaGuardia recalled that when he was President of the Board of Aldermen his salary was $7,500 and he ran the office with seven employes for $36,400 a year. McKee's salary (which he voted to up in 1929) was $25,000 and his office force of 17 cost the city $116,730. Candidate LaGuardia recalled that although Mr. McKee had written the Mayor in 1926 that he would attend no more secret conferences on the notorious Equitable Bus franchise deal, a flagrant piece of grafting which did more than anything else to oust Mayor Walker (TIME, June 6, 1932), McKee did later vote for the franchise to be granted. "Actions," taunted Candidate LaGuardia, "speak louder than words." At this point Samuel Seabury, patron saint of Fusion, chimed in: "They're mak-ing a primary out of an election. Fusion nominated a ticket so good and so strong that its mere nominations caused the Curry machine to crumble and broke Tammany's back. What happened then? They changed the name of the Tammany candidate from O'Brien to McKee." "Judge Seabury seems to think that he has the corner on virtue and probity in this city," snorted Candidate McKee. Inquisitor Seabury roared back and took verbal swipes at Recoverers Dudley Field Malone and Herbert Bayard Swope for being "servitors" of Jimmy Walker, and at Governor Lehman, President Roosevelt's good friend, for failing to act on Seabury recommendations for city reform. Thus attacked, these men swung back at Seabury and Fusion. "A base and reckless slander!" cried Joe McKee at Judge Seabury's attack on Governor Lehman, whose
