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Tammany Hall is by no means the totally wicked organization which out-of-towners and professional New York reformers believe it to be. Even so keen a muckraker as Lincoln Steffens lends support to the theory that only through such widespread political societies as Tammany does the greatest advantage come to the greatest number of citizens from their government. Many a shrewd, honest and successful Manhattanite maintains close Tammany connections. Unanimously, this Tammany type deplores the bad management which has brought the 128-year-old Hall into the shadow of its fifth reformation. This sorry plight, they claim, is due to the unfortunate personality and training of John Francis Curry. When Curry was a young ward heeler on the West Side he worked for a telegraph company instead of tending bar, as did most incipient Tammany officials. Lacking that broadening experience, he was suddenly shoved into the Leader's office in 1929 at the age of 56, too late in life for a district politician to learn to become a city, state, and political strategist, as a Tammany chief should be. As to John Curry's appalling choice of John O'Brien for Mayor last autumn, many a smart Tammanyite does not entirely blame Curry. When he was Corporation Counsel under Mayor Hylan, O'Brien showed considerable intelligence and ability. Then O'Brien disappeared for ten years in the Surrogate's Court. When, after he was nominated to the Mayoralty, John O'Brien began making the most absurd verbal blunders, putting his foot into his magniloquent mouth every time he opened it, his astonished acquaintances came to the conclusion that he had quietly entered his dotage. They attributed his condition to one of two things: worry over losing his and his wife's fortune (as has many another Irish family) in upper Broadway property; or, the strain which his celebrated 95,000-word decision on the Erlanger common-law marriage case put upon him (TIME, Dec. 28, 1931). In any case, informed Tammanyites believe, Boss Curry will pay for his stupidity in running O'Brien a second time. Only "Com-missioner" Murphy retained the Hall's leadership after a defeat at the polls. And Curry is no Murphy. Probable successor to Curry is Edward J. ("Eddie") Ahearn, 39, leader of a lower East Side district, inherited in 1921 from his father, whom Charles Evans Hughes as Governor removed from the Borough Presidency of Manhattan in 1907. Eddie Ahearn has two ambitions: to be Manhattan's Borough President, thus vindicating his father, and to be Tammany's Leader. Four years ago he missed nosing out Curry for Leadership by only if votes. Since then he has been visiting other district leaders, forming alliances. So far, Tammany has always come back after a municipal purging. Ahearn's youth and vitality may be sorely needed for the comeback. Kiss. Straw votes gathered by the Literary Digest, Daily News, Brooklyn Eagle and RKO theatres indicated last fortnight that LaGuardia was leading O'Brien by a wide margin. When McKee entered the race, the nucleus of his support was Democratic votes taken back from LaGuardia, plus defections from Tammany. Last week there were signs that he would get a lot of Republican votes too. The city's leading G. O. Partisans like Ruth Pratt and Ogden Mills were siding with Fusion against all "bossism," in accordance with the party's