JOHN LINDSAY'S TEN PLAGUES

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on the theory that New York City, with the highest payments in the country, is a magnet for the poor of other states and communities. The city's budget since 1965 has risen 40% to almost 56 billion, more than any state—including the state of New York—spends in a year. Real estate taxes have gone up 260 per $100 (but the assessed valuation has risen more than $2 billion), and for the first time the city has levied an income tax. Strike has followed strike, and New Yorkers can only speculate on what essential service will be cut off next. Many of the promising young men who joined Lindsay at City Hall left after the first year.

He has labored heroically to communicate with the blacks in the ghettos. The city has had no major racial upheaval since 1964. Yet many white New Yorkers feel neglected as a result. In huge areas of The Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens, thousands feel that Lindsay is interested only in the black and Spanish-speaking slums. Says Democratic Councilman Robert Low, a possible candidate for Mayor in 1969: "He has concentrated his attention on slum areas and raising standards for minority groups, without making the middle class feel he offers compensating programs for them." Partially as a result, the white exodus to the suburbs goes on, and the disaffection grows. In a secret poll early in October, 42% rated Lindsay's mayoral record as "poor."

They All Sneeze

Certainly, much is beyond Lindsay's or any Mayor's control. He is not only opposed on many issues by the Democratic City Council; the state legislature as well has a degree of control over city policies that is perhaps without parallel elsewhere in the U.S. The spectacular hike in welfare rolls is a direct result of heavy black migration from the South and a longtime influx of Puerto Ricans. Much of the budget, including welfare, is mandated by law. Inflation causes union to vie against union in looking to the city treasury.

"When one takes snuff," says Negotiator Theodore Kheel, "the others all sneeze." The growth of militant civil service unions, a cause of both strikes and higher budgets, is a nationwide phenomenon —and was actually encouraged by Lindsay's Democratic predecessor, Robert Wagner, son of the author of the Wagner Labor Relations Act. Wagner's cozy policy was to play along with the unions and give them most of what they wanted, thus piling up huge due-bills without much thought of the future. Still, Wagner (now U.S. Ambassador to Spain) was an extremely skillful negotiator. Another Mayor with some of Wagner's talents might have prevented the series of strikes, whatever else might have gone wrong with the city.

Asserting Principle

Lindsay's big initial mistake was his inept, melodramatic handling of the transit strike during his first days in office. A pattern of hostility between city employees and the Mayor's office was set and has lasted to this day. Basically, the problem is one of attitude. In the face of threats from the "power brokers," Lindsay asserts principle; labor leaders call it inflexibility and priggishness. "It's this upper-white-class Protestant ethic that gives him a feeling of moral superiority," says Martin Morgenstern, head of the Social Service Employes Union. "He's like the white knight come to save us all."