‘A Beginning in Brooklyn’

Re: Clarence Norman Jr. and his gratuitous self-description as a “reformer” [“A Beginning in Brooklyn,” Editorial, September 28, 2005]

One of the most powerful myths is that ethnic succession “improves” the integrity of urban politics. Throughout American history, impoverished minority groups have seen their salvation in the election of one of “their own” to high positions of the city in which they lived.

Regardless of the political advancement of any particular group, however, the hoped for improvement in the character of the political machine does not occur. Although some members of the ethnic group may become more successful, the general tone of the urban politics remains as it was despite a period of high expectation.

In America, the building blocks of national political life are local political associations, which vary greatly in degree of their formality, longevity, and influence. Although local associations have lost power because of the increased use of mass media and other direct appeals to voters by candidates, machines have survived.

Coalitions between ethnic and interest groups once seen as diametrically opposed appear with regularity as power bases wax and wane. Once politically Neanderthal, bosses have adopted modern techniques for exercising control and continue to mediate between the broader and narrower political levels. The image of the new style ethnic political boss is likely to be that of a nonsmoker with an advanced degree.

In 1982, Charles La Cerra and I published a book about the James Madison Club, at one time, one of the most powerful organizations in the country. Since 1920, Kings County has been one of the largest Democratic-enrolled counties in the country. Its machine has had an enviable record of achievement at every political level.

A brief look at the career of its founder and the premier leader of Kings County, John H. McCooey, might help bring the lack of success by reformers into focus. McCooey was born in Williamsburg’s Irish ghetto in 1864 and worked his way up through political jobs such as the New York City Civil Service Commission.

When Brooklyn’s first county “boss,” Hugh McLaughlin, retired from politics in 1904, McCooey cleverly established his control of Kings County. He imported George Washington Plunkitt’s philosophy about not practicing dishonest graft because there was so much “honest graft lyin’ around.”

Judgeships have always been an “issue” in Brooklyn. McCooey acted on a strictly quid pro quo basis, and in 1932, when he sought a judgeship for his son, he made a deal with Republicans to create 12 new judgeships.

Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt signed despite his anti-Tammany reputation. McCooey prospered by doing favors for family and friends. His sister was associate superintendent of schools in Brooklyn. His brother-in-law James J. Byrne was borough president who controlled millions of dollars for public works.

McCooey’s brother Herbert was a lawyer in the construction bonding business. Fiorello La Guardia noted that between 1926 and 1929, 868 bonding contracts were placed with Herbert in Brooklyn compared to 100 for all other bonding companies.

La Guardia also said that John McCooey Jr.’s law practice, shared with his brother-in-law, Gardner Conray, received between 20 and 30 times the normal number of referrals from the Surrogates Court for an individual law firm. Their firm also worked for the Bureau of Standards and Appeals.

It was said that if legal propriety was overstepped, Tammany appointed judges would come to their defense. As to applications for reductions in tax, it was reported that between a fifth and a half of the reduction went to a lawyer or other “fixer.” At his death in 1934, McCooey’s estate was rumored to be about $2 million. He saw his chances and took ’em.

Some years ago, I attended a dinner at which Meade Esposito was given a man-of-the-year award. It was a year or two before his “troubles” with the law would be a prelude to another announcement of the death of the Brooklyn machine.

He was sitting in the lobby smoking his omnipresent cigar and issuing expletives. Someone made the mistake of asking him about how he felt about the stiff opposition he was getting from the “reform” Democratic political clubs in the borough. He laughed and, between expletives, he explained that he also had been a reformer – a Roosevelt Reform Democrat.

JEROME KRASE
Brooklyn

Mr. Krase is Murray Koppelman and Emeritus Professor in the Department of Sociology at Brooklyn College, City University of New York.

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