NOTE: So many e-mails and other comments have come in on the Carmine De Sapio article I wrote Friday that I thought I would correct errors, link to more recent articles, offer more anecdotes, and elucidate matters not fully explained in the first 2130 words on the rise and fall of the county leader, secretary of state, and Democratic national committeeman. He has an important place in the political history of the City of New York. This chapter is 1050 words, less than half the length of Friday's article. It contains some juicy links, e.g. Checkers and Impellitteri.

De Sapio, Last Tiger Who Could Bite,
Remembered for Personal Qualities.
But Think of the Business He Chose.

By Henry J. Stern
August 2, 2004

As one might expect, readers reacted to our article on the late Democratic Party leader, Carmine De Sapio. The column was not circulated until close to 6 p.m. Friday, so many people who get NYCivic at their office may not yet have had a chance to read it. Those who wrote in response to the substance of the article were overwhelmingly favorable, a few pointed out items I had not covered. I will publish the letters on our website, using writer ID only with consent.
 
Sunday's Times carried an interview by Anthony Ramirez with Edward Costikyan, who was installed by Mayor Wagner as leader of Tammany Hall after De Sapio lost his district leadership to James Lanigan (who later resigned and went to India) in 1961. Costikyan, an eminent lawyer (he retired as a partner at Paul Weiss), was considered a moderate reformer in the 60's, unlike Ed Koch, who was thought of as radical. Read for yourself Costikyan's kindly view of the Affair of the Back Seat in 1957, when De Sapio left $11,200 in hundred dollar bills in the back seat of a taxi, and did not claim it afterwards. The Times may have been trying to balance Jonathan Kandell's tough obituary Tuesday.

An excellent article on the late Tammany leader, written by George Arzt and including Time magazine's 1955 cover picture, appeared in Friday's New York Sun. Arzt, a former press secretary for Mayor Koch, was the New York Post City Hall reporter and bureau chief for 18 years. He is now a political consultant.

Nine readers (Chistopher Beal, Don Derham, Michael Abram, Jerry Skurnick, Bernie Cohen, Steve Simon, Elliot Saron, Howard Gross and Frank Angelino) pointed out a factual error. Richard Nixon delivered his famous Checkers speech in 1952, the year he first ran for vice president on the Eisenhower ticket (be sure to check out the link; it is fascinating). I knew the year was '52, but we were describing events in '56, and I forgot. Also, when the Democratic party nominated him for City Council president in 1945, Vincent R. Impellitteri was not a lower court judge, but secretary to Tammany Supreme Court Justice Joseph A. Gavagan. This makes him an even more obscure figure than I had believed.
 
De Sapio, having elected Harriman governor of New York in 1954, supported the multimillionaire (there weren't that many billionaires in those days) in his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1956. Imagine De Sapio's power if Harriman would have won. But by supporting Harriman, De Sapio alienated many liberals and reformers, who were loyal to the verbal Adlai Stevenson, who did worse in 1956 than in his 1952 loss to Dwight D. Eisenhower. The true believers then formed Stevenson clubs, which morphed into the reform movement. In the two presidential races against the General, the electoral vote was 442-89 in 1952, and 457-73-1 in 1956, with one disloyal Stevenson elector from Alabama straying.

The reason there were 531 electoral votes then, rather than the 538 we have today, is that Hawaii and Alaska were not yet in the Union, nor did the District of Columbia have its three votes. The states Stevenson carried were the Solid South, which at the time still resented the Republican-led Reconstruction after the War of the Rebellion, or the War Between the States, depending on which side you were on. Although it is doubtful that Harriman could have done any better than Stevenson, he surely would have spent more money on the campaign, which De Sapio would have overseen.
 
In his interview, Costikyan glides over the sale of judgeships and city contracts that were a hallmark of the Tammany operation. The defense is sometimes that the money is for the party, not the leader. Clarence Norman says that today, and it is partially true. But all-cash transactions without any accounting do lend themselves to self-help. It is a matter of human nature and situation ethics.
 
De Sapio did not invent Tammany corruption; he followed the pattern of history. Pelf was part and parcel of the pattern of politics. In the past, the bosses were often so powerful that they could not be prosecuted. In some cases, the bosses chose the prosecutors, as De Sapio attempted to do in 1958 by sending Hogan to the Senate.

Costikyan takes the 'brothers in arms' view of politics, even if he and De Sapio were on opposite sides. As one grows older, antagonisms blur, and, especially in the anticipation of meeting one's Maker, partisan disputes recede. So it should be, but keep your eyes on reality until they put coins on them to pay your fare to cross the river Styx.
 
Even his criminal case, in which he was convicted of bribing the Republican water commissioner in 1968, was ironic. In the old days, he (or his catspaw) would simply have ordered the commissioner to give the job to the firm he wanted, and he would not have had to share the payoff with a greedy public official. The more people in on the plot, the more likely someone will talk.

After De Sapio was released from prison, he attended a dinner in Greenwich Village. Then-Congressman Koch walked over to him, shook his hand, and publicly welcomed him back. The room erupted with applause. Koch felt De Sapio, having paid the penalty, deserved to be welcomed home.
 
In the genre of county leaders, De Sapio was a giant, along with Edward J. Flynn of the Bronx (who also supported Wagner over Impellitteri in 1953). De Sapio was courtly, dressed well, had good manners and was considerate. He was a more attractive character than many of his adversaries. But the reality is that he ran a corrupt enterprise, in which public offices, public contracts, and discretionary decisions by public officials, even some judges, were for sale. This resulted in the personal enrichment of those who held power at the time, and the deprivation of honest government for the people of the City of New York.
 
If they made a movie about Carmine De Sapio, he would be even more appealing than Michael Corleone, because De Sapio never had anyone whacked, so far as we know. But although murder is the ultimate crime, it is not the only offense to justice. The mills of the gods grind slow, but they grind exceeding fine.