Economy at Last

"I feel like a father expecting his firstborn. I awaited a big, healthy, bouncing child, and find a small, puny, anemic, undernourished, undersized baby. I love the little brat, but I am disappointed. . . ."

Thus did swart little Mayor Fiorello Henry LaGuardia of Greater New York (childless but the parent of a small adopted daughter) describe the economy bill finally passed in his city's behalf last week by the State Legislature, ending a conflict in which a Fusion-Republican Mayor and a Regular Democratic Governor had bucked a Tammany-influenced Legislature for 100 days (TIME, Jan. 15 & 22).

In Manhattan that afternoon the Board of Estimate wasted no time in effecting much-needed savings in a city budget unbalanced to the tune of $31,000,000. The bill permitted the board to slash the city's expenditures some $13,000,000 by salary reductions, furloughs, consolidation of departments, abolition of useless jobs, of which 1,010 were abolished at once. What made the bill seem a puny thing to the Mayor was that such populous and politically potent city departments as Transit and Education had been exempted by the Legislature from pay cuts and reorganization.

But the city's credit was restored. Bankers and investors, for months chary of New York City securities, snapped up a special $7,650,000 bond issue at 3 1/2%, lowest rate since 1931.

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