Sophisticate Abroad

In New York politics, Tammany Boss Carmine De Sapio makes few mistakes. Perhaps that is partly because the politics of his city runs in settled patterns; everybody knows the rules. Last week De Sapio made the mistake of going on a campaigning mission to California, where nothing is settled except the weather, and where the deuces, nines and one-eyed jacks are wild.

Carmine's objective: to pick up some California support for Averell Harriman's effort to get the Democratic presidential nomination. The Tammany leader knew that the California Democrats were for Kefauver in 1952 and that most of the leaders are now for Stevenson. But what, he reasoned, could he lose by a little quiet hotel-room politicking?

He found out. Early last week, alerted to De Sapio's visit, six top party leaders gathered in the Los Angeles hotel suite of the state's No. 1 Democrat, Attorney General Edmund ("Pat") Brown. Problem: What to do about De Sapio? Their solution was sharp and bright as a knife: start a draft-Stevenson movement.

After the meeting broke up, State Chairman Elizabeth Snyder and others--in a parked car--drafted a telegram urging Adlai to run. Party leaders and Democratic clubs in every one of California's 58 counties were asked, by phone and wire, to add their signatures. An impressive array of leaders signed. Before breakfast, on Carmine De Sapio's second day in San Francisco, agitated National Committeewoman Clara Shirpser, who still likes Kefauver, bustled into De Sapio's suite at the Fairmount Hotel to break the bad news: Pat Brown and other top party leaders were holding a press conference down at the Palace Hotel to come out publicly for Stevenson.

At the Palace, Brown & Co. proudly waved a stack of telegrams supporting their draft movement. "We're off and running," said Pat Brown. "We want this movement to begin in the West, and there's no turning back: we're in this until Stevenson releases us at the convention." Los Angeles Democratic Leader Paul Ziffren, who could be De Sapio's twin for looks, signed the Stevenson telegram. Nevertheless, he visited De Sapio and tried to soften the thrust.

At week's end, when Grand Sachem De Sapio got home across the Hudson again, he allowed himself a comment on the conduct of his fellow-Democrats in California. "Panicky and hasty," he said, wiping his brow.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.