Missouri: Ward Heelers' Revenge

In twelve years as mayor of St. Louis, Raymond Roche Tucker floated $129.5 million in public-improvement bonds, bulldozed away acres of slums, attacked the traffic problem. Today, monuments to his administration stand everywhere: a nearly completed arch, designed by the late Eero Saarinen, symbolizing the city's history as a gateway to the West; an $89 million sports stadium rising from what was once Skid Row; 602 city blocks undergoing a facelift.

But last week St. Louis voters turned Tucker out, nominated as his replacement a prominent Jack-of-all-trades with the fascinating name,...