U.S. At War: Tammany Wake

Without pleasure, Tammany Leader Michael J. Kennedy arrived at his headquarters early on election evening. He and Tammany's Secretary Bert Stand chatted idly in the lonely office, occasionally stared outside at the foggy dusk. They were alone until 7:30; then a half dozen district leaders, grim as the weather, dropped in to make a faint pass at gaiety.

Nothing was the same at Tammany Hall. This was the first election night at Tammany's new headquarters, a modest suite in a loft building on Manhattan's Madison Avenue. There was no bonfire outside, no vast crowd roaring to celebrate. The phones, which used to jangle out returns long before the Election Board received any official figures, uttered only an occasional mild buzz.

Burly Mike Kennedy, his jowls buried deep in the folds of his great bull neck, listened to the results by radio, like any other citizen. Sitting in the midst of the fitful, strained conversation, he had plenty of time to reflect on the newest scandal—his alleged hand-in-glove scheming with Racketeer Frank Costello (see p. 22)—which had driven the final nail in Tammany's coffin.

Five coeds from Columbia University School of Journalism suddenly descended into the gloom, atwitter to cover election night at Tammany Hall. They chatted brightly with the little circle of politicos, took copious notes, departed. After they were gone, the silence was tomblike. From the radio came the monotonous chant of figures which told of the terrible beating New York Democrats had taken.

By 10 o'clock Mike Kennedy, who ascended Tammany's throne last year as the choice of Franklin Roosevelt's good friend, Senator Robert F. Wagner, sat somberly alone.