Nation: NEW YORK: THE REVOLT OF THE AVERAGE MAN

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Lindsay has been a visible, courageous chief executive who is always willing to put his prestige on the line for what he believes is right. His frequent television appearances, the heavy coverage of his activities in the newspapers, his refusal to fob off responsibilities on others, have invited personal blame for whatever goes wrong.

Plenty has. Lindsay set out to tame the tough civil service unions and to prevent threatened strikes by public employees; such strikes are illegal in the state. Instead, he and the city suffered through a numbing series of strikes, starting with a transit stoppage on his very first day in office. Since then, sanitation workers, teachers, welfare-department employees and others have also struck. To prevent still more stoppages, Lindsay has been compelled to make extremely high wage settlements.

Like many big cities, New York teeters on the edge of bankruptcy. Lindsay imposed a measure of rationality on fiscal operations by ending reckless borrowing to cover operating expenses. But he also increased spending by 75% and imposed a municipal income tax, giving New York City residents the highest taxes per capita in the country. The increase has not produced many tangible improvements in public services. Most of the money has been consumed by inflation, by the civil service wage settlements and by a nearly 200% increase in the cost of welfare assistance to the poor. During the Lindsay years, welfare has replaced education as the city's biggest single expense, now totaling $1.5 billion, or 23% of the $6.5 billion budget. The number of people on relief has doubled, to roughly 1,000,000, and although city officials contend that the rate of increase is now slowing appreciably, this is scant consolation to the wage earner of moderate means who knows that one out of eight New Yorkers is getting welfare help. "Work is the answer to an awful lot of the problems we have here," says Procaccino typically, "just plain hard work."

If welfare is a constant annoyance, crime is a chronic menace. Lindsay increased the size of the police force and appointed as police commissioner Howard Leary, a highly civilized career cop who has helped guide the department into a relatively smooth relationship with blacks. Lindsay has also designated city hall aides to maintain close and continuing communications with the city's several Negro and Puerto Rican communities, heading off trouble before it begins. These measures, plus Lindsay's self-appointment as ambassador to the ghettos, have helped keep New York free of major racial violence during the past four years. Yet crime —black crime in the eyes of most whites—continues to pose the threat that Candidate Lindsay decried in 1965.

The School and Racial Crisis

If the 1966 transit strike was Lindsay's Bay of Pigs, continuing school troubles and ethnic tensions have been his Viet Nam. The overriding aim of his administration, particularly during his first three years, was to assuage the bitterness of the city's black citizens. In doing so, he managed to increase white resentment and fears. The first test came in 1966 when he tried to organize a civilian review board to hear complaints of police brutality. Lindsay was cast in the role of a softie trying to shackle honest cops; the review-board referendum was defeated. A less stubborn, less