In the short history of the Riverside Democrats, an insurgent political club in the Columbia University area, September 10, 1957, was a night to remember. The sounds of revelry which emanated from its headquarters on Broadway and 106th Street signalized an event rare in the annals of local Democratic affairs: the triumph, and on its first attempt at that, of a local reform group. Its two candidates for district leader, William Fitts Ryan and Shirley Kaye, had soundly trounced the Tammany leadership of the district.

No wonder that the new group of professionals, mostly amateurs less than a year before, sang, shouted, and whooped in exultation unmarred by either regret for past inactivity or premonition of future trouble. Indeed, few group experiences can be more intoxicating than election night when early returns promise victory, and every later return increases victory’s scope. Each new face in the door seemed likely to be bringing the good news of opposition defeat in yet another election district, and since there are fifty-four election districts in the Seventh Assembly District, the scene of this particular contest, good tidings were plentiful. Even before victory was official, unfamiliar men and women appeared for the first time in the club headquarters, conscious that power was shifting and old favors henceforth would have to be sought in new places. Telephones never ceased ringing. Newspaper interest suddenly increased. In the midst of it all the candidates, happy but tired as only politics can tire, strove to say the appropriate things—thanks to supporters, assurances of continued effort, gentle reminders that victory was a beginning, not an ending.

How do liberal Democrats eject Tammany district leaders? What happens after they do so? The story of the successful campaign may suggest an answer to the first question, but no answer to the second can yet be given. The story of the Riverside Democrats begins with the disastrous national election of November 1956. As in many other parts of the city, the local Tammany leadership did little to bring out the vote for Stevenson, Kefauver, and Wagner. The principal interest of the conventional political club is patronage, and patronage is dispensed by Governor Harriman in the Statehouse and Mayor Wagner in City Hall, with the notable assistance of Carmine De Sapio. Moreover, Mr. De Sapio had supported Harriman, not Stevenson, for the Presidential nomination. Under the circumstances, neither self-interest nor personal loyalty dictated excessive effort in the interests of the national ticket.

Frustrated by the indifference of the regular Democrats, a few devoted Steven-sonians, led by William Fitts Ryan, formed the Morningside-Columbia Committee for Stevenson, Kefauver, and Wagner, which, despite its impressive name, made its headquarters in a basement of modest dimensions. Stevenson’s victory in the area was the direct result of the group’s intensive work. The experience made one point clear: the connection between local machine politics and liberal national candidates usually hurts the latter. An easy inference was the need for better local organizations interested in more than the personal advantage of their own members. Therefore, Bill Ryan called a meeting, attended by ten persons, to talk about the possibility of starting a new club.

Bill Ryan, in November 1956, was one of District Attorney Hogan’s principal trial assistants. Among many other cases, he had worked on Johnny Dio’s paper locals. Although he is a graduate of both Princeton College and Columbia Law School, this double taint of the Ivy League has not ruined him for political purposes. A simple, direct speaker, he gives an impression of transparent honesty which greater acquaintance tends to confirm. It does him no harm that he is tall, handsome, and Irish, nor that his hair curls and he blushes easily. A charming wife and three children complete the picture.

The predictable consequence of this first meeting in late November was a decision to meet again and invite more participants. The two or three meetings which followed in December and early January were designed partly to test the feasibility of starting another club, and partly to educate the group, many of whom were dim about so elementary a point as the boundaries of the Seventh Assembly District.¹ It was easier to learn these boundaries than it was to comprehend the unique role of the district leader in local politics. The legal position of the district leader is simple: he is an unpaid party (not public) official. Some light is shed on his actual role when it is added that each district leader is a member of the executive committee of the New York County Committee, and that the chairman of that executive committee is Carmine De Sapio. Mr. De Sapio derives his powers from his election by other district leaders as their chairman. Since he is not uninfluential in the appointment of many city and state officials and in the selection of numerous candidates for elective office, it is theoretically possible, by electing a majority of insurgent district leaders, to choose a more sympathetic chairman, and through him, better nominees for public office. A district leader in favor with Mr. De Sapio exercises considerable influence himself in making these appointments and nominations, which include perhaps five or six jobs paying more than $10,000 per year; his influence extends also to the naming of candidates for municipal court judgeships, assembly and state senatorial seats, and a share of a Congressional representative. Moreover, a wide variety of trivial patronage filters through his hands: miscellaneous legal chores (it is not altruism alone which induces young lawyers to hang around political clubhouses), election inspectors’ jobs, even temporary appointees to the Post Office and other governmental offices.

Nor is this all. Although as a party, rather than a public, official, he cannot directly affect site selection for schools and parks, or place constituents in housing projects, or arrange admission to city welfare facilities, in practice city officials often heed the voice of the regular district leader. In fact the experienced district leader can, if he wishes, do a great many things for his friends: relieve them of jury service, see that housing regulations are sympathetically interpreted, accelerate action by city officials. The fact that some of these actions may skirt legality rather narrowly probably makes them all the more valuable to supplicants.

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While the twenty or so persons loosely affiliated with the not yet named Riverside Democrats were learning facts of this sort, they were also considering whether and how they should organize. Two practical problems confronted them. Should they accept the proposal of a group of insurgent Democrats in the Fifth Assembly District, south of the Seventh, to form a larger club seeking members from both assembly districts? And what should be their relations with Bob Blaikie and the dissident club which he headed? Blaikie had held the leadership in the district both as a regular and then as an insurgent. Since Bob Blaikie is a somewhat controversial figure whose claim to consistent liberalism is open to question, most considered association with him damaging.² When its offer of amalgamation was refused, the Blaikie club dissolved and, ultimately, many of its members joined the new Riverside Democrats. After further soul-searching, it was also decided to refuse the offer of Fifth A.D. Democrats and to move into the now vacant former Blaikie headquarters. On January 28, in a meeting at the Columbia University Faculty Club, attended by perhaps forty persons, a constitution was adopted, and officers and a board of directors were elected.

This is a convenient place to ask who these people were. As a group, the members of the Riverside Democrats at this January 1957 meeting were young, with an overwhelming concentration in their early and middle thirties, and extremely well educated. All eight officers were college graduates and seven had done graduate work in schools like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Columbia. Although these were a group of eggheads, they were not academic eggheads. None of the officers and only one of the nineteen-member board of directors was a university teacher. It is mildly paradoxical that professional educators showed so little interest in this venture in political education. As a group, the first members of the Riverside Democrats were successful in such diverse professional fields as the law, journalism, medicine, finance, and economics. Neither their prestige nor their incomes depended upon the fruits of political activity. Finally, they were mostly amateurs who had never actively worked in a local campaign, some of them too shy to speak at meetings, others horrified at the prospect of ringing doorbells and talking to strange people.

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In February the club moved into its new headquarters, a large room of perhaps forty feet by twenty feet, directly above an Orthodox synagogue. Then followed the most uncertain months of the group’s existence. It subsisted only because members lent it money, in many cases still not repaid. Its very chairs were purchased with borrowed money. Some of the Blaikie supporters whom it hoped to attract failed to appear. Members mimeographed materials on the equipment of the offices where they worked, in semi-clandestine fashion. A very little money came from dues and a bit more from the proceeds of club-sponsored parties. There were also one or two large donations, perhaps $100 in size. The bulk of activity consisted of educational meetings and increasingly anxious discussion about entering the district leadership primary. Here two major uncertainties clouded the decision. For a time there was a strong possibility that the date of the primary would be in the spring rather than in the fall. A spring date would have made it impossible to collect enough signatures on petitions to qualify for a position on the ballot. A second uncertainty was connected with Bill Ryan’s position in the District Attorney’s office. If he ran for district leader, he would have to give up his job. Since his own resources were narrow, considerable financial sacrifice would accompany this decision.

Organizations develop their own momentum. In retrospect it appears inevitable, first, that the club should have rented quarters at an expense beyond its means, and second, that it should have entered the leadership race as soon as the fall date was announced. And the choice of the male candidate also seems inevitable, although one opponent was nominated. Bill Ryan had been exceedingly active. As a former president of the New York Young Democrats, he was one of the club’s few experienced members. And he was one of the most personally appealing of the possibilities. At a party after the election, a group spent a fair amount of time in considering whether he possessed “charisma.” If charisma implies the capacity to evoke faith without works, then Bill Ryan comes closer than most young politicians to its possession.

It was difficult to find a politically attractive female candidate. Theoretically, though seldom actually, the district leaders, one male and one female, are absolutely equal in status and power. Following the district tradition with some misgivings, the club decided that the woman should be Jewish, since the man was Irish, preferably a mother, and an active participant in community affairs. Various personal reasons induced all of the leading possibilities to refuse, with the exception of Shirley Kaye, who met every specification: Jewish, mother of a child, and active in both the League of Women Voters and the Parents’ Association, of which she had been president. She proved in the campaign that she was more than a collection of qualifications, for her independent following produced a vote actually higher than Bill Ryan’s. On June 20, at a general membership meeting, attended at a generous estimate by eighty persons, the club endorsed Ryan and Kaye.

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Immediately, a series of problems afflicted the club. First of all money. The cost of even a local campaign aided by unpaid labor and contributed materials is high. It costs $300 in postage alone to mail the cheapest piece of literature to 22,000 Democrats. Before the campaign was over the club spent more than $7,000. Wynn Kramarsky, a belligerent campaign manager, did most to solve the problem. A former member of the Lexington Club, a successful insurgent group on the East Side, Wynn knew many of the wealthy Democrats who belonged to it and could tap them for contributions. But it was equally vital to broaden the club’s membership. Coalitions win campaigns and the original members of the club could not deliver enough votes. The obvious target was the former Blaikie group. Several bridges to them existed. Bill Ryan had himself served as a Blaikie captain.³ Treva Greenwalt, a tireless canvassing manager, had worked with Dan Kelly, the maverick assemblyman who had been supported by the Blaikie club against the candidate of the Tammany club, whose district leader is William J. Sheldrick. Initially cautious in associating himself with the new group, Dan Kelly involved himself more and more as the campaign advanced. One of his major contributions was the attraction to the club of many former Blaikie members. His own endorsement of the Riverside Democrats helped considerably, for Kelly had gained a substantial personal following by studious independence of the regular Democratic leadership of the Assembly. His had often been a lone voice raised against undesirable legislation. The Blaikie people are older, less liberal, and closer to classic organizational types than the group they joined. The club also sought the aid of the Puerto Ricans, invariably known for political purposes as the Spanish-speaking group. This effort was a risk, for one view was that votes won in Puerto Rican districts might be offset by losses in Irish districts.

Nominating petitions were the most immediate problem. In order to qualify for listing on the printed ballot, it is necessary to secure the signatures of 5 per cent of the registered Democrats. But it is highly desirable to acquire far more than 5 per cent. The opposition can challenge signatures, either for fraud or technical deficiency, and most judges are sympathetic to organization claims. But even more important, voters who sign your petitions are good prospects to vote your way in the primary. The club aimed at 6,000 signatures by the end of July, and actually collected something over 4,000. This is one of the activities—fund-raising is another—where the professional is indispensable. A key figure, therefore, was George Minkin, an attorney skilled in the election law, experienced in other contests, and, though intellectual in taste, combative in temperament. The Sheldrick failure to challenge any Riverside signature was the result, in part at least, of Minkin’s briefcase full of carefully prepared challenges of Sheldrick signatures.

Once the petition crisis was surmounted, the campaign itself evoked the maximum energies of dozens if not scores of workers throughout August and the first ten days of September. Barbara Palmore, the club’s secretary, more than anyone else coordinated these volunteer efforts. Coordinating is a large word. In practice it means never-ending telephone conversations and a readiness to keep promises made and remember assignments suggested. A mass of literature, of varying quality, was mailed or distributed by hand. The club published two newsletters. It sent out sample ballots, a move of some importance because the primary ballot is insanely complicated and it is laughably easy to invalidate a vote by incorrect marking. Just before the election, postcard reminders were mailed. But it is safe to say that literature wins no campaigns. Much is thrown away unread. Part of the remainder must impress the skeptical as canceling opposition claims, like competing ads.

The club also deployed much more intensively than its opposition that instrument of Satan, the sound-truck, one of the most annoying disturbers of urban peace. Yet there is the story of the lady who called frequently to testify to her annoyance at the racket, but whose last call confessed that she had been converted and planned to vote for Ryan and Kaye. Undeniably, the sound-truck drew good crowds and in speaking to them the Riverside Democrats had a decided advantage: their candidates were effective orators. Because he knew no Spanish, Bill Ryan evolved an effective technique for working the Puerto Rican districts. Stationing on the sound-truck someone who could speak Spanish, he shook hands with everyone in sight. The sound-truck was the hero of one of the campaign’s most amusing incidents. The week before the election, Carmine De Sapio came up to speak at the Sheldrick club. Word of his appearance leaked to the Riverside Democrats, and some sardonic soul got the notion of parking the sound-truck a block or so away and turning its volume up. On a hot September evening, Mr. De Sapio’s hosts had the unpleasant choice of leaving the windows open and hearing little of their guest’s remarks, or closing the windows and facing near suffocation. It is said that they courageously chose the second alternative.

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Politics is above all a matter of personal relations. Particularly in a primary campaign, where the issues are complex or nonexistent, the personal appeal is critical. Ideally no doubt it would be otherwise, but in fact many a vote is cast as a favor to the canvasser who solicited it. Canvassing is hard, exasperating, dispiriting work. One of the best canvassers divided his district into good houses and bad houses. Every evening he started with a bad house. After the first door had been slammed in his face, he went to a good house to soothe his spirit. Otherwise (he suggests) he would have quit. But the work is also educational. It taught a good many canvassers just how wretched are the housing arrangements of Negroes, Puerto Ricans, and others in this area. Oddly enough, amateurs canvass more successfully than professionals, simply because they are amateurs, fresh in approach, personable in appearance, and obviously uninterested in personal gain.

Of such amateur canvassers the Riverside Democrats had a large supply. The few veterans had acquired their experience mostly as workers in Dan Kelly’s primary campaigns. Added to them were recruits from the Young Democrats and the Lexington Club whose aid was especially significant on primary day itself when the need for experienced poll watchers is great. The canvassers included an extraordinarily good-looking group of young women. No doubt it is only hyperbole to assert that insurgent Democratic women are prettier than other women, but in this instance the evidence was strong.

What did the canvassers and the sound-truck orators talk about? What were the issues? The usual primary fight is a struggle for power, not a contest over issues. Therefore, the present campaign was an exception. At its beginning, the major issues seemed to be failure to support Stevenson in 1956, political patronage,⁴ enforcement of housing regulations, and the Manhattantown housing project. Since many Democratic voters cast their ballots for Eisenhower in 1956, the first issue demanded careful handling. The patronage issue, whatever its validity, has an old, musty air about it. The issue which really caught fire was the Manhattantown project. Here the facts were damning. The developers of the project seem to have found it more profitable to collect parking lot fees and rents from not yet demolished buildings than to construct the new apartments which was their proper purpose. In an area where housing is desperately short, excessively expensive, and cynically exploited, Manhattantown was a constant irritation. It turned out that three of the businessmen who had shared in the profits of this speculation had contributed to Sheldrick funds and that one of them was actually a Sheldrick candidate. Probably the most effective single bit of literature of the campaign was the leaflet which established these connections. It featured reproductions of Senate hearings, an honorary patron’s card in the Sheldrick Association, and two pages of the Sheldrick fund-raising souvenir program with the three names heavily circled.

Late in the campaign, the Sheldrick people suddenly became apprehensive. Until ten days or so before primary day on September 10, their every action had breathed confidence in themselves and contempt for their opponents. Their new alarm took the shape of claims of endorsement by, among others, Mrs. Roosevelt, at this time visiting Moscow. (It says something about the exigencies of practical politics that her cablegram, date-lined Moscow, reaffirming her support of Ryan and Kaye, was reproduced in the club leaflets with the Moscow identification cautiously deleted.) In the battle of endorsements, Ryan and Kaye had the good fortune to win an unusually strong statement by the Citizens’ Union, which must have had a favorable impact not only upon the university voters but also upon the prosperous Jewish population concentrated on West End Avenue and Riverside Drive.

Another token of Sheldrick apprehension was their much heavier use of the “Red” issue. Sheldrick canvassers emphasized the ADA affiliations of some Riverside Democrats. One of the Ryan workers countered this charge with the ploy that ADA actually meant Assistant District Attorney. The success of this maneuver is not recorded. A blow at the Ryan fortunes was struck by Frank Hogan when he suddenly prohibited Assistant District Attorneys in his office from working with the Ryan forces on election day. Expert canvassers, they acquired personal followings which aggregated several hundred votes. It testifies to Ryan’s personal appeal that no fewer than seven of those who were on Hogan’s staff worked for Ryan during the campaign.

As September 10, 1957, approached, a new worry appeared. After the usual fashion, the election inspectors at each poll were Sheldrick-appointed. Unless experienced poll watchers protected Ryan and Kaye interests and observed the count after the polls closed, Sheldrick watchers and Sheldrick inspectors might combine to invalidate Ryan ballots and pass Sheldrick ballots. Once more professional help met and overcame the crisis. Literally dozens of Young Democrats and Lexington Club members, veterans of many election fights, swarmed into the district. A surplus of trained workers actually resulted. No poll was unwatched. No watcher tired and allowed the count to proceed by default. So zealous indeed were the Ryan and Kaye partisans that one was ejected by the police and another caused the ejection of a Sheldrick worker.

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If the Ryan-Kaye victory had one clear lesson, it was this: the easy contrast of vice and virtue, professional and amateur, is much too simple. In my not unprejudiced opinion, the Riverside Democrats and their candidates were brighter, more idealistic, and more liberal than their opponents. But if they had been only a band of brave amateurs valiantly battling unscrupulous professionals, the usual issue of such encounters would have followed: the professionals would have won. The facts testify that at key points—finance, campaign management, and law—the Riverside Democrats had better professional guidance than did their opponents. Almost certainly the Riverside Democrats spent more money than their opponents. They probably enlisted more outside help. Yet the amateurs were indispensable as canvassers, talkers, mailers, and workers. Children were left in the custody of grandparents. Friends were ignored. Businesses were neglected. The campaign manager’s brokerage partner in exasperation docked him ten cents for each incoming political call. The total was not small. By the time a couple of months of twelve-hour days had elapsed many an amateur had become a professional.

The campaign taught another lesson. Professional political organizations age and tire. One of the causes of Sheldrick’s defeat was the large number of middle-aged, comfortably plump souls among his captains. Their amiability far exceeded their energy. The personal associations upon Which the professional’s tenure depends had been allowed to loosen. There is some question whether more energetic Sheldrick captains would have saved the day. It may be that a highly mobile urban population can be held in line politically more by appeals to issues than to personal loyalties.

What happens after the celebration ends? Immediate reaction blends feelings of letdown with a sharp increase in personal bickering. All that an idealist gets out of politics is personal prestige, but personal prestige inevitably is relative to the position of others. This is another way of saying that many people developed wounded feelings because they felt that they were insufficiently appreciated. Maneuvering began with a view to the next club elections. All of this was inevitable, for the strain of disinterested activity is too great for anyone to bear very long.

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As this is written in January, these personal rivalries do not threaten the club’s future. However, they reflect in part a number of unresolved questions. One is the relation between the major elements of the winning coalition. Neither the intellectuals nor the Blaikie element are strong enough to win another primary election. Yet neither is really sympathetic to the other. The original Riverside Democrats would like to see more discussion of state and national issues, and more consideration of state and national candidates. One adherent of this group suggested a seminar on political factions. And it is surely possible to imagine programs attractive enough to recruit members of the university community. Indeed, one view would suggest that unless such members are drawn in, the club will drift in the direction of the Blaikie group, which is more interested in traditional club objectives. Yet the opposition is not complete. There are people like Pauline Weinreb, a leader among the Blaikie people and a tireless worker for the Riverside Democrats, who sincerely admire the younger Riverside Democrats and do their best to work with them. The usual charge against liberals in politics is that their involvement is transitory. In the end, the dull work of politics is distasteful and they drift away. If the charge has any force here, it implies that the intellectual vigor of the club may depend upon its ability to recruit fifty or so young professionals and university teachers annually to replace those who drop out.

A second unresolved issue centers on the relation between the club and the district leaders. In the traditional club the district leader is boss. It is his club. The title of the Tammany club of the district, the William J. Sheldrick Association, makes the point plainly. The Riverside Democrats have different aims. Legally, of course, they cannot reverse the usual relation and make the district leaders their own. Legally, the two district leaders represent 22,000 enrolled Democrats, not two hundred club members. But if the district leader has no obligation to heed the club, the club has no obligation to endorse the district leader for reelection. Therefore a strong, independent club has the opportunity to make its views felt. Although none of these remarks implies that Ryan aspires to make the Riverside Democrats his personal property, they do identify an instability in the relationship capable of causing trouble.

One current uncertainty is Ryan’s political future. Here is a man who deserves to advance politically and possesses the ambition to do so. But his immediate propects are unclear. A political ally, Dan Kelly, occupies the Assembly seat which might make a reasonable next objective. Other offices depend upon the good will of the official party leadership. An election promise not to accept patronage seems to limit appointive possibilities. In the meantime, however, he must make a living.

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What can be said to be the future of the Riverside Democrats? At least four alternative emphases are conceivable. The club could become a more respectable alternative to the Sheldrick organization. It could accept appointive posts for its members and soft-pedal its insurgency. The patronage issue can be oversimplified. Most patronage jobs demand genuine effort. The jobs have to be done by someone. The level of public administration in the city would rise if more people like the Riverside Democrats accepted office. If this alternative were pursued or drifted into, the club would almost inevitably move under the control of the district leader. It would come to resemble in the realities of power and influence the Sheldrick and the Blaikie organizations.

The club could concentrate upon local improvement. If the analysis so far is accurate, it was a local issue, Manhattantown, which did most to win. Local issues might permit readier agreement between the ex-Blaikie elements and the newer intellectual group than the more abstract questions of political principle implicit in larger issues. In fact, the major activity of the club since the primary has been the inspection of some of the more dilapidated buildings of the area, pressure upon city departments for action, and preparation of an admirably detailed report. It is possible that a series of activities focused upon schools and parks, as well as housing, could engage the activities of all club groups.

Another emphasis is longer run. The hard-boiled view might be taken that effective improvement in community amenities depends upon the election of the best candidates to public office, and that the selection of these candidates depends primarily on the New York County Committee and secondarily upon the pressures posed by individual political clubs. Hence the club will achieve its purposes only as other districts choose like-minded district leaders. In the meantime, the club might do well to devote more time to national than to local issues. Closely allied to this position is the thought that the primary purpose of a club like the Riverside Democrats is educative. It should train its members to greater understanding of the political process and political issues. Ultimately it might play the same role as a cadre for the launching of political insurgency as the Lexington Club played in its own success.

Choices in logic are clearer than they are in life. In all likelihood, the Riverside Democrats will not deliberately choose any of these paths. Nor will they necessarily concentrate on one task. For one thing, a club too austerely dedicated to national issues might lose the next leadership contest. For another, it might turn into the same sort of debating society as many chapters of the ADA. For a third, there is something to be said for a political club as pluralist as the society it finds itself in. Neither will logic determine the shape of the relationship between leader and club. Institutional pressures and personalities will swing the decision. It is a fair prediction that the Riverside Democrats will not soon vanish. It is an intriguing question what they will be like a year from now.

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¹ The district is bounded on the west by Riverside Drive, the east by Central Park West and Morningside Drive, the north mostly by 125th Street, and the south by 97th Street in some places and 100th Street in the remainder.

² During the mayoralty election of 1957, Blaikie headed a lonely handful of Democrats for Christenberry, the Republican candidate.

³ A “captain” is a person responsible for canvassing in an election district and shepherding sympathetic voters to the polls.

⁴ Sheldrick himself, though innocent of legal training, occupies the position of confidential attendant to the justices of the Supreme Court of the First Judicial Department.