A Vote for Hynes

A month ago Boston's non-partisan mayorality campaign was plodding dispiritedly toward November 8 with low registration and few live issues. The encumbent, Mayor John B. Hynes, planned to run on his record during six years in office. His opponent, State Senator John Powers was making energetic but ill-publicized speeches.

Then Powers changed gears. After the primary, he launched a series of headline attacks on Hynes. Closing one vituperative speech, Powers announced that a member of the State Crime Commission told him, "the Hynes administration is the most corrupt in Boston's history." Powers' further accusations of "silence" and "cover-up" made Hynes hit back. With two weeks to go now, both candidates are swinging from the heels.

A look at Powers' charges reveals a series of contradictions in his position. He fought a Hynes-approved special city loan bill which included $1.9 million badly needed by City Hospital, and then blamed the Mayor for the Hospital's poor condition. While promising to reduce the city tax rate to the 1949 level, he has guaranteed to provide more jobs, raise salaries, and improve city services. Though attacking corruption in the Hynes administration, he has tried to kill the State Crime Commission.

Moreover, Powers' voting record in the Senate on civic improvements can only be defined as obstructionist. As a senator, he opposed satisfactory state highway, city parking, and garbage disposal programs. Now he accuses Hynes of penny pinching. Finally, Powers' accusation of city corruption was refuted by the man he claimed had made the charge.

The record with which Mayor Hynes faces these attacks has its weaknesses. The tax rate has climbed sharply, but without bringing substantial wage increases to city workers. By emphasizing long-range planning during this period, however, Hynes has made the city more attractive to industry and increased employment. He has completed a major reorganization of the city government, and increased the efficiency of city services. Following a man who, for several months, governed Boston from jail (ex-Mayor Curley, who now supports Powers), Hynes has radically changed the atmosphere at City Hall.

Though unspectacular, Hynes has done creditable work. As this cannot be said of his opponent, Hynes deserves another term in office.