Ethnic Alliances, Bitter Feuds Mark Bay State Democrats

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has seen many political parties come and go--Puritans, tea dampers, and abolitionists. Yet the current, dominant Democratic party is perhaps the strangest of them all, since it is not really a party. Despite the fact that the vast majority of all elected officials are Democrats, a condition that ought to give elections a dreary sameness, the state's politics are among the most confused and chaotic in the nation. This year's election is hardly likely to vary the pattern.

Some things, of course, are as fixed as the heavens. Senator Edward M. Kennedy '54 will bury Republican Howard Whitmore, Jr. '29 in the most one-sided contest since John F. Kennedy overwhelmed political unknown Vincent Celeste by 850,000 in 1958.

Beyond these simple verities, however, the Commonwealth's politics grow more complicated. Unlike the newly emerged Republicans of a century ago, proud of the success of their party built upon abolition and the Constitution, today's Democrats are united by the simple conviction of its immigrant constituents that the party of the Yankee mill owner-oppressor should be made to suffer. Little else in the way of ideology, binds together the party's members, who range from Goldwater supporters to former ADA chairmen. The Party is basically a combination of ethnic alliances, traditional hatreds and personal feuds followed by hypocrital gestures for the sake of party harmony.

The victory this September of Lieutanant-Governor Francis X. Bellotti over incumbent Governor Chub Peabody for the primary nomination was an especially significant upheavel. Peabody, after a political career comprised primarily of defeats, squeaked into office in 1962 and proved to be an amazingly effective--and progressive--Governor.

Unlike Bellotti, however, he had no feel for the ethnic interests and managed to bungle the business whenever it came up. His wife Toni antagonized the Irish when she criticized the Capital washerwomen, and he mortified the Puritans among the Yankees when he embraced the now indicated "Iron Duke of Ludlow," House Speaker Thompson, only shortly after calling for his removal. He allowed former Senate President John E. Powers, a good Irish Catholic, to make a statement on his behalf that accused Bellotti of trying to take over the party, a statement that only infuriated the Italians and appalled the Irish.

Bellotti himself had balanced rather neatly between competing factions in the years of his rise to power first as a manager for the disreputable Joe Ward in 1960, then steering a pretty neutral course in 1962 between Kennedy and McCormack, and finally gathering together all the losers in the past several elections in his own bid for the gubernatorial nomination. He assiduously avoided being connected with any particular issue or cause, especially capital punishment, which had turned out to be a Peabody albatross.

His victory, though it places him right at the top beside Senator Kennedy is likely only to cause further disputes among the party's various elements. All of Peabody's supporters, unexpectedly thrust out of doors, are now casting about for someone to lead them back to the State House, and there are several candidates, most notably Boston's Mayor Collins, who are already in the running for 1966. Senator Kennedy, who belatedly came out for Club, is not known to be overjoyed at the results and will probably do nothing to stop any serious attempt to humble Bellotti later on. Party harmony, though, has been assured at least through this Tuesday. Peabody has agreed to be cooperative about his lame-duck appointments, Bellotti has agreed to be cooperative when Peabody tries to appoint his staff to various judgeships, and Joe Gargan, Kennedy's cousin, has been named Bellotti's campaign manager.

The jockeying for position at the lower levels of state government tends to be somewhat cruder, with little emphasis being placed on issues or competence. With the slow rise of the Democratic party, it has become easier and easier for a candidate to win with only the Democratic endorsement to recommend him to the voter.

It is perhaps somewhat amusing to see an unknown Irishman run up a 500,000 vote margin on some equally unknown Republican in a race for Treasurer, but it is this serene confidence in victory no matter who runs that has kept the state's politics tied to the lowest common denominator. The present Auditor Theodore Buzcko, was appointed to his post after the death of his predecessor just before the primary because he was a Pole (there hadn't been any Polish constitutional officers for a while) and because he was friendly with both the Kennedy and Bellotti camps, and important asset in the strained atmosphere immediately following the primary. Buzcko himself, though a charming and ambitious man, knows practically nothing of accounting, and it is not difficult to speculate about his probable conduct in office.

To retain his post, Buzcko like every other elected official needs to build his own organization, since he can expect little help from the Democratic party (completely indistinguishable from the personal organization of Senator Kennedy, the leading Democrat). Curiously enough, the least of his worries are the Republicans, who have nominated Elywnn Miller, someone even more unknown than Buzcko himself.

He must make it out of the only material available to him, the friends and neighbors he has among the Poles, thus perpetuating the system that made his nomination possible. The only threat Buzcko faces is that someone representing a better organized group, most likely the Irish, will try to knock him off in the next primary.

The splintering of the Democratic Party is revealed in the appointments for lower office. Here every Greek, Pole, Jew, Frenchman, Portugese, Armenian, Negro or Italian has a claim on something, and the party is merely the facade behind which the unseemly scramble for office takes place. Little heed is paid either to law or decency, especially since most appointments for confirmation must pass through the Governor's Council, a body often said to be up for sale or open to influence.

It is not likely, though, that the present situation can last forever. The rising importance of economic influences within the various ethnic groups will tend to split them up and assimilate them, and the day will come when a Greek can run for office outside Lowell, and an Irishman can win in the North End. In the meantime, though, the best hope for the Democratic Party and the state lies with the Kennedy's and their allies. There is much truth to the charge that they ran out on the state in 1960, but the fact is that ever since John Kennedy began to run for office, the quality of the state's officers has been improving. The crudity of political appeals has been reduced, and it is significant that the comeback try in 1962 of Francis "Sweepstakes" Kelley, an old-guard ward heeler Democrat running for Attorney General was defeated decisively by Edward Brooke, a Republican. Brooke, who has now joined that select circle of the Commonwealth's politicians who are regarded as incorruptible, is regarded as a pretty good bet for reelection despite the Johnson landslide.

There will probably never be a return to the days of a century ago when the dominant Republicans could offer a ticket so ignorant of ethnic feeling and geographical distribution, but the Commonwealth, one hopes, will tire of its simple pleasures of sensational disclosures of corruption and endless indictments, and of voting for the end of a candidate's name. However, one suspects it wouldn't have it any other way.