The First Hurrah

WHILE many students are bustling around the nation with heady dreams of winning presidential contests for Kennedy, McCarthy, or Rockefeller, some are working successfully at the other end of the political spectrum: on the grass-roots level of ward politics. Peter A. Gagliardi '68, for example, recently won elections to the three-man school committee and to the ten-man Democratic town committee in Athol, Massachusetts. A more striking case, however, was the Democratic ward committee election that occurred in Cambridge last primary day, April 29. Four college students, one of them a Harvard senior, headed a 12-member slate that toppled the local cronies of State Representative Timothy Hickey. The Hickey group held control of Ward 9 for a dozen years.

The fact that a group of students and political novices could defeat some of Cambridge's more experienced politicians is not as impressive, however, as the manner in which they did it. Without political allegiances, City Council backing, or any ties whatsoever, the students gathered a slate that was ideally balanced with cross-ideological and multi-generational strands. It contained veterans and anti-war liberals, students and older adults, housewives and city workers, Irish and more Irish. "Tell me now, just what could we do against that collection?" a member of the losing slate said after the votes had been tallied and all 12 members of the insurgent slate had finished ahead of Hickey (13th) and two other incumbents who filled out the 15-man committee.

Daniel J. Brennan Jr., son of the late Cambridge police chief, organized and headed the winning slate. He has worked in City Hall and knew just what kind of tactics would win in this part of Cambridge. A sophomore at Boston University, Brennan got three of his former Little League teammates to join him on the ballot: Anthony McI. Glavin '68, Roger O'Sullivan, a junior at Boston State, and Brendon Synnott, a senior at Boston State. The four students all finished in the first six places. Brennan balanced the rest of the slate with Mrs. Barbara Armistead, a Cambridge Civic Association member; Joseph Carceo, former president of the Marsh Post veterans organization: Francis Mahoney, an undertaker on Huron Avenue a block away from the Hickey undertaking establishment; Bernard Flynn, a city worker; Mrs. Bernard Flynn and Mrs. James Sugrue, housewives; James Maloney, a printer; and Patricia Rumsey, a secretary in the county government.

THE Brennan slate's one-month, low-keyed campaign involved phone calling, neighborhood stumping, and electioneering at the poll booths. A printed disc with the names of the slate's members and the number of the appropriate polling-machine lever was its only campaign literature. The majority of voters at the polls seemed generally pleased to see college students and housewives at the polls. Their pleasant appearance put the crusty-looking opponents on the defensive. "Members of the incumbent slate there seemed like caricatures," a young housewife who had come to vote for McCarthy commented. "They all looked alike with those big hats, dark suits, and fat cigars."

No doubt the large turnout of McCarthy supporters indirectly aided the Brennan group. But it was probably their freshness that decisively influenced the voters. "The ward elections throughout Cambridge illustrated a widespread desire for new faces," observed Herbert F. Mattson, a popular new state Democratic committeeman who just won his position by a 4-1 margin. According to Mattson, the city and ward committees are traditionally do-nothing and lackadasical, and the election results were a reaction to this practice.

This process of upsets began four years ago when insurgents won control of Wards 4, 6, 7, and 8 (Cambridge has 11 wards). This year the major changes occurred in Wards 1, 5, 9, 10, and 11. In Ward 1, Democratic City Committee Chairman Edward Stewart Jr. topped the balloting, but an opposing slate gained majority control of the Ward Committee. An insurgent group swamped the incumbents in Ward 5. The victors included James Washington Jr., a semi-professional basketball player and social worker who spoke for the City's black community before the city Council last Thursday and last night. Among the casualties on the opposing slate were independent School Committeeman Daniel J. Clinton and City Purchasing Agent Charles F. Watson. In Ward 10, Thomas P. O'Neill III, son of the anti-war Congressman, paced his slate to a victory over the incumbents, and a third faction. In Ward 11 City Councillor Thomas Danchy battled against former Mayor Daniel Hayes and Election Commissioner Thomas J. Hartnett. All three won positions on the committee, but the Danehy slate won a majority of the seats. All in all, the results in these five wards jolted the older politicians. The McCarthy vote had some influence in Wards 9 and 10, but otherwise it did not greatly affect the elections. The ward constituencies that would support McCarthy--7 and 8--had no contests for their committees.

BUT how significant are ward committees anyway? Not very. The committees, which have four-year terms, do send delegates to the state Democratic convention in 1970. (Brennan's group in Ward 9, for example, will probably send three delegates to the convention in 1970 based on the ward's democratic voting totals in the last guber-natorial contest). Otherwise, the committees have little legal force except deciding some minor patronage jobs: they nominate polling place officers to the City Election Commissioners.

"Ward committees can take positions on issues, but most of them--at least in Cambridge--don't do anything," Mattson said. He personally hopes to stir ward interest in a state senate redistricting bill, which, in his words, "makes hash of Cambridge." Matson added that "the people who are behind the bill in the Statehouse are candidates patronage jobs concerning election officials.

SAMUEL H. Beer, professor of Government and Democratic Committeeman for Ward 8, believes that state legislators usually do not like to deal with ward committees. "A state politician wants to have ward committees in his hip pocket; otherwise they can be a thorn in his side," Beer said, noting that ward committee-members often oppose legislation in the primaries.

In the case of Ward 9, the overwhelming victory of the student slate could encourage people to run against Hickey. The Committee makeup has worried Hickey enough to make him abortively attempt to win the chairmanship for himself, even though he finished behind all 12 opponents.

But the real importance in the victory of students in Ward 9, of the social workers and progressives of Ward 5, of Tip O'Neill's son in Ward 10, is the growing feeling among the voters and the committeemembers that the wards should agitate and take positions on relevant issues, rather than remain lethargically in the shadow of state committees and city government.