"ONE WORLD" AWARD FOR LA GUARDIA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 422, 25 July 1947, Page 20

"ONE WORLD" AWARD FOR LA GUARDIA

Former UNRRA Chief Will Visit N.Z.

ate NZBS listeners have been hearing, from the ZB stations, Norman Corwin’s recorded account.of his "One World Flight," the second holder of the Wendell Willkie One World Award has been chosen. He is Fiorello La Guardia, formerly Mayor of New York, and until recently Director-General of UNRRA. No information was available at the time of writing as to when La Guardia will start out on his flying scholarship, but he will visit New Zealand during its course. The One World Award was established by two American organisa-tions-the Common Council for American Unity and the Willkie Memorial of Freedom House-to recognise and encourage contributions to the idea of One World, particularly in the fields of mass communication.

F all American. politicians, 64-year-old Fiorello H. La Guardia, former Mayor of New York, is perhaps the most naturally picturesque. He has not the beetling brows of John L. Lewis, or his portentous bulk either. But (said the London Observer in a "profile" published some time ago) his sturdy figure, mobile features and penetrating voice, plus sombrero-like hat which, to good New Yorkers, was for so long the trade mark of "Hizonner," make him a natural subject for the cartoonist, for the

newsreel, for the sudden recognition that stamps a man as a really public figure. La Guardia came into the news in New Zealand newspapers most prominently when, last year, he visited Czechoslovakia. As head of UNRRA, he was received at the airport with all official honours-and a glass of pilsener, one of the famous products of the country. He was not pleased. How was it, he de‘’manded, that a country so short of grain could brew so much beer? As head of UNRRA it was his duty to see that his employers and their backers were not imposed on. It was the same vigilant _gpirit of the zealous public servant that

made La Guardia, speaking in his ancestral tongue, point out to the Italian Assembly that a great deal had been done for them, that hundreds of millions of dollars had gone to buy supplies poured into Italy, and "Quello. non e paglia" ("That ain’t hay" as they say in the Damon Runyon country). It was not that he was unsympathetic to the land of his fathers, but he was not to be deluded into forgetting that the Italians were on the receiving end of Allied bounty. And it was never his habit to keep his convictions to himself. He Has His Enemies Though a native son of New York, La Guardia grew up in Arizona, where his father was an Army bandmaster. He has much of the traditional western manner, the vigilance of a two-gun sheriff keeping his country free of bad mem And he has enemies; he seems at times to glory in making them. He has done his best to drive the working newspapermen. into hostility to him, but they have refused to be alienated. They have treated him rather like the lion in The Wizard of Oz, not that he is in need of any courage, or a heart, but that his ferocity does not intimidate them. He has always put on a show, and. when he was in the City Hall, there was seldom a dull moment. Being Mayor of New York is no job for a weakling. La Guardia was no picturesque figure presiding over a decorous pageant with all the real problems of administration taken care of by experts. He had to be the active executive, head of an. immense, turbulent community with an income running into hundreds of millions of pounds a year, and with problems at least as impressive as the city ee: ture :

The present Mayor, General O’Dwyer, is audibly sighing for the moment of release, says the Observer. He is recalling the days when he had nothing to worry him but the prosecution of "Murder Inc." or the control of political warfare im Italy. La Guardia, on the other hand, was not easily cast down. He battled his way through ‘troubles of all kinds, and in 12 years earned the abundantly deserved reputation of being the best and gteatest mayor New York ever had, Three Times Mayor That he was elected mayor three times is a political miracle that cannot be fully appreciated outside of America, New Yorkers occasionally have a political house-cleaning, but the virtues of crusading administrations usually pall after a single term. La Guardia, a highly undisciplined Republican Congressman, first ran vainly for mayor against Tammany’s star entertainer, James J. Walker. He was handsomely beaten, as was the custom with Republican candidates. When he next ran, in 1933, the great bull market had burst and, with it, the reputation of Walker and Tammany Hall. Even so, the Democrats might have held New. York if discipline had been better, but in a three-cornered fight the "fusion" candidate won. It was the first year of the New Deal, and in spite of his Republican antecedents, La Guardia was a real New Dealer. The city was hopelessly in debt, all public ‘services were loaded with obsolete equipment and incompetent servants... In Washington, money was being poured out for recovery and the new mayor of. New York showed remarkable talent for getting some of the flood diverted .into irrigation ditches of Manhattan and other boroughs. But it was not merely his ability to get money ott of Washington that made him a great mayor. It was the vigilant energy he brought to the job. New York was cleaned up physically and morally. The police got their best chief in modern times, trees grew in more than Brooklyn, and, greatest wonder of all, the New Yorkers did not tire of virtue. Fireman and Musician There was not a breath of scandal in the higher ranks of fhe administration, and even the cynical inhabitants of Manhattan could scarce forbear to cheer as the mayor rushed off to every big fire, wearing .a fireman’s helmet, or vehemently conducted the Municipal Orchestra in his shirt sleeves. They listened to him on the municipal radio, denouncing short-weight and overcharging, or telling them how to bring up children. Some thought that perhaps he talked too much. The cartoonist, Helen Hokinson,: hit the nail on the head for many New Yorkers when one of her plump matrons asked: "Will Mr. O’Dwyer be a quiet mayor?" With his Jewish and Italian ancestry, his episcopalian religion and his experience in the American Consular Service in Trieste and Fiume, and as an immigration inspector at Ellis Island the "Little Flower’ knows more of Europe’s troubles-and the world’s-than many might suppose.