{"id":12585,"date":"2018-09-10T14:19:11","date_gmt":"2018-09-10T18:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phillyhistory.wpengine.com\/?p=12585"},"modified":"2018-09-25T14:08:45","modified_gmt":"2018-09-25T18:08:45","slug":"the-rise-of-rizzo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/2018\/09\/the-rise-of-rizzo\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rise of Rizzo"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Frank L. Rizzo at his desk in City Hall on the first day of his first term as Mayor, January 4, 1972. (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To win re-election in 1967, Mayor James. H. J. Tate figured he needed to send a law and order message. So even before the primary polls closed in the Spring, Tate announced his choice for police commissioner: Frank L. Rizzo.<\/p>\n

The day of Rizzo\u2019s swearing in, Joe McGinniss<\/a>, then a columnist at the Inquirer<\/em>, described the 46-year-old commissioner walking through the corridors of City Hall. \u00a0\u201cIt is almost as if he had just been elected Pope\u201d wrote McGinniss, suggesting that in Rizzo\u2019s family \u201cthere is less honor in being President than in being commissioner of police.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing he thinks more of than a cop is two cops.\u201d noted McGinniss. Rizzo, \u201cquotes J. Edgar Hoover with an much reverence as he does the Bible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might be said that he believes in speaking loudly and carrying a big stick anyway,\u201d wrote McGinniss of Rizzo\u2019s policing style.<\/p>\n

After a lunch of eye roast at the Lit Brothers restaurant, Rizzo walked \u201cquickly and chestily, back to his office. \u2018I feel like a movie actor these days. All these pictures. I don\u2019t go in for that posing stuff, but I\u2019m getting pretty good. You see me this morning? Bowing from the waist? How about that?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is sort of fun, at least for now,\u201d wrote McGinniss, \u201chaving Yogi Berra as commissioner of police.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rizzo\u2019s \u201cfun\u201d with the Press, or with McGinniss, anyway, would last only a few weeks.<\/p>\n

During the summer of 1967, riots in Newark and Detroit left 69 dead, 3,900 injured, and resulted in hundreds of devastating fires. In late July, Mayor Tate ordered, and Philadelphia City Council quickly passed, a proclamation declaring a state of limited emergency prohibiting public gatherings of groups of 12 or more. Those who disobeyed were subject to up to two years imprisonment.<\/p>\n

On July 30th<\/sup>, a demonstration across from the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul resulted in 22 arrests. Rizzo insisted eight were card-carrying Communists, although he refused to confirm their identities and used the occasion to further stoke fear adding that several \u201cagitators\u201d from Newark and Detroit were now doing their worst in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it is a despicable and cowardly thing Rizzo has done\u201d said Spencer Coxe, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Philadelphia, who was among those arrested.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trouble with Frank Rizzo,\u201d wrote McGinniss, \u201cis that he keeps having these delusions that he is really J. Edgar Hoover. “And, operating in that great tradition, he has decided that the best thing to do with his enemies, since he is unable to keep them all in jail, is to stand up and scream that they are Communists. . . . It is a trick that worked for Joe McCarthy until, like a greedy card sharp, he tried it once too often.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked \u201cif he thought Rizzo had the right to make such charges and then refuse to back them up,\u201d Mayor Tate said. \u201cIf Rizzo is against Communists, I\u2019m for Rizzo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the kind of thing you should expect from Frank Rizzo from time to time,\u201d observed McGinniss. \u201cIt is the way he is. Like two weeks ago when he gathered a small audience of reporters in a corridor behind a City Hall courtroom and told them, with great glee, the story of a man he had beaten up. He told how he chased the man, caught him, and finally threw him to the ground.”<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019Then I come down with the old number 12,\u2019 Rizzo said, stomping his foot on the floor, \u2018and that guy ain\u2019t walking right today.\u2019 Then Rizzo did an imitation of a man who cannot walk right.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounds a little gruesome,\u201d wrote McGinniss, \u201cbut what the hell. The guy was probably a Communist, anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

In September, the Bulletin<\/em> published a poll that found Rizzo\u2019s approval rating was 84 percent. \u201cOnly 3 percent disapproved of the way he was handling police affairs,\u201d wrote biographer S. A. Paolantonio.<\/p>\n

Three years later, when Rizzo resigned to run for Mayor on the law and order and no new taxes platform, Tate claimed he hadn’t “seen anything like this kind of popular support for a candidate since FDR.\u201d\u00a0Election day in 1971 had a remarkable turnout of 71%. Rizzo\u2019s Republican opponent, Thacher Longstreth, carried 16 of the 17 predominantly African-American wards, but Rizzo beat Longstreth by 48,524 votes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was one of us, said Eleanor Cucci, a housewife in South Philadelphia. \u201cEverybody else in there had forgotten the little people. If he didn\u2019t win, we would have moved out of the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAbove all else,\u201d said a Martha Brennen of Roxborough, \u201cI knew Rizzo was going to look out for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The morning after the election, Rizzo was in the shower at 8224 Provident Street when son Franny answered the telephone. It was President Richard M. Nixon, a longtime Rizzo admirer. The mayor-elect grabbed a towel.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrank? President Nixon, congratulations. How are you? . . . I know what you went though. I\u2019ve been through it myself. \u00a0. . . You ran a clean campaign. I just wanted to call you and congratulate you.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Sources: Joe McGinniss. \u201cThe Passing Scene\u2014A Loud Voice and a Big Stick,\u201d Inquirer<\/em>, May 22, 1967; \u201cA Proclamation,\u201d Philadelphia Daily News<\/em>, July 28, 1967; Francis M. Lordan, \u201c8 Card-Carrying Reds In Group That Defied Tate Ban, Rizzo Says,\u201d Inquirer<\/em>, August 16, 1967; Joe McGinniss, \u201cThe Passing Scene\u2014The Techniques of Frank Rizzo,\u201d Inquirer<\/em>, August 18, 1967; \u201cRizzo Resigns to Run for Mayor of Philadelphia<\/a>,\u201d The New York Times<\/em>, February 3, 1971; Don McDonough and Leonard J. McAdams, \u201cWinner\u2019s First Day: Nixon Call Catches Rizzo in Shower,\u201d Inquirer<\/em>, November 4, 1971; S. A. Paolantonio,\u00a0Frank Rizzo: The Last Big Man in Big City America<\/em>\u00a0(Camino Books, 1993, 2003).]<\/span><\/p>\n

More PhillyHistory<\/em> posts on Frank Rizzo here<\/a>,\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To win re-election in 1967, Mayor James. H. J. Tate figured he needed to send a law and order message. So even before the primary polls closed in the Spring, Tate announced his choice for police commissioner: Frank L. Rizzo. The day of Rizzo\u2019s swearing in, Joe McGinniss, then a columnist at the Inquirer, described […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}