Moonbeam's End

For six years Cleveland, the first big U. S. city to try to lift its government above ward politics, has had a City Manager. Three times in the past three years Cleveland has voted to keep City Management. The last vote was in August (TIME, Sept. 2). On that occasion City Manager William Rowland Hopkins breathed a happy sigh, looked out into the night, and declaimed: "The future of Cleveland now seems to lie as straight and clear as yonder moonbeams." Had he been a sterner, less rhapsodical prophet, he would have chosen another simile, for last week, less constant than the moon, the City Council voted him out of the office he had held and defended for six years.

To watch the proceedings, 10,000 shouting citizens tried to cram themselves into the large oak-paneled council room in Cleveland's City Hall. Those who could get in heard the clerk droning a resolution praising the Hopkins administration, asking its continuance. They saw round-faced Mr. Hopkins sitting back in his chair, eyeing with a great show of indifference the 61 amber bulbs in the Moorish chandelier. They saw 25 councilmen, impatient at the droning, presided over by Mayor John D. Marshall, fingering his gavel, munching peanuts.*

The clerk stopped droning. A little councilman named Walz hopped to his feet, demanded Mr. Hopkins' immediate dismissal. He offered no formal charges. A few letters, mostly favoring Mr. Hopkins, were read. The clerk droned a formula. The vote: for dismissal, 14; against, 11.

The happy sigh, the moonbeam future passed by this vote to Maurice Maschke, Ohio's National Republican Committeeman, Cleveland's cigar-smoking, bridge-playing boss. He himself had put Mr. Hopkins into office, only to become displeased with him, plot his removal. It was not until just before last week's meeting that he was able, after three unsuccessful party caucuses, to assemble another in Room 1050 at the Hollenden Hotel, three blocks from City Hall, to line up the 13 council votes necessary for City Manager Hopkins' removal. To succeed Mr. Hopkins, the Maschke councilmen chose State Senator Daniel E. Morgan.

Mr. Hopkins charged up his ousting to Boss Maschke's dislike of his policy on municipal appointments and salaries, and to East Ohio Gas Co.'s dislike of his fight for lower rates. Others, less guarded, said the Maschke machine, weakened by charges of corruption, needed more spoils to stave off dissolution.

Mourned Mr. Hopkins: ". . . The men who voted to bring me here, the men who know me to be honest, who know the record of these six years is without stain . . . I did expect that they would treat me at least as well as a common prisoner." He demanded specific charges, and an opportunity to answer them.

The council drafted formal charges. They were vague. Mr. Hopkins had once said that he was a Republican before a certain antagonist had left Hungary. This was called "unAmerican" of Mr. Hopkins. Also it was charged he had been at fault in graft that last year sent two councilmen to the penitentiary. Furthermore, he was dictatorial, unharmonious. Where the charges came from, councilmen said they did not know. A messenger had brought them from outside. Alert newsmen noted that the messenger was a Maschke minion, had left the Maschke office with a packet just before his arrival at City Hall.

Mr. Hopkins, disgruntled, promised to "blow the lid off Cleveland politics" before going to Europe to write on City Management.

* In City Manager cities, the Mayoral office is retained as a perfunctory, ceremonial post for parades, receptions, meetings, etc., etc., while the City Manager administers the city's business.

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