The Mayor's Lady

Only three weeks ago, New York's Mayor William O'Dwyer seemed to be running for re-election on a platform of love, and he was getting gladsome publicity from the press. Last week, the election won, Bill O'Dwyer ruefully learned the lesson of the sorcerer's apprentice: it is hard to stop a flood.

During the campaign, O'Dwyer and slender, pretty Sloan Simpson, thirtyish ex-model, had willingly and smilingly posed for photographers wherever they went. To a reporter who asked if a wedding was in the offing, O'Dwyer had coyly replied: "I'll discuss that after election." Then, leaning back in his chair, he had whistled Some Enchanted Evening.

Yearning for a little post-election privacy 59-year-old Bill O'Dwyer last week whisked Sloan Simpson into a green and white police plane and flew off into the wild blue yonder. The press was caught flatfooted. Two hours later the City Hall gave out a statement: "The mayor and Miss Sloan Simpson are at the Gideon Putnam Hotel in Saratoga Springs, where they will be the guests of Mr. & Mrs. Martin J. Sweeney." Guessing at an elopement, a swarm of newsmen and photographers lit out for Saratoga, there cornered the flustered mayor. Was it wedding bells that the reporters heard? Snapped O'Dwyer:,"No comment."

It was no way to get rid of the horde of newsmen and their presence was enough to try the patience of any elderly suitor. O'Dwyer was miffed at the press anyway; only one out of the ten New York newspapers had supported the mayor in his campaign. Finally, he blew up and, wagging his pipe, roared: "There's absolutely nothing to the report I'll marry this weekend. It's all a dirty, contemptible carrying-on on the part of the press."

When that outburst failed to clear out the unashamed newsmen, the mayor warned that "either you get out of here this afternoon or I will." While he damned all the hullabaloo as an unreasonable invasion of his privacy, the newsmen thought the mayor's coy conduct a bit unreasonable also; his secret departure had been a sure way to bring the press tallyhoing after him. Said one reporter sourly: "We don't like this business any more than you do. I'd like to get out of here and take in a football game." At that, O'Dwyer tried futilely to get a plane to take him away.

Not till next morning was he able to leave. Then he hustled Miss Simpson into his limousine, raced to the airport at 70 m.p.h., and flew off in the police plane.

The next thing reporters knew, the mayor popped up at his office at City Hall alone and met another horde of newsmen. One of them tossed a copy of the New York World-Telegram on his desk and pointed to a story of a baker who said he was delivering a wedding cake to the mayor this week. Any comment? Snapped the mayor: "Take that paper off my desk." The "merciless intrusion" of the press, he moaned, "could do a lot toward breaking up my friendship with Miss Simpson."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.