Watching New York Writhe

As New Yorkers reflect on the reluctance of other Americans to rush to their rescue (see story page 8), they are sometimes tempted to imagine that they are victims of the outlander's hatred for the sophisticated metropolis. As Queens College Professor Andrew Hacker put it last week, "By all means let us have some serious belt tightening if that is Kankakee's condition for buying our bonds. But what is also wanted is some kind of mea culpa: repentance for past profligacies." Certainly some Americans are not above a little gloating. A group of Rotarians applauded in New Orleans, for example, when George Wallace said that New York newspapers were "always giving advice, always scrutinizing," and then added: "We're doin' fine and New York is about to close up." Boston's Mayor Kevin White, too, campaigned for re-election with the slogan: "New York City is bankrupt. So why is Boston's economy in such good shape?"

But the everyone-out-there-hates-us theory is not warranted. Although there is general agreement that New York has been mismanaged in recent years, there is also a countervailing compassion for the inhabitants of the tottering city. Even Boston's Mayor White relented sufficiently to say not long ago: "It's not just New York's problem, it's all our problem." Echoed the Chicago Daily News: "No thoughtful person takes delight in watching New York writhe. The health of that metropolis has a direct bearing on the nation's health." A recent survey by the Decision Research Corp. of Wellesley, Mass., found that 51% of Americans felt the Federal Government should help New York if "the city is in danger of going bankrupt." If true, that would be generous, but it seems likely that most Kankakeeans are actually concerned a lot less about New York than about Kankakee.

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