40 years ago - Boston became a 2 newspaper town

[A Joseph Ross]

On 6/23/2012 8:09 AM, Karen McTrotsky wrote:

> Yes, Saltonstall was reelected in 1954 rather than 1956. However, he
> received 49.25695 percent of the total number of  votes cast. The hearsay
> reflected by Wikipedia is incorrect. The only way to get to Wikipedia's
> calculation is to ignore 21 write-in votes   49,361 blanks.   See:  Manual
> of the General Court available at internet.org

I've just spent a little time at internet.org, and I was unable to find 
any manual of the General Court for that year.  If you can give me a 
specific link, I'll be happy to look at it, but I'm not going to spend 
any more time searching for a needle in a haystack.

The correct way to count votes is to discount blank votes.  They are 
like abstentions in a deliberative body, which are counted in numbers, 
but are not counted in determining whether a motion passes.

> My original point remains, which is the revisionist retelling of the
> WHDH-TV license story based on scraps of secondary information concerning
> the Globe and the Kennedy family is incomplete without understanding the
> political landscape of the time. Simply put, it was the era of the last
> stand of the Yankee Republicans against ethnic Democrats as evidenced by
> the very close Kennedy-Lodge and Saltonstall-Furcolo elections. There was
> no business more aligned with the Yankee culture than The Shoe, whose
> principals and allies had big stakes in Herald-Traveler Corp., and no
> larger Yankee political figure than Saltonstall. It is hard to fathom that
> he sat by while Kennedys and the Globe exercised muscle in a regulatory
> battle before the Eisenhower dominated FCC and Federal Circuit since the
> battle had profound influence on the survival of the Republican newspaper
> of record.

I don't know what revisionists you are referring to.  The Phoenix 
article, to which I gave the link several days ago barely mentions the 
Kennedys other than Joe Kennedy's help given to the Herald in getting 
the channel 5 license in the first place.  The rest, according to this 
account, was largely due to Tip O'Neill.

I've never seen any account of Saltonstall's involvement either way.  
While he was a Yankee, he was less hostile to ethnic Democrats than 
others.  I once read a story (and unfortunately I don't remember where) 
to the effect that when Saltonstall was running for governor for the 
first time in 1938, the Globe said that Saltonstall had a Back Bay name, 
but a South Boston face.  His opponent, James Michael Curley, said that 
Saltonstall may have a South Boston face, but he would never show it in 
South Boston.  The next day Saltonstall was on the streets in South 
Boston, declaring that he was proud of his South Boston face.  He won 
that election.

-- 
A. Joseph Ross, J.D.|92 State Street|Suite 700|Boston, MA 02109-2004
617.367.0468|Fx:617.507.7856|http://www.attorneyross.com