Sublime

Smith was not only a politician; he was a Tammany politician. In the simple Tammany code, the first commandment was Loyalty. Smith’s loyalty to his appointees was legendary. Once he gave a man a job, he was fond of saying, he never interfered with him unless he proved himself incapable of handling it.

carping

Administrative responsibility came naturally. He handled the staff adroitly and was always able to cajole crusty Cambridge printers into opening the forms and remaking a page for last-minute submissions by tardy college journalists. “In his geniality was a kind of frictionless command,” his co-editor, W. Russell Bowie, recalled.53