The Last Hurrah

The Last Hurrah, Edwin O’Connor’s Pulitzer Prize winning ode to the old Machine politics, is a gleeful romp through the backroom deals, characters, and rivalries of the great Frank Skeffington: current Mayor (of an ‘undisclosed” Eastern Seaboard city), former Governor, and most of all – human. 

Principally told through the lens of Skeffington’s nephew, Adam – a cartoonist for the opposition newspaper – we join the Governor as he embarks on one last reelection campaign, one “last hurrah,” the last of the great old campaigns. 

As election day approaches, we meet friends and enemies (old and new) and learn through their opinions of the political giant something about who Skeffington may be –  why he’s loved as fiercely as he’s hated, what matters to him most. Very funny and often satirical, throughout the book we develop a full picture of the ambitious, corrupt, loving, hilarious Frank Skeffington and his court of both dunces and skilled operatives.

Behind the hilarity and the joyful tone that fills most of the story is a harmonic melancholy, although it may not be the sort of melancholy you’d expect. No time is given to Skeffington grieving over ill-gotten gains, regretting the blackmails or the back parlor hardball he played to line the pockets of his friends and beat his enemies. No; sorrow appears in this book as we realize this truly is the end of an era. An era filled with epic rivalries, organization politics, a simpler sort of graft – sorry, redistribution. It’s the sort of sadness you feel when a genuinely great game of baseball comes to a close, a game where both sides care, and are evenly matched, a game where both teams push each other to be the best they can be. A game like that can happen only a few ‘innings’ in a lifetime. 

Here, as we travel with Frank to wakes and grandstands, coupling campaign speeches with kindness, as we see him mixing graft with almsgiving, an uncomfortable question begins to form in our mind: is the machine politician of yesteryear, of Tammany Hall and Mayor Curley, really so bad? These community organizations represented real people, gave them opportunities that they couldn’t get on their own, and helped them make a place in this country. 

Of course, the story doesn’t allow this question to remain subtext: but subtlety isn’t exactly what this story is after. Its goal is to get you to understand the humanity of the man behind the machine, as well as the necessity for someone like Frank Skeffington in immigrant communities. Class Struggle is a major theme of this story – or at least, the history of Class Struggle, racism, ‘religion-ism.’ We’re concerned with legacies, with the way a city rises, how nothing exists without a history. There’s commentary and prescience here: we see the rise of Television campaigns, manipulation of the masses through the boob tube opposed to Skeffington’s man on the ground style. There’s the war of Crony Capitalism against Despotic Democracy. At the end we are asked very directly to consider – which is worse: localized bullying and graft at the state level, or federal bullying and graft? The Last Hurrah falls squarely on the side of subsidiarity. Let the crooks be here at home – not in Washington.

One might call the final argument of the book naive at best. Perhaps it is; but again –that’s not really what the book’s about. Yes, it’s a question worth asking; and there’s something delectable about arguing for subsidiarity ‘because then the corrupt politicians know where the money is best used’. It is endlessly fascinating to learn about the different permutations of our two political platforms, and to see the strange bedfellows the things we hold dear could have. The point and enjoyment of the book doesn’t really lie in pondering these questions – instead, it’s in the exploration of the life and times of these people.

Modern readers may find some aspects of this story distasteful. The characterizations of certain races, classes, creeds, and genders may be cause for some to take umbrage – it was written in the 1950s, after all. There is language that may be shocking to some. It’s not hard to believe that it is an accurate depiction of the language and perspective that people in this time would have had, and perhaps leans more towards the progressive side than you’d expect. The themes are resonant to a degree that modern readers may be surprised by; the progress of the immigrant and the idea of corruption on the side of the banks and owners. The need for direct contact, and for legacy. And perhaps something that this book doesn’t intend to portray: that when politicians get too old, they may carry too much of the past with them. 

Where this book could have been better – is in realizing that politics DO change. What’s true today may not be true twenty years from now, what’s urgent changes. This book doesn’t seem to think about this at all, finally ending with a rosy-colored view to the past, looking at the future hopelessly. A more perfect story may have avoided this pitfall. Despite its faults, The Last Hurrah remains a rollicking good time and a good summer read. B+.