The View From Here . . .
By Bob Morgan, Jr.

Over the Columbus Day weekend, in addition to going to a bar mitzvah in Cincinnati of the son of a close friend, I have been reading a biography of Rudy Giuliani by Cooper Union professor Fred Siegel called The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life (Encounter Books, 2005). It is certainly an instructive and interesting portrait of the current Republican presidential frontrunner.

Mr. Siegel takes us through the story of the city before the Giuliani revolution and shows how the mayor, usually successfully, was able to address these issues.

When Rudolph Giuliani took office on January 1, 1994, succeeding David Dinkins, the city budget, largely due to bloated labor costs and decreasing private sector employment, was severely out of balance. There were over 1.1 million people on welfare in a city with a population of just over 8 million. The annual murder toll took 2000 lives, but beyond that there was an atmosphere of lawlessness, epitomized by the ubiquitous squeegee men, who extorted money from motorists. Organized crime still held sway in such areas as the South Street Seaport, the Javits Center and the private carting industry.

Mr. Giuliani, who had been narrowly defeated for mayor by Mr. Dinkins in 1989, came to the job well prepared, since he had devoted considerable time since his loss to studying the city's problems.

Despite much opposition, the mayor faced down the entrenched municipal unions, eventually gaining agreement to lower headcounts by means of severance arrangements rather than layoffs. On the welfare front, the Giuliani administration embraced workfare and made great strides in emphasizing the temporary nature of public assistance, while rooting out fraud and ineligibility. Welfare rolls declined about 50 percent during his mayoralty. And, building on Mr. Giuliani's experience as United States Attorney, a concerted and successful effort was made to end mob influence.

But the most noticeable and dramatic progress was made on the crime front. The Giuliani administration followed the "broken windows" theory of policing, focusing on the eradication of minor crimes (a typical example was subway fare beating) both to arrest people who frequently had outstanding warrants for serious offenses and to erase the image of lawlessness. In addition, the administration's new Comp-Stat crime reporting system vastly im-proved communication among law enforcement personnel and placed resources where most needed. The result was a dramatic decrease in all categories of crime, with the murder rate plunging about two thirds from its peak.

Of course, Mr. Giuliani received national attention as the voice of the city during the 9/11 attacks, exhibiting considerable personal courage and providing a reassuring presence.

The point of this column is certainly not to endorse Mr. Giuliani (and, as usual, the opinions expressed herein are solely my own) or to minimize the concerns that many voters have with his stands on a number of issues, most notably abortion. Moreover, as Mr. Siegel points out, Mr. Giuliani certainly did not govern New York perfectly, from his tendency to get into heated disputes with opponents to his backsliding on budgetary issues late in his term. Also, the use of inexperienced police officers in sensitive operations led to the disastrous shooting of Amadou Diallo, an action that en-raged minority opinion during Mr. Giuliani's second term.

But, as Mr. Siegel amply demonstrates, Mr. Giuliani's dramatic and successful turnaround of New York City was a true triumph of leadership. It is also a record of achievement that few, if any, of his rivals in the race, Democratic or Republican, can match.