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50  CURRENT BIOGRAPHY

DAVIS, EDWARD W.—Continued

twenty-two miles across a Canadian lake to his summer cottage." He has many new plans and is particularly interested in Minnesota's peat bogs. The processing of taconite requires huge quantities of electricity and he sees Minnesota's 7,000,000,000 tons of peat as a source of cheap fuel. He takes a lively interest in hunting, fishing, and golf.

"The future of northern Minnesota depends on what people can do with rocks like [taconite] . . . ." Professor Davis has said, alluding to unexploited fields of manganese, titanium, copper and nickel in Minnesota. "These deposits, like taconite, are of low-grade ores which await development of new mining and processing techniques and tremendous investment of capital" (Minneapolis Sunday Tribune, May 22, 1955).

References
Minneapolis Sunday Tribune My 22 '55
Nations Bsns 42:40+ Ag '54 por
Steel 136:41 Ja 24 '55 por
Two Harbors (Minnesota) Chronicle & Times Jl 16 '53
American Men of Science (1955)
Who's Who in America, 1954-55
Who's Who in Engineering, 1954

DE BROGLIE, LOUIS, PRINCE See Broglie, Louis (Victor Pierre Raymond), Prince

DE SAPIO, CARMINE G(ERARD) Dec. 10, 1908-  Secretary of State of New York; Democratic National Committee Member; New York County Democratic committee chairman; leader of Tammany Hall

Address: b. c/o Tammany Headquarters, 33 Madison Ave., New York 17; Democratic State Committee, Hotel Biltmore, New York 17; New York Department of State, 270 Broadway, New York 7; h. 37 Washington Sq. W., New York 11

Described as "the miracle man of practical politics," Carmine G. De Sapio, as leader of the New York County Democratic organization (known as Tammany Hall) supported the successful candidacies of Robert F. Wagner for Mayor of the City of New York in 1953, and of W. Averell Harriman for Governor of New York State in 1954. In recognition of his growing political importance, De Sapio was elected Democratic National Committeeman from New York State in February 1954. Another honor came to him in December 1954 when Governor Harriman named him Secretary of State of New York. The reform program which he started when he assumed leadership of Tammany in 1949, and his approach to politics can be summed up by his often repeated phrase, "good government is good politics" (Life, June 6, 1955).

Carmine Gerard De Sapio, the elder of the two sons of Gerard and Marie De Sapio, was born on December 10, 1908 on the lower West side of Manhattan, where his parents still live. His mother was born in America, and his father came to New York from Italy when he was a boy. Until 1926, when a strike put them out of business, the elder De Sapios ran a horse-drawn trucking firm; Carmine helped out in the business each day after attending St. Alphonsus Parochial School.

While he was still attending high school, De Sapio became interested in politics and joined the Huron Democratic Club located in the First Assembly District, West, where he was always on hand to run errands, help someone in trouble or find lodging for a dispossessed family. De Sapio wanted to be a lawyer, but after attending Fordham Preparatory School, St. John's College of Fordham University and Brooklyn Law School, he was forced to give sup studying because of an attack of rheumatic fever, which resulted in an eye inflammation that still requires him to wear dark glasses.

He soon became the youngest precinct captain in New York City. In 1935 Daniel E. Finn, Jr., leader of the First Assembly District, West, got him a job as secretary to City Court Justice Vincent S. Lippe at $3,500 a year. This job lasted for two years, after which Finn obtained for De Sapio the position of secretary, for several months, to Judge Louis Valente. In the summer of 1938 Finn, who had become sheriff of New York, made De Sapio his deputy sheriff.

With the encouragement of a small dissident group, De Sapio decided in 1939 to run for district leader against Finn, whose family had controlled the area for over fifty years. By this time De Sapio had become important in the Tamawa Club. The results of the primary, held in September, were indecisive, but a run-off in October gave De Sapio the victory. However, Tammany Hall leaders refused to seat him on the executive committee. (Various reasons are advanced for this and for De Sapio's rapid advance in the Hall in "Carmine G. De Sapio: The Smile on the Face of the Tiger" by Richard L. Heilbroner, Harper's Magazine, July 1954; in "The Tiger Who Looks Like a Banker," Saturday Evening Post, April 23, 1955, by Joseph and Stewart Alsop; and in "New Territory for a New-Style Boss" by Cameron Hawley, Life, June 6, 1955.)

Although De Sapio became secretary to General Sessions Judge John J. Freschi at $5,750 a year in January 1940, he left several weeks later because he felt the job was a "peace offering" to get him to drop his fight for the district leadership (New York World-Telegram and Sun, January 24, 1955). He worked in his family's real-estate business, organized by his parents after having to sell the trucking firm. De Sapio was finally seated as district leader in 1943. 

After supporting Frank Sampson, who became leader of Tammany Hall, De Sapio was recommended by the county committee for Democratic commissioner on the New York City Board of Elections and was elected by the New York City Council in 1946. De Sapio and his faction later succeeded in ousting Sampson and replaced him with Hugo Rogers.  

In July 1949 De Sapio became the first American of Italian descent ever to be elected