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NCDM
Alexander Addresses Convention as Leader of Nation's Democratic Mayors
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The Hon. Lee Alexander, President of the National Conference of Democratic Mayors (having been re-elected for an unprecedented fifth term earlier this year) was one of a select group of public officials who addressed the Democratic National Convention. He delivered a major urban policy statement, that was also included in the Democratic Party Platform. [Photo by Alan Alcott]

     I bring you greetings today from one of the great constituencies of the Democratic Party, the mayors and the cities of America. 
     We of the cities have a special identification with the party. We share a bond of history, philosophy, and spirit. The Democratic Party traditionally has been the friend, the partner, the advocate of the urban citizen.
     At the same time, the cities of America have been a fundamental source of the party's strength. 
     The relationship is undisturbed by tastes and fashions of the times. It is uninterrupted by changes of occupancy of the White House. It is a relationship immune to the pressures of economic vicissitude. 
     The city is a great bulwark of the Democratic Party. The party is the great bulwark of the American city.
     Not in recent memory has that relationship been so vital to each of us. And so vital to the nation.
     Because the city is a microcosm of America. Like America, it is not a homogeneous unit. It is an organism with a magnificent variety of cells and colorations and sounds. It is also an organism with a broad horizon of potential, like the nation.
     The city often appears disorganized and undirected even in its best moments. It often appears untidy in its housekeeping and erratic in its personal habits. Just as the studio of a talented artist or a fine craftsman will appear. And just as this nation often appears to be.
     But in the heart and the mind of the city are fire and vision and sensitivity. The city is driven by the great cosmic forces and pressures. The urban dynamic is one of the marvels of civilization. 
     For nearly four years the national administration has chosen to ignore that reality. It has chosen even to deny it.
     The message from the Democratic mayors on this day in July, 1984, is that the strangling, constricting efforts of the Reagan Administration must end.
     Because in our cities are deep pockets of trouble created by the neglect of the past three years.
     The Administration apologists explain that hunger is anecdotal, homelessness is individual aberration, and joblessness is voluntary.
     But the reality cannot be erased by euphemism. It is there. The joblessness. The homelessness. The hunger. The lost lives. The jobs that will never exist again. A substratum of society that will never work again. A substratum of society imprisoned by age. A substratum devastated by the cost of health care. 
     The Administration policy is to assume that if the wounds are left alone the scar tissue will form and one day they will be forgotten.
     The urban organism does not work that way. The pockets of trouble are malignant. To believe that they will go away is to believe that a few years ago smoke was not rising over the greatest American cities. 
     The Reagan Administration approach to urban America is a course charted for urban cataclysm. 
     In these wondrous days when the human heart is a reparable and replaceable organ and outer space is a suburb, the American city is being forced backward to its worst memories and forward into its worst fears.
     That is the message of the mayors on the eve of the 1984 presidential campaign. It is a message of warning.
     But it is also a message of confidence, confidence that the Democratic Party will be—as it has always been—a source of strength and salvation. It is a message of confidence that the weeks ahead will return us to a point where we can recover the lost ground, and lost humanity.
     And as always, we of the cities will be with the Democratic Party, giving our strength to the party and the nation. 
     I leave you with a quote from the oath of the ancient Athenian city-city, which I have particular affection for, not only because of my ancestry but for the thought itself. In part it says,:
     "We will ever strive for the ideals and sacred things of the city, both alone and with many. We will unceasingly seek to quicken the sense of public unity. We will revere and obey the city's laws.
     "We will transmit this city not only not less, but greater, better, and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us."
     That, fellow Democrats, is also the pledge that we mayors, we of the cities, make. I repeat it to you today as a reaffirmation of a goal, a reaffirmation of confidence that the Democratic Party will continue to help us achieve that goal.
     Thank you. 

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