An Opinion on the New York City Election

The following letter was sent in early October to the New York Times.

TO THE EDITOR:

WE BELIEVE JOHN LINDSAY should be reelected Mayor of New York.

The choices before us do not fill us with joy. We would have much preferred a victory for Herman Badillo. But in the present difficult situation, we think all partisans of democratic social change should vote for Lindsay.

This is not an uncritical endorsement. Mr. Lindsay’s conduct of collective bargaining—especially in the transit and sanitation strikes—was often atrocious and a source of needless divisions in the city. Perhaps because of an elitist bias, he has failed to understand the social responses of workingclass and lower-middle-class peo...