Reform
The election of Reform Democrat De Lesseps Story Morrison to Mayor in 1946 marked the end of RDO hegemony in New Orleans. The RDO's defeat was due in large measure to behind-the-scenes workings of Louisiana governor Jimmie Davis and the Uptown New Orleans elite, who specifically sought to end the machine that had run New Orleans for six decades. The Democratic Party's switch to progressive principles in the late 1960s eroded the conservative RDO's residual influence in government, with the victory of integrationist Democrat Moon Landrieu for mayor in 1970 reflecting the liberal ascendancy. Correspondingly, RDO has maintained its initials while touting "Republicans, Democrats, Others" as alternative underlying words. RDO detached from the Democratic Party and began tactically endorsing candidates irrespective of partisan affiliation.
Read more about this topic: Regular Democratic Organization
Famous quotes containing the word reform:
“Let us reform our schools, and we shall find little reform needed in our prisons.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)
“Both of us felt more anxiety about the South—about the colored people especially—than about anything else sinister in the result. My hope of a sound currency will somehow be realized; civil service reform will be delayed; but the great injury is in the South. There the Amendments will be nullified, disorder will continue, prosperity to both whites and colored people will be pushed off for years.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“One point in my public life: I did all I could for the reform of the civil service, for the building up of the South, for a sound currency, etc., etc., but I never forgot my party.... I knew that all good measures would suffer if my Administration was followed by the defeat of my party. Result, a great victory in 1880. Executive and legislature both completely Republican.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)