Politician Extraordinaire: The Tempestuous Life and Times of Martin L. Davey

With his biography of Martin Davey, Frank Vazzano sets out to tell the "good story" of a "very, very interesting man" (x). He accomplishes this goal admirably as an "unabashed story teller" and as an historian. Certainly, no one knows Davey better than the author who has written three articles about Davey's terms as governor, all of which appeared in Ohio History.

An effective biography not only examines the subject's life but also the nature of place and time and the meaning of change. As the title indicates, Vazzano understands this well. Vazzano is especially successful in describing Davey's life and times during his formative years and early career during the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Born of an immigrant father obsessed with the apparently quixotic quest for scientific tree care and raised in poverty in small town Kent, Ohio, Davey grew to manhood as a gifted salesman and businessman, community booster, and brilliant politician. Vazzano captures the transformation of Davey during changing times as he turns his father's vision into a successful business with customers across much of the nation and helps "boost" Kent from a nineteenth-century village with dirt streets to a modern community with all the amenities of public services.

Vazzano successfully captures the emergence of modern America and the nature of local politics. Barely out of his teens, Davey is traveling to Cleveland to sell his father's book, The Tree Doctor, and then New York to promote the Davey Tree Expert Company. He boldly cultivates captains of industry, wins the tree care of the Capitol grounds, and uses advertising to creatively expand the reach of the business. At the same time, Vazzano aptly shows Davey mastering local politics: the network of friendships and personal alliances, the use of patronage to reward friends and define political power, the necessity of strong organization, and the efficacy of public speaking. He was elected mayor of Kent, served well, and, as countless politicians before and after him, used that base to win higher office.

Although one of Ohio's most successful politicians in the twentieth century who served multiple terms as mayor, in Congress, and as governor of Ohio, Davey remains elusive as a political leader. Vazzano documents Davey's brilliance and limitations as a politician; his organizational skills, his tireless campaigning; his use of patronage, his less than admirable attacks on opponents as well as his inclination to turn every contest personal. Still, Vazzano's explanation of Davey's allegiance to the Democrats as the party of the people is not very convincing. As a congressman, Davey served his constituents well but his red-baiting, anti-immigrant position, and effort to eliminate waste through reorganization are more personal than partisan. His two terms as governor were scandal ridden and dominated by petty political feuds, disputes with militant labor, and conflicts with the New Deal. Vazzano shows Davey as a "politician extraordinaire" dedicated to political power and not public leadership.