BALTIMORE —William Donald Schaefer, the dominant political figure of the last half-century of Maryland history, died Monday after a “do-it-now” career that changed the face of Baltimore while bringing a new burst of energy to the city he loved. The 89-year-old had been hospitalized recently for pneumonia and had been in poor health for the past few days.
In four terms as mayor and two as governor, he was a champion of big projects that changed the face of Baltimore: Harborplace, Camden Yards, the National Aquarium, the Convention Center and the light rail among them. Yet he was also intensely involved with the mundane details of city neighborhoods. As mayor, he would patrol the city at night and on weekends, calling city officials to demand immediate action to fill a pothole or clean a garbage-strewn alley.
Flamboyant but private, irascible but sentimental, quirky but hard-headed, Schaefer won immense and enduring popularity among voters for his blunt talk and passionate dedication to public service. He prided himself on saying what ordinary people were thinking — even when it went counter to prevailing political norms — but his outspokenness would eventually contribute to his ouster as comptroller in the 2006 Democratic primary.
Schaefer’s temper was legendary, but his eruptions were often calculated for maximum effect. He loved intensely — his mother, his friends, his city and state. And he hated fiercely — most notably in his poisonous relationship with former Gov. Parris N. Glendening and enduring contempt for the late Colts owner Robert Irsay.
As mayor, he was a tireless promoter of Baltimore. As governor, he was a builder whose second term soured in a wrenching fiscal crisis. By the time he left office, a series of gaffes — abusive letters to critical private citizens and his use of a derogatory term to describe the Eastern Shore — had dimmed his popularity.
In his final office, state comptroller, which he won in 1998 after four years of misery in retirement, he acted as an unofficial state gadfly — scolding governors and lesser officials and igniting controversies that might have sunk a lesser politician. But away from the spotlight, the comptroller also moved effectively to restore the reputation of the state’s scandal-ridden pension system.
A lifelong Democrat, Schaefer transcended political party and played by his own political rules. He supported Republicans over fellow party members when it suited him but held to a fundamental belief that government can be a positive force in people’s lives. Philosophically, he defied classification — except as an unrelenting advocate of the real people who were affected by government policies.
“He had Schaeferism. He had his own philosophy,” said retired Judge Edgar Silver, a longtime friend.
While he was a serious, hands-on leader who immersed himself in policy details, Schaefer was also a master of goofy theatrics that sacrificed personal dignity for belly laughs and free publicity.
Most famously, in an act of carefully choreographed buffoonery, he donned an 1890s bathing suit and waded into the seal pool of the National Aquarium in Baltimore to atone for the city’s failure to open the tourist attraction on schedule. The 1981 photo of the straw-hatted, stern-faced mayor with rubber ducky in hand would be seen around the world — gaining the city attention money couldn’t buy.
Leaving City Hall for the Statehouse in 1987 after 15 years as mayor, Schaefer had himself hoisted in a crate aboard a cruise ship for the trip from Baltimore’s Inner Harbor to Annapolis.
Moments later he emerged from the crate on the ship’s deck clad in a naval officer’s dress whites — gold epaulets and all. The crowd roared, the cannon on the nearby Constellation boomed, and police boat sirens wailed.
Schaefer’s antics could also take a darker turn. Behind closed doors, and sometimes in public, he could abuse aides unmercifully. His public tirades invited comparisons to a child’s tantrums. At times, he embarrassed his most devoted supporters.
Cartoonists loved him. With his enormous, mottled forehead, sagging jowls and oversized ears, he was a caricature waiting to be drawn. The Baltimore Sun’s former cartoonist Kevin “KAL” Kallaugher would portray him as the clown-suited King Don I and as the caped superhero Kaptain Keno — lampooning the gambling game he brought to Maryland. Schaefer said he was not amused.
Schaefer, who never married, had interactions with women that were contradictory and sometimes controversial. Pro-feminist in deeds, he was ahead of his time in putting strong, intelligent women in positions of great responsibility. They repaid his confidence with lifelong loyalty and protectiveness.
At the same time, Schaefer showed an old-fashioned disdain for political correctness. He routinely referred to his female employees and supporters as his “little girls.” But most of the women on whom he bestowed that title — many of them committed feminists — wore it as a badge of pride.
Once Schaefer achieved high office, the only woman with whom he had a public dating relationship was Hilda Mae Snoops, a divorced mother of three whom he met in 1959.
They traveled together regularly but invariably booked separate rooms. When he was elected governor, she would become his official hostess and the dictatorial mistress of Government House. Despite her frequent clashes with his staff, he remained loyal to her until her death in 1999 at 74.
Neither he nor Snoops explained why they never married. “I guess I’ve never been the marrying kind,” he told an interviewer.
Friends speculated that he was simply too busy with his political career.
“He gave his whole life to public service, and the people of this state are his extended family,” Judge Silver said.
Schaefer has no survivors.