The 1917 New York City mayoral election was held on November 6, 1917. Incumbent mayor John Purroy Mitchel, a reform Democrat running on the Fusion Party ticket, was defeated for re-election by Judge John Francis Hylan, supported by Tammany Hall and William Randolph Hearst.
The election was notable not only for the first partisan primary elections for city offices, but for the contentious debate over American entry into World War I, vigorously supported by Mitchel and opposed by the Socialist candidate, Morris Hillquit. Mitchel and Hillquit each won about a fifth of the total vote, while Hylan won office with less than half the vote.
Background.
John Purroy Mitchel, a Republican, was nominated for mayor in 1913 on an electoral fusion ticket. Mitchel had gained a reputation as a reformer and opponent of Tammany Hall for his investigations into corruption in city government. After incumbent mayor William Jay Gaynor died on September 10, 1913, from complications stemming from his attempted assassination in 1910, Mitchel won the general election in a landslide over Democratic nominee Edward E. McCall and Socialist nominee Charles Edward Russell and became the second youngest mayor in New York City history.
As mayor, Mitchel's popularity sharply waned. His continued cuts to public spending, strong support for private transit, and proposed education reforms under the Gary Plan were unpopular with voters, and although a staunch Irish Catholic, his investigations into Catholic charities for corruption and fraud alienated the city's large Catholic population. Tammany Hall united with longtime opponent William Randolph Hearst to oppose Mitchel's plans for
Beginning in 1916, political debate centered on American involvement in World War I, which Mitchel vigorously supported. His focus on national and international issues, as well as his frequent socialization with the city's elite, further eroded his popularity, as voters saw him as out of touch with local concerns. On April 6, the United States officially declared war and began to mobilize its military for deployment.
In contrast to Mitchel's support for the war, the Socialist Party came out strongly against American involvement. Morris Hillquit, a leading socialist from Manhattan, co-authored the national party's St. Louis Manifesto, which proclaimed,
The Socialist Party of the United States in the present grave crisis solemnly reaffirms its allegiance to the principle of internationalism and working-class solidarity the world over, and proclaims its unalterable opposition to the war just declared by the Government of the United States.
Hillquit's refusal to support the war by such acts as buying Liberty Bonds won the Socialists new support in many immigrant communities.
Republican primary.
Results.
The Republican nomination was tightly contested and resulted in an official recount, with Bennett narrowly defeating Mitchel for the party's nomination. Mitchel appeared to win the initial count, but a series of counting mistakes and revelations of electoral fraud, resulting in criminal indictments, gave a narrow victory to Bennett. Bennett declined to withdraw from the race, and attempts to find a compromise anti-Tammany candidate failed, leading Mitchel to wage an independent campaign for re-election.
Democratic primary.
Campaign.
Al Smith initially sought to run for mayor, but Tammany Hall leader Charles F. Murphy preferred Hylan as a candidate with the support of William Randolph Hearst and Brooklyn party leader John McCooey. Instead, Smith was selected as the party's nominee for president of the board of aldermen in 1916, which he won.
General election.
Campaign.
The Fall 1917 election, which "The New York Times" called a "puzzle without parallel", would have been exciting even had it occurred in peacetime.
Hylan's position on the war was unclear; he focused instead on criticisms of the administration's support for private transit corporations.
In the final weeks, the Fusion campaign focused its attacks on Hillquit. Mayor Mitchel hinted at Hillquit's foreign birth by saying that "any man who will not buy a Liberty bond when he can afford them is not fit to be a citizen of the United States", and former President Theodore Roosevelt declared that Hillquit "stands as an aid to the Prussianized autocracy of the Hohenzollerns."
Results.
As of 2025, this is the highest percentage of the vote the Socialist Party has received in a mayoral election; the party also elected ten State Assemblymen, seven city Aldermen, and a municipal court judge.
"[Others and Total from "The Encyclopedia of New York City "(Yale, 1995), which does not exactly match the other numbers, taken from" The World Almanac " for 1929 &amp; 1943.]"
Aftermath.
John F. Hylan was decisively re-elected in 1921, but he lost the 1925 Democratic primary to Jimmy Walker after a split among Democratic borough leaders, reflecting the deep enmity between Hylan's patron, William Randolph Hearst, and Al Smith.
Following his defeat, Mitchel volunteered for service with the U.S. Army Signal Corps. He fell out of his aircraft to his death while training on July 6, 1918, exactly eight months after the election.
The Socialist Party, which drew heavy scrutiny from the federal government following the Russian Revolution and First Red Scare suffered crippling losses in the following years. In 1919, many of its members resigned to found the American Communist movement. Morris Hillquit, who remained with the party he had helped to found, ran again for mayor again in 1932, received an eighth of the vote, and died the following year.
References.
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