The 1917 New York City mayoral election replaced sitting mayor John P. Mitchel, a reform Democrat running on the Fusion Party ticket, with John F. Hylan, the regular Democrat 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 supporting U.S. entry into World War One, 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.
The 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. In September, the City held its first-ever primary elections for mayor. Incumbent Fusion Mayor John Purroy Mitchel who had enjoyed Republican non-opposition in 1913, apparently won the Republican primary until a series of counting mistakes and frauds forced recounts that gave a narrow victory to William M. Bennett. Attempts to find a compromise anti-Tammany candidate failed, Bennett declined to withdraw from the race, and Mitchel went on to wage an independent campaign for re-election. But the mayoral election happened in the same year as the United States' entry into World War One on April 6. An emergency national convention and referendum of the Socialist Party of America overwhelmingly approved a resolution, co-authored by Morris Hillquit, which proclaimed,
Hillquit's refusal to support the war by such acts as buying Liberty Bonds won the Socialists new support in many immigrant communities, but vitriolic denunciations from many quarters, including The New York Times, Mayor Mitchel, who 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 ex-President Theodore Roosevelt, who declared that Hillquit "stands as an aid to the Prussianized autocracy of the Hohenzollerns." and John F. Hylan on Election Day two days later. The caption reads, Crown Prince: "Any more victories, Papa?" - Kaiser : "I can't tell until Tuesday." The Fusion campaign decided to direct its last week against Hillquit, rather than against Judge John F. Hylan, the candidate of Tammany Hall and William Randolph Hearst. Hylan's position on the war was unclear, but not his sharp victory over all three of his major rivals on November 6. Although a divided opposition let Hylan carry the City and three of her boroughs with less than 50% of the total vote, the numbers suggest that Tammany Hall might very easily have won a two-candidate race. The New York City Socialists won the highest percentage of the Mayoral vote they would ever receive, while electing ten State Assemblymen, seven city Aldermen, and a municipal court judge. Running for president of the board of aldermen on the same Democratic ticket as Hylan was Al Smith, then Sheriff of New York County, and previously Democratic Leader and Speaker of the New York State Assembly. Smith easily defeated the New York City Fire Commissioner, Robert Adamson, who was running for Board President on the Fusion ticket with Mitchel.
Later careers of the participants
Ex-Mayor Mitchel volunteered for air service with the U.S. Army Signal Corps and fell out of his aircraft to his death while training on July 6, 1918.
Eight days later, on Bastille Day, 1918, Quentin Roosevelt, the youngest son of Theodore Roosevelt, died in aerial combat in France, leading the former President to become more withdrawn before he himself died on January 6, 1919.
The Socialist Party of America suffered crippling losses from government actions during the war and the departure of most of its members in 1919 to start the American Communist movement. Morris Hillquit, who stayed with the Party he had helped to found, ran again for Mayor in 1932 and died the next year.
John F. Hylan was re-elected Mayor in 1921 but lost the 1925 Democratic primary to Jimmy Walker after a split among Democratic borough leaders, reflecting the deep enmity between Hylan's patron, W. R. Hearst, and Hylan's 1917 running-mate, Al Smith. Mayor Walker later returned Judge Hylan to the bench by appointing him to the Children's Court.
Mayor Mitchel ran second to Judge Hylan in every borough but the Bronx, where Hillquit pushed Mitchel into third place. Bennett, who came in fourth everywhere else, came third and pushed Hillquit into fourth place on Staten Island. Hylan won pluralities, rather than absolute majorities, in the City as a whole and in Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn, winning a slim overall majority in Queens and a decisive majority on Staten Island.
