John Purroy Mitchel



John Purroy Mitchel (July 19, 1879 – July 6, 1918) was the 95th mayor of New York, from 1914 to 1917. At 34, he was the second-youngest mayor of the city, and was sometimes referred to as the "Boy Mayor of New York." Mitchel won the 1913 mayoral election in a landslide, but lost the Republican primary in 1917 and came in second place in the general election as an independent. He is remembered for his short career as leader of anti-Tammany Hall reform politics in New York, as well as for his early death as an Army Air Service officer during World War I. Mitchel's staunchly Catholic New York family had been founded by his paternal grandfather and namesake, John Mitchel, an Ulster Presbyterian Young Irelander who became a renowned writer and leader in the Irish nationalist movement and a staunch supporter of the Confederacy.

Mitchel was praised by reformists in New York. Journalist Oswald Garrison Villard, the editor of The Nation, called him "the ablest and best Mayor New York ever had." Former President Theodore Roosevelt, endorsing Mitchel's re-election bid in 1917, stated that he had "given us as nearly an ideal administration of the New York City government as I have seen in my lifetime." However, he is generally held to have been ineffective as a politician.

Early life
John Purroy Mitchel was born on July 19, 1879, in Fordham, the Bronx, to James Mitchel, a New York City fire marshal, and Mary Purroy, who worked as a schoolteacher until her marriage. James had served in the Confederate States Army, as did two of his brothers who died in action during the Civil War. James was a Presbyterian Irish-American, the son of Irish nationalist writer John Mitchel.

John's maternal grandfather, Venezuelan-born Juan Bautista Purroy, was that country's consul in New York, which made Mitchel the first Mayor of New York City of Hispanic descent. Mitchel's great-grandfather, José Joaquin de Purroy, was a lawyer from Spain who settled in Venezuela. The Purroy family also included leading politicians in the Bronx.

John graduated from Fordham Preparatory School in the late 1890s, obtaining a bachelor's degree from Columbia College in 1899 and graduating from New York Law School in 1902 with honors. Mitchel then pursued a career as a private attorney.

Early career
In December 1906, Mitchel was hired by family friend and New York City corporation counsel William B. Ellison to investigate the office of John F. Ahearn, borough president of Manhattan, leading to Ahearn's dismissal. Mitchel began his career as assistant corporation counsel and then became a member of the Commissioners of Accounts, from which he investigated city departments. Mitchel gained results and recognition for his thorough and professional investigations into various city departments and high-ranking officials. Mitchel, with the help of Henry Bruere and other staff members of the Bureau of Municipal Research turned the insignificant Commissioners of Accounts into an administration of importance.

The young Mitchel's reputation as a reformer earned him the support of anti-Tammany Hall forces in local politics. In 1909, Mitchel was elected president of the Board of Aldermen. As president of the board of aldermen, Mitchel was able to enact fiscal reforms, cutting waste and improving accounting practices. He unsuccessfully fought for a municipally-owned transit system, and voted against allowing the Interborough Rapid Transit and Brooklyn Rapid Transit companies permission to extend their existing subway and elevated lines. Mitchel served as acting mayor for a six-week period in 1910, after incumbent William J. Gaynor was shot. His biggest accomplishment during his short tenure was the act of neutrality during a garment industry strike.

Mayoral campaign
As the 1913 mayoral election approached, the Citizens Municipal Committee of 107 set out to find a candidate that would give New York "a non-partisan, efficient and progressive government." They were assisted in this endeavor by the Fusion Executive Committee, led by Joseph M. Price of the City Club of New York. After nine ballots, Mitchel was nominated as a candidate for mayor. During his campaign, Mitchel focused on modernizing and fighting corruption in the city government.

At the age of 34, Mitchel was elected mayor on the Republican Party slate in a landslide. He defeated Democratic candidate Edward E. McCall by 121,000 votes, thus becoming the second youngest mayor of New York City; he was often referred to as the "Boy Mayor of New York."

Tenure as mayor
Mitchel's administration introduced widespread reforms, particularly in the New York City Police Department as overseen by Police Commissioner Arthur Woods. Woods fought corruption in the department and increased its efficiency and scope in attacking crime. His administration was neutral during garment and transportation worker's strikes in 1916.

At 1:30 P.M., on April 17, 1914, Michael P. Mahoney fired a gun at Mitchel as the mayor was getting in his car. The bullet ricocheted off a pedestrian and hit Frank Lyon Polk, New York City's corporation counsel, in the chin.

Mitchel's early popularity was soon diminished due to his fiscal policies and vision of education. Mitchel was heavily criticized for combining vocational and academic courses in the Gary Plan, and began to trim the size of the Board of Education and attempted to control teachers' salaries. While Mitchel was a Catholic, he alienated that voting bloc by his investigation into corruption in Catholic charities.

Mitchel advocated for universal military training to prepare for war. In a speech at Princeton University on March 1, 1917, he described universal military training as "the [only] truly democratic solution to the problem of preparedness on land." These positions alienated New Yorkers, who felt he focused on military patriotism over politics.

Mitchel ran again for mayor in the highly charged wartime election of 1917. His reelection campaign suffered, as many New Yorkers felt he cared more about American involvement in World War I, socializing with the city's elite, and fiscal management than local issues. He narrowly lost the Republican primary to William M. Bennett after a contentious recount, but then ran for re-election as a pro-war Fusion candidate.

Mitchel's campaign focused on wartime patriotism, with a media campaign that denounced Germans, Irish, and Jews as unpatriotic sympathizers with the enemy cause. Mitchel faced Bennett, anti-war Socialist Morris Hillquit, and Tammany Hall Democrat John F. Hylan in the general election; Hylan, whose campaign was sharply critical of Mitchel, won in a landslide without taking a clear position on the war, while Mitchel barely finished in second place ahead of Hillquit.

Death
After losing re-election, Mitchel joined the Army Air Service as a flying cadet, completing training in San Diego and obtaining the rank of major. On the morning of July 6, 1918, while returning from a short military training flight to Gerstner Field near Lake Charles, Louisiana, his plane suddenly went into a nosedive, causing him to fall from his plane due to an unfastened seatbelt. Mitchel plummeted 500 feet to his death, his body landing in a marsh about 0.5 miles south of the field.

Mitchel's body was returned to New York City. His funeral was held at Saint Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan, and he was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx on July 11, 1918.

Legacy


Historian Mark D. Hirsch has said of Mitchel's tenure as mayor: "He was one of the ablest mayors in the judgments of many and provided an outstanding administration, but was exasperatingly guilty of every blunder that could be attributed to youthful stubbornness, unnecessary asperity, and poor judgment both by himself and his advisers."

A 1993 survey of historians, political scientists and urban experts conducted by Melvin G. Holli of the University of Illinois Chicago ranked Mitchel as the seventeenth-worst American big-city mayor to have served since 1820.

Mitchel Air Force Base on Long Island was named for him in 1918. A bronze memorial plaque with Mitchel's likeness is affixed between the two stone pylons at the western end of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University. A plaque of his likeness is located on an entrance to the base of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir jogging track in Central Park.

The Fire Department of New York operated a fireboat named John Purroy Mitchel from 1921 to 1966.

American singer-songwriter Joanna Newsom's 2015 song "Sapokanikan" references Mitchel and the circumstances of his death.