John Purroy Mitchel
John P. Mitchel was only 34 years of age when he was elected Mayor of New York in 1913, the second youngest mayor in the city’s history after Hugh Grant. A Republican, Mitchel entered office determined to clean up the corruption and undue influence in the city government and what he viewed as a corrupt police department. New York had endured increases in all forms of crime in the city, and Mitchel believed this to be the result of protection schemes involving numerous gangs in the city bribing officers to look the other way.
His appointment of an aggressive police commissioner – Arthur Woods – and his efforts to bring New York’s government into the twentieth century in terms of administration and management techniques brought results. Crime was reduced due to the removal of corruption within the police force and the modernization of crime fighting. Arrests went up and the rates of several crimes within the city dropped during Mitchel’s term as mayor, leading to an attempt on his life. Mitchel was known to carry a gun while serving as Mayor, which did not prevent an attempted assassination in 1914, in which a bystander and the city’s corporate counsel were slightly injured.
Although he was successful in revamping the police force he did not do as well with the city’s educational system and his popularity began to wane. The forces of Tammany Hall also worked against him, and his strong advocacy of military preparedness and universal conscription during the months preceding American entry into World War I were not well received by the majority of voters. By the time he ran for reelection in 1917, the United States was at war, but the patriotic fervor did not bring back the voters he had already alienated.
He was defeated in the Republican primary for mayoral candidates in 1917, and ran for reelection as a Fusion Party candidate, with a pro-war anti-German campaign. He drew more votes than the Republican candidate but lost the mayoralty to the Tammany-backed Democrat John Hylan. Mitchel joined the newly formed Air Service after leaving office, receiving the rank of major after completing flight training, and was stationed in Lake Charles, Louisiana for further training in the summer of 1918.
On July 6, 1918, Mitchel was on a training flight when his airplane went into a sudden dive, possibly caused by his flying through a thermal current. Mitchel had not fastened his seat belt and the sudden movement created a lifting sensation similar to that attained at the top of a roller coaster. He was thrown from the plane, falling more than 500 feet to the swamp below. He was buried in the Bronx’s Woodlawn Cemetery five days later.