MITCHEL, John Purroy, American public official: b. Fordham, N. Y., 19 July 1879; d. near Lake Charles, La. 6 July 1918. His grandfather was the Irish patriot, John Mitchel, who with his three sons fought in the Confederate army during the Civil War. John Purroy was educated at Fordham College (now Fordham University) and in 1899 was graduated at Columbia University. Two years later he was graduated at the New York Law School and was admitted to the bar the same year. One of his early cases involved a mining claim in South America. His work there in an un healthy tropical region resulted in a fever and peculiar headaches, one of which is thought to have been responsible for the accident which resulted in his death several years later. His entrance into public life was his appointment by Mayor George B. McClellan as special coun sel to the city of New York in December 1906. In April of the following year he was made commissioner of accounts and in this capacity he investigated the office of the borough presi aent of Manhattan, John F. Ahearn. The lat ter was removed and many grafters were made to feel the heavy arm of the law. All advo cates of good government in New York were pleased with the ability and integrity of Mitchel and in 1909 he was elected president of the board of aldermen on a fusion ticket, William J. Gaynor being elected mayor at the same time. In August-September 1910 Mitchel was acting mayor while Mayor Gaynor was re covering from a wound inflicted by a maniac. On 7 June 1913 President Wilson appointed Mr. Mitchel collector of the port of New York and in the autumn of the same year he became the fusion candidate for the mayoralty in oppo sition to C. S. Whitman, then district attorney of New York County. Mitchel won the nomi nation and after a bitter campaign defeated Judge Edward E. McCall, the regular Demo cratic nominee, at the November election of 1913. Mitchel's administration passed its first year in comparative peace, municipal markets were established, but on a wholly inadequate scale. Storms came in 1915, 1916 and 1917. On the whole the city administration did much to relieve the increasing number of the unem ployed. Sections of the city press began to at
tack the administration for its failure to curtail expenditures, for its attempt to place the city public schools on an undemocratic basis, and above all for its supineness in dealing with cer tain railroad corporations who were seeking valuable franchise privileges. Other disclosures in regard to the Rockaway land deals and the Brooklyn terminal project further alienated popular support. Mitchel also angered a great and powerful section of his fellow-citizens through the alleged biased and unfair investi gation of Catholic charitable institutions spon sored by him, and in which city officials re sorted to the illegal method of wiretapping in an unsuccessful effort to involve certain Catho lic clergymen and prominent laymen. As a re sult, at the close of his administration Mitchel found himself strongly supported by all cor poration and big moneyed interests in the city; and heartily despised among the masses of the city's toilers. In 1917 he was again a candidate for mayor. By lavish expenditures of money at the primaries his friends endeavored to se cure him the nomination but he was defeated by Bennett. Over 21 persons were indicted for fraud in connection with Mitchel's primary campaign. After defeat at the primaries he stood for re-election as an independent candi date, but at the November election he received 149,260 votes, while the Socialist Hillquit re ceived 141,739, and Hylan, the regular Demo cratic candidate, received a grand total of 298, 149 votes, the greatest plurality in New York's history and an emphatic repudiation of Mitchel's administration. On 11 Jan. 1918 Mr. Mitchel was commissioned major in the Avia tion Corps of the United States army. He re ceived his cadet training at San Diego, Cal., and soon became noted for his daring in the air. He was transferred to Gerstner Field, near Lake Charles, La., to receive the finishing stages of training necessary for service at the war front. On the morning of 6 July Mr. Mitchel fell from a single-seater scout plane at a height of about 500 feet and was killed. A few days later a public funeral was held from Saint Patrick's Cathedral.