SHORTLY after my return from Europe, John Purroy Mitchel came to my house to seek advice on a matter concerning both the destinies of his city and, as the event proved, the end of his own career. He asked me whether he ought to run again for Mayor, or accept a tempting business offer that had just been made him.

Mitchel was always an attractive and frequently an inspiring figure in municipal affairs. A typical American, of fighting stock, the grandson of a man that had battled for free Ireland and the nephew of a politician that had made his mark, Purroy Mitchel, whose face and carriage reflected the latent power of leadership, was one of those young souls at once sensitive and fiery to whom Tammany’s abuse of opportunity becomes a personal affront. More than once our paths had curiously approached each other.

Back in 1908, E. H. Outerbridge had come to my house and, as chairman of the Citizens’ Committee in the current campaign, urged me to accept the fusion nomination for President of the Borough of Manhattan. My answer was:

“President of the Board of Aldermen—yes, but no administrative office.”

“I’m sorry,” said Outerbridge, “but the man for that place has already been determined upon. He is John Purroy Mitchel.”

Had that answer been different, the entire course of my life would have been changed, for the whole Fusion ticket was elected, with the exception of the man at the head of it, Otto Bannard, who was defeated by Judge Gaynor. Mitchel became President of the Board of Aldermen.

Then again, while in that office, his life touched mine.

In 1912, he sought me in much such a quandary as that in which he was to find himself in 1917. He had been offered, and wanted to know whether he should accept, the presidency of a struggling mortgage-guarantee company in Queens County. He was evidently influenced to come to me because I had been prominently identified with the Lawyers’ Mortgage Co. of New York.

This was then my advice:

“It would be a good thing for you to get out of politics for a while and give the next few years to accumulating a competency. After that, you can reËnter politics, inspired by business experience and free from money cares, but this mortgage guarantee company is not what you should go into. Your talents and special training as Commissioner of Accounts could be much better utilized in some established industrial enterprise. I think I can arrange to have you made the vice-president of the Underwood Typewriter Company.” I promptly took up the matter and arranged an interview between Mitchel and Mr. John T. Underwood, with the result that the former was offered the vice-presidency I have referred to, with the sole proviso that he must pledge himself to hold the position, and refrain from politics for at least five years. Mitchel hesitated and the old maxim came true: “He who hesitates is lost.” His political acumen informed him that the succeeding autumn would offer him the best if not the only chance to become Mayor of his native city. Devotion to good government and a burning desire to displace Tammany were his ruling passions: he disregarded material considerations, declined the Underwood offer, and remained in politics.

But our fates were not yet divorced. In the spring of 1913 ex-President Roosevelt held a meeting of some leading Progressives at his office to agree on a fusion slate for the next New York Municipal election. It was planned to put forward a candidate who would attract all shades of voters but who was opposed to Tammany Hall. Charles S. Aronstam, who attended the caucuses representing the Progressives of Brooklyn, writes me this account of that gathering:

However, I sailed for Europe before they could get in touch with me. But Aronstam was himself to take ship within a day or two and Colonel Roosevelt commissioned him to see me abroad and secure my assent.

My recollection is that Mr. Aronstam first called on me in Paris and that there was then made a tentative decision, later confirmed by a letter from Aix-les-Bains. At all events, his mission was like that of Mr. Outerbridge years before, and what Aronstam had to offer me was what I had on that other occasion told Outerbridge I would accept.

My natural question was:

“Who is slated for Mayor?”
“Charles S. Whitman.”
“What about Purroy Mitchel?”

Well, Mitchel was Collector of the Port, and not considered available, whereas Whitman, as District Attorney, had the centre of the stage, and would appeal to the popular imagination. The only other candidate that had been considered was Mr. George McAneny, and the Progressives did not think that he would be a good vote-getter.

As Aronstam was submitting his message from the Colonel, my mind went back several years to a statement once made to me by Herr Barth, a well-known member of the German Reichstag. He said that men of the Roosevelt type would never be content to remain out of office, and to rest in the rÔle of merely philosophic guides for the people: having once exercised power, they must continue to possess it.

I felt that Roosevelt, for his own good and the good of the people, should reËnter the public service. Here, it seemed to me, was a chance to serve many purposes. Roosevelt’s first demonstration of his power had been in municipal politics, when, as Police Commissioner of New York, he fearlessly enforced the liquor law. I recalled, too, the incident of his unexpectedly accepting an invitation to review, at that time, a parade of German societies, and how, arrived at the reviewing stand, he heard somebody unacquainted with his presence express in German the wonder whether “Rosenfelt” would have the nerve to put in an appearance at a time when he stood for a strict enforcement of liquor regulations, to which most of them were opposed. Roosevelt’s peculiarly penetrating voice supplied the answer:

“Hier ist der Rosenfelt.”

That was the sort of man New York needed in the present juncture. The chance ought, moreover, to appeal to him, because it seemed to me that his election would be inevitable, and that, as a consequence of it, he would very likely re-occupy the White House in 1916.

For my part, I had just refused the appointment of Ambassador to Turkey, which I then considered relatively unimportant. I believed that I could be useful as a member of a possible Roosevelt municipal administration and so I said to Aronstam:

“I’ll take the nomination if the Colonel himself will run for Mayor.”

Mr. Aronstam, such is my recollection, cabled home my decision. He received word that Whitman’s name was to stand and communicated this to me at Aix-les-Bains. From there I wrote to him:

What finally happened is still fresh in the public mind. Chosen President of the Board of Aldermen, Mitchel’s admirers had groomed him vigorously for the Mayoralty. President Wilson’s appointment of Mitchel as the Collector of the Port really stamped him as an independent Wilson Democrat and placed him in the lime-light. Elected Mayor, he surrounded himself with men of his own years and temperament. He gave the City one of its best administrations.

So the circle completed itself. We now come back to September, 1917. Here again was this young Robert Emmett at my house and the first thing he said was a sort of echo of what he had said five years before:

“Morgenthau, do you think I ought to run again for Mayor?”

Memory paints him to-day as he stood there then, a hero to a vast number of New Yorkers, often erratic, frequently ill-advised, but still a justified hero. His dark brown hair was disordered, his Irish grey-blue eyes were bright, but he looked more matured and considerably more care-worn from his many fights and the scars they had left, than the man who had sought my advice in 1912.

It was an affecting situation. During four years he had done his best for the City, and that best had disappointed the professional office holders through his fixed determination to protect the tax-payers he had alienated the vast army of municipal employees; finally some of his investigations had antagonized the adherents of certain of the Catholic charities; and he undoubtedly felt that the chances for his reËlection had been considerably diminished. Ought he to endeavour to complete the task that he had set himself or was it useless to make further efforts? My advice was the reverse of what it had been the last time:

“You have given the public the impression that you would run again. You must not drop out at the last moment; you must not retreat under fire; you will have to be the standard-bearer of good government in this election even if you are conscious of an impending defeat.”

For any writer of fiction, this episode would complete the chain of coincidences, yet truth forged another link. There was formed a citizens’ committee to conduct a mass meeting in City Hall Park at which speakers representing the un-bossed element of all parties should urge Mitchel to run again for Mayor. Charles Evans Hughes was one of these speakers; so was Theodore Roosevelt. The others were my old friend Outerbridge and myself. Thus it befell that here was Mitchel in office and urged to remain by the men who had previously played at such cross purposes in connection with his career.

That was an almost unique political event. The young Democratic Mayor, still flushed from his fight for Preparedness, was flanked by two outstanding Republicans, a recent Presidential candidate, and a popular ex-President; shoulder to shoulder with these stood the head of the New York State Chamber of Commerce, and myself as a representative of the Wilson Democrats. One and all, we called upon him to stand again for Mayor.

The lighter touch was not lacking. As, following Mr. Outerbridge and Mr. Hughes, my turn to speak arrived, I turned toward Colonel Roosevelt and, recalling his famous exclamation about throwing his hat into the ring, said:

“I’ll now throw my hat upon the steps.”

“No, no,” said the Colonel: “let me hold it!”

He took and guarded it throughout my address. When he was about to speak, it was my part to return the favour.

“No, thanks,” said Roosevelt. “I shall need my hat.”

Why? It was illuminating to observe.

The audience naturally shaped itself into three separate crowds: those directly in front of the speakers, and those on either side. When the Colonel’s effective oratory evoked applause from the people directly in front of him, he would turn first toward the right and then toward the left, shaking his historic soft hat as he did so, and he thus always hauled the two other crowds into the circle of Mitchel enthusiasm.

Purroy Mitchel was, however, fighting his last fight as a St. George against the Tammany dragon: Bennett insisted on running as a straight Republican and, as such, drew thousands of the dyed-in-the-wool Republican votes; the Socialist Morris Hillquit secured the ballots of the Pacifists and pro-Germans in addition to his own party’s. On the eve of election, a party of us concluded our efforts by joining Mitchel in a trip to Camp Upton and addresses to the soldiers there. Coming home, he, Dr. Arthur B. Duel—who had gone along to keep the candidate’s over-taxed vocal-cords in order—Commissioner George W. Bell, and I had a midnight supper at Patchogue.

There Mitchel eased his overburdened heart. In a subdued voice that increased the effect of his simplicity and earnestness, this upstanding young man gave a voluntary account of his stewardship. He told us of some of his struggles in office that it would be a betrayal of confidence to repeat, many of his experiences at the Plattsburgh Training Camp, and much of his anxiety to do personally his share in this great World War. As he spoke of his present campaign, he showed that he anticipated defeat, and was philosophically adjusting himself to the conditions he expected to confront on January 2, 1918. Some phrase of his moved me to remind him of our offer of the vice-presidency of the Underwood Typewriter Company: he frankly confessed that he would have been better off had he accepted it, devoted part of his youth to business, and left his riper middle age for public service; but my present belief is that this mood was the fruit of momentary disappointment, for, shortly after, there came a return of his more characteristic fighting spirit, and he was telling us that he would not accept a flattering offer just received from an important corporation—he was again going to act as he had acted five years before and would give his services to his country so soon as his term in the Mayoralty had ended.

That course he consistently pursued. His death in a falling airplane at a Texas camp, while qualifying as an army aviator, was mourned by the entire nation.