Born in 1879. Republican. Lawyer - law partner of George V. Mullan, 1902-13; U.S. Collector of Customs for New York, N.Y., 1913; mayor of New York City, N.Y., 1914-17; defeated in primary, 1917. Catholic. Irish ancestry. Killed in a plane crash during World War I military training, in Louisiana, July 6, 1918. Interment at Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, N.Y. John Purroy Mitchel (July 19, 1879 - July 6, 1918) was the mayor of New York from 1914 to 1917, and at age 34 the youngest ever; he was sometimes referred to as "The Boy Mayor of New York". His grandfather, John Mitchel, was a Presbyterian Young Irelander (Irish nationalist supporter), and a renowned writer and leader in the Irish independence movement. Mitchel's administration introduced widespread reforms, particularly in the Police Department, which had long been highly corrupt and which was cleaned up by Mitchel's Police Commissioner Arthur Wood. Mitchel's early popularity was soon dented, however, when Tammany Hall attacked a series of planned educational reforms, suggesting that they would make it impossible for poor Catholic children to receive a free education. Mitchel advocated 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." Mitchel ran again for Mayor in the highly-charged wartime election of 1917. He narrowly lost the Republican primary to William Bennett after a contentious recount, but ran for re-election as a pro-war Fusion candidate against Bennett, the anti-war Socialist Morris Hillquit and the Tammany Hall Democrat John F. Hylan, who won the election without taking a clear position on the War. (Mitchel barely beat Hillquit for second place.) After failing to get re-elected, Mitchel joined the Air Service. He died thirteen days short of his thirty-ninth birthday, in a training accident in Louisiana, on July 6, 1918. Mitchel fell out of his aircraft at 500 feet and plummeted to the ground, dying instantly. It was thought that he had forgotten to fasten his seat belt. Mitchel Field (Mitchel Air Force Base) on Long Island was named for him in 1918 and is frequently misspelled, mistaken for being connected to Billy Mitchell.
