The1951 Philadelphia municipal election, held on Tuesday, November 6, was the first election under the city's new charter, which had been approved by the voters in April, and the firstDemocratic victory in the city in more than a half-century. The positions contested were those ofmayor anddistrict attorney, and all seventeencity council seats. There was also a referendum on whether to consolidate the city and county governments. Citywide, the Democrats took majorities of over 100,000 votes, breaking a 67-yearRepublican hold on city government.Joseph S. Clark Jr. andRichardson Dilworth, two of the main movers for the charter reform, were elected mayor and district attorney, respectively. Led by local party chairmanJames A. Finnegan, the Democrats also took fourteen of seventeen city council seats, and all of the citywide offices on the ballot. A referendum oncity-county consolidation passed by a wide margin. The election marked the beginning of Democratic dominance of Philadelphia city politics, which continues today.
In the 1940s,Philadelphia was the last major city in the United States to have nearly all of its political offices occupied byRepublicans.[1] MayorBernard Samuel and sheriffAustin Meehan led the Republican organization and were supported by many of the city's business interests.[2] In 1947, city voters had elected Republicans to the mayor's office and to every seat on the city council.[3] Over the next few years, cracks in the Republican wall began to emerge as independent voters and reform-minded Republicans began to join withDemocrats in opposing what they saw as shortcomings of the Republicanpolitical machine.[4] Some in the Democratic coalition objected to making common cause with the reformers, but Democratic City Committee chairmanJames A. Finnegan saw it as a chance to revitalize his moribund party, saying "good government is good politics."[5]
In 1949, that coalition scored a victory in the election for "row offices" (minor citywide offices including treasurer, coroner, and controller), and the reformers used their new platforms to expose corruption in city government.[6] A bipartisan commission of reformers proposed a new city charter in 1950. The new scheme would shift power away from city council to astrong mayor, something they believed would produce a system that would be more efficient and less susceptible to corruption.[7] It also included provisions for civil service reform, requiring that city jobs be filled bymerit selection rather thanpatronage.[8] The higher-ranking executive branch positions in city government would almost all be filled by the mayor directly without council approval, which was intended to encourage the appointment of independent experts instead of distributing jobs as reward for political service.[8] Voters approved the charter overwhelmingly in an April 1951 referendum, setting up a showdown in November for election to the revised city government.[9]
Samuel did not run for re-election as mayor, leaving an open seat to be contested by the Republican nominee,Daniel A. Poling, and the Democrat,Joseph S. Clark Jr. Clark was a lawyer and United States Army officer who had served in World War II. Raised in an upper-class Republican family, he switched his party affiliation to the Democrats in 1928.[11] After several unsuccessful attempts at public office in Philadelphia, he served as a deputy attorney general of Pennsylvania. Clark was known as a reformer, having been elected city controller two years earlier in 1949 on a platform of cleaning up corruption in the city.[8] Despite being slandered as a communist for his membership in theAmericans for Democratic Action, a left-wing group, Clark was victorious.[12]
In those two years, Clark probed graft and theft in the Samuel administration and reported his findings to the voters.[13] Many of those accused of crimes were convicted, and several committed suicide.[11] Clark continued his push for reform by urging adoption of the new city charter.[14] He campaigned for mayor with the promise of a "clean sweep of City Hall".[15] He won the support of party Democrats in part by announcing his intention to run whether they backed him or not.[16] In the July primary election, he triumphed easily over former City Solicitor Joseph Sharfsin by an eight-to-one margin.[17]
The Republican nominee, Poling, was aBaptist preacher with a national reputation for integrity who GOP leaders hoped would help deflect the corruption charges leveled against the machine.[8] Poling had worked for various charitable organizations and managed theChristian Herald.[18] His son, Clark V. Poling, was one of theFour Chaplains lost aboard theSSDorchester in World War II, and Poling served as pastor at thechapel erected in their memory.[19] Poling was challenged in the primary by Walter P. Miller, a businessman who had the backing of independent Republicans. The ward leaders swung their support to Poling, who won by a six-to-one margin.[17][20]
As in 1947 and 1949, Clark focused his campaign on the corruption of the Republican organization, calling it "the most corrupt political machine in the United States".[21] Poling admitted that corruption existed, but pledged to root it out himself if elected.[21] Philadelphia's two newspapers, theInquirer and theBulletin, had traditionally endorsed Republicans, but in 1951 favored the Democrats.[22] Poling's association with the Republican party bosses clinched theInquirer's endorsement for Clark; in an editorial, the editors said "the only way Philadelphia can get a change at City Hall is by throwing out the Republican ward-boss clique".[23] Clark and his running mate, district attorney candidateRichardson Dilworth, bought radio time and made street-corner speeches. In one speech, Dilworth called the Republican leadership "political hogs and extremely avaricious gentlemen".[21] In a broadcast, Clark called his non-politician opponent the ignorant tool of corrupt interests, saying "he can know nothing about the subject personally for he has not been in politics in Philadelphia long enough to find out."[21] Poling campaigned vigorously with the full support of his party organization, but the effort fell short.[20]
The general election was a landslide for Clark, who won by more than 120,000 votes.[24] With 58% of the vote, the Democrats had gained nearly 215,000 votes over the last election, in which they had been defeated. The Democrats' greatest gains were in the so-called "independent wards", where middle-class voters were more likely to split their tickets in pursuit of good government, and in the majority-black wards inNorth andWest Philadelphia, where Clark's promise of civil service reform gained the confidence of black voters, who had traditionally been left out of the patronage system.[25] As the result became apparent, he told reporters that it was a "great victory for the thinking people of Philadelphia and it ends a long hard fight."[24]
This was the first time since1881 (70 years) that a Democrat won the mayoralty, and the first time since1911 (40 years) that a Republican nominee lost the mayoralty.[26] It ushered a period of Democratic control of the mayoralty which continues to this day.[27]
Philadelphia elects adistrict attorney independently of the mayor, in a system that predates the charter change.[29] Since 1957, district attorney elections have followed mayoral and city council elections by two years, but in 1951 both offices were up for election in the same year.[30]
As in the mayor's race, the contest for district attorney pitted a Democratic reformer,Richardson Dilworth, against a representative of the Republican machine, Michael A. Foley. Dilworth, like Clark, was a former Republican who had been advocating reform for several years. He had run for mayor unsuccessfullyin 1947, with Clark as his campaign manager.[31] In 1949, he was elected City Treasurer. Democratic Party leaders had intended Dilworth to be their candidate for mayor again in 1951, but when Clark announced his candidacy, Dilworth agreed to run for district attorney instead.[11] Foley, an attorney for theInsurance Company of North America, had organization backing in the primary but had no success against the Democratic wave in the general election.[17][32] Dilworth was unopposed in the primary.[17] In November, Dilworth won by almost as large a margin as Clark, taking just shy of 58% of the vote. He told reporters that the victory had a "sobering effect", adding: "the bigger the victory, the bigger the responsibility".[24]
Under the new charter, Philadelphians elected a seventeen-membercity council in 1951, with ten members representing districts of the city, and the remaining seven being electedat-large. By the rules of thelimited voting system for the at-large seats, each political party could nominate five candidates and voters could only vote for five, with the result that the majority party could only take five of the seven seats, leaving two for the minority party.[33] The Democrats' citywide triumph continued into the city council races, as they took nine of ten districts and five of seven at-large seats.[34]
Constance Dallas, the first woman to win election to city council, was elected in a close vote in the 8th district (coveringChestnut Hill,Germantown, andRoxborough) over incumbent councilman Robert S. Hamilton. In the 1st district, which took inSouth Philadelphia, attorneyThomas I. Guerin defeated Dominic J. Colubiale. In the 2nd, the Republicans' lone district-level victory came as electrical equipment salesmanWilliam M. Phillips bested Louis Vignola, alabor union official. In the 3rd district, made up of the southern half of West Philadelphia, incumbentHarry Norwitch defeated another incumbent from the old city council, George Maxman, who had held office since 1936. In the 4th, which covered the northern half of West Philadelphia, state representativeSamuel Rose defeated incumbent James G. Clark.[34]
In the at-large races, all five Democrats were elected, including city party chairmanJames A. Finnegan, former registration commissionerVictor E. Moore, Charter Commission secretaryLewis M. Stevens, attorney (and future district attorney of Philadelphia)Victor H. Blanc, and magistratePaul D'Ortona. The Republican slate ran more than 100,000 votes behind the Democrats, with incumbent councilmanLouis Schwartz and state senatorJohn W. Lord Jr. narrowly edging out labor leader John B. Backhus, assistant district attorney Colbert C. McClain, and clergyman Irwin W. Underhill for the two minority party slots on the council.[34] TheProgressive Party, a left-wing party founded in 1948 aroundHenry A. Wallace's presidential bid, ran two candidates who took less than one percent of the vote.[34]
In the race forcity commissioners, each party nominates two candidates and the top three are elected. The office was a county office, a holdover from the time before consolidation of the townships in Philadelphia County into one city. The most important of the remaining duties of the commissioners in Philadelphia was the conduct of the city's elections; they also had responsibility for regulating weights and measures.[36] As in the other races, the Democrats triumphed, electing bothMaurice S. Osser andThomas P. McHenry. McHenry was an incumbent who had served as commissioner since 1945, while Osser was new to the office, having previously worked as a lawyer and as the leader of the 16th ward.[24] The Republican spot on the county commission went toWalter I. Davidson, a sales executive.[24][28]
The Democrats' success continued down the ballot. The incumbent sheriff,Austin Meehan, did not run for re-election, and the race for countysheriff pitted two incumbent city councilmen against each other for the job: DemocratWilliam M. Lennox and RepublicanCornelius S. Deegan Jr.[37] The office of sheriff was another holdover county office. The sheriff, whose job differed from that of the chief of police, was the chief law enforcement officer of the court.[38] Lennox came out ahead, and would hold the job for the next twenty years.[39]
DemocratJoseph A. Scanlon was elected over Republican Edward W. Furia forclerk of courts, an officer charged with the collection and disbursement of payments ordered by the courts.[34][40] Scanlon, a former state legislator, served as clerk until 1957, when he died in office.[41] Forrecorder of deeds, another county administrative office, DemocratMarshall L. Shepard was elected.[34] Shepard was a Baptist minister who had also served as recorder of deeds inWashington, D.C.[42] Two years later, the office was folded into the city government and converted to a civil service position.[42]
Most of thecommon pleas court judges up for re-election were endorsed by both parties, but in the one contested race, Democrat John Morgan Davis defeated incumbent Republican Thomas Bluett.[43] The Democrats also took eight of the fourteen magisterial district judge positions (a local court, the duties of which are now performed by thePhiladelphia Municipal Court).[34]
A statewide referendum on the ballot that day continued the work begun by the new city charter in asking voters to consolidate the city and county governments in Philadelphia. In 1854, all of the municipalities in Philadelphia County had beenconsolidated into one city, but many county offices still existed, duplicating the efforts of city officials. The merger would also bring county offices under the civil service protections of the new city charter.[44] Merging the city and county governments had been defeated in a 1937 referendum, but in 1951 the question was overwhelmingly approved.[45] Two other ballot proposals authorized the city to borrow $17 million for municipal improvements and $14 million for thegas works; both passed by a five-to-one margin.[37]
The 1951 election was the final blow to Philadelphia's once-dominant Republican machine. After winning some minor offices in 1953, the Republican organization quickly declined again.[46] Since that time, the Democratic Party has dominated the city's politics, with no other party electing a mayor or a majority of the city council.[47] With Republicans no longer playing a significant role in Philadelphia's government, the main battle in city politics came to be between the Democratic Party's reformers and its organization stalwarts.[48] By 1965, with most reformers out of government, the ascendant political culture in the city returned to what thePhiladelphia Bulletin called "the old, narrow partisan view, the aroma of inside deals, back-scratching, and City Hall favoritism ... crass political bidding for favor at taxpayers' expense."[49]
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Freedman, Robert L. (1963).A Report on Politics in Philadelphia. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Joint Center for Urban Studies of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University.OCLC1690059.
Office of the City Representative (1962).Decade of Progress : The story of Philadelphia, 1952–1961. Division of Public Information, Office of the City Representative.OCLC11471789.
Clark, George R. (March 1991). "Joseph Sill Clark (October 21, 1901 – January 12, 1990)".Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society.135 (1):92–97.JSTOR987153.
