“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:
“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.”
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.