100 years ago in The Record
Saturday, Jan. 5, 1917
Mayor Cornelius F. Burns’s move to appoint New York State’s first female alderman is starting to earn him accolades outside the state. It’s also inspiring speculation on how the concept of electing “two for the price of one” may reshape American politics.
Burns named Mrs. Patrick J. Kennedy to represent the Fifth Ward in the common council after her husband died within weeks of winning the November election. Patrick Kennedy’s election was the biggest upset of the city campaign, flipping one of Troy’s most staunchly Republican wards to the Democratic side.
Today’s Record shows how badly the odds were stacked against Kennedy or any Democrat in the Fifth Ward. A list of party enrollments for all seventeen wards shows that registered Republicans outnumber Democrats in the Fifth, 674 to 288. Democrats outnumber Republicans slightly citywide, 7,394 to 7,237.
In another column, today’s paper reprints an editorial from the Pittsburgh Gazette-Times, entitled, “Mayor of Troy Cracks a Nut.”
“The mayor has performed a duty with rare courtesy and possibly spared himself much difficulty with a horde of partisan claimants,” the Pittsburgh writer notes, “Does it not suggest that Mayor Burns, in this pioneer effort, has set a precedent which may, becoming the vogue, tend to soften the rivalries of politics in that glorious era when women throughout the land shall vote and be eligible to all offices?”
The women of New York State gained the right to vote through a referendum last November. Congress is expected to consider a constitutional amendment granting the vote to all American women later this year.
“Keeping this Troy case in mind, will not a man’s chance for office be enhanced if he can present among his claims for preference the possession of a wife capable of stepping into his shoes should death o’ertake him ere his term is up?” the Gazette-Times suggests.
“A man with an understudy for his job might reasonably be considered more desirable than one not so well equipped. And, then, might he not reasonably expect the votes of the female electorate on his wife’s account if not in consideration of his own merits?”
The Pittsburgh writer also imagines a vice-versa scenario. “Per contra, when a woman presented her candidacy, would not a question arise as to the availability of her husband for the place in event of her death? If we concede a widow entitled to her deceased husband’s office, should we not insist that a widower be honored by appointment in succession to his deceased wife?”
Unmarried candidates might be handicapped in future elections, the writer speculates, by lacking an obvious line of succession.