James “Jimmy” Walker
Beau James, the Night Mayor of New York City
Masterfully combining theatrics with politics, Walker become one of the city’s most colorful mayors. His great days were from the end of World War I through the extravagance of the twenties before the giant hangover of the Great Depression. An aspiring actor and talented musician, James J. Walker changed his profession from songwriter to lawyer at the insistence of his father who was a Tammany Hall district leader who emigrated from County Kilkenny.
Jimmy Walker quickly rose through the ranks of Tammany Hall, entering the Assembly in 1909 and serving in the State Senate from 1914. As Senate floor leader from 1921 to 1925, he oversaw the passage of Governor Alfred E. Smith’s progressive legislative agenda. Walker also promoted bills to legalize boxing and Sunday baseball. Manhattan Tammany Hall boss George W. Olvany and the Bronx boss Edward J. Flynn made a deal to run Walker against incumbent Democratic Mayor John F. Hylan. Supported by Governor Smith, Walker won the Primary in 1925 (Walker 248,338 to Hylan 157,204) and swept the General Election (Democrat Walker 748,687, Republican Frank D. Waterman 346,564 and Socialist Norman Thomas 39,574). James J. Walker became the 97th Mayor of the City of New York, 1926-1932, and faithfully served the interests of Tammany Hall through political appointments and the awarding of contracts.
Slim, elegant, and always ready with a song or a wisecrack, Jimmy Walker became a symbol of the Jazz Age. His penchant for frequenting nightclubs and enjoying the company of celebrities, including actress Betty Compton, earned him the nicknames “Beau James” and “Night Mayor” of a glittering New York that “wore him in its buttonhole.”
He is credited with appointing an incorruptible police commissioner and unifying the city hospitals. A brilliant trial lawyer, Walker argued successfully before the United States Supreme Court for the preservation of the nickel subway fair. In his first two years in office, however, he spent 143 days on overseas trips. The seeds of his downfall were his public extramarital affair with Miss Compton and his admitting to taking money from businessmen seeking city contracts.
Despite rumors of widespread corruption, New Yorkers largely overlooked Walker’s transgressions; there was no Democratic Primary in 1929 and voters elected him handily to a second term over Congressman Fiorello H. LaGuardia (incumbent Walker 867,522, Republican La Guardia 367,675 and Socialist Thomas 175,697). During Walker’s administration, the Department of Sanitation was created and construction began on the Triborough Bridge, the West Side Highway, and the Queens Midtown Tunnel.
With the outbreak of the Great Depression, Walker’s neglect of essential city services became more readily apparent. In 1931, the state legislature initiated an investigation led by Samuel Seabury (first elected judge at age 23 on the Citizens Union line) that uncovered rampant corruption in New York City government. Seabury and his staff assembled more than sixty thousand pages of evidence, most of which were later shredded on Seabury’s orders. The most spectacular testimony was Sheriff Thomas Farley’s description of his “wonderful tin box” of cash, and Mayor Walker’s admission that he had received “beneficences” from friends.
The investigation resulted in Walker being charged with accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in money from individuals doing business with the city. He was called before a hearing by then governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, who needed to show independence from Tammany while running for president. Walker resigned from office in the middle of the hearings, on September 1, 1932, and fled to Europe. He spoke of seeking vindication by running and being reelected mayor. He was blocked by Tammany Hall, who refused to support him, and by the Catholic hierarchy who warned against a run, but who gave him a divorce so that he could marry Compton.
In 1933, Seabury declined to run for mayor and forced an unwilling fusion committee to nominate instead LaGuardia who had lost his congressional seat in 1932 to James Lanzetta in the Democratic landslide that elected Franklin D. Roosevelt to the presidency. After his election as mayor, LaGuardia disclaimed loyalty to the Fusion Party. Walker returned to New York City in 1935, living at 132 East 72 Street. His one time political nemesis, Mayor LaGuardia, appointed him impartial municipal arbiter to the garment industry in 1940. Walker and Compton later moved to 120 East End Avenue. He was born on June 19, 1881 and died on November 19, 1946.
Best book on Mayor James J. Walker is Gean Fowler’s Beau James: the life and times of Jimmy Walker (New York: Viking, 1949).
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