New York Politicians Have a Long History of Questionable Actions

National Archives and Records Administration [Public domain]

Donald Trump is not the first New York Republican that might have not thought things through clearly. I just happened to run across the photo, above when checking into the World War record of one of my Great Uncles. It shows the funeral of Former NYC Mayor John Mitchel in 1918. As it turned out, after being the second youngest NYC Mayor ever and failing in a re-election bid, he decided to become an Army Aviator. He was killed when he fell 500 feet out of the cockpit of an airplane into an undrained swamp. Nope, there was not any seat belt being worn. I don't believe anybody was able to query him about what he'd been thinking.

Alternatively perhaps this illustrates why one ought to wear a seat belt when operating a motor vehicle. Apparently, there was a seat belt in the plane, but Mitchel didn't fasten it. You can read about him on Wikipedia, here.

In case anybody keeps tabs on such things, when Mitchel was a Republican, they were the progressives and the Democrats were mostly Tammany Hall operatives or Confederate sympathizers. Mitchel was endorsed by Theodore Roosevelt. Ironically, it was another Roosevelt, Franklin, that broke the power of Tammany Hall when he was New York's Governor.