Item: i87575

Authentic Token of:

United States of America – New York
Honorable Mayor John F. Hylan – City of New York
1923 Athletic Celebration
1923 Brass Medal Token 45mm (17.85 grams)
HON JOHN F. HYLAN MAYOR THE CITY OF NEW YORK, Hylan facing 1/4 left, wreath around, seal of NY below.
SAFE & SANE FOURTH OF JULY ATHLETIC CELEBRATION, Athletes running outside Central Park’s brick barrier.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.

New York City is composed of five boroughs: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. Each borough is coextensive with a respective county of New York State. The boroughs of Queens and the Bronx have the same borders as the counties of the same name. The other three counties are named differently from their boroughs. (Borough name/county name: Manhattan/New York County, Brooklyn/Kings County, and Staten Island/Richmond County.)

All five boroughs came into existence with the creation of modern New York City in 1898, when New York County, Kings County, part of Queens County, and Richmond County were consolidated within one municipal government under a new City Charter. All former municipalities within the newly consolidated city were eliminated.

New York City was originally confined to Manhattan Island and the smaller surrounding islands that formed New York County. As the city grew northward, it began annexing areas on the mainland, absorbing territory from Westchester County into New York County in 1874 and 1895. During the 1898 consolidation, this territory was organized as the Borough of the Bronx, though still part of New York County. In 1914, Bronx County was split off from New York County so that each borough was then coterminous with a county.

When the western part of Queens County was consolidated with New York City in 1898, that area became the Borough of Queens. In 1899, the remaining eastern section of Queens County was split off to form Nassau County, thereafter making the borough and county of Queens coterminous.

John Francis Hylan (April 20, 1868  ” January 12, 1936) was the 96th Mayor of New York City (the seventh since the consolidation of the five boroughs), from 1918 to 1925. From rural beginnings in the Catskills, Hylan eventually obtained work in Brooklyn as a laborer on the elevated railroad. During his nine years with the company, he worked his way to engineer, and also studied to earn his high school diploma then his law degree. He practiced law for nine years and also participated in local Democratic politics.

In 1917 with the consent of Tammany and William Randolph Hearst, he was put forward as a Brooklyn Democratic candidate for Mayor and won the first of two terms. He was re-elected with a wide plurality, which swept many Brooklyn Democrats into office. His chief focus in office was to keep subway fares from rising. By the end of his second term, however, a report by a committee appointed by Governor Al Smith severely criticized his administration’s handling of the subway system. Tammany ran Jimmy Walker against him for the Democratic nomination and Hylan lost. Walker appointed him to the Children’s Court where he sat for many years. After his term as mayor, Hylan spent much time attacking the “interests,” arguing that industrial concentration gave great power to individuals to influence politics and impoverish the working poor.

Hylan defeated the reformer John Purroy Mitchel in the four-sided 1917 mayoral election, restoring the power of Tammany at City Hall. Hylan was the first Democratic candidate to obtain a significant portion of the African American voter base.  He easily won re-election in 1921 but was defeated for re-nomination in 1925 by State Senator James J. “Jimmy” Walker. Walker later appointed Hylan to the municipal judiciary. As mayor, Hylan railed against “the interests” and put in motion the building of the Independent Subway System, which would later become part of the New York City Subway. On December 30, 1925, Hylan resigned from office one day before the end of his term in order to assure his eligibility for a $4,205 annual pension from the city.  The 14-mile (23 km) Hylan Boulevard in Staten Island was renamed for him in 1923 over the protests of his political opponents.  

Hylan developed a reputation for not being exceptionally intelligent or well-spoken. According to Robert Moses, Hylan went through most of a mayoral campaign using just one stump speech: a call to keep the five-cent subway fare in place. He asked for Moses’ help in preparing another, and Moses obliged. The first time Hylan tried to deliver the new speech, he reached the climax “a Revolutionary War-inspired “I call for the spirit of 1776” “but rather than closing out on a high note, Hylan missed the context and read out the number’s digits, saying, “I call for the spirit of one-seven-seven-six.”  

In another story recounted about Hylan’s supposed lack of intelligence and articulateness, his successor Jimmy Walker appointed Hylan as judge of the Queens Children’s Court.  When journalist Alva Johnston asked Walker why he would appoint a rival to a judgeship, Walker quipped, “The children now can be tried by their peer.”  

Famous speech

Hylan’s most famous statement against “the interests” was the following speech, made in 1922, while he was the sitting Mayor of New York City:  

The real menace of our Republic is the invisible government, which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy legs over our cities, states and nation. To depart from mere generalizations, let me say that at the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller “Standard Oil interests and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as the international bankers. The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes.

They practically control both parties, write political platforms, make catspaws of party leaders, use the leading men of private organizations, and resort to every device to place in nomination for high public office only such candidates as will be amenable to the dictates of corrupt big business.

These international bankers and Rockefeller’s Standard Oil interests control the majority of the newspapers and magazines in this country. They use the columns of these papers to club into submission or drive out of office public officials who refuse to do the bidding of the powerful corrupt cliques which compose the invisible government. It operates under cover of a self-created screen  seizes our executive officers, legislative bodies, schools, courts, newspapers and every agency created for the public protection.

Death

Hylan died of a heart attack at the age of 67 on January 12, 1936, at his home in Forest Hills, Queens.