Eyewitness 1936: Unprecedented -- a Pittsburgh mayor resigns without being indicted!
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Just said no: Mayor William N. McNair in a 1933 photo from the Sun-Telegraph.
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Pittsburgh has had mayors who died on the job, who left for higher office, who were impeached, who were forced to quit over corruption charges and who were in jail when elected.
Mayor William N. McNair's decision to resign was unique, the Post-Gazette reported on Oct. 7, 1936. "It is without precedent for the city's chief executive to resign when no charges of misfeasance, malfeasance or other improper conduct are standing against him," the paper said.
Mr. McNair, a Democrat, unexpectedly quit on Oct. 6, after 34 stormy months in office. His unlikely election in 1933 had ended 28 years of Republican rule in Pittsburgh. But no sooner was he elected than the hot-tempered mayor began to alienate almost all of his fellow Democrats, including Allegheny County Party Chairman David Lawrence and his party's top office holder, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
"I put him in and I'll take him out," Mr. Lawrence said of Mr. McNair, according to the Post-Gazette. "He ended his term as mayor, as he had conducted the city's affairs, abruptly, amazingly, and without warning of what was to come," the paper reported.
The proximate cause of his resignation was City Council's refusal to confirm his candidate for city treasurer. Mr. McNair told reporters he quit because council's opposition to him was halting city operations: Employees were not being paid, business affairs were blocked and the water department was running out of soda ash, a chemical used to neutralize the mine acid in municipal water.
Mr. McNair had a reputation for personal honesty and a passion for economist Henry George's single-tax system.
"[H]is name was anathema to gamblers, racketeers and others of the easy-money gentry who found money tight because he insisted on running a clean and honest administration," the paper said.
First Published April 18, 2010 12:00 am
