The Socialist Mayor Who Came 100 Years Before Zohran Mamdani

Time​ Magazine

4 days ago

A young charismatic socialist politician runs for mayor in New York on a platform of lowering costs and improving quality of life for its lower classes. He challenges the corruption of the incumbent administration, eschews the mainstream media, and mobilizes voters alienated by both the Republican and Democratic establishment. He promises affordable transit and city-run groceries, scoring a shocking victory and becoming a national icon.
That might sound like what has played out in New York City over the last month, as Zohran Mamdani has become a political sensation since winning the Democratic mayoral primary. But it's actually the story of what happened in Schenectady in 1911, when voters elected George Lunn mayor, a post he'd go on to hold for four terms.
Over a century divides these two political stories. Yet, the history of Lunn's career offers pointers for how Democratic Socialist Mamdani can harness his political skills and newfound celebrity to make sustainable change, overcome attacks from the political opposition, and have a long, successful career.
In 1911, Schenectady was one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S.; from 1900 to 1910, its population had increased nearly 130%, from 31,682 to 72,826. Like so many cities across the northeast and Midwest, this boom stemmed from rapid industrialization, most especially the growth of General Electric. G.E.'s hunger for labor, along with the needs of the American Locomotive Company, the city's other main employer, drew thousands to Schenectady, most notably and visibly working-class immigrants from Italy and Poland.
Schenectady was a bustling, vibrant small city, but it was also bursting at the seams—the city's growth had outpaced its housing stock, its school system, its streets and sewers, and its 19th century administrative structure. The city's working-class residents found it difficult to afford transportation on streetcars and lived in crowded and unhealthy neighborhoods with no access to parks or playgrounds. Amid the rapid growth, politically connected businessmen couldn't resist the temptation to line the pockets of local politicians to ensure that they would profit from public contracts for building roads and schools.
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Enter Lunn, a young Protestant minister who grew up in Iowa and Nebraska where he was imbued with a sympathy for the common people from the populist teachings of William Jennings Bryan. Lunn traveled east to do graduate work in economics and theology and was called to the elite First Reformed Church in Schenectady in 1904. The dynamic and popular preacher discomfited many in his parish with his increasingly pointed critiques of inequities and corruption in the city. In 1909, he resigned, and started his own working-class congregation and weekly newspaper—and increasingly found an affinity with the city's small but vocal Socialist Party.
Socialism was on the march, it seemed. Hundreds of party members had been elected to city and state offices across the country, and a Socialist administration had just started running Milwaukee. While a critique of the capitalist system infused their messaging, these Socialists also aimed to provide public services and reduce the cost of living for working-class urban Americans.
Their success inspired Lunn. In 1911, he declared himself the Socialist candidate for Mayor, with an ambitious platform. Lunn promised to provide low-cost necessities—groceries, coal, and ice for the pre-electric era iceboxes—by starting city-run businesses to compete with private merchants who exploited their poor customers. Additionally, he pledged to run an efficient, professional, and honest government in contrast to the corruption rife in both the Democratic and Republican parties in Schenectady City and County.
In a four-way race (Democratic, Republican, Progressive, and Socialist), Lunn prevailed, bringing with him a Socialist majority on the City Council. One of his working-class supporters told a reporter, 'People got mighty sick of voting for Republicans and Democrats when it was a heads I win, tails you lose proposition.' This voter remarked that people wondered why the gap 'between the pay envelope and the grocer's and butcher's bills' was getting so tight. Lunn's message was attractive because he 'had a way of kind of harnessing words to ideas that had been running around loose in a lot of folks' minds.'
Lunn, in his campaign, promised to 'go on, step by step… and demonstrate that we are fit to rule.' And so he did.
The most 'socialist' parts of the new mayor's agenda never came to full fruition; local businesses challenged the city-run ice and grocery stores he launched and courts found them to be illegal. The city-run ice store shut down, while the grocery store became a co-op and then collapsed.
Yet, undaunted, Lunn's 'sewer socialism' succeeded in other ways. After a court fight, the city-run coal dealership he created was reorganized as a quasi-private enterprise. It sold coal below the cost charged by local dealers and, in doing so, may have forced them to lower their prices.
Among Lunn's other achievements, the city built a more robust public health system that led to a decrease in infant mortality, expanded the school system and provided free textbooks for students, created a Municipal Employment Bureau to undercut the exploitation of recent immigrants by private employment agents, and constructed a network of city parks that persists to this day. Lunn also rid the city of the 850 privies still fouling its soil and the Mohawk River by completing a long-stalled sewer system. Residents who opposed the extension had obtained an injunction to prevent the city from cutting down a tree in the way of excavation. Lunn went out with an axe, cut it down himself, paid a fine, and the pipe went in.
Despite his socialist ideology, Lunn also won praise from business interests, including the management of G.E., for his emphasis on administrative efficiency. He reorganized city government, implemented a transparent bidding process for city contracts, and appointed a number of non-Socialists to important administrative posts.
Even though economics were his focus, Lunn didn't shy away from the culture war issues of the day. He fervently supported women's suffrage, which at the time had had a losing track record in New York State.
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Despite his robust platform, however, Lunn's flavor of socialism disappointed his more radical colleagues, including a young Walter Lippmann. Before becoming one of the preeminent political commentators of the mid-20th century, Lippmann was a hair-on-fire Socialist, who came as a young Harvard grad to work as Lunn's personal secretary. He left after four months, disappointed with the decidedly non-radical flavor of the mayor's socialism: 'I have often thought of the slashing articles the Socialists in Schenectady would write about the present administration if they weren't responsible for the administration,' he griped.
Lunn's moderation wasn't enough to placate Schenectady's more conservative political powers either. The other three parties formed a fusion ticket in 1913 to try to beat Lunn. They succeeded, in part because the mayor was distracted by affairs beyond Schenectady—most especially his arrest at a rally for strikers affiliated with the radical International Workers of the World union in nearby Little Falls.
But the opposition couldn't wipe out Lunn's charisma or his accomplishments in improving the quality of life in the city through 'good' government. That enabled Lunn to return to the mayor's office again in 1915. But he was soon ejected from the local Socialist Party for refusing to allow the Party to dictate appointments to city jobs. Lunn then rebranded himself as a progressive Democrat. He went on to serve a term in Congress, two more terms as Mayor, a stint as Lieutenant Governor under Al Smith, and then, finally, 17 years as the head of New York State's Public Service Commission. He retired in 1942.
What lessons can Mamdani learn from Lunn's successes and failures should he win the general election campaign in New York City? He's hoping to run a vastly larger and more complex political, economic, and social entity than the Schenectady that Lunn led.
Even so, Lunn's career makes clear the importance of making a tangible difference in residents' lives. Lunn's brand of reform disrupted the corrupt and complacent, empowered talent without regard to political allegiance, and relentlessly focused on the common good of his constituents. His track record in Schenectady produced visible, tangible achievements, and even his failures, such as the city-run ice business, nonetheless signaled where Lunn's values lay in ways that resonated with working class voters.
Like Lunn, Mamdani will undoubtedly come under attack from the opposition, but if he can harness his considerable charisma and communication skills to make people's lives better, he too can overcome them and leave a lasting mark.
Andrew Morris is professor and chair of the Department of History at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y.
Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.