John C. Chase

John Calvin Chase (May 27, 1870 – January 27, 1937) was an American trade union activist and politician. He was elected to two terms as mayor of Haverhill, Massachusetts, on the Social Democratic ticket. He is considered the first socialist to be elected mayor of an American city. He later ran without success as a Socialist candidate for Governor of Massachusetts and New York, and as a Congressional candidate in Ohio and West Virginia.

Early life John Calvin Chase was born in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, on May 27, 1870, to a working class family. When John was just 1 year old the family moved to the small town of Ossipee, where his father Levi M. Chase met with an accident that caused his death. John and his four siblings were left in the care of his mother Lynthia, who relocated to yet another small New Hampshire town, this time Milton Mills to work in the woolen mills there. He joined the Boot and Shoe Workers' Union in 1888 and was subsequently elected as a delegate to that organization's annual convention. In 1894, Haverhill's Populists joined a broad reform coalition with the Socialist Labor Party of America, the Prohibition Party, and other unaffiliated progressives, running a slate of candidates for city office. Chase was soon a committed member of that Marxist party, running for Massachusetts Attorney General on the SLP ticket in the election of 1896.

Local Haverhill SLP had objections to the national organization's policy of dual unionism towards the established unions of the American Federation of Labor. In February 1898 Chase returned Section Haverhill's SLP charter to the national office in New York City, thereby ending its connection with the party. The following month Chase was acting as organizer of a new Haverhill local of the Social Democratic Party of America, an organization headed by Victor L. Berger and Eugene V. Debs. Chase quickly accumulated 60 membership applications for the new organization, thereby transforming the former Section Haverhill SLP into Local Haverhill SDP.

Mayor of Haverhill Following a defeat in the November 1898 campaign for the Massachusetts State Senate, in which he finished second in a field of four candidates, the next month Chase headed the SDP ticket as the party's candidate for mayor of Haverhill, emerging victorious by a plurality of 356 votes. Chase thus became the first socialist elected mayor of an American city. This success was tempered by the fact that the Haverhill Common Council had 21 members at the time, relegating the socialists to a minority position in the civic government.

Although formerly a shoe factory worker, by the early 1900s Chase was the proprietor of a newsstand in Haverhill. (1901 ad.) The 1898 SDP program for Haverhill called for establishment of the initiative and referendum, municipal ownership of public utilities, public works jobs for unemployed workers, elimination of unguarded railway crossings, and free clothing for poor children so that they would be able to attend school.

Chase's mayoral victory as the first socialist mayor in America captured the imagination of the left wing press. Julius Wayland, editor of the weekly Appeal to Reason declared that "the mere casting of these 2500 votes has done more to direct attention to Socialism than could have been done with any other means." Paul Tyner of the news magazine The Arena offered the hope that Chase's victory would usher in a series of local victories for the socialist movement in the country.

Chase was re-elected as mayor of Haverhill in 1899, defeating a so-called "fusion" candidate jointly nominated by the Democratic and Republican Parties. Not long after, Chase was named a national organizer and lecturer for this organization, traveling the country and speaking on the new party's behalf. Chase captured more than 8.4% of the votes cast during the first of these campaigns and almost 6.4% in the second effort.

Later political activity Chase was later elected State Secretary of the Socialist Party of New York, the New York state affiliate of the SPA.

Death and legacy John C. Chase died January 27, 1937, at New Brighton, Pennsylvania.

Some of Chase's papers reside in the Socialist Party of New York records located at the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Warner Labor Archives at Bobst Library on the campus of New York University.