Career
He is to date the last Republican elected mayor of Philadelphia. Ascension to the office of Mayor
When in 1939 George Connell, then president of City Council, became acting mayor upon the death of South. Davis Wilson, Samuel ascended to the position of president pro tempore. Upon the death in August 1941 of Mayor Robert Lamberton, however, Samuel assumed the mayoralty for the remainder of Lamberton"s term.
Mayoral tenure
His mayoral tenure was the longest in Philadelphia"s history.
He supported the creation of a city sales tax and was instrumental in creating a city wage tax = 1944 transit strike Samuel took an active role in trying to quell the 1944 transit strike that beset the city.
He closed all alcohol-selling establishments, and Governor Edward Martin followed suit and closed the state liquor stores in the area. The city deployed its full police force, with extra police officers posted at major intersections and other vital points.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, as well as other black civic groups, worked energetically to maintain calm among the black people of Philadelphia.
They distributed more than 100,000 posters in black sections of the city, which read "Keep Your Heads and Your Tempers!. Treat other people as you would be treated". The six-day strike was triggered by the decision of the Philadelphia Transportation Company (PTC), made under prolonged pressure from the federal government in view of significant labor shortages, to allow black employees of the PTC to hold non-menial jobs, such as motormen and conductors, that were previously reserved for white workers only.
lieutenant represents one of the most high-profile instances of the federal government invoking the Smith–Connally Acting.
The Acting had been passed in 1943 over President Roosevelt"s veto. Samuel was succeeded by Democrat reformist mayors Joe Clark, later a United States. Senator, and Richardson Dilworth, later a Democratic candidate for Governor.
Samuel is buried at Arlington Cemetery in suburban Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. He remains the last Republican Mayor of Philadelphia.