Background
Jasper McLevy was born on March 27, 1878, in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He was the son of Hugh McLevy and Mary Stewart.
Jasper McLevy was born on March 27, 1878, in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He was the son of Hugh McLevy and Mary Stewart.
McLevy's father, a Presbyterian minister, left the clergy upon arrival in America from Scotland in the late 1870's and took up roofing, an occupation that the son entered as an apprentice at age thirteen. Prior to his apprenticeship, Jasper had worked as a helper in a tool factory, having left grammar school because of the family's financial difficulties.
As a skilled craftsman, McLevy was active in the labor movement. He joined the American Federation of Labor in 1900 and was vice-president of the Connecticut Federation of Labor. He also was organizer for the Central Labor Council of Bridgeport and of that city's Building Trades Council. He served several terms as international president of the Slate and Tile Roofers Union. McLevy's initiation into socialism was less influenced by Karl Marx than by Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward. He joined the Socialist party on October 11, 1900, becoming a member of Branch 10, Local Bridgeport, along with four others. McLevy ran for his first office, a seat in the Connecticut Assembly, when he was twenty-five . Although defeated, he remained a party activist and a perennial candidate. He was defeated nine times for mayor prior to his victory in 1933. He lost fifteen contests for governor, doing best in 1938, when he was defeated by a relatively small margin. When McLevy was elected mayor of Bridgeport in 1933, a local newspaper, the Italian-American L'Aurora, warned that "the fair name of the City of Bridgeport, as the industrial capital of Connecticut, was seriously menaced by the Red Peril. " But, as in other cities, such as Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Schenectady, New York; and Reading, Pennsylvania, which elected Socialist administrations during the twentieth century, the advent of Socialism in Bridgeport had anything but revolutionary results. Socialists often came to power in cities when corruption by major-party administrations was uncovered and, as in McLevy's case, were little different from most progressive reformers. The Bridgeport Socialist platform in 1933 stressed the elimination of waste, inefficiency, and corruption in government; the merit system and civil service; municipal ownership of public utilities; open public meetings of governing boards and commissions; and home rule for the city.
The Bridgeport sewage treatment system far surpassed that of any other Connecticut municipality. One might say that McLevy's administration was a classic example of "sewer socialism. " Businessmen came to trust, and often to depend upon, this frugal Socialist. Not until the end of his mayoral career did business, believing McLevy to be moving too slowly on downtown development, abandon him. An analysis of McLevy's electoral support during 1933-1957, shows that although his early support came from ethnic, working-class districts, by 1957, he was drawing heavily upon upper-income voters. These were often his early supporters who grew old and more affluent with him. In the 1950's McLevy did not get much support from Bridgeport's growing black and Puerto Rican communities. By 1936, Norman Thomas saw McLevy, along with Daniel Webster Hoan of Milwaukee, as a viable Socialist presidential candidate, even though Thomas and McLevy were in opposite factions of the party. In the dispute between the old guard and the militants that arose over attitudes toward war, democracy, and cooperation with Communists, McLevy emerged as a leader of the former group. He led the conservative wing of the party when he served as first head of the Social Democratic Federation. In 1950, the party censured him for accepting support from businesswoman Vivian Kellams, labeled a conservative by the Socialists, and for running for governor on a ticket that included Kellams as the senatorial candidate. Never a radical, McLevy moved to the right through his career in politics. A tireless campaigner, he met voters at factory gates, in city parks, and on the streets of Bridgeport.
Over the years McLevy rose to prominence in the Socialist party.
McLevy's approach to municipal services is usually summed up by the story about his attitude toward snow removal: "The Lord put it there. Let Him take it away. " While this comment was probably made by an aide, it symbolizes McLevy's philosophy.
McLevy's weather-beaten features and reputation for honesty earned the public's trust. The voters of Bridgeport voted not for Socialism, but for McLevy, who imprinted his personality on the local Socialist party and on the city in which he was born and died.
McLevy married his childhood sweetheart, Mary Flynn, in 1915. Three years later she died. On December 10, 1929, he married Vida Stearns. Their marriage was kept secret for nearly five years, during which the couple mostly lived apart while the new Mrs. McLevy cared for her aging father.