Pittsburgh mayoral election, 1925

The 1925 Pittsburgh mayoral election was held on Tuesday, 3 November 1925. It resulted in a landslide victory for Republican candidate Charles H. Kline.

Incumbent Republican mayor William A. Magee's career took a downturn when he broke with state Senator Max G. Leslie, a party boss who had sponsored Magee's candidacy in the previous election. Leslie, determined to prevent the mayor's re-election, pushed for Judge Charles H. Kline of the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas to succeed Magee. Kline attracted endorsements from other Republican leaders, including William Larimer Mellon, who along with his uncle Andrew W. Mellon was commonly (if not accurately) credited with controlling Pittsburgh politics. Faced with dwindling party support and a shortage of campaign funds, Magee withdrew from the field.^[1]

With Magee out of the running, the Republican primary was just a formality as Kline trounced William L. Smith, principal of Allegheny High School. In the general election, Kline rolled over token opposition in the form of Smith, who had re-entered the race on Non-Partisan and Prohibition tickets, and little-known Democrat Carman C. Johnson, a teacher at Westinghouse High School.^[2]

Pittsburgh mayoral election, 1925^[3]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Republican	Charles H. Kline*	69,831	76.6
	Non-Partisan / Prohibition	William L. Smith†	15,210	16.7
	Democratic	Carman C. Johnson	5,342	5.9
	Socialist	William J. Van Essen	638	0.7
	Independent Citizens	Louis G. Karzis	166	0.2
Total votes			91,187	100.0

*Kline received 68,469 votes on the Republican ticket and 1,362 votes on the Labor Party slate.
†Smith received 10,745 votes on Non-Partisan and 4,465 votes on Prohibition ballots.

References

1. Murray, Lawrence L. (July 1975). "The Mellons, Their Money, and the Mythical Machine: Organizational Politics in the Republican Twenties". Pennsylvania History. 42 (3): 230–231.
2. Weber, Michael P. (1988). Don't Call Me Boss: David L. Lawrence, Pittsburgh's Renaissance Mayor. University of Pittsburgh Press. pp. 31–32. ISBN 0-8229-3565-1.
3. "Plurality of 54,621 Given Judge Kline". The Pittsburgh Press. 18 November 1925. p. 14.