Daniel Hoan

Daniel Webster "Dan" Hoan (1881–1961) was a United States lawyer and politician. He became the second Socialist mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and his tenure is generally considered to be the longest continuous socialist administration in U.S. history. He was the second-longest serving mayor of Milwaukee.

Biography

Early years

Daniel Webster Hoan was born in Waukesha, Wisconsin, on March 12, 1881. He left school early but he studied at evening classes and in 1908 qualified as a lawyer.

A member of the Socialist Party, Hoan moved to Milwaukee where he worked closely with Victor Berger, the editor of the Socialist daily the Milwaukee Leader, in trying to persuade the city to adopt radical reforms. This included municipal ownership of utilities, urban renewal programs and free legal, medical and educational services.

Political career

In 1910 Emil Seidel was elected mayor of Milwaukee and became the first socialist leader of a major city in the United States. The same year Hoan became Milwaukee's city attorney, winning election by a plurality of more than 7300 votes out of about 59,000 votes cast over Democratic and Republican opponents.^[1] Over the next six years Hoan clamped down on the corruption of public officials.

In 1916 Hoan was elected as mayor of Milwaukee. Unlike many members of the Socialist Party, Hoan did not oppose United States entry into the First World War. Hoan remained mayor for twenty-four years, the longest continuous Socialist administration in United States history.

He brought in a large number of progressive reforms including the country's first public housing project, Garden Homes, started in 1923. Hoan also led the successful drive towards municipal ownership of the stone quarry, street lighting, sewage disposal and water purification.

During his administration the first bus system in the United States came into being ^{[citation needed]} after a number of pedestrians were run over by street trolleys that ran down the middle of the road. Among the victims of such streetcar accidents was Milwaukee newspaper editor and Socialist Party founder and leading light Victor L. Berger, who was killed in 1929.

Hoan developed a reputation for honest and efficient government. In 1999, author Melvin Holli and a group of experts on local government, voted Hoan as the eighth best mayor in United States history. Holli wrote:

"Although this self-identified socialist had difficulty pushing progressive legislation through a nonpartisan city council, he experimented with the municipal marketing of food, backed city-built housing, and in providing public markets, city harbor improvements, and purging graft from Milwaukee politics. Perhaps Hoan's most important legacy was cleaning up the free-and-easy corruption that prevailed before he took office."^[2]

At the May 1932 convention of the Socialist Party, Hoan ran for National Chairman of the party against incumbent Morris Hillquit. In addition to the "constructive Socialists" from Wisconsin, Hoan garnered the support of the young Marxist "Militant" faction and the radicals around Norman Thomas, but this bloc was insufficient to unseat Hillquit, who won reelection by a vote of 105-86.^[3]

Hoan was defeated in the Milwaukee mayoral campaign of 1940 and the next year left the Socialist Party and joined the Democratic Party. He ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1944 and 1946. In 1948 he was unsuccessful in his attempt to once again become mayor of Milwaukee when he was defeated by the Socialist Party's candidate, Frank P. Zeidler. Hoan remains the last sitting mayor of Milwaukee to be defeated in a reelection bid.

A highway system was started under his administration, but federal funding was scarce. The system was later expanded to included the Hoan Bridge, which was completed in 1972 but not opened to the public until 1977.

Death and legacy

Hoan died on June 11, 1961 and was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Milwaukee. The Hoan papers reside with the Milwaukee County Historical Society, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Hoan Bridge on Milwaukee's lakefront is the most visible monument which bears his name.

See also

• List of mayors of Milwaukee
• Sewer socialism
• Emil Seidel
• Frank P. Zeidler
• Social-Democratic Party of Wisconsin

Footnotes

Works

• The Failure of Regulation. Chicago: Socialist Party of the United States, 1914.
• Lincoln, the Commoner: Helped in Fight for Education for Workers. Saginaw, MI: Saginaw County Socialist Party, n.d. [192-].
• Socialism and the City: How to Remove Chaos and Put Order and Beauty into American Cities. Girard, KS: Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1931.
• Taxes and Tax Dodgers. Chicago: Committee on Education and Research, Socialist Party of America, 1933.
• Abraham Lincoln: A Real American. Chicago: Socialist Party of the USA, n.d. [c. 1936].
• City Government: The record of the Milwaukee Experiment. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1936.
• Why a Farmer-Labor Progressive Federation? : Address Selivered to the Convention on Saturday, May 21, 1938, at Madison. Milwaukee: The Federation, 1938.
• Dollars vs. The People. Milwaukee: Milwaukee County Central Campaign Committee, n.d. [1940].
• The St. Lawrence Seaway: Navigation Aspects. n.c.: Great Lakes Harbors Association n.d, [1948?].

Further reading

• Benoit, Edward A., A Democracy of Its Own: Milwaukee's Socialisms, Difference and Pragmatism. MA thesis. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2009.
• Kerstein, Edward S. Milwaukee's All-American Mayor: Portrait of Daniel Webster Hoan. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966.
• Reinders, Robert C. "Daniel W. Hoan and the Milwaukee Socialist Party during the First World War," Wisconsin Magazine of History, vol. 36, no. 1 (Autumn 1952), pp. 48–55.

External links

• Mayor Daniel Hoan of Milwaukee, Wisconsin Historical Society
• Daniel Hoan on the cover of Time magazine