Philadelphia's municipal election of November 3, 1953, was the second held under the city charter of 1951 and represented the first test of the Democratic city government of Mayor Joseph S. Clark Jr. In the 1951 election, the voters had elected a Democratic mayor for the first time in 67 years, breaking the Republican hold on political power in the city. They had also elected a majority-Democratic City Council along with Democrats for district attorney and other citywide offices (also called row offices). In 1953, the voters had the chance to continue the Democratic trend or to block it in the election for City Controller, Register of Wills, and various judges and magistrates. On election day, the Republican organization recovered from their 1951 losses, electing all their candidates citywide. Republicans celebrated the victory, but subsequent Democratic triumphs in the 1955 and 1959 elections made the 1953 result more of an aberration than a true comeback for the once-powerful Philadelphia Republican machine.
Background
After the Democrats' 1951 electoral victory, Philadelphia's once-powerful Republican party organization lost the hold on city government that they had held since 1884. In 1953, they sought to regain their former control over the city's political scene. Both sides presented the election as a referendum on the administration of Mayor Joseph S. Clark Jr., a Democrat elected with the support of reform-minded Republicans and independents in 1951. In an op-ed in The Philadelphia Inquirer the Sunday before the election, Republican City Committee chairman William J. Hamilton called the election "an opportunity to pass judgment upon the administration of Mayor Clark who promised so much and gave so little." He called the Clark administration "spendthrift and mismanaged", and promised "honest and efficient management" from the Republicans. In another op-ed the same day, Democratic City Committee chairman William J. Green Jr., characterized the Clark administration in more glowing terms and framed the election as a chance for Philadelphians to decide "whether 'good government' shall be extended" in the city after the reforms of 1951.
City Controller
Under the 1951 City Charter, Philadelphia elects a City Controller to sit at the head of an independent auditing department. The Controller approves all payments made out of the city treasury and audits the executive departments. As an independently elected official, the Controller is not responsible to the mayor or the city council. The office was created as one of the good-government reforms intended to reduce the corruption that had previously plagued city government and led to the Democratic-led reform coalition of 1951. The Controller is required to audit the city finances annually and to have his work verified by a private accounting firm every three years.
The 1953 Republican primary for all offices, including Controller, was complicated by a split in the party hierarchy between the "regular" faction, led by Hamilton and Board of Revision of Taxes President William F. Meade; and an insurgent faction led by former Sheriff Austin Meehan. An independent slate of Republicans headed by Treasurer candidate George W. Gibson also contested the primary. In the end, Foster A. Dunlap, a local attorney and the Hamilton-Meade candidate, won with 66,557 votes. Meehan's candidate, former Deputy Secretary of Supplies and Services Wilhelm F. Knauer, polled 50,185, and Gibson's running mate, Rudolph F. Price, tallied just 4,566. On the Democratic side, the party organization was much more unified and real estate agent Roland R. Randall was the easy victor over former State Senator H. Jerome Jaspan, 39,824 to 5,111.
As the election approached, Democratic District Attorney Richardson Dilworth warned of fraud by Republicans. Clark, for his part, reminded city employees of the charter's prohibition on electioneering by civil servants, most of whom were expected to vote Democratic. Dilworth's fears of fraud did not come to pass, but the election for City Controller did go to the Republicans. Dunlap defeated Randall by more than 14,000 votes in a victory Hamilton called a repudiation of "the Clark-Dilworth-ADA combination which has saddled the city with useless debts and experimental government."