called the promotion "in no sense an achievement," as it was based purely on seniority. On the bench, Kun gained a reputation as a strict observer of courtroom decorum. He presided over several important cases, including one in 1946 that challenged Pennsylvania's slum clearance law. Kun ruled that the program was a legal use of government power. "If the cities are to live," he wrote, "they must remove the blighted areas, which, like a cancerous growth, would eventually destroy them." In 1952, Kun made headlines again when he issued an injunction to prevent a strike by mass transit workers of the Philadelphia Transportation Company, drawing the ire of labor activists. Failed re-election In 1957 Kun, now seventy-five years old, attempted to win another ten-year term on the court. In February of that year, however, the lawyers of the Philadelphia Bar Association voted by a 2-to-1 margin to name him "not qualified" to serve on the court. Many of the objections to his continued tenure came from organized labor. Kun defended his record of issuing anti-strike injunctions in the PTC case and others, calling the activity against him "pure invention for political purposes and nothing else." As in previous races, Kun ran in both parties' primaries, but the two organizations interpreted the sitting judge rule differently; Republicans said it applied to all judges, Democrats held that it only applied to judges considered qualified by the bar association. As a result, Kun won the Republican nomination but lost the Democratic contest to Earl Chudoff, a member of the federal House of Representatives from Pennsylvania's 4th congressional district. In the November election, Chudoff won easily, taking 58% of the vote. Kun took his defeat philosophically, according to the Inquirer, saying he had foreseen the results as soon as the Democrats denied him renomination. Already in poor health, he said he would go into semi-retirement, practicing law only in so far as he was able. In 1961, he died at the age of 78 and was interred at Chelten Hills Cemetery in Philadelphia. Sources References 1880s births 1961 deaths Austro-Hungarian emigrants to the United States 20th-century American judges American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent Pennsylvania Republicans Judges of the Pennsylvania Courts of Common Pleas University of Pennsylvania Law School alumni Central High School (Philadelphia) alumni