a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he initially served two terms representing , from March 4, 1875 to March 3, 1879. During his first stint in Congress, he was made head of the Democratic National Committee in 1876, when Tilden ran unsuccessfully for President. After defeating James O'Brien, his successor in Congress who was a staunch opponent of Tammany Hall, for the Democratic nomination in the 10th district during the 1880 elections, Hewitt regained his old seat and once again served in the U.S. House from March 4, 1881 to December 30, 1886. Hewitt's most famous speech was made at the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn in 1883. Hewitt was elected mayor of New York in the 1886 election when Richard Croker of Tammany Hall–– which had resumed its control of the city Democratic Party–– arranged for Hewitt to win the Democratic nomination with Tammany Hall's support, despite his being the leader of the anti-Tammany "Swallowtails" of the party. Croker needed a strong candidate to oppose the United Labor Party candidate, political economist Henry George, as Tammany feared that a win by George might reorganize politics in the city along class lines rather than along ethnic lines, which Tammany exploited to stay in power. Hewitt may have held nativist beliefs: he refused, for instance, to review the Saint Patrick's Day parade, a decision that alienated much of the Democratic Party's Irish–American base in the city. Hewitt also refused to allow Tammany the control of patronage they wanted, and Croker saw to it that Hewittt was not nominated for a second term. Hewitt was considered a defender of sound money practices (he is quoted as saying "Unnecessary taxation is unjust taxation") and civil service reform. He developed a plan to fund and construct the New York City Subway system. A 1993 survey of historians, political scientists and urban experts conducted by Melvin G. Holli of the University of Illinois at Chicago ranked Hewitt as the twenty-sixth-best American big-city mayor to have served between the years 1820 and 1993. Entrepreneurial career Hewitt had many investments in natural resources, including considerable holdings in West Virginia, where William Nelson Page (1854–1932) was one of his managers. He was also an associate of Henry Huttleston Rogers (1840–1909), a financier and industrialist who was a key man in the Standard Oil Trust, and a major developer of natural resources.