Mitchel ran alone as a Fusion candidate against Bennett, the Socialist Morris Hillquit and John F. Hylan, the regular Democrat supported by Tammany Hall and William Randolph Hearst. However, the elections happened after the United States had declared war on April 6. Hillquit and the Socialist Party quickly and vigorously opposed the war, which Mitchel vigorously supported. Hillquit's anti-war position helped the Socialists win their highest-ever vote for mayor, but also led to vitriolic denunciations by many, including The New York Times and former President Theodore Roosevelt. Mitchel and Hillquit each won less than quarter of the vote, while Hylan, who had been non-committal about the war, won the election with less than half the vote. However, as in 1897, the numbers suggest that Tammany Hall might have won even against a unified opposition. 1897 to 1913 ¶ The Bronx and Manhattan, although separate Boroughs since 1898, shared New York County and reported their votes together until Bronx County was formed in April 1912 and came into its separate existence on January 1, 1914. [ The World Almanac does not list separate returns for the two boroughs until 1917, but The Encyclopedia of New York City (see Sources) gives these major candidates' results for 1913: Manhattan: McCall 103,429 - Mitchel 131,280, and The Bronx: McCall 25,684 - Mitchel 46,944. ] Mayor William Jay Gaynor, who had survived being shot in the throat by a disappointed office-seeker in 1910, died at sea from the indirect effects of his injury on September 10, 1913. He was succeeded for the rest of 1913 by Ardolph Loges Kline, the acting president of the board of aldermen. The election of 1897 was held just before the Five Boroughs formally consolidated into Greater New York in 1898, so it was the present city's first mayoral election. For preliminary results for all the municipal offices, broken down into smaller districts, see "Democrats Take All - The Tammany Ticket Makes Almost a Clean Sweep of the Greater City - Only Two Republicans in the Council..." in The New York Times, November 4, 1897 (seen April 11, 2008). † Henry George, author of Progress and Poverty and proponent of the Single Tax on land, died (probably from the strain of campaign speeches) on October 29, four days before Election Day; his son was nominated to take his place representing "The Democracy of Thomas Jefferson". [In 1886, George had been