Remember those great photos of Frank & Leo from the last post? Well, I have found another instance of the same photo of Leo, put to use in a more public way:

Looks like our Uncle Leo ran for public office as the Democratic Candidate for Jury Commissioner of Lackawanna County in the primaries of 1917! Whether this campaign was the reason for the photo shoot, or simply an additional use for the recently-taken photos is anyone’s guess.

My research shows that Leo never served as Jury Commissioner in 1917 or 1918, but we know that he enlisted in the Army in January 1918 and died later that year in September. Did he win the primary or even the election, and then take his leave to serve his country? Or was a loss of the primary one of the reasons he enlisted in the army? I found records of a Thomas F. Boland serving as the Democratic Jury Commissioner in 1916, 1917, and 1918. Further records show the end of his last term as 1922, so it stands to reason he served two 4-year terms (1914-1918, 1918-1922). So Leo was likely challenging this incumbent during the 1917 race. I wonder if the reason for this challenge went beyond a simple ambition to public service?

One thing this does show is a past political loyalty in the Hopkins family to the Democratic Party. This is the only evidence of any political affiliation or political aspiration in the family I’ve come across thus far. We may wonder if this was a strong loyalty within the family, whether politics were even talked about, and if so whether they were passed down within the family; or whether Leo simply chose to run on the Democratic ticket for more personal (or arbitrary) reasons not tied to any greater family loyalty.