Andrew Jackson Bettwy
| Andrew Jackson Bettwy | |
|---|---|
| 18th Mayor Nogales, Arizona | |
|
In office 1935–1937 |
|
| Arizona State Senator Santa Cruz County | |
|
In office 1926–1930 |
|
| Personal details | |
| Born | September 24, 1894 Altoona, Pennsylvania |
| Died | October 29, 1950 (aged 56) Little Rock, Arkansas |
| Alma mater | University of Arizona |
Andrew Jackson Bettwy (September 24, 1894 – October 29, 1950), an Arizona Democrat, served as Mayor of Nogales, Arizona, from 1935 to 1937, was an Arizona delegate at the Democratic National Conventions of 1924 and 1928, and 1928, and was an unsuccessful candidate for governor in the 1930, 1932, 1934, 1936, and 1938 primary elections and in the 1932 general election.
Although affable, Bettwy was a controversial firebrand as mayor of Nogales, and he is most remembered in Arizona folklore for flattening William Mathews, the publisher of the Arizona Daily Star, during Mathews' anti-Roosevelt New Deal speech at the 1936 Arizona State Democratic Convention in Tucson, Arizona.
His wife Mary Bettwy was also a well-liked Arizona politician, which was a notable achievement for her during the 1930s when the effects of the Nineteenth Amendment were still only burgeoning. When Andrew was Mayor of Nogales from 1935 to 1937, his wife Mary was President of the Nogales Young Democrats Club, an affiliate of Young Democrats of America, which was founded in 1932 to further the election campaign of presidential nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In the 1938 elections, he ran unsuccessfully for Arizona state governor, and she ran successfully for Santa Cruz County Recorder to become the first Hispanic female elected to public office in the State of Arizona. After winning the seat in 1938, she surprised everyone, including political leaders, by immediately appointing her rival as her chief deputy. Her unprecedented political move was reported in newspapers nationwide, from California to Texas to Pennsylvania to New York to Florida. As the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported: "A political precedent unlikely to bring even a ripple of emulation despite its apparent benefit to the public is that set by Mrs. Mary Bettwy, Democratic recorder-elect of Nogales, Arizona, who has amazed the staunch partisans of her own and the Republican party there by appointing her Republican campaign opponent, Mrs. Ada Jones, as her deputy. . . That great wave of cheering that you do not hear is undoubtedly from the leaders of the Democratic organization in Nogales as the dazed Republican chiefs and the public pinch themselves to find out whether or not they are awake."
They divorced during their campaigns, however, and he later moved to Prescott to retire from politics. Mary Bettwy stayed in Nogales and was reelected five times to serve as County Recorder for 21 years until her death in 1960. As a popular candidate, she was "one of the top vote-getters each election year in the county."
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