This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Hooper, Gees, White, Rasin, Gorman Classification: Obituary Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/AFB.2ACI/3311 Message Board Post: New York Times, Saturday, July 2, 1938 p. 13 Ex-Mayor Hooper of Baltimore, 79 City’s Executive for Stormy 2-year Term in 1890’s is Dead at His Home There Won on a Reform Ticket Led in Health Department and School Improvements – Also Served as an Alderman Special to The New York Times Baltimore, July 1 – Alcaeus Hooper, Mayor of Baltimore in the late Eighteen Nineties, died early this morning in his home here at the age of 79. He had retired from public life more than twenty years ago and for several years had been in failing health. He continued to take daily automobile rides until about ten days ago. The campaign in which Mr. Hooper was elected Mayor on the Republican ticket in 1895 was one of the stormiest in the city’s history. It was in the days when the old Democratic political organization with I. Freeman Rasin at hits head, was most powerful. Mr. Hooper, the son of William E. Hooper, cotton duck manufacturer, had gone into his father’s business instead of going to college. He was a member of the School Board in 1888, and in 1893 he was elected to the first branch of the City Council, that body being formed of two chambers in those days. In the following year he was made president of that branch. Won in Turbulent Campaign A little more than five feet in height, he was fiery of temperament and vigorous in action. The fortunes of both Senator Arthur P. Gorman and Mr. Rasin were involved in the campaign in which Mr. Hooper ran for Mayor. The old Reform League entered the contest on the side of Mr. Hooper, and prominent men of the city undertook to become watchers at the polls and to prevent strong-arm tactics. This fighting Mayor-elect was the most talked-of man in Baltimore. He was in a fight with the City Council almost as soon as he took office. City Councilmen, members of his own party, refused to confirm his appointments. The Mayor refused to confirm the Council appointees. He took the case to court and finally to the Court of Appeals, where he won. He was attending a lecture at the Peabody Institute when the news that he had won was received. The decision was announced and the audience stood and applauded. Made School Improvements It was during the Hooper administration that bacteriological and chemical laboratories were established in the Health Department, a beginning of the modernizing of the department. Improvements were made in the public schools and a $1,000,000 loan for the construction for electric conduits was authorized. That was the beginning of the present city conduit system. The Mayor was not a candidate for re-election in 1897. He was appointed to the School Board by his successor, Mayor Hayes. He resigned in 1910, thus closing his public career. In the Eighteen Eighties he married Miss Florence Gees. She died in December, 1933. Surviving are one son, Hamilton Hooper, and three daughters, Mrs. Stuart White of Aurora, Ill., and the Misses Elizabeth and Florence Hooper. Funeral services will be conducted tomorrow afternoon.