New York Young Republican Club

In April 1911, thirty-two young men, led by a young Manhattan lawyer Benjamin M. Day, formed the New York Young Republican Club in April 1911. This was an offshoot of the earlier New York Young Men’s Republican Club which was founded in 1879, which itself was a descendant of the even earlier New York Young Men’s Republican Union founded in 1856.

The Club’s first public appearance was a dinner held in December, 1911. The guest of honor was the President of the United States, William Howard Taft, and the principal speaker was Idaho Senator William Borah.

In 1930, the New York Young Republican Club circulated a questionnaire to its members; of the 649 responses, an overwhelming number (424) supported the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment (which prohibited alcohol), 117 favored modification of the Volstead Act, and only 108 favored enforcement of prohibition.[6]

The New York Young Republican Club was significant to the political network of Governor Thomas Dewey; Club members were important parts of Dewey's campaigns for governor and president, and in 1952 and 1956, Dewey used the Club to promote the presidential campaigns of Dwight D. Eisenhower.[7] In the 1950s, John V. Lindsay, later mayor of New York City, joined the organization, which was an all-male group at the time.[7] He became vice president of the group in 1951 and (after Eisenhower's win in 1952, became president of the group).[7] During his presidency of the group, Lindsay was involved in an acrimonious internal battle between a faction led by Charles Miller Metzner (to whom Lindsay belonged) and a rival faction led by F. Clifton White and William A. Rusher.[7]

New York City Republican organizations were once a bastion of moderate Republicans with liberal or centrist views on social issues.[8]

In 1964, the New York Times described the Club as "not a large one" but "old and influential in Young Republican affairs."[9] That year, the Club was described as having 1,200 members citywide.[10] That year, amid the Republican presidential rivalry between New York's Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller and Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, a faction of the Club supporting the presidential candidacy of New York's Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller won a race for the Club's presidency, defeating (by 365-202 vote) an independent candidate running with conservative support.[9] The group endorsed Rockeller's campaign for the Republican presidential nomination by a 184–6 vote, and endorsed, by a 187–1 vote, the re-nomination of state Senator MacNeil Mitchell, who was facing an insurgent primary challenge from Jacob Javits's nephew Eric Javits.[11] The same year, the Club supported John V. Lindsay's decision to run for re-election as mayor as an independent Republican; the group broke from the leaders of other Young Republican clubs in the city, such as those of City College, New York University, Columbia College, and Fordham University, as well as the Young Women's Republican Club of New York, all of whom condemned Lindsay's decision.[10]

After the rise of Donald Trump, the city's Republican groups moved decidedly rightward.[8] In December 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the New York Young Republican Club hosted a gala, during which participants flouted public health guidelines. Participants gathered in crowds indoors, did not wear masks, and did not socially distance. It was held in Jersey City, New Jersey. The day after the event, authorities temporarily closed the venue.[12] Matt Gaetz, a Republican congressman from Florida, and James O’Keefe, a conservative activist, attended the party. New Jersey authorities said they were investigating the breach.[13]

• Young Republicans
• College Republicans
• Teen Age Republicans
• Republicans Overseas
• Republican National Committee
• New York Republican State Committee

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