John F. Fitzgerald is elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Fitzgerald (D) becomes the only Democrat in the Massachusetts delegation and one of only three Irish-Catholics in Congress. He wins the election with the backing of West End ward boss Martin Lomasney, and despite opposition from bosses P.J. Kennedy of East Boston, Jim Donovan of the South End and Joseph Corbett of Charlestown. Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy later writes, “Boston politics of this era was not unlike that in Ireland before the Anglo-Norman conquest. The Irish had their local chieftains, who often warred against one another . . . [and] made unstable alliances that could find one year’s ally another year’s foe.”