David Cohen (politician) - Early Political Career

Early Political Career

Cohen, a child of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants, was born in south Philadelphia. Cohen first became active in politics as a campaign worker for Democratic mayoral nominee John B. Kelly, Sr. in 1935. He was appointed an attorney for the Rural Electrification Administration in Washington, D.C. in 1938 after graduating first in his class from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1937 and winning a graduate fellowship. As a graduate fellow, Cohen did research used for upholding the constitutionality of Pennsylvania's law providing for a minimum wage equal to the federal minimum wage for some people not covered by the federal minimum wage. As a Rural Electrification Administration attorney, Cohen drafted state laws for various states and became president of the agency union and participated in negotiations with two Secretaries of Agriculture.

Cohen resigned his position with the federal government in 1943, then located in St. Louis, Missouri as the federal government dispersed federal agencies around the country to forestall an enemy attack on them in World War II, to prepare to enter the US Army. Briefly working for the St. Louis Congress of Industrial Organizations while awaiting the completion of enlistment processing, Cohen made the transition from volunteer union leader to union staffer.

His first job after returning from New Guinea in the South Pacific theater, where he had reached the rank of the rank of staff sergeant, the highest rank for a non-commissioned officer, after declining to attend Officer Candidate School, was to legally represent federal union employees in New York City, where his wife's family lived, and help them unionize. In one case, after independent journalist I.F. Stone interviewed him, he recruited Stone as a volunteer legal aide so that Stone could get a first hand view of the obstacles facing union workers.

Cohen returned to Philadelphia in 1952 and developed a law practice representing unions, individuals, and businesses. With law partner Morton C. Jacobs, he handled an early legal case holding that computer software was patentable. When Cohen moved to the Broad and Olney area of Philadelphia, he saw a newspaper ad seeking volunteers for the Presidential campaign of Adlai Stevenson. He volunteered and was appointed an assistant committeeman in Philadelphia's 49th Ward, 27th Division.

After an unsuccessful run for Judge of Elections in 1953, Cohen was elected a Democratic committeeman in his division in 1954. He later became Treasurer of the 49th Ward Democratic Executive Committee, President of the Northwest Philadelphia Chapter of the American Jewish Congress, and head of the Northwest Philadelphia Chapter of the Community Chest. He also was active in the Jewish War Veterans, and often cited his experiences dealing with soldiers from rural areas in Missouri, running a health care clinic for soldiers in New Guinea and giving them legal advice as formative ones.

He developed national concerns as well. He attended the 1963 March on Washington, where Martin Luther King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech, and marched with Dr. King and many others for voting rights in Selma, Alabama in 1965. He had spent the end of 1964 gathering information about violations of African-American voting rights in Mississippi in support of the challenge to the seating in Congress of Mississippi's Congressional delegation.

Following the one man, one vote decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, the wards of Philadelphia were redistricted, and the 49th Ward was split in half. Cohen was elected Democratic leader of the 17th Ward in 1966, and was continuously reelected henceforth. In 2002, he became the most senior Democratic ward leader in the City of Philadelphia, and he continued to serve as the 17th Ward Democratic leader until his death.