Following the death of Cardinal Farley in September 1918, Hayes was appointed by
Pope Benedict XV as the fifth
Archbishop of New York on March 10, 1919. He founded the
archdiocesan Catholic Charities in 1920, and subsequently became known as "the Cardinal of Charities." He had the first convention of the
American Birth Control League raided, and later called its members "prophets of decadence". He welcomed the election of
Éamon de Valera as
President of the Irish Republic and contributed $1,000 to
Sinn Féin. The cardinal opposed
Prohibition, backed legislation to limit indecency on the stage, and endorsed unemployment relief during the
Great Depression. Commenting on the Depression in 1931, he stated, "The American people are experiencing a return to religion following a period of carelessness and cynicism marked by the prosperity of the land...Now they are returning when they find they are in need of something greater than the material in facing adversity and stress." After the Rev.
Charles Coughlin praised the former
Mayor Jimmy Walker in New York, Hayes, who had earlier denounced Walker for his perceived lack of morality, ruled that no ecclesiastical visitor might address a religious gathering without the cardinal's permission. On June 24, 1924, he offered the
invocation at the opening of the
1924 Democratic National Convention. He used his
Tammany Hall connections to line up
Democratic support in
Congress for legislation protecting
Catholic schools in the
Philippines in 1932. During the Spanish Civil War, Hayes was outspoken in his support for the fascist-nationalist forces of
General Franco, "claiming that 'Loyalists are controlled by radicals and communists'." Hayes had a
summer house in the
Catskill Mountains, near St. Joseph's camp, maintained by the Amityville
Dominican nuns; he once encountered a group of
Klansmen there. ==Death and legacy==