The policies of Woodrow Wilson's administration reunited reformers with the city's Republican Party and World War I temporarily halted the reform movement. In 1917, the murder of George Eppley, a police officer defending City Council primary candidate James Carey, ignited the reformers again. They passed legislation to reduce the City Council from two houses to one, and provided council members an annual salary. With the deaths of McNichol in 1917 and Penrose in 1921, William Vare became the city's political boss. In the 1920s the public flouting of Prohibition laws, mob violence, and police involvement in illegal activities led Mayor W. Freeland Kendrick to appoint Brigadier General Smedley Butler of the U.S. Marine Corps as director of public safety. Butler cracked down on bars and speakeasies and tried to stop corruption within the police force, but demand for liquor and political pressure made the job difficult, and he had little success. After two years, Butler left in January 1926 and most of his police reforms were repealed. On August 1, 1928, Boss Vare suffered a stroke, and two weeks later a grand jury investigation into the city's mob violence and other crimes began. Numerous police officers were dismissed or arrested as a result of the investigation, but no permanent change resulted. Strong support among some residents for the Democratic presidential candidate Al Smith, who was Catholic, marked the city's turning away in the 20th century from the Republican Party.