BOSSES + CORPORATIONS = JERSEY
ALEXANDER, ROBERT J.
Bosses + Corporations = Jersey By Robert J. Alexander NEW JERSEY has traditionally been run by Big Business and Big Politics Her corrupt, powerful political machines are matched by the...
...ANOTHER SPECIAL INTEREST of increasing importance is the strong labor movement...
...Mismanagement rather than ill-will was responsible for the defeat of this proposal in the ^1948 general election...
...Naturally this would be financed by a bond issue...
...A three-cornered free-for-all is being staged by Hague, Kenney and John Longo...
...Big business and the Republican bosses remain opposed...
...He managed to alienate three of the four elements on the New Jersey political scene—anti-Hague Republicans, proHague Democrats, and pro-Hague Republicans...
...Frank Hague...
...The Driscoll administration, in calling the 1947 constitutional convention, redrafted the archaic basic law of the state...
...It was one of the first three members of the Union to extend workmen's compensation to accidents other than those incurred while on the job, and diseases other than occupational ones...
...Robert J. Alexander is an instructor at Rutgers University and a frequent contributor to The .\'eu> Leader...
...e i HAGUE IS NOW BATTLING to retain control of Jersey City...
...Early in this century New Jersey vied with Delaware in the laxness of its incorporation laws, with the avowed purpose of inveigling powerful national and international businesses to take out charters in the State...
...Hundreds of thousands of residents of Bergen, Essex, Hundson, and Camden counties are infinitely more interested in the political situation in New York or in Philadelphia than in that of their own home towns...
...The Democratic candidate for the Senate in the 1948 election, Archibald Alexander, a political newcomer running with Hague's support, is an ADA member...
...Labor is vigorously in favor of it...
...At one point, he served seven months in the Hudson County workhouse on charges levelled against him by some of Hague's henchmen...
...The seriousness of this threat is shown by the fact that Frank Hague himself "retired" some years ago and living in Miami Beach a good part of each year, has returned to his home city to lead the fight for the reelection of his nephew Frank Hague Eggers as mayor...
...AMONG THE REPUBLICANS thing...
...Progressive-minded Jerseyites saw in his nomination and nearelection a symbol of better things to come...
...The Driscoll forces put on the ballot in referendum a proposal for a fifty million dollar bond issue, the proceeds of which were to be spent on the improvement of state welfare institution* as well as the construction of a number of new buildings at Rutgers, the State University...
...First of all...
...It is basically a fight over who is to control the state...
...And although New Jersey is the nation's third largest industrial State, it still does not have an income tax...
...This money must be paid back in years to come, or the state will forfeit Federal grants tor highway construction ana maintenance...
...But although Edison didn't succeed in ousting Hague from control of the Democratic party, his administration was catastrophic for that party as tindominant group in the state...
...In the textile and airplane city of Patterson the mayor is a staunch-labor man and a Democratic party stalwart...
...Driscoll carried out that body's mandate that there should be no discrimination in the state's civil or military establishment, and was the first— and as yet only—governor to decree an end to segregation in the National Guard...
...Their influence in the municipalities is also on the increase...
...And he weakened the anti Hague Democrats...
...IN RECENT YEARS the political picture has been changing...
...It was among the first four states to institute fair employment practices legislation, and was the first to abolish segregation in its national guard...
...It is one of the basic facts of New Jersey politics...
...Special interests" are an ever potent . force in the political picture of New Jersey...
...Instead of working with those Republicans opposed to the Jersey City boss and then fighting them for state1 control after the Hudson County boss had been defeated...
...But Big Business is not the only special interest in the state...
...Americans for Democratic Action, although numerically small, is of increasing importance in the party's affairs...
...It will also be a victory for the commuters who are taxed in states where they earn their income, but do not get the education, police and other services for which the tax is presumably raised...
...It was upon the insistence of these southern fanners and then political bosses, that the 1947 constitutional convention left the old system of one senator per county intact, thus continuing the southern section's over-representation...
...But oven that increases the annual interest on the state debt...
...Public Service Corporation of New Jersey, the public utility and transportation giant in the state, has had the reputation of being able to get pretty much what it wants in Trenton and in the city halls and county seats of the state...
...The state income tax issue is now perhaps the key to the political future of the state...
...New Jersey has one of the country's best highway systems, and it appears likely that the state will take the lead in launching large-scale low cost housing projects on its own initiative...
...Meanwhile the state's antiquated revenue system cW>aks and groans and becomes incraA«utVgly unwieldy...
...Yet there is more to New Jersey than machine politicians and corporations...
...Labor is making its influence felt...
...But the severity of the struggle indicates how the "I-am-thelaw" boss of Jersey City has slipped...
...In the 1949-50 budget, recently passed, the legislature/as forced to borrow nearly twenty million dollars from the state highway/fund to meet current exper.se...
...Virtually the last of the great municipal bosseries to remain intact, it is now seriously threatened...
...But equally important perhapi are the smaller but nonetheless powerful Republican machines in Berqen, Essex end Atlantic Counties...
...Although Governor Alfred Driscoll easily won renomination in the recent primaries, there is doubt as to whether he will win in the November general elections...
...New Jersey sends many of its citizens to earn their livings in New York City and Philadelphia...
...But Edison was not a very good politician...
...The Democrats hope Wene will do well enough there to win, when those votes are added to the lopsided Democratic majority in Hudson County...
...Edison refused to make any deals, and then went into the primaries and the general elections throughout the state urging the return of pro-Edison Democrats...
...Slowly, but nonetheless surely, the forces set in moUon by the Great Depression and the New Deal—the de- ' crease in the influence of Big Business, the deflation and renovation of the city machines, the growth in the power of labor—are making themselves felt in New Jersey...
...The railroads are also generally considered to have great influence, as no doubt do many of the state's manufacturing industries...
...Edison became governor with Hague's blessing and support, and almost immediately turned on him...
...But it was not until the early 1940's, when Charles Edison was Governor, that a significant blow was struck at the Hague power...
...With the recession of Hague influence, other elements have arisen in the New Jersey Democratic party...
...The secretary of the state AFL, Vincent Murphy, is mayor of Newark: the president of the New Brunswick Trades and Labor Federation, Herbert Dailey, is a member of that city's commission, and is one of the Democrat itparty powers...
...But in this regard New Jersey is no different from any of the other forty-seven members of the Union...
...The enactment of an income tax will be a victory for labor and its allies over the great corporations...
...Of course the Hague Democrats gleefully voted Republican that year...
...Other groups' with special axes to grind, not to be underestimated, are the Catholic Church...
...In some fields, paradoxically enough, New Jersey is among the country's most advanced commonwealths...
...the gambling fraternity — New Jersey was once the gambling center of the East...
...Governor Driscoll may call a special session of the legislature before the November election to enact a largo bousing program...
...it has been marked by the decline in the influence of Boss Hague...
...His opponent is State Senator Elmer Wene of Cumberland County, in normally Republican South Jersey...
...The agricultural element is powerful far beyond its numbers...
...In a muddled way these issues are now being fought out and it won't be long before the full effect of the New Deal—and the Fair Deal—is felt in the Garden State...
...Nor is Kenny conceded more than an outside chance...
...The Governor, elected on a platfo/m of opposition to a state income tax.ifias since maintained he is bound by JJhis campaign pledge...
...Yot if the Utter continue thetf present line of opposition they fro seriously handicapping themselves for ¦ the future...
...VARIOUS FACTORS INFLUENCE New Jersey's political ternd...
...For instance...
...This commuter's mentality helps to explain both the lovely home-owners' communities in the environs of New York and Philadelphia, and the hold which the machines have on those parts of the state...
...It does differ in one respect, however...
...While they have not won the notoriety of their Hudson County rival, they have had a dominant voice in the affairs of what is normally the State's majority party...
...For the first time since 1929 the boss is being seriously challenged in hi* own bailiwick, by one of his oldest lieutenants, John V. Kenney, until last summer . Democratic boss of the Second Ward...
...And in the Republican party Hague's so-called "Good Government" rivals emerged triumphant...
...The southern counties, predominantly agricultural, are greatly over-represented in the state legislature, particularly in the senate...
...New Jersey is to a very large degree a commuter's state...
...The Democrats are officially pledged to an income tax...
...His rule was first challenged in the late 1930's when Norman Thomas and others helped to dramatize the "I-am-thelaw" attitude of the Jersey City boss...
...Longo, only thirty-five, has been an opponent of Hague for a dozen years...
...Longo is not given much chance of winning the mayoralty or of seating many of his ticket on the city commission...
...Bosses + Corporations = Jersey By Robert J. Alexander NEW JERSEY has traditionally been run by Big Business and Big Politics Her corrupt, powerful political machines are matched by the preferential tc/atment her powerful corporations receive...
...are not completely calm either...
...m THE CHIEF WEAKNESS of the Driscoll administration has been in it.-* financial position...
...And the state interest burden cannot continue to increase without seriously hampering current operations of the slate government The struggle over the income tax is, of course, symbolic of deeper issues...
...Representatives of both the State Federation of Labor and the State Council of Industrial Organizations are stationed in Trenton to watch out for the workers' interests in the legislative and executive branches of the government...
...First of all there are the political machines The most famous of these is that of Jersey City's ex-Mayor...
...and the real estate lobby...
...Thus the city of Newark, which with more than half a million people would anywhere else be the pride and nerve center of the commonwealth, is more or less overlooked by most Jerseyites...
Vol. 32 • May 1949 • No. 19
