JUSTICE STIRS IN JERSEY

...They have enough of what are euphoniously called civil servants over there to run a city 3 times the size of Jersey City, and on top of that they collect from every public employe a percentage of his Or her pay, from the ranking officers of the police and fire departments down to the humblest scrub-woman at the City Hall...

...The family lived over the store...

...To be sure, their findings in the Longo case are no more than a presentment, an expression of disgust for the whole shady proceedings...

...The Secret Of Hague's Power I bring the Medical Center in only as an answer to the inevitable question asked by decent citizens, "How does that old scoundrel hold power so long...

...When I first knew him, Johnny was on his way to Hague's private Dachau in Secaucus, to be put on the rock pile at that foul jail for the heinous crime of having circulated a petition asking that an independent anti-Hague slate be put on the ticket at a coming election...

...Longo comes from a poor Italian family...

...Edison of New Jersey...

...Democratic Babies Only Now, what is called "the runaway Grand Jury," meaning a jury that runs away from Hague's iron rule, has stated that the entire Longo case was "instigated for political purposes...

...So the Center is largely devoted to the mass production of Democratic babies and the treatment of hangovers suffered by deserving ward heelers...

...A grand jury from the Boss Hague's strongest-held bastion, Hudson County, has had the courage to challenge his actions in a case that is closest to his vengeful heart, namely the case against young John Longo which he wants to use as a warning to any other rebels brash enough to defy his long-held dictatorship...

...His father ran a small fruit-store in a working-class district...

...Johnny's best friend, Owen Grundy, another young Hague opponent who had stood by his pal and idol through all the long in-fighting against the most corrupt machine in the annals of recent bossdom in this country, suddenly turned on Longo and testified against him at his trial in the lower court...

...George G. Hollingshead, Treasurer of the Longo Defense Committee, at 574 Jersey Avenue, Jersey City, N. J...

...Longo is fortunate in having for his lawyer the greathearted Raymond Chasin of Jersey City, one of the few Jersey City legalites who has guts enough to fight the Big Boss...

...As a result, a handful of independent men and women, unterrified by the usual threats of the Hague mob, have been able to influence the proceedings behind the closed doors of the jury room...

...Longo must still stand trial before the Court of Errors and Appeals, which this writer, at the time of Mayor Hague's ineffable son's appointment to the court as a "lay judge," characterized as all errors and no appeals...

...This presentment, which the Grand Jury said was initiated on its own, after an investigation of the case which Hague henchmen tried in every way possible to obstruct, is as miraculous as though a Republican prospective mother were to be admitted to Hague's Maternity Hospital in the Jersey City Medical Center which provides free care for deserving Democrats who can show a strictly kosher voting record...

...The facts are that the evidence of a handwriting expert which was suppressed by Longo's prosecutor at the trial, Daniel O'Regan, naturally a Hague henchman, showed that Johnny could not have done the job...

...If you want to be in on a case that should appeal to all your democratic beliefs, you can send a check or money-order to the Rev...

...The Grand Jury which handed in the courageous presentment denouncing the attempts to frame Longo, symbolizes what everyone of common decency hopes will be a new day in Jersey City politics...

...It has further accused both prosecutors, Daniel O'Regan and his assistant William George, of having suppressed the evidence of the handwriting expert which would have cleared John, and condemned the judge sitting on the trial in the lower court of being "derelict in his duty...

...Edge, a Republican, has contrived to get other than Hagueites on the grand juries of the State...

...The charge is that Longo changed his registration on the election books of Jersey City to which he had access from Republican to Democrat in order to obtain an appointment from Democratic Gov...

...The Grundy betrayal was palpably due to the ruthless pressure put upon Longo's pal by Hague's hoodlums who threatened that unless Grundy came through with evidence against Longo, Grundy would be immediately drafted...

...This Medical Center, by the way, is one of the best equipped hospitals in the country, with apparatus of the latest scientific devising...

...The only catch there is that after they have used all the medical gadgets, they have to send the findings over to New York to be read, the fact being that the qualification for a medico in the Medical Center, Democratic Party regularity, does not necessarily produce the highest type of medical practitioners...

...John's father died while the young man was being persecuted...

...Johnny is now the chief support of his mother, as the brothers are in the Army...

...While in jail, he suffered from a foot infection which still afflicts him, so that he is not physically fit to serve in the Army, though the Hague hoodlums have made every attempt to have him drafted...

...WHEN he was a kid in high school, a good Catholic, Secretary of the Holy Name Society of his chur.ch, and a crackerjack public speaker, Johnny Longo began protesting against the crude dictatorship of the Jersey Hitler and thereby got himself early on Hague's black books...

...From that time on, Longo who is now over 30 years of age, has been pursued relentlessly...

...The free hospital treatment at the expense of the city is one answer, another is the huge contributions made by the Hague machine to the powerful church hierarchy in town, the third is that every white, able-bodied Democrat and his cousins and his uncles and his aunts are in one way or another attached to the city pay-roll...

...The tiny house is now up for bail again, as Longo must still stand trial in the court of last resort in the state...

...The Longo house is overassessed as are all the homes of Hague's enemies in Jersey City, and the high bail of $5,000 is demanded of the mother...

...The Mayor's object is to get Longo once more behind the bars of one of his prisons, as he had him before, in 1941, on a charge so trivial in its nature as to make any sane man, outside of Jersey City, wonder how it could possibly have been sustained by the lower courts...

...Neither Chasin nor Longo, nor any of the rest of us interested in the case, has what might be called a superfluity of man's worldly goods, and this proceeding is expensive...