By JOSEPH W. LaBINE
New Yorkers are casting wor-
ried glances across the Hudson
these days. Those who will
brave the ‘‘outer world’ that
lies over the river may some
day visit Jersey City and see
for themselves.
Jersey City, they allege, is in
the grips of a tyrant, a dicta-
tor, a reborn Huey P. Long.
His name is Frank Hague.
Mayor Hague has undoubted-
ly ruled all New Jersey at least
10 years, probably more. He
made A. Harry Moore a United
States senator, later a gover-
nor. More recently he sent his
personal attorney, John Milton,
to the upper house in Washing-
ton. Since 1913 he has been in
absolute control of Jersey City,
an overgrown community of
315,000 souls lying within eye-
shot of Manhattan's towers.
Frank Hague is a smart poli-
tician. Behind his multi-col-
ored exploits lies a genius
for grasping votes and power by
methods that are exasperating but
legal. When a legislative commit-
tee recently tried to seize Hudson
county vote records (on a charge of
election fraud), Hague packed off
on a Florida vacation and his assist-
ant in charge of the books was re-
ported ill. This prompted a New
York newspaper reporter to com-
ment that the official “has been in-
disposed on other occasions when
investigations involving his office
were in progress.”
At another time, in 1928, Hague
“testified’”’ before a legislative com-
practically every question fired at
him.
And He Sat Down!
The height of Hague's impudence
arrived one night in 1932 when
to gathering. Mr.
just warming up to a large outdoor
crowd when Hague, pulling at his |
coat, snapped:
“That's enough. Sit down.”
The future President of the United |
States sat down.
Currently Frank Hague is in the
headlines as a C. I. O. baiter. He
has refused to open the civic doors
to John Lewis’ organizers. They
cannot hire a hall; Hague's effi-
cient police simply run them out of
town. The mayor, who once thought-
lessly boasted that ‘‘I am the law,”
has arranged convenient legal |
weapons to best the C. I. O. One
law prohibits distribution of non- |
commercial literature, like C. I. O. |
pamphlets. Another enables police |
to arrest anyone who can’t give sat- |
shadows of Manhattan, “I am the
penn by throwing tremendous and
unexpected support to the league
|
last election. He pounces on weak
City commission.
public safety, a tailor-made situa-
corrupt lot of deadwood into an or-
ful young men. Whether his aim
police
foundation was the Jersey
medical center. Behind this
splendid nine-building institution is
litical
each day to St. Francis’ hospital.
There she received sympathy-—the
life was saved.
Hague never forgot the stories his
mother told him of those daily trips.
Today's medical center has been a
life-long ambition, a humanitarian
isfactory reason for his presence on
Jersey City streets, thereby land-
ing C. 1. O. organizers in the city
cooler.
Today Frank Hague's well-oiled
political machine depends on such
unique implements as the $25,000,-
000 medical center (third largest in
the United States and far too im-
posing for such a small city) and a
government that is really efficient,
albeit expensive, To understand this
amazing situation one must exam-
ine the background, from the time
young Frank Hague was an aspir-
ing Democtatic boss in Jersey
City’s second ward. That was in
1008.
Started as Custodian.
Unimportant, but ascending,
Hague's first job was custodian of
the city hall at $2,000 a year under
Mayor Otto H. Wittpenn. Later, as
commissioner of the street and wa-
ter board, he made friends both
with administration forces and the
lusty Commission Government
league. In 1913 Hague admittedly
played a ‘‘double-cross’’ on Witt-
institution which nevertheless reeks
of politics.
Let the Mayor Pay!
Any resident of Jersey City may
enter this 2,000-bed hospital and re-
ceive the benefit of every medical
treatment known to modern science.
Providing, of course, that the pa-
tient says he is poor. But rich and
poor take advantage of this unique
enterprise which costs taxpayers
about $000,000 a year. Of 108 dis-
charged patients investigated re-
cently, 30 were said to have been
treated at public expense when they
were able to pay for hospitalization.
“Have your baby on the mayor,”
is popular advice to expectant moth-
ers since the Margaret Hague ma-
ternity hospital was opened. Yes,
and have your tonsils out, or take
a rest cure. But don't forget how
to vote next time an election rolls
around!
Elections are an important event,
too. Every hour all the votes cast
in each district are telephoned to
Hague, who compares returns with
a table showing hourly votes in the
sible leaders to task.
Last November, when Senator
Moore (a Hague puppet) was elect-
were cast for babies and dead peo-
ple, illegally listed in the registra-
Such allegations have
been made after previous elections,
but legislative investigations
Small Salary, Big Fortune.
Not the least puzzling feature of
his ability to
would be invaded. One investiga-
certain real estate transactions at
the expense of taxpayers. The may-
or lives in a fine apartment suite
in Jersey City, keeps an elaborate
at Deal and (it is
ters in Manhattan,
Personal banker and attorney for
the mayor is John Milton, the new
Himself a sub-
considerable investigation,
admits having paid for
$125,000 Deal estate.
ed Harry Moore.
of
This trick has popped up be-
fore federal income tax agents sev-
eral times but the mayor, bland as
usual, refuses to have his privacy
invaded.
Milton is equally suave. When
investigators began nosing in his di-
rection, he calmly announced that
a few days ago he'd decided to
retire and—so sorry—but all his rec-
ords had unfortunately been de-
stroyed.
What will eventually happen to
this dictatorship? Undeniably, the
Hague machine has a hold on its
constituents that can be compared
only to Huey Long's Louisiana re-
gime a few years back. Recently,
when 26 congressmen wrote Hague
in protest over ‘‘wholesale arrest
and deportation’ of labor organiz-
ers, they received a reply that “ev-
erything is under control . . and
don’t worry."
“1 Am the Law!”
A few days later, irked, Mayor
Hague sponsored a mass meeting
attended by thousands of the faith-
ful, one of the largest gatherings
Jersey City has ever seen. There a
select roster of speakers re-affirmed
the community's faith in the man
who says, “I am the law.”
No moral can be drawn from the
career of Frank Hague, because it
is not yet ended. The strange fea-
ture is that boss control over Jer-
sey City and New Jersey in gen-
eral has been the vogue many
years, yet it took a handful of C. I.
O. organizers to bring it into the
public eye.
Equally strange is the seeming
efficiency with which Jersey City
is governed. High taxes seem to
be the only objection, and even that
all-important item is sometimes for-
gotten by zealous Hague henchmen.
The mayor himself sums up the
conditions prevailing in his unusual
city with the following typical
speech:
“Taxes are higher here because
we had to pay for progress. We
were just about bankrupt 20 years
ago. The city is a city now and
business is beginning to pick up.
But let me point out one thing about
the town. The burden of taxation
is being borne not by the house.
holder and the small business man
as in other cities, but by corpora-
tions whose shoulders are broad!”
That makes 'em smile. Next time
there's an election, they'll vote far
Hague!
© Western Newspaper Union.
AAAAAAALALLAMAALADAMAAMLALY,
WHO'S NEWS
THIS WEEK...
By Lemuel F. Parton
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALAAAAAAS
EW YORK.—Many a good news
yarn has been spoiled by the
necessity of ‘getting the story in
the lead,” as they say in the news-
aper shops. This
Story That Dor asks in-
Has Kick dulgence for sav-
at the End ing the kick in
this one for the
end, noting merely that it is a
happy ending. In recent years,
there have been so many unhappy
fade-outs, from Sam Langford to
the League of Nations, that any-
thing in the line of an unexpect-
ed Garrison finish rates a bit of
1
In Maxwell street, Chicago, long
before the fragrance of Bubbly
there was a book-stall which was
osophers, some white-bearded and
They wolfed
clamorous
intellectual zeal.
books and started
ish
extras. Sweatshop
throng in after a
and get in on the
Wrinkled, merry, mischievous lit-
He used to circulate a lot around
this and other Maxwell street book-
shops, and many
Erasmus of times the state of
Sweatshops Illinois was saved
Makes Peace '"°
calling
militia because B
along to referee an argun
He
man
salty,
he expense
sno
was a sweatshe
of amazing erudition,
colloquial
meshed in the tangle of print
! He used to tease
speech, nev
ruage around hin
his friend, Jane Addams,
Hull house, by call
workers
the poor."
of nearby
ment
of
the Utopians, boil
of d
averages or somethin
was the first of
sweatshop economi
light and learnin
Ghetto.
Bisr QO
tlie daughler nan
The Bisnos
Pass Beyond
Cur Ken to sav the wt
would hear from Beatrice
day. But the world
regardless of Sir
and all the other philoso;
the Bisnos passed beyond the
of this writer.
About twelve years ago, I had a
visit from Francis Oppenheimer, 8
New York journalist. Beatrice Bis-
no was his wife, She was going to
rite a book, and did I know of a
quiet hide-out where she could write
it? I sent them to the old Hotel Hel-
vetia, No. 23 Rue de Tournon, in
Paris. She sat in the nearby Lux-
and wrote her
spread
cago's
sts who
g through Chi
had a bright-eved, clever
ed Beatrice, one
several chil
Old sages,
Max-
street, usec
of
dren
up and down
well
book.
They came home and the book
lishers' offices. The smash of 1929
took the last of their savings. Today
heimer.
“We finally threw the bock in an
ner money to give it one more
ride. Weeks passed. Beatrice fell
ill. There came a letter from Live-
right, the publisher. I knew it
was another rejection and didn't
want to show it to Beatrice. But
Her eves were glazed.
slipped from her fingers and fell to
And in the same mail today, there
new book, ‘“To-
morrow's Bread,”
Big Prize by Beatrice Bisno,
With Novel
prize award, the
judges being Dorothy Canfield
Fisher and Fannie Hurst. That was
Oppenheimer
wife was too ill to read it.
Dorothy Canfield Fisher says of
“A searchingly realistic
portrait of an idealist. What an
idealist does to the world and what
the world does to an idealist is here
set down with power and sincer-
ity.”
Winsome little Bisno is gone. One
wishes he could be carrying the
news down to the old Maxwell street
book stall, if it’s still there.
© Consolidated News Features.
WNU Service.
Where Yale Is Buried
All round the Welsh village of
Bryn-Eglwys, writes H. V. Morton
in “In Search of Wales," lies prop-
erty which once belonged to the
Yale family, one of whom, Elihu,
did so much toward founding Yale
university. Elihu lies buried, how-
ever, not in the Yale chapel at-
tached to the church of Bryn-
Eglwys, but at Wrexham, 10 miles
away, *
Afghan That's Smart
You will love to have this choice
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Pattern 5941.
ors, the other in another with
background always the same. In
pattern 5941 you will find direc-
tions for making the afghan and
a pillow; an illustration of it and
quirements, and color suggestions,
To obtain this pattern, send 15
cents in stamps or coins (coins
preferred) to The Sewing Circle,
Household Arts Dept, 2580 W.
Fourteenth St., New York, N. Y.
Please write your name, ad-
dress and pattern number plainly.
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Washington,
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Delay is the greatest remedy
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Millions have found in Calotabs
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wo tablets the first night and re-
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How do Calotabs help nature
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In the Great
What the superior man seeks is
} the small man
in himself; what
seeks is in others. —Confucius,
A Panacea
Work is the grand cure of all the
and miseries that ever
| beset mankind.—Carlyle.
maiaqies
Affliction Grows Character
Affliction is the wholesome soil
of virtues, where patience, hon-
| or, sweet humanity, calm, forti
tude, take root and strongly flou
rish.—Mallet.
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hy 4