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By David Dayton McKean
The committee naturally was curious about the sources
of all this cash money, but Mayor Hague `declined to an
swer.' The committee then brought him before the whole
legislature, where he still declined to answer. He said that
the questions were personal and beyond the right of legislative inquiry;
he was arrested for contempt, but he immediately
applied to Vice-Chancellor John J. Fallon, former Hudson
County assemblyman and county counsel, who granted a
writ of habeas corpus on the ground that the legislature was
usurping a judicial function in asking questions that were designed
to show a criminal conspiracy. The state appealed to
the Court of Errors and Appeals, which, by dividing evenly
six to six, upheld the vice-chancellor. (In re Hague, 9 N.J. Misc. W); 123 -.J. Eq. 475; 143 Atlan. 836.) Mayor Hague said in
a public statement: `I am very much pleased and satisfied
with the decision. It is exactly what I expected.'
The decision cut the ground from under the Case Committee;
they were never able to explain the Mayor's great
affluence. But before the decision was handed down they
had discovered that the public funds in Jersey City had been
used in many curious ways. For example:
The president of the Stillman, Delehanty, Ferris Company
was John J. Ferris, President of the Board of Education of
Jersey City, having been appointed a member of the board by
Mayor Frank Hague; and William R. Delehanty was the
treasurer. Mr. Ferris died while the work was in progress.
There was submitted in evidence three pocket diaries which
had been kept by John J. Ferris, and a memorandum writing
in lead pencil of which the following is a copy:
Elbridge W. Stein, a handwriting expert, testified that the
writer of the diaries was the writer of the memorandum, from
which the Committee concluded that John J. Ferris was the
writer of the memorandum.... Frank Hague was examined as
to his connection with the transaction, his name appearing on
the Ferris memorandum. He showed that after the introduction
of the Ferris memorandum he sent to Mr. Stein for his
expert opinion a letter bearing a forged signature, John J. Ferrigno,
and a part of an authentic signature made by John J.
Ferris, to wit, `John J. Ferri.' Mr. Stein was asked whether,
in his opinion, the writer of the forged signature `John J.
Ferrigno' also was the writer of the standard `John J. Ferri.'
Mr. Stein gave it as his opinion that the same person wrote
both signatures, in which he was mistaken if Mr. Hague's
statement of the fact is correct. Mr. Hague asserted that the
memorandum was the fabrication of the former chairman of
this committee [Clarence E. Case] and its counsel, and denounced
them as frauds. (Report, Senate Journal (1929), pp. 1138-1140.)
This Web version, edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
The Mayor was always very proud of his ingenuity in thus
confounding the handwriting expert, and in the municipal
campaign of 1929 he used the story to show how he had 'exposed'
the Case Committee as a partisan fraud. The committee, however, sought to establish the authenticity of the
memorandum collaterally:
The Journal Square improvement in Jersey City was made
at a total cost of $3,162,021.42; the construction work cost
$1,643,574.87, of which Stillman, Delehanty, Ferris, and Company,
the principal contractor, received $1,409,392.76.
Hague and Freeholders 200,000
O'Marra 10,000
Mitchell 50,000
Cohen
Changed by H. and Cohen
3/13/24 to 15,000 from 25,000 25,000
Radigan 5,000
Total 290,000
Counsel for the Committee informed the Committee that the memorandum had been given to him by William R. Delehanty,
former treasurer of the Stillman, Delehanty, Ferris
Company, whose business address is 1819 Broadway, New
York City.1
The committee was unable to procure the attendance before
it of the officers of the company, who carefully remained
in New York. (Report, Senate Journal (1929))
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