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By David Dayton McKean
Had the association been well established, however, different
means would have been necessary for dealing with it.
The usual practice, with a group that may make trouble and
that cannot well be broken up, is to use a method that may be
called infiltration: loyal organization men become members
and soon elect the officers. The association then cannot do
anything to embarrass the city regime. The recent history
of the Hudson County Bar Association is a good example.
For many years there has been criticism of the administration
of justice in Hudson County. It has been pointed out in
the newspapers that the same names appear over and over on
jury lists; a police officer went over the lists of recent years
with the author and was able to identify in every one a majority
composed of minor politicians, relatives of important
politicians, or contractors dealing with the city. He asserted
that for fifteen years not a petit or grand jury has been drawn
that has not had on it enough dependable jurors so that the
organization could prevent if not dictate a verdict.
As recently as January 18, 1940, former Judge August
Ziegener urged the Hudson County Bar Association to investigate
the juries of the county: `Someone is putting something
over on all of us. I hope we can "get" some of the
crooked manipulators and the crooked juries at the courthouse. (Jersey Observer, January 19, 1940.)
Nothing was done, and nothing will likely be done,
though an active and militant bar association can do a great
deal to censor the bench and bar. The reason may be deduced from the story of the election of officers in 1937.
The nominating committee submitted a slate with James A.
Tumulty as candidate for vice-president. Under the traditions of the association, he would have become president the
following year; but Tumulty, although one of the most distinguished members of the local bar, was opposed to the
Hague regime and its methods. Edward O'Mara, then employed
in the office of the city counsel, was put up as the organization
candidate. He was in Wildwood, Cape May
County, at the time, investigating a corrupt election for state
senator in which Mayor Hague was deeply interested, because
the control of the state senate was at stake. O'Mara
had never taken any particular interest in the work of the
bar association, and his dues were in arrears at the time of his
nomination. Tumulty and his friends were aroused by the
nomination of O'Mara, and a bitter contest followed. Word
went out from City Hall that all lawyers on the public payrolls
and all who hoped for favors must go to the meeting and
vote for O'Mara. The campaign produced the biggest meeting
in the history of the county bar association; lawyers who
had not paid dues in years appeared and settled up. O'Mara
was overwhelmingly elected. The following year Tumulty
was again nominated and again defeated. There appears to
be no likelihood that the Hudson County Bar Association will
demand any investigation into the judicial processes of their
locality.
This story might be repeated with appropriate variations
for the medical society, the chamber of commerce, the teachers'
association, and even for lodges and clubs. Spectacular
election disputes are usually avoided; the organization men
move in quietly and take over. The chamber of commerce is
only half alive; it has nothing to say about important matters, such as taxes; but if the Mayor needs some business
front for some activity, such as the opposition to the C.I.O.,
it furnishes him with plenty of statements by business men.
With the board of education appointed by the Mayor, the
teachers' association never gets interested in civic virtue.
The officers of the veterans' groups, as was shown at the
C.I.O. trial, are almost all public employees or relatives of
public employees, so that the veterans could be counted upon
to produce as needed resolutions praising the Mayor or
damning the C.I.O. and the Reds. One of the most vociferous
of the veterans was Colonel Hugh Kelly, the private secretary
to Governor A. Harry Moore. Mayor Hague testified
in the C.I.O. case about the veterans' organizations, and how
they moved at his command:
Q. Unquestionably.
Q. You have no difficulty in marshaling veterans when you
want them for your parades, do you?
Q. Do you think you could have prevailed upon the veterans
to have been a little less aggressive if you had asked them to?
This Web version, edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
With the Mayor not being desirous of asking the veterans
to be law-abiding, the Veterans' Committee for Law and
Order published in the Jersey City newspapers early in May,
1938, full-page advertisements calling upon all World War
veterans to assemble in Journal Square to prevent Congressmen
O'Connell and Bernard from speaking, `to show the imported
gathering of long-haired reds from New York and
elsewhere out of this state that their presence will not be
tolerated in New Jersey.' And one of the officers of the
Catholic World War Veterans told a meeting of eight
hundred men to come armed each with two feet of rubber
hose.
A. They work fast over there [in Jersey City].
A. No, I don't.
A. Well, I wasn't desirous of asking them that. (Transcript, p. 1059.)
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