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By J. Owen Grundy
Governor Charles Edison, served from 1941 to 1943, his story is told in a recent biography and does not need to be recounted in detail here. Suffice it to say that in three very brief years, he conducted an investigation of the Hudson Superintendent of Elections and several other important public offices, which cleared the field for better men to be appointed in the following administration.
When Edison's term was over, the Republicans, sensing the beginning of Hague's decline, and having been out of power for a long spell, decided to draft the wealthy, experienced, respectable elder statesman Walter Edge as their gubernatorial candidate. Successful efforts were made to clear the field for him to ensure an uncontested nomination. This was a new Edge. He had served in U.S. Senate, as Ambassador to France, and had built an international advertising agency, with offices in New York, Washington, and Paris. The old "arrangements" with Hague were now forgotten. The new Edge was intent upon closing his career in a blaze of glory. What better way, than by toppling the biggest Democrat boss in America?
Hague nominated Mayor Vincent J. Murphy, of Newark, state secretary-treasurer of A.F.L. But the combination of Hague's Hudson Machine and the Union Labor vote were insufficient to overcome the Edge dreadnought. It plowed through to a crashing victory.
Edge appointed his protégé Walter P. Van Riper as state attorney general. He took over the Hudson County prosecutor's office and immediately brought in outside investigators. Raids were staged upon Hudson bookmakers and numbers runners. No one knew where they would strike next. Hague officials were indicted by the "new" and "free" Hudson grand juries. There was a new reign of terror here, only this time the Hague machine was getting the heat.
It was soon discovered the Hague crowd could take it, as well as they had been in the habit of handing it out. Hague retaliated, by having his hand-picked U.S. Attorney bring in federal indictments of Van Riper -- one for alleged check kiting and one for alleged selling of gasoline in the black market, at a gas station of which he was part owner. Van Riper went to trial on both and won acquittals. Another federal charge of allegedly "evading" the Draft was lodged against Leo Rosenblum. But, it was dropped for lack of evidence.
Undeterred, Edge and Van Riper kept the "heat" on Hague. All the big state jobs, which Hague once had controlled, now went to Republicans. The State Civil Service System was freed from Hague domination. A movement began for a new state constitution and a new, free, and stream-lined court system.
The Edge administration meant three years of hard-going for Frank Hague. He was reeling from the constant onslaughts.
This Web version, edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
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