User:JimMillerJr/Sandbox/Frank Hague rewrite

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Frank Hague
JimMillerJr/Sandbox/Frank Hague rewrite
In office
May 15, 1917 – June 17, 1947
Preceded by Mark M. Fagan
Succeeded by Frank H. Eggers
Born January 17, 1876(1876-01-17)
Jersey City, New Jersey, United States
Died January 1, 1956 (aged 79)
New York City, New York, United States
Political party Democratic
Spouse Jennie W. Warner
Children Frank Hague, Jr.
Residence Jersey City, New Jersey
Religion Roman Catholic

Frank Hague (January 17, 1876 – January 1, 1956) was an American Democratic Party politician who served as the mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey from 1917 to 1947, Democratic National Committeeman from New Jersey from 1922 until 1949, and Vice-Chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1924 until 1949.


Contents

[edit] Early Life

Frank Hague was born the second of eight children to John D. and Margaret (Fagen) Hague, immigrants from County Cavan, Ireland. He was raised in Jersey City's Second ward, an area known as The Horseshoe due to its shape which wrapped around a railroad loop.[1] The ward was created when the Republican-controlled legislature gerrymandered a district within Jersey City in 1871 to concentrate and isolate Democratic, and mostly Catholic, votes.[2]

By age 14, Hague was expelled from school prior to completing the sixth grade for poor attendance and unacceptable behavior.[3] He worked briefly as a blacksmith's apprentice for the Erie Railroad. While training at a local gym for his own potential debut as a prizefighter, he arranged to become manager for Joe Craig, a professional lightweight boxer. Craig was successful enough to allow Hague to buy a few suits that made him appear successful.[4] In 1896, Hague's apparent prosperity gained him the attention of local tavern owner "Nat" Kenny who was seeking a candidate for constable in the upcoming primary to run against the candidate of a rival tavern owner.[5] Kenny provided Hague with $80 to "spread around", and Frank Hague quickly won his first election by a ratio of three-to-one.[6]

[edit] Political career

[edit] Ward Leader

Hague's victory in the Constable election brought him to the attention of Hudson County Democratic political boss Bob Davis, and Davis asked Hague to help get out Democratic votes for the upcoming 1897 Mayoral election. [7] Hague's efforts were credited with generating large voter turnout in the Second Ward for the 1897 and 1899 elections. As a reward for his work, Hague was appointed as a Deputy Sheriff at a salary of $25 per week. [8] Over this time, Hague took over leadership of the Second Ward Democratic club. [9]

In the 1901 Mayoral election, Republican Mark M. Fagan was elected. Hague's second ward was one of only two that voted Democratic. Hague survived a Republican challenge for a third term as Constable the following year.[10]


[edit] The "Red Dugan" Affair

As ward leader, Hague was approached by a woman to provide assistance for her son, who had been arrested for passing a forged check. The son, Reg Dugan, had been a classmate of Hague's in school. According to the Boston Evening Transcript of October 4, 1904, Dugan had deposited a forged check for $955 in the Peoples Bank of Roxbury, Massachusetts, and convinced the bank manager to let him withdraw $500. Hague ignored a subpeona to testify in Hudson County Court and traveled to Massachusetts to provide an alibi for Dugan. Hague and another deputy sheriff, Thomas "Skidder" Madigan, claimed that they had seen Dugan in Jersey City on the day of the alleged offense. Both were threatened with perjury charges.[11]

Upon returning to Jersey City, Hague was found guilty of contempt of court for ignoring the subpeona. He was fined $100 and stripped of his duties as Deputy Sheriff.[12]


[edit] "The Organiztion"

[edit] Friend and Foe to Labor

Though Hague was accommodating to labor unions during the first half of his mayoral career -- Jersey City police were known for turning back strikebreakers, something unheard of during the period -- he became a savage opponent of organizers in the 1930s. The turnaround came about during a dispute with labor boss and former supporter Theodore "Teddy" Brandle, whose attempts to organize the work crews on the Pulaski Skyway construction project (1930-32) touched off a labor war so intense that local newspapers called it "the war of the meadows."[13]

The rise of the CIO in the mid-1930s represented a threat to Hague's policy of guaranteeing labor peace to the sweatshop type industries that might otherwise have fled Jersey City's high property taxes. When Socialist presidential candidate Norman Thomas came to speak on behalf of the CIO during a May Day rally in Journal Square, Hague's police swept Thomas and his wife into a car, took them to the Pavonia ferry and sent them back to New York. Hague spent much of the decade inveighing against Communists and labor unions, and his attempts to suppress the CIO's activities in Jersey City led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision, Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization 307 U.S. 496 (1939), that is a cornerstone of law concerning public expression of political views on public property.

[edit] Death

Hague died on New Year's Day in 1956 at his Park Avenue penthouse in New York[14], and was buried in Holy Name Cemetery in Jersey City.[15]

[edit] Quotes

"We hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear those words I say to myself, 'That man is a Red, that man is a Communist.' You never heard a real American talk in that manner." - speech to the Jersey City Chamber of Commerce, January 12, 1938[16]

"I am the law!" - speech on city government to the Emory Methodist Episcopal Church in Jersey City, November 10, 1937[17], [18], [19]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ “When the Big Boy Goes...”, TIME, 1956-01-16 
  2. ^ (Smith 1982, pp. 25-26)
  3. ^ Van Devander, Charles W. (1974). The Big Bosses. New York, NY: Arno Press, 92. ISBN 9780405059032. 
  4. ^ (Smith 1982, p. 34)
  5. ^ (Smith 1982, pp. 34-35)
  6. ^ (Smith 1982, p. 35)
  7. ^ (Smith 1982, p. 35)
  8. ^ (Smith 1982, p. 36)
  9. ^ (Smith 1982, p. 36)
  10. ^ (Smith 1982, p. 36)
  11. ^ (Smith 1982, p. 38)
  12. ^ (Smith 1982, p. 38)
  13. ^ Hart, Steven (2007). The Last Three Miles. New York, NY: New Press. ISBN 9781595580986. 
  14. ^ “Frank Hague Is Dead Here at 79; Long Boss of Jersey Democrats; Jersey City Mayor 32 Years Had National Influence”, The New York Times: 1, 1956-01-02 
  15. ^ Holy Name Cemetery, The Political Graveyard. Accessed August 15, 2007.
  16. ^ Andrews, Robert (1996), The Columbia World of Quotations, New York: Columbia University Press, ISBN 0231105185 
  17. ^ Coogan, Tim (2002), Wherever Green Is Worn, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 1403960143 
  18. ^ “'I Am the Law,' Mayor Hague Tells 1,000 In Speech on Jersey City Government”, The New York Times: 1, 1937-11-11 
  19. ^ Alexander, Jack (1940-10-26), “King Hanky-Panky of Jersey City”, The Saturday Evening Post: 122 

[edit] References

  • Hart, Steven (2007). The Last Three Miles. New York, NY: New Press. ISBN 9781595580986. 
  • Leinwand, Gerald (2004). Mackerels in the Moonlight: Four Corrupt American Mayors. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. ISBN 9780786418459. 
  • McKean, Dayton David (1967). The Boss: the Hague Machine in Action. New York, NY: Russell&Russell Pub. ISBN 9780846208211. 
  • Salmore, Barbara G.; Stephen A. Salmore (1998). New Jersey Politics and Government: Suburban Politics Comes of Age. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 38-46. ISBN 0-8032-9256-2. 
  • Smith, Thomas F.X. (1982), The Powerticians, Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stuart, ISBN 0-8184-0328-4 

[edit] Author notes and tools

http://www.njcu.edu/programs/jchistory/Pages/H_Pages/Hague_Frank.htm

http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/readability1.3beta.py?page=Frank_Hague&lang=&family=wikipedia