Gordon MacKay

GORDON MACKAY was born Massachusetts on August 27, 1877. He began working in journalism in Boston in 1895, and came to Philadelphia in 1909.

By 1911 he was employed by the Philadelphia Times, and his columns on baseball were already being circulated nationally. In early 1913 he was working as a sportswriter for the Cleveland Leader, and was already well known as a sports reporter. He returned to Philadelphia, and worked as sports editor for the Philadelphia Press, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Public Ledger, and lastly the Philadelphia Record. He also covered general news stories. By 1935 Gordon Mackay had come to work in Camden, as a featured columnist and reporter with the Camden Courier-Post.

He married to Inez Kane around 1913 at the age of 35. Gordon and Inez Kane Mackay were living with Inez’ mother and siblings at the time of the 1920 census, at 2229 North 13th Street in Philadelphia. Gordon Mackay was already working as a newspaper reporter in Philadelphia by this time. By 1925 he was working for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and was referred to in one of the Inquirer’s advertisements as “That king of baseball writers and recognized authority on boxing, wrestling, and other sports.”

In 1930 Gordon Mackay was sports editor of the Philadelphia Record. Gordon and Inez Mackay were living in April of that year at a home they had bought at 5850 Pendridge Street in Philadelphia, with their three children, Gordon J., Elizabeth, and Jane.

Gordon Mackay was one of 13 reporters who in 1931 made up a panel responsible for picking the American and National League All Star Teams, which in those days were post-season awards, as the mid-season All Star Game had not been instituted yet. In November of 1931, he wrote a column for Record which was reprinted in the Frankford Gazette of Northeast Philadelphia, concerning the demise of the Frankford Yellowjackets, an early NFL franchise.

As stated above, by 1935 Gordon Mackay was writing for the Camden Courier-Post. In Camden he wrote about more than sports. His column, which was published several times a week, was entitled Is Zat So? A wonderful writer with a great command of the English language, Mackay wrote on a variety of subjects, and seemed to be acquainted with virtually everyone in Camden and Philadelphia, great and small. A prolific worker, Gordon Mackay was still covering the news for the Courier along with writing his regular column.

Gordon Mackay passed away at the state hospital in Trenton New Jersey on February 16, 1941. He had been in hospital for 18 months. His health had declined after the death of his wife on December 31, 1938.

Down by the sad sea waves that billow their way to the sands of Wildwood, Tommy Loughran, the real Adonis of the padded mitts, is finishing his training for another ambitious fight for the nineteen-year-old lion of the hour in fistic Philadelphia.

On Thursday night Tomasco intends to wallop Gene Tunney, and of course, Gene expects to interpose considerable objection to any such intentions on the part of the South Philadelphia battler.

Loughran looks like the best bet that boxing devotees of this city have to wear a crown later in his young life. Nineteen years old, tall, and put together in fine symmetry and ample preparations, Tommy has a long ring career ahead of him if one of those tough birds do not make him a wreck and total loss long before his time.

Fighting Tunney cannot be called easy. Gene is a real fighter, first in the trenches of Flanders and next in the resined arenas of his homeland.

Rise to Fame Rapid

His rise to fame and fortune were rapid and his descent out of the chains speedy. Managed and chaperoned by a wily manager, who knew how to bring his lad to the eminence and peak in jigtime, Tunney has had a profitable career under the foxy and wise Doc Bagley, who has had a stable of fighters since the days when Hector was a pup.

He picked Tunney out of the fistic flotsam and jetsam that the war tossed upon the shores of fighting America, and Doc showed excellent judgment and a keen mind for getting the ducats as revealed in the splendid record which Tunney accumulated in the past few years.

Gene mounted the ladder of fame by leaps and bounds. So rapidly did he move his way upward that he was signed for a bout with Battling Levinsky, the Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde of the boxing circles.

As Barney Williams, this fighter did not accumulate much except muscles on his legs from running around the ring. But as Battling Levinsky, with Dan Morgan as his mentor, the Quaker City boxer made a goodly pile of grit and also acquired a title, somewhat shopworn and marked down, but a title, nevertheless.

Was Proud Possessor

It was called the light-heavyweight championship, whatever that may mean. But, whatever it was, Barney Battling held it. He was its more or less proud possessor on the evening he first made the intimate acquaintance of Eugene Tunney, Esq.

Gene poked Barney around something scandalous on that occasion and wound up by yanking that title right off Barney’s curly bean. Gene wore the bauble until the night he lured Harry Greb, the Pittsburgh Kangaroo and shimmy dancer, into the ring.

When these boys bade farewell to the spectators Harry wore the crown and Gene wore divers and sundry bruises, inflected with more or less severity by the victorious Stogieman.

Greb came over here and fought Loughran several weeks ago, and while in the opinion of this writer Greb was entitled to a shade, there were numerous spectators among those present who thought that the laurel and the garland should roost on the clammy brow of Thomas.

Fight Was Close

The fight was close and very even, but the knowledge and ring craft of Greb gave him the verdict, so far as the opinion of this humble disciple of the typewriter and papyrus was concerned.

Now Loughran takes on Tunney and the latter will prove to be no cinch. If Tommy has learned something from his bout with Greb he may eke through a winner, but Tunney is no mark for anybody.

Gene can box and is long and rangy. He has had more experience than the handsome Thomas. But the latter is always ready and willing and has supreme confidence in his own ability to put the bee to the visiting fireman.

Thomas Apollo is a fine drawing card at the gate, and it is possible that South Philadelphia will flit through the turnstile in a steady parade to watch its favorite and idol in action. The Phillies’ park, where the impresarios will conduct these fistic melees, is adequate to hold the crowd, and a good night’s programme should ensue.

The Loughran-Tunney bout is the headliner, but there are other numbers on the card that shape up tolerably well too. Earl France, dignified collegian, with an intelligent knowledge of how to handle a foe, is due to mingle responsive dukes with George K. O. Chaney, whose left hand is as poisonous as a viper’s caress.

A lightweight bout in which much will be at stake will bring together Pal Moran, of New Orleans, and Harry (Kid) Brown, of this city. Moran, who has fought Benny Leonard twice, aspires to be the next opponent of Lew Tendler.

Lightweights also will appear in the other two contests. Joe Tiplitz and Joe Benjamin have been matched for the second number while Kid Wagner, of this city, and Earl Baird, of New York, will fight in the opening contest.

* * *

Ten Best Bouts Fought By Loughran and Tunney

Tommy Loughran: Jimmy Darcy…13…W; Young Fisher…12…W; Mike McTigue…10…N.D.; Jackie Clark…8…N.D.; Fay Kaiser…8…N.D.; Bryan Downey…8…N.D.; Harry Greb…8…N.D.; Vinnie Lopez…5…K.O.; Frank Carbone…8…N.D.; Len Rawlins…6…N.D.

Gene Tunney: Battling Levinsky…15…W; Harry Greb…15…L; Charley Weinert…12…N.D.; Whitey Wenzel…8…K.O.; Sergeant Ray Smith…2…K.O.; Sergeant Ray Thompson…3…K.O.; Fay Kaiser…10…W; Jimmy Darcy…12…W; Jack Renault…10…W; Clay Turner…8…W

Speaking of champions, and who can mention the name of the Pottsville Maroons without speaking of champions. The Chicago Cardinals are trying to cloud the title to the kingship by framing up a pretty putrid sort of buncombe. But the Cardinals can frame their stuff. Joe Carr as president of the National Pro League can rant and rave and gesticulate and ban, the Westeners can rail and bluster, but where-ever the football fan reads the dope, Pottsville is the professional champion of football.

Pretty scurvy trick that worked, we’ll inform the universe. The Cardinals, in order to tie Pottsville and thus place themselves in alignment, for a battered crown, revived the disfranchised Milwaukee team and beat them. To form an eleven, to have a sufficient ensemble aboard the field, four Chicago high school boys, we are informed, were imported for the occasion. The names of the kids escape us for the minute, but we understand they have made a clean breast of the whole affair.

Pottsville has been the target for a lot of official acts since the Maroons came down here to play the Four Horsemen. They invaded territorial rights, but verbal permission was given to them, and it was the official who was to blame and not Pottsville.

But the strangest part of the whole matter is how the Chicagoans hoodwinked themselves. They had never seen the Maroons in action, as we understand, and thought Pottsville had some sort of hick team, comprised of boys who carried straws stuck in the corner of their mouths and who had to currycomb their hair every morning to get the hayseed out.

So the Cardinals merrily challenged the Pottsville boys to play a game in the Illinoisan metropolis. Doc Striegal, manager of the Maroons, wired and asked if it was for a title.

Thought It Was Easy

Covering their face with their hands to smother the broad smile that curved their manly lips, the Cards wired right back and said it was for the title surely. Certainly, certainly. Who were these hicks from a jerkwater burg named Pottsville who thought they could beat the great Cardinals of the greatest city of Illinois? Faugh! Perish the thought! Well the Maroons went out to Chicago and took the Cardinals just as the exalted General Grant took Richmond. Didn’t take the Maroons quite so long as it took U.S.G., but it amounted to the same thing.

So bitterly disappointed were the Chicagoans over the fact that they had tossed away their own title that the manager is said to have broken down and wept. Not figuratively speaking, but actual tears did the noble-hearted son of the wide open space shed. Then came this hodge podge known as the victory over Milwaukee and now the Cardinals feel they have a chance for the title. But we’re just the same as the Veteran Athletes. So far as we are concerned we sat at the banquet board of the champion football players in the world of the commercialed cowskin, and that goes for us to the end of the chapter.

Furthermore we want to say that whenever you speak of sports in the coal countree, you speak of SPORTS too. Pottsville handed the crown, the laurel, the bay and the garlands to their heroes, and did it niftily, ornately and meritoriously. But that isn’t all they handed to them. They got a brown traveling bag that made the writers mouth water. They got gold footballs, they got sweaters, they got jeweled emblems, they got a lot of presents, and everyone of those boys knew there was a Santa Claus before Pottsville got done showering them with gifts.

Merited His Praise

No wonder Herb Stein, the peerless center said to this writer, astonishment in every word, surprise in every tone.

“Did you ever see anything like it? I wouldn’t expect anything like this from a college, but to a professional team. By gee, it’s wonderful!” Wonderful was the very term.

Incidentally Pottsville is going out and do its football on a big scale next season. It wouldn’t be a bit surprising if a stadium with a capacity of 15,000 were built, and the Maroons given a throne in keeping with the dignity of their rulership. But stadium or no stadium, Missus Pottsville’s football family are all Maroons, and they are the champions of the world.

Laugh off that one, Chicago—

Expresses Regret At Passing of Great Gridiron Machine

Gordon Mackay, well known sports writer in “The Philadelphia Record” on Monday, had this to say of the Frankford Yellow Jackets —

“The current depression and internal troubles appear to have doomed professional football in Frankford. The mere fact that Shep Royle quit active connection with the eleven, that Louis Castor, one of the pioneers in founding the eleven, brought suit and that the players have decided to travel, bring vividly to mind that the Jackets seem to have reached the end of the trail. The principle reason for a dubious future lies in the idle looms of the district. Frankford is a textile center, and when looms are not humming and cotton and other staples not produced, the prosperity of the community is seriously endangered, and sport suffers along with other things.

No matter the future nothing can dim the prestige, power and advertising the Yellow Jackets brought to a thriving home and prosperous community. For years and years an intercommunity rivalry existed between Frankford and Holmesburg. Geography and sport conspired to create a natural enmity between the villages, an enmity that existed not only along the broad lines of sport, however.

The annual football duel between these rivals was one big autumn festivity in that section. Victory had adorned the banners of both until finally Frankford had an enormous idea, a great vision. Professional football was pushing its nose at this time and Royle, Castor, Howard Bowker and others of the invincibles determined on a plan so radical as to stamp Frankford as its originator.

The community would enter the National League of Professional Football. This idea might seem trite nowadays, but fifteen years or more ago, when Frankford broached the proposition, it was not only one of the most radical steps in sport, but one of the most dramatic attempts around here in many seasons.

Frankford Showed Great Civic Spirit

Skeptics abounded on every hand. New York, Chicago, cities of that size might support a professional football team. But Frankford? Bah! Here were Penn, Temple, Villanova, a host of colleges all drawing football support from the army who marched to the gridiron stands every week-end.

But the soul of the adventurer and the iron of the pioneer were in those young men of Frankford. They formed the Frankford A. A., subscribed for its stock, swept a big community idea right into the consciousness of the Northeast. It was the first time a community the size of Frankford dared brave the wrath of the gods and dared to launch a project of such size and moment.

The noble experiment in Frankford was watched with eager and intense eyes at home and abroad. Shep, Howard, Lou – all lads who made the Jackets a landmark in Frankford, all plunged ahead with lusty spirit and growing funds. Behind the team marched a solid phalanx of support, the community of Frankford.

The first season was weathered. These doughty lads masked their home address under no municipal costume. No sir, these lads who went here, there and everywhere to play, East and West, were the FRANKFORD YELLOW JACKETS. The name of the community wandered about the whole world, and parts of the nation where pro football teams dwelt became Frankford conscious.

It was the greatest advertising the community ever had. It did more good than 100 orators and was of more value than 200 ballyhoos. Frankford football spoke for itself and its community. Within a few years the experiment was stamped with success and doubt and trepidation no longer existed in Frankford on the El.

Once, perhaps twice, the championship was won and added laurels came to the players and added luster to the community. The Frankford idea spread into Green Bay, Wis., and Portsmouth, Ohio.

Crash Imminent, Dissolution Inevitable

It was always with a mind that could sense progress that these pioneers dealt with the question of football in Frankford. It was always with a point of view where money wasn’t the ultimate to be considered. In fact, these adventurers and experimenters never profited a cent personally from football – all the money was given to community projects, hospitals and other institutions of like nature and value and use.

So Frankford and its football became a fixture and folks paid less attention outside. Frankford’s place in pro football was firmly and definitely established. We hope our outlook is wrong, we hope that Frankford remains secure in its old place. But things look doubtful, and let us hope that such a community drama, a community adventure, shall not perish from the gridiron.”

FIFTY years rolled away in the twinkling of an eye the other day and once more we sat in the peanut gallery of the Old Howard listening to “Alexander” tell his trials and tribulations to “Henry Clay Jones.” You youngsters of 40 perhaps do not know those distinguished thespians, but ask dad, he knows.

He’ll tell you all about McIntyre and Heath. Jim McIntyre, now called to join the celestial choir, while Tom Heath, at 84, still lives in stage memories that can never fade, for him or those who witnessed the famous “Georgia Minstrels.”

McIntyre & Heath were as familiar to the average eye as ham and eggs, bread and milk, coffee and sugar for 60 years. Perhaps, no team in the history of Thespis ever existed so long together. Even now the eye dims a mite to think that the kids of today have no chance to see the lugubrious Alexander, taken away from “his good job in the livery stable,” to travel with a minstrel troupe that usually was stranded and never billed.

The reason that memory took a nose dive into the past was Joe Hamilton. Joe, now a veteran trouper himself, intends to give Camden a treat on December 10, when he’ll put on an old time minstrel show in the Labor Temple.

This veteran will gather about him the boys who were the stars of blackface years ago. While many will be missing in the flesh their ghosts will hover over the circle as end men crack their jokes, and the interlocutor puts the questions glibly and often to that immemorial “Mr. Bones,” without whom no minstrel show is complete and no production is a minstrel show.

Joe Hamilton Real Veteran

Joe Hamilton himself was one of the best of all minstrels, a trouper who still hankers for the banjo and the burnt cork. To prove that this venerable hoofer still can slap down those soft shoe as agilely as he did in days of yore, Joe may dance a bit after the interlocutor rails for the “opening number” 15 days before next Christmas.

The veteran minstrel was born in Kensington, or to be more specific, in Fishtown. That means perhaps little to the resident of Camden, but “Fishtown” has a physical identify that makes it still apart from Philadelphia, although it remains its Sixteenth ward.

Joe, like all other gamins of the district, won his first spurs as a thespian when he was the winner of an amateur night, given at one of the local theatres in his district. It was a few steps, and we mean steps literally and figuratively, for Joe was a dancer, in the parlance of the profession “a hoofer,” that took Joseph from the amateur ranks to those of professional entertainers.

As a minstrel and an actor he traveled all over the country, and believe it or not, Mr. Ripley, while Joe has reached that allotted span of threescore and ten, he can hum a mean number, warble a fine ballad or topical song, and throw a few steps that would make the average hoofer look like a contortionist.

For 38 years after that fateful amateur night, Joe was on the stage. He played with McIntyre and Heath, and one of his proudest memories is the offer that McIntyre made to Joe, asking him to take Heath’s part, when that veteran performer had become ill and wanted a rest. Joe was a pal of all the great song writers and songbirds of an era that alas, has passed away, to the sadness of the trouper and the utter woe of those who sat and heard them in the good old days.

Old Pals Have Passed Away

It fell to our lot to know personally many of the old minstrels and singers whose names were those of the friends of long ago to Joe. First was the late Hughie Dougherty, who was one of Frank Dumont’s minstrels, in the heyday of that minnesinger in the old Arch Street Theatre.

Hughie and myself were strong friends. We were together on a training trip with the Athletics to Atlanta in 1910, when Connie Mack was piloting the team that later in the year was to give the lean leader his first world champion baseball… Hibernian brogue under… the patois of the blackface comic is a secret which he alone knew and he never told me, anyway.

Then Joe and Jimmy Thornton were buddies. Jimmy, who wrote “When You Were Sweet Sixteen,” “My Sweetheart’s the Man in the Moon” and other song hits of another and to my mind, a more melodious day, was also a friend of yours truly.

One of the Christmas cards we especially treasure every Yuletide is from Jimmy, who now lives in Long Island. Jimmy, in the days when he and his grand wife, the late Bonnie Thornton, were headliners, liked to dwell where wassail prevailed. It was during those moods that good old Irish melody spurred him to write some of “the most singingest” songs that were “ever warbled by a barbershop quartet, or by strolling minstrels, standing by the old board fence in the light of the moon.”

Make no mistake about Joe Hamilton, either. A little troubled and beset by his old enemy rheumatism, he has days when he doesn’t feel so chipper, but usually he is a grizzled old veteran who wears well and defies Father Time to give him a bust in the nose.

Agile in mind and “trippety” on his feet yet, Joe wants to show the youngsters of today a real minstrel show. The thespian spirit and traditions of the stage have hit the Hamilton family in another direction, too.

One of Camden’s prettiest contributions to stage, screen and radio is Kay Hamilton, or otherwise Mrs. Peter Trado. Winsome and petite, Kay has delighted thousands upon thousands with her singing over the air, in musical comedy and talking pictures. If possible, she’ll be along to help Dad in his coming minstrel show, which will be the goods.

Is Zat So! by Gordon MacKay, Camden Courier-Post, January 20, 1938 — Camden, Sports — Andy McMahon

By GORDON MACKAY—

GENIUS blooms in many strange places in Camden. Take a walk to Second and Elm streets some idle moment and keep your eyes peeled for a huge boot that stands as a business sign. It is one of the few boots seen nowadays to advertise a shoemaker, cobbler, cordwainer, or any other plain and fancy name you dub men who make shoes.

When I was a kid and my own old man sat at a bench to hammer the brads into a half sole job, every shoemaker had such a boot stuck right out in front of his place of business. Time, neon lights and some of the other flashy agenda of commerce have put the old shoes in their place, so to see one good staunch old-timer who still has that boot standing out front is to race back to boyhood.

The gentleman who believes in signs is Tom Holman. He is 66, and has resided around Second and Elm streets for the past 45 years. Tom is as much a fixture and institution in that neighborhood as the Delaware River, and much more sociable to meet.

Dickens would have liked to greet Tom, or browse through his cobblery. He would have found it indeed an “Old Curiosity Shop,” filled with treasures such as only Tom Holman would collect in his years in Camden.

It was 52 years ago that a youngster born in London sailed for these shores on the “Lord Clive.” His uncle had settled in Camden, so Tom came here. He has remained ever since. Tommy had been apprenticed to a shoemaker and had passed to become a “shooie,” as they term the cobbler in Dear Ole Lunnon.

Youngster Had Passion for Sea

This youngster had a passion for the sea. Whether it was a kickback to some old ancestor, Tom doesn’t know, but his inordinate love for the sea exists even today. You’ll discover that, too, when you see his ship models, one a cutter, the other a schooner. They cover about one-half the space in this shoe repairing place at Second and Elm streets.

So excessive was the ardor that the young man felt for the bounding main and the life on the ocean wave, that when he was 18 he couldn’t repress the yearning. Then Tom did the obvious thing that all youths did in our day when they wanted to make a pilgrimage to Britain. He shipped on a cattle boat.

Such life wasn’t too onerous and it smacked of adventure. A little dirtier, perhaps, than dawdling about a studio, but packed with adventure, the smell of the sea and lowing of the kine. It wasn’t such tough work as described by some of the young men who became writers after shooting over the Atlantic Ocean in a cattle boat.

You watered the stock in the morning, gave the steers cracked wheat at noon, tossed them hay for supper. Tommy came back to Camden only to become possessed of another urge. This time he remained on dry land and became an addict to the bicycle.

Tom was a high class young pilgrim on those wheels which we youngsters called “safeties.” Tom’s first wheel had solid tires. He rode to the Delaware Water Gap in Pennsylvania and back one Sunday, 186 miles or better. When Tom returned he was so stiff in the joints and other spots that he could hardly walk, but he still was a firm and fast adherent to the bicycle.

Worked Five Years on Model

You’ll appreciate the classic lines and grand beauty of those ship models, which Tom races in Haddonfield and other suburbs where a body of water and a breeze brisk enough blows to sail his craft. The coop required four years to build, the schooner five years—tasks which could be performed only between slaps at the pegs for the half soles. The models are things of permanent beauty. To get one from Tom would require perhaps more suasion and spondulix than I can afford. I’ll tell the cock-eyed world. But the ship models are not the only things to be found in this “Old Curiosity Shop.”

On the floor will be found musical instruments, fearfully and wonderfully made. They’re called tubas, and should be played only by elephants. One of them is a delicate piece of brass that only weighs 35 pounds while its kid sister weighs around 23 pounds.

“I rarely play the bigger one,” Tom confided to me, “but use the littler one whenever I have to play in the band for the parades of Lu Lu Temple. You know, the Shriners of Philadelphia.”

Tom has a gallery galore of photographs of the Lu Lu Temple Band parading hither and yon. There is Tom, who doesn’t appear to outweigh the bigger tuba, umphing along like a drum major. A sheet of music rests beside the bigger tuba in the store. Holman admits the soft impeachment that he tootles the tuba when business becomes a mite slack.

He confessed one musical crime to me, which he said he wouldn’t mind seeing in print if the victim didn’t object. As the latter concurred in the idea, let it be stated that Tom committed the major felony of trying to teach Dan McConnell of the Courier Post staff to play the cornet.

“Dan was a nice young fellow,” said Tom. “He worked for me when he was only about 10. He wanted to play the cornet, so I taught him. There was a woman upstairs who complained about Dan’s music. Dan finally had to sneak away and practice in one of the freight cars that stood on the railroad siding here.

“I guess when you tell Dan how rotten he was as a cornetist, he’ll probably tell you about the time I built a nice boat to sail on the Delaware—everybody owned a boat to sail on the river in those days. When I built her out in the yard she was so big I couldn’t get her out. I had to use a derrick.”

“But you tell Dan that as a cornetist he’s a good shoe salesman and let it go at that.”

In the window as you reach the door stands a pair of big seaboots, an advertisement for shoe repairing.

A sailor came in here one day, said Holman, “and said to me: ‘I found this pair of boots 40 years ago in the hold of a German vessel. Take ’em and use ’em as a sign for your window. That was 15 years ago. They have remained there ever since.”

That’s Tom Holman, steadfast to the old customs.

By GORDON MACKAY

STOUT fellas like Connie Mack and Gerry Nugent would sum up the situation like this:

“Time to warm up a new pitcher and send that bird to the showers.”

Big Business needs to warm up some new pitchers to put the ball over the plate at the hearings before the various legislative committees of the Congress. None of those who have toed the rubber heretofore seems to have anything on the ball, and are trying to get by with a prayer rather than plenty of stuff.

Let’s look over the lads who stepped out of the bullpen to don the spangles for Big Business. The first was William Knudsen, head of General Motors. In his line Knudsen is one of the big boys of the motor world, and knows his stuff about making whizcars from the sprocket to the windshield.

He told and told truly that General Motors wasn’t employing so many men because the demand for new cars slackened, and there was no use in building cars when nobody would buy them; That is so axiomatic that it shouldn’t be taken as a pearl of great price or revealing any tremendous wisdom.

Mr. Knudsen also found that policies of the administration had created a reign of “fear.” So he replied to a question to that effect pumped at him by Senator Lodge, the youthful son of Massachusetts. When Knudsen declared that the administration inculcated fear by its acts, Senator Byrnes asked the motor magnate what corrective remedy he would apply to allay fear and to repel the recession.

That was the poser. Summed up in a nutshell Knudsen didn’t have any answer. All he knew was that what Roosevelt did was wrong.

Why Salaries So Large Eh Wot?

Personally I would propound a question to General Motors’ Knudsen and all the other Knudsens. Trade in automobiles went to pot during 1937, especially during the latter part of the year. Workers were thrown into idleness, wages were reduced because hours of labor were curtailed. At the same time the salaries of the executives headed by Alfred P. Sloan with more than $500,000 amounted to more than three million dollars.

Supposedly these executives received those tremendous salaries because of their value to the corporation. The thing that sticks in my craw is how to evaluate an executive’s salary. He gets $500,000 when business is good, he gets just as much salary when business hits the skids.

The worker doesn’t continue to work 40 hours a week when no automobiles are sold. Then why should Mr. Sloan, et al, receive the same salary during bad times as in flourishing times?

You would be informed if you asked that question that Sloan and his associates are worth every nickel they get because of the business they bring to General Motors. All right. But are they worth as much salary when business is rotten and they apparently have fallen down on the job like a ton of bricks?

You don’t pay workers full time when they haven’t the work at hand. You don’t pay a worker who falls down on the job and lets business go to blazes as much salary as you do when business booms and the goose hangs high.

If Sloan and his associates are worth $500,000 in boom times because they make business for the corporation, they most certainly should take a big cut when they let trade go to pot and bring rotten days to General Motors. Bad logic, poor reasoning to say that. Sloan is worth as much money when he lets business become poor, as he is when business booms. No can do! Doesn’t sound right.

Du Pont Also Works “In Fog”

Big Business sent Lammot du Pont to the mound with instructions to shoot them down the middle and not to work the corners of the plate. Mr. du Pont said the businessman was in a “fog of uncertainty” because he did not know what the Administration was doing. Perhaps there have been a groundwork for that belief.

Morgenthau wants the budget balanced, Ickes and Hopkins want WPA and relief supplied with more money. Eccles argues for spending, expenditures. In that respect the administration not only has Mr. du Pont guessing but persons devoted to the New Deal as well.

Taking the du Pont word for the fact that he was in “a fog of uncertainty” over the Administration’s policies, du Pont also proved that he was in something of a mist himself over several other matters.

He attacked the Wagner Labor Law as “uncertain” regarding the dealings between employer and employee, then followed this by saying that du Pont had no labor troubles because the corporation “followed the law.” On one hand du Pont didn’t know what the law meant, on the other he knew it so well that by strict obedience to its provisions du Pont warded off any possibility of labor troubles.

Du Pont also stated that he held the policies of the New Deal in great fear, yet under Roosevelt the du Pont dividends became richer and more lush than ever before. The “fog of uncertainty” had not blotted dividends out of existence, in fact it seemed to have bolstered them.

Despite this “fog of uncertainty” du Pont said that his corporation planned to spend $35,000,000 in plant expansion in 1938, which didn’t make sense to the committee in view of the fact that all corporate spending had been supposed to have been suspended until the magnates were able to see “through the fog of uncertainty.”

Big Business’ last nominee for the slab was a rookie named Jimmy Cromwell. His mother is the wife of E. T. Stotesbury, partner in the House of Morgan. Jimmy’s wife is the former Doris Duke, one of the richest women in the United States.

Jimmy went to Washington to ask the repeal of estate taxes, to free the poor toiler by sticking a sales tax on everything he bought. Jimmy proved he had plenty of courage if his common sense might have been open to argument.

Cromwell’s big moment was when he declared that his wife had 50 millions in tax exempt securities. In other words the poor sucker named John Q. Public had to pay taxes that protected this Duke wealth that didn’t yield a nickel to Uncle Sam.

If the Doris Duke Cromwell bonds were stolen it would be the sucker money provided by the plumber, the shoemaker, the printer and other forms of civic life that would pay the police to recover the bonds.

If the Duke heiress should be “snatched,” it would be the money of the newsdealer, the reporter, the automobile mechanic that would pay the police that would save Doris Duke Cromwell.

For sheer unadulterated brass you have to hand it to Jimmy. With the Duke-Cromwell domicile paying not one cent for protection out of this tremendous wealth, Jimmy had the gall to ask the plumber, the newsdealer and the other protectors of his wealth and his wife’s wealth to pay two cents sales tax on a pound of steak, to run the government.

Warm up another pitcher, pronto.

By GORDON MACKAY

PENNSAUKEN and politics are allied and tied together like ham and eggs. The boys and the girls, too, play the game in that township eight days in every week. You find more cliques, coteries and cabals in Pennsauken than might be expected in a place thrice its size. Every time you step on a man’s toe in that place, you’ve trod on the bunion of a political leader, or at least a person who believes himself a political leader.

The Democratic leader, at least on the nights that the Pennsauken Democratic Club meets, is Charlie Rudd. Charlie is a tall, good-looking barrister, with a yen toward peace and a hankering for victory. In appearance Mr. Rudd is both natty and personable. In brains Mr. Rudd, while no Jim Farley, speaking politically, knows his way around.

One of the principal assets I find in Brother Rudd is his absolute refusal to take himself so seriously that he has to order his hats direct from the manufacturer.

Marmota Monax Nothing but a Ham Prophet Anyhow, Camden Expert Declares

We’ll Get Weather of Some Variety

By GORDON MACKAY

Let Marmota Monax do his best or worst today, it’s all the same to Samuel T. Corliss, Camden’s weather expert and a man who declares the groundhog is a ham prophet anyway you take him.

“Groundhog? Hunh!” declared the venerable gentleman who measures the wind often to find if Summer has gone with the wind, or Winter either. “What difference does it make whether the groundhog pops out to see his shadow, or to take a squint at the world in general? He doesn’t mean anything.

“I see where a University of Pennsylvania professor says the groundhog probably comes out of his hole to grab some garlic. Well that sounds reasonable to me. It’s about the only thing that would bring a groundhog out.”

By GORDON MACKAY

SQUIRE BENJAMIN FOGELMAN relishes a title that has made him both fortune and fame in the past decade; For the squire is that large and vocal gentleman known as “Benny the Bum,” who has one of the night spots in Philadelphia.

Mr. Fogelman has been a choice acquaintance and friend of mine for many years, and there is much about Benjamin, the Vagrant, to interest one and also to weld him to friendship with Bee, the Bee.

Our original tete-a-tetes with Benjamin, the Nomad, date back to the days when Mr. Fogelman was casting sheep’s eyes at repeal and wondering when legitimate liquor would smooth his pathway into the night life of the Quaker City…

Mr. Fogelman’s business, as we noted, was largely comprised of losing bets on prize fights. Benjamin, the Hobo, at the time we speak would willingly bet on anything and everything. And, there were those who accommodated Benjamin, the Wanderer by betting him to a standstill, and also seeing that he did not win by taking care of the jury before the fight started.

It was during a run of ill luck that Benny, the Traveler, came to me, not with tears in his eyes, but with wistfulness in his face and anguish in his tones. Somehow or other, Benjamin seemed to believe that sports writers possessed occult information denied to other denizens of this mundane sphere. So he beseeched us to yank him out of the depression in which he found himself by always betting on the wrong gee.

Two Knockouts on Single Card

It so happened that when Benjamin, the Bee, appealed to us there was a fight program arranged for the following Monday night at the Arena. On the card were two gentlemen, one named George Courtney and another whose name escapes me for the nonce. Both could box, both could hit.

Courtney and the other disciple of the manly art were in separate melees. Thus, as Mr. Fogelman, still suffering from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, appealed to the writer for a good thing…

12,000 Members in County Learn Meaning of Real Charity Through Aid to Sick and Needy School Classmates

By GORDON MACKAY

Bright-faced boys and girls of the Collingswood schools, representative of the 12,000 members the junior council of the Red Cross has in Camden County, astonished their elders last night by the nature and scope of their humanitarian work.

These revelations were made at the meeting of the Camden County Chapter of the Red Cross, with Dr. Leon N. Neulen, superintendent of Camden city schools, presiding. So remarkably humane did these boys and children reveal themselves that they shared honors with Fireman Harry Cooling, of the Collingswood fire department, who was an unsung hero until last night, too.

Henry D. Rooney, familiarly known in Red Cross circles as “Pop” and the man in charge of the first aid efforts of the organization, disclosed the hero role that Cooling played some months ago.

“Cooling was a student at the first aid school we were maintaining at Collingswood,” said Rooney, “and he was in class one night studying when a call came to him. The police department had found a woman overcome by gas.”

Errand of Mercy

“The Policeman who found the victim knew the fire department was at first aid school that night. So he telephoned to the firemen for assistance and Harry Cooling responded. He revived the woman and then summoned a doctor.

“The physician sent for an ambulance to take the victim to the hospital. The doctor said to Harry: ‘You’re going with us.’ That woman became unconscious twice when on the way to the hospital and each time Harry revived her. She is alive and well today.”

William Stevenson, who is chairman of the junior council in Collingswood and a senior in the high school, opened the program for his associates. He disclosed that every student in the high schools and every pupil in the elementary grades is a member of the junior council. They are organized to take care of needy pupils, and the anonymous manner in which such humanitarian work is performed was explained at length by the young spokesman.

$967 Spent In Aid

Miss Dorothy Thorne gave an insight into the activities of the juniors, measured in dollars and cents. She told of the collection of $1001 from the Collingswood school children during the past year, of which $967.34 was spent to aid youngsters, needy, sick or ailing.

The manner in which these young people spent the money was an insight into the expansive work they do. One needy pupil was given a vital X-ray examination for which the juniors paid $15. Another bill of $10 which was paid, provided medicine in hospitals for students whose own pocketbooks couldn’t supply the money. Milk for babies, meat for the hungry, clothing for the needy—all these activities were set forth in a chapter that evoked praise from Dr. Neulen, the chairman.

The Christmas work of the high and grade school youngsters, too, formed an illuminating chapter. Miss Jessie Watt of the high school, recited how the schools have been supplying these baskets for five years.

152 Baskets Sent Out

“No family is identified by name,” she said, “but each is known by a number which is placed on the basket and the address of the person to whom the basket is to be delivered is appended.

“In 1937 at Christmas we sent out 152 baskets.”

“These baskets,” added Miss Watt, “if totaled in money, would have amounted to possibly $1500, all of the baskets being supplied by the school children alone.”

Douglas Reese of the high school senior class, who helped to deliver the baskets, told of the joy of the recipients, and how he and his fellows learned how the other half lived.

“It was an experience we will never forget,” he declared.

Richard Miller, a chubby youngster who attends Garfield school, recited the international amity which is promoted by Collingswood grade schools and foreign school children.

“We send cartons from our school, and the other schools to foreign countries, filled with toys and playthings, dolls and everything that a child would ask at Christmas, but no war toys,” he said. “And no soap,” he declared fervently, while his elder auditors roared, “because we don’t want to insult them by making them think we think they need soap.”

Betty Jane Vogel, also of the Garfield school, told of the instruction which the pupils receive, while Phyllis Greene, of the junior high school, narrated how each of the 300 girls in the school supplied a garment she had made to be given a needy girl last Christmas.

Dorothy Paul, of Oaklyn, who attends Collingswood High school, revealed the international friendship and amity that Collingswood youngsters are promoting by an exchange of letters and gifts. She exhibited a tremendous portfolio which had been sent by Collingswood High to a high school in Czechoslovakia. The aliens to reciprocate, sent back a portfolio showing the process of steel-making in the great plants at Skoda.

Miss Paul also explained that these exchanges were made with high schools as far afield as South Africa, with those in Italy and other European countries.

Helen Barton, also a student at the junior high, was the 1937 delegate to the national conference of the junior council held in Washington. She recited how the juniors had contributed between $15,000 and $18,000 during the last year to be expended in helping communities to supply libraries and playgrounds to the boys and girls of those places.

Miss Barton also recited a story regarding an accident which had occurred to two children in Delaware, who afterwards became wards of junior council.

“They had been in an accident,” she related, “and it was necessary to resort to plastic surgery in order to keep their faces from being scarred for life. The junior council sent them to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where the operations were performed and new faces literally given to the children.”

Reports were received from various committees at the session held before the juniors took charge. Representatives told how the various communities are fighting the depression by having the various Red Cross units make sweaters, jackets and other articles of clothing to supply the needy who lack these essentials.

The county chapter, too, reported $6000 sent to Washington national headquarters as payment for the membership which had been recruited during the past year. Miss Viola E. Williams, executive secretary, reported the chapter would embrace 12,500 members shortly, the greatest known to the organization since wartime.

Mrs. M. E. Linden was presented with a pin for having recruited the largest number of new members for the Collingswood unit.

By GORDON MACKAY

CHEMIST by profession and rated as South Jersey’s foremost expert on toxicology in court trials, A. C. Herting of Haddon Heights, holds many interesting experiences during his career. The Hertings were chemists as a matter of heritage. “A. C.,” the Haddon Heights chemist is known, was educated at the College of Pharmacy, Temple University, and the University of Leipzig, Germany.

His father was one of the leading chemists of Philadelphia, employed by several corporations as their expert. “A. C.” followed in the sire’s steps. Chemistry is a science as interesting as it is valuable. To appear as a witness in murder trials is sufficient repute to fix a man’s status.

Herting has been a government witness in several murder cases, two of which stand out in his memory because of the bizarre and novel features connected with the crimes and the trial of the defendants. One of these was the murder of an organist some years ago in one of the Amboys.

“This girl was beautiful,” Herting told the writer, “she was the organist in one of the leading churches of the city. She married a young man who had been her swain since childhood. He left her the day following the wedding, and not a word ever came from either bride or bridegroom as to the reasons for this apparent desertion.

“One night she was heard playing the organ in the church, an edifice which was a short distance from her home. In fact the girl could walk the distance in five minutes. Her duties as organist ended at 9 p.m., so her father waited for his daughter’s arrival.”

Girl Slain in Drunken Frenzy

“The father became uneasy when five minutes after the hour had gone. When 10 minutes tied, and his daughter did not appear, the father started to search for her. It was snowing. When he got outside, the father discovered something that looked like a bundle lying on the ground. It was his ravished child.

“Suspects were arrested and their clothing turned over to me. I found blood spots on several of these garments belonging to different suspects. Finally I nailed a Negro as the murderer because the bloodspots on his coat corresponded to the blood of the girl who was slain.”

“In another murder case that was tried in Salem County,” continued Herting, “it was necessary to present tests that were the result of experiments on guinea pigs. In fact I earned the nickname ‘The Guinea Pig Chemist.’

“The layout was this: boarding in Pennsgrove was a dope peddler and a young fellow who worked at duPont’s. There were a number of other young men boarding there, who were employed in the duPont plant, too. The bunch formed a clique, played pool together, went to shows together, were an informal club.

“One night Haslett—he was the chap who died—was invited by the other fellows to play pool. ‘No,’ Haslett said, ‘I’ve got a bad headache and think I’ll pass tonight.’ ‘Oh,’ the drug peddler told him, ‘I’ll give you something that will cure that headache right away.’”

“The narcotic dealer went to his own room, came back with a powder. Haslett swallowed it.

The party started for the pool game. Haslett had just about reached the sidewalk, when he collapsed. He was hurried to the hospital, but did not regain consciousness before he died.

“The police were told about the headache powders. Here occurred the first untoward incident regarding that case. The coroner and coroner’s physician differed politically.”

Compelled to Make Autopsy on Victim

“As a result of this political antagonism,” narrated Herting, “neither of them was willing to perform the autopsy. So I performed it. I discovered morphine in the stomach of the victim. As an outcome of the autopsy, policemen searched the drug peddler’s room, to discover many decks of heroin there.

“He was arrested, and indicted for second degree murder in giving Haslett an overdose of heroin. I had a problem there. Morphine found in the victim’s stomach, no narcotic but heroin found in the room. My theory was that heroin introduced into the system by mouth would become morphine in the stomach, as morphine is the base of heroin.

“I was compelled to experiment on guinea pigs and rabbits to prove my theory. I fed these animals heroin in an overdose to correspond to the amount of morphine found in Haslett’s stomach. I discovered the truth: heroin taken internally in that manner became morphine.

“I presented my findings, attending the trial until the case was given to the jury. I had to make a 5 p.m. train out of Salem on that day, so I didn’t get the result of the verdict. I looked in the newspapers for several days, but could discover nothing about the verdict.

“It slipped my mind until one day I was walking down Market street in Camden, when I happened to run into the judge who tried the case. He looked at me in a curious manner, then said: ‘Do you belong to any fraternal orders?’ I told him I was an Odd Fellow. Then I asked the question I had long wanted answered: ‘What was the verdict?’

“‘Acquittal,’ he told me. I could scarcely believe it, although I believed then, and I believe now, that the government erred in not asking for an indictment for involuntary manslaughter rather than second degree murder.

“‘Yes,’ he said to me, ‘I knew the verdict would be acquittal when I saw the prosecutor allow one juror enter the box.’

“‘How was that?’ I asked rather surprised. ‘Well,’ the judge said, ‘the juror and the defendant were both members of the same fraternal order.’ I thought that was rather far-fetched reasoning. I was convinced that this might be something of an alibi for the acquittal.

“I had another case in Salem County, where a gang of four bad men banded together to rob. They didn’t intend to murder but one night they took a guard at duPont’s, robbed him, then shot him to prevent identification.

“I was the chemist retained by the government to test bloodstains found on the garments of one of the men. The defendants said they had stolen some chickens and killed them, and that the stains were chicken’s blood.

“The defense lawyer challenged my qualifications. He thought he would be smart, so he said: ‘I suppose you can tell chicken blood, cat blood, elephant blood, can you?’ ‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘Oh,’ he replied, eyeing me as if I was a smarty and trying to get by with a bluff, ‘and how would you be able to qualify to tell those different kinds of blood?’

“‘Because of the tests that I have made in the Philadelphia Zoo on the various animals you have named,’ I replied. That shut him up right then and there.”

By GORDON MACKAY

SILENCE is golden where rumpus and ruction in the Democratic camp is concerned. Once upon a time whenever the unterrified Democracy squabbled and battled, fought and bled, ‘twas tip secret. Indeed, the Democrats seemed to occupy nine-tenths of their time fighting over something that wasn’t worth a left hook to the chin.

It was row, row, row, from morn till late at night, fighting over the crumbs that fell from the tables of the opulent G. O. P. of that day and date. Nowadays, however, the shoe is on the other foot. It is the G. O. P. that lurks ‘round for the crumbs, of both comfort and patronage, fighting their battles and spreading the tidings of their strife to the four corners of the county.

Meanwhile, the Democrats have foxily masked their bitterness, put a lid on acrimonious charges, created the erroneous inference that the dove of peace bears an olive branch in its bill. The impression is that a cooing pigeon is no sweeter than the harmony that prevails among the bigwigs of the party of Jefferson, Jackson and Roosevelt of Hyde Park. Despite the apparent smoothness of the appearance, there is strife and battle galore raging beneath the surface. It is carried on in a quiet strain. That it exists is only too true, as the warring leaders would admit, if they were compelled to testify under oath.

Oddly enough it seems a battle for leadership rather than spoils. For the Brunner-Kelleher wing of party leadership has a blunt edge on its rivals. This edge is due to the fact that the other camp has its leaders all nicely tucked away in lucrative jobs.

Leaders Cared for in Billets

A brief glance over the situation will reveal this fact. Harry T. Maloney, a chubby gentleman with a beaming face and a modulated voice, is the collector of internal revenue. Mrs. Emma E. Hyland, suave, maternal and friendly to one and all, is postmaster. Samuel P. Orlando, both debonair and daring, is county prosecutor.

Naturally, none of these leaders has a valid claim to kick against the personal deal received from the Democratic party and its leadership. None of those mentioned above could expect to see huge forces rallying around their flag, when those to whom the invitation must be given are found idle and unemployed.

Practically then the Brunner-Kelleher faction is in the position of declaring that the present Democratic leadership hasn’t treated the rival clique any too poorly, when such jobs are allotted to the leadership of the antis, opposed to the Mayor and County Treasurer.

Though this be logical, yet whoever heard of logic swaying politics, or guiding a politico? The battle for leadership goes on apace. Circumstances lent an opportunity to the anti-Brunner leadership that came close to spelling curtains for the ruling element in the local Democratic camp.

All the strife and its consequent strategy harks back to the Moore-Clee battle of last November. Mayor Brunner and Treasurer Kelleher were on a spot. They had Moore, with his anti-Roosevelt record in the United States Senate, his Hague smear, for their gubernatorial candidate. So many different elements in the Democratic party opposed Moore and Hague that Brunner was right behind the eight ball.

He couldn’t help the Clee vote that piled up here any more than he could take credit for the tremendous sweep that carried the county for Roosevelt in 1936. Brunner in one instance was riding on a victor’s coattails in Camden County. In the other instance he was beneath a juggernaut that was flattening him out, along with Kelleher.

Situation Gave Rivals Chance

Harry Roye, one of their ticket for Assembly, kicked over the traces. Support usually given to Brunner and Kelleher in certain quarters was missing. George and Eddie were fighting a hopeless cause.

But this didn’t deter the other faction from making hay while the sun shone. Missionaries of that camp ran to North Jersey with stories that Brunner and Kelleher were lying down on the job. As a matter of fact neither was lying down on the job. Both were punch drunk, politically speaking, from the socks they were taking on the chin for Moore.

The tales bore fruit. North Jersey began to act decidedly sore toward the local majority leaders. When the freeholders’ election revealed a gain of eight seats for the Brunner-Kelleher leadership, the glee of the rival camp was unrestrained. The couriers of the other faction raced to Jersey City and jubilantly yelled “We told you so.” These ambassadors pointed to the triumph of the freeholders on the Democratic ticket as convincing proof that Brunner and Kelleher and their allies laid down on Moore to save the local ticket.

When George and Eddie went to Jersey City to confer with Moore, Hague and the party dictators, the Camdenites were confronted with this view of the election results in Camden County. Then Brunner and Kelleher cut loose. They told Hague’s minions and Moore’s messengers that Camden County leaders had a right to be sore, not North Jersey. All that Brunner and Kelleher and their allies had sacrificed, declared the Camden county leaders, were three assemblymen, absolute control of the County Board of Freeholders and several minor posts as well.

Instead of Brunner and Kelleher lying down on the job, the North Jersey doubters were told, it was the fact that Brunner and Kelleher in carrying along Moore had lost everything else.

The Camden county leaders were indignant, sore and talkative, too. They pointedly told Hague and his allies, that if they didn’t like the manner in which the Camden County leaders had performed to go take a jump in the nearest Jake.

Annual Get-Together of 27 Year-Old Organization Set for February 26

Orlando Warns Democrats at Fete to Moore, Crean and Mrs. Soistmann

By GORDON MACKAY

David Baird Jr., and his allies have already arranged their slate for the next city commission election and are laying plans to recapture the city government of Camden. Democrats should know of this movement and prepare to thwart the proposed plans at once.

This warning was given by County Prosecutor Samuel P. Orlando last night, at a testimonial dinner in the Hof Brau at which three Ninth Ward Democrats were feted, and at which 500 were present. The trio honored comprised Mrs. Mary Ellen Soistmann, state committee woman; Oscar Moore, freeholder, and John J. Crean, assistant city solicitor and county committeeman.

While the three guests were feted and presented with wrist watches and other tokens, the affair took on a love feast aspect for the three New Deal commissioners and all shades and leanings of Democratic leadership.

Mayor George E. Brunner was toastmaster and took occasion to poke fun at the G.O.P. and its tribulations over the county headquarters.

“I have just received word,” said the Mayor with due solemnity, “that the Republican county committee of whom I read today was having trouble over their headquarters, have finally solved their troubles tonight.”

“I understand they are giving up their present location and have just been presented by the Bell Telephone Company with a booth, and are now looking for another tenant to whom the committee can sublet half the space.”

Orlando’s warning came after he congratulated the special guests. He said: “I have every reason to believe that Dave Baird and the rest of the Republican chieftains are already laying their plans to capture the city commission. They are working to the end with their own slate, so that they can take from the people of Camden the good government which they have received for some time. We Democrats do not want to take this warning lightly, we want to remember that Baird and his chieftains are already working toward capturing the government of Camden, and this is something that we want to prevent at all hazards.”

Orlando also congratulated the gathering as an indication of the growth of the party, and the faith that the people of Camden come to have in the Democratic party and in its principles.

Disclaims Harmony Rift

Mrs. Emma E. Hyland, postmaster and long a figure in Ninth Ward affairs declared she resented any newspaper stories that hinted that there was the slightest rift in the Democratic party.

County Treasurer Edward J. Kelleher, hailed as “The Father of the Democratic Party in Camden County” contrasted the spectacle before him with the harmony dinner which he and others sponsored years ago. “We sold 150 tickets,” he said, “and gave away 150 more, and when the sponsors reached the hall at 7 p.m., the hour of the dinner, there wasn’t a single other person on hand. Later the hall was filled, and it held 200 guests. 200 to attend a Democratic harmony dinner that embraced all of Camden county.”

Officials Laud Guests

Mrs. Bertha Shippen Irving, postmaster of Haddonfield; Police Judge Gene R. Mariano and others also congratulated the guests. Mayor Brunner introduced Commissioner Frank J. Hartmann by calling attention to the cleanup campaign now under Hartmann auspices.

“Just as Hartmann is making Camden a cleaner city in which to live,” said the Mayor, “so has Commissioner Kobus made the city clean from crime. The streets are clean, the city is clean, and this has only been made possible by the efforts of the three commissioners who have worked in harmony, and who are going to continue to work in harmony.” Crean, Moore and Mrs. Soistmann spoke their thanks to those present for the banquet, the gifts and the sentiments expressed.

By GORDON MACKAY

COUNTY PROSECUTOR SAM ORLANDO, with a laugh on his lips and paternal pride in his eyes, was telling me how Signor Mike Orlando intended to become a county prosecutor like his dad. Signor Mike has reached the ripe and robust age of 7. His career, as mapped by the precocious young gentleman is as follows: “Go to Peddie Institute, then to Princeton, then to the Harvard Law School, pass the bar association, go around and shake hands with every body, get elected, then don’t do any more work.”

“That’s Mike’s program,” said his dapper daddy, while a series of chuckles rippled from his lips. “And Mike’s program is not so bad, but it’s a lot different from his old man’s, although I did pass the examinations and was admitted to the bar 15 years after I landed in this country.”

Then Signor Orlando, the Elder, recited the pilgrimage of a young Sicilian of 9 from his native Italy to the Cumberland County city of Bridgeton. It might be dubbed “The Americanization of Samuel P. Orlando.”

“My father was a laborer,” said Sam, “and when I came to this country with my parents we settled in Bridgeton. I started school when I was 9. That was how old I was when I got here. They put me in the ‘zero’ class, with kids 5 and 6 years old.

“I was the only Italian pupil in the school. I didn’t know but four words of English. They were ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ ‘good day,’ ‘goodbye.’ I stood about two feet higher than the rest of my class, because they were kids just starting to school.”

“Well, as I was the first Italian in Bridgeton school, I got the works from fellows who today are the best and closest friends I have anywhere. They laughed at me. Because I didn’t know the language they gave me all sorts of steers that made me the joke of the school. Kids do that, it’s all in fun, anyway.”

Sent Home on Bluff

“I’ll never forget the first day we had school and the recess came around 10:30. The class was allowed out for five or 10 minutes. I went out with the rest and the other kids said to me: ‘Go home, all over today.’ I went home. When I got there my mother asked me why I wasn’t in school.

“I told her the school was through, that I was sent home. She told me to go back to school. I did and found out I had been razzed. In Italy, although I was only 9, I worked in the fields before we came to this country. And to help the old man I got up at 4 o’clock in the morning and worked till 8 o’clock at night on the farms around Bridgeton.”

“That’s one thing I feel proudest about, that I was admitted to the bar 15 years after I landed in this country, not able to speak or to understand a single word of English. Even when I got the hang of English at school I spoke broken English and forgot to sound the final ‘a’ in banana like the rest of them.

“When I think of 30 years ago and the way we went through school and fought for a chance to make good, Mike gives me a laugh. He is the modern kid, he isn’t going to become county prosecutor the hard way. Mike has it all figured out, and he told me just how it would be done—just as I’ve told it to you.”

By GORDON MACKAY

HOLLYWOOD scenario writers toy with fanciful plots and bizarre situations, all children of imagination wedded to screen-breeding. At the same time we can point to two stories from real life that, transferred to the screen, would make a rip-snorting factual movie that would interest anybody who cared to see it.

Our first hero would be Colonel James Joseph Tunney of Greenwich, Conn. He is known to millions everywhere as Gene Tunney, who retired undefeated as heavyweight champion of the world. No fanciful tale, no imaginative plot could excel in realism and fact the actual life history and career of Gene Tunney. A second character from real life we would recommend to the Ben Hechts of Hollywood is James Michael Curley of Boston, twice mayor of his native city, twice governor of his native Massachusetts.

Had not arrogance and ruthlessness characterized Curley, while at the peak of his power, he would now be sitting in the United States Senate wearing the toga that enwraps young Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. For Curley could never see harmony restored between himself and his political enemies. He remained so vindictive that he recently was defeated in an attempted comeback as Mayor of Boston.

“Jim” was defeated, too, by a youngster who formerly was his aide. Defeated more as a rebuke to his unyielding hatred of those who had opposed him than as a setback to the brand of politics which Jim Curley always played. A scenario dealing with Curley’s career would have to hark back 35 years.

Two Curleys Became Pals

At that time Jim and Tom Curley, who had no kinship other than politics, were young Democrats in Ward 17, Boston. They rebelled against the domination of the Old Guard in ward affairs, organizing the Tammany Club to give the former battle.

In the course of events the entrenched political rulers of the ward laughed at these young “pretenders.” To these hard-shelled oldsters the Curleys and their cohorts were just “young whippersnappers.” The first couple of elections revealed the Tammany Club behind the eight ball, but persistence finally won, Jim and Tom became co-leaders of the ward.

Ward politics in Boston, as in other large cities, is based largely on aid. The poor are fed, the judge is asked to go easy, the cops are told to lay off, typical machine politics rule the roost. The Curleys, tutored in this game early, worked it even to bigger results.

Then came the climax to their careers up to that time. An examination was held for post office clerks in Boston. About 100 or more men appeared to take the examinations. Federal jobs were not regarded as such sinecures then as now in the days of depressions, recessions, processions and what have you.

After the list of eligibles was made public, Jim Curley and Tom Curley were arrested. The charge was that each of them had impersonated a candidate for one of the jobs, taken the examination in his name, and the funniest thing about it one of the substitutes had failed to pass.

The Curleys made no attempt to deny their complicity in such a ruse and subterfuge. They were too slick for that—aid had been furnished to other chaps in devious ways, but nobody had ever been willing to take the rap from Uncle Sam to take examinations for clerkships and post-office jobs.

Jim and Tom were found guilty and went to Charles street jail, there to remain for several months. They were treated as heroes. Callous politics found nothing nefarious in “fronting for a guy.” Jim and Tom were rated as masters, because they were willing to jeopardize their liberty to help another chap out.

Curley Both Impressive

Both were handsome, impressive in manner. Jim had the more magnetic personality. As an orator Jim ranked with the best in Massachusetts, where they breed orators in every block. Curley’s rivals tried to block his path to the board by citing his jail sentence. Instead of hurting Curley this charge only made him stronger with the body politic.

Several terms Curley passed in the board of aldermen, then he decided to go to Congress. Curley won the Democratic nomination, equivalent to election in his district. Jim served several terms there. In Congress Jim decided he wanted to become Mayor of Boston. His birthplace where the Lowells and the Cabots sneered openly at the man who went to Congress from Charles street jail, as they jeeringly declared.

Curley knew how to handle that type of Mayflower aristocracy. As a matter of fact the Plymouth Rock brethren have the bluest blood and the least voice in affairs of any group in Boston politics. They have the Somerset and Algonquin clubs, they have the Junior League, fill all the Sunday society pages, but they never reach a seat in the municipal government—the proletariat sees to that. Boston is the only city in which I ever lived where the sacred cows were so turned out to dry pastures, never even given a bell to wear around their necks. Curley was chosen mayor several times. This position started his downfall.

A vindictive gentleman, with a tongue that dripped acid and vituperation, he could get under the skin of his rivals as no other political figure in the state. Curley’s rise didn’t set so well with the state bosses. When Jim announced that he would be a candidate for governor, they tried to stop him dead.

27th Annual Event Expected to Break Record on Night of Feb. 26

The twenty-seventh annual banquet of the Pyne Poynt Social Club promises to be the most successful and best attended in the history of this North Camden sports and social group.

From different parts of the country acknowledgments are coming in to Frank Kelley, chairman of the banquet committee, from members that they will be present at the dinner to be held Saturday night, Feb. 26, at the club’s headquarters, corner of Fifth and Erie streets.

This year the principal speaker will be Gordon Mackay, member of the editorial staff of the Courier-Post newspapers. Mackay, who has been associated with newspapers for the last 40 years, will talk of sports, on which he is an acknowledged authority.

Since the organization of the club, in the latter part of January, 1911, the following have been presidents: Harry F. Walton, 1911 and 1912; Cecil Battle, 1913 and 1914; George Townsend, 1915 and 1916; Frank Boyer, 1917; John Begg, 1918; Frank Haines, 1919, 1920 and 1931; John R. Taylor, 1921; Alex Kahnweiler, 1922; Ed. H. Winters, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1935, 1936 and 1937; Richard Barry, 1932 and 1933; and Frank J. Hartmann, Jr., now city commissioner, in 1934.

By GORDON MACKAY

“EIGHTY-EIGHT communities can’t just be wrong, when they run from Massachusetts to Florida.

Thus when they say that John C. Remington, Jr., is a good consulting engineer that’s good enough for me and the compliment should tickle Jay Remington down to his great toe.

Visit his office, however, and you’ll see the trophy that he prizes the highest has nothing to do with engineering. It’s a silver mug presented to the Remington-Vosbury team for winning the championship in the Camden Industrial Baseball League. The engraving shows that the silver cup was acquired in 1926, or a dozen years ago.

Now the 88 names on the blackboard that stands in the hallway outside the offices of Remington and Goff on Cooper street testify to the professional standing of the firm and its head. But the silver mug reveals that Jay Remington is prouder of the fact that he played football 14 years, and baseball for as long a period, than he is of any keys that might be presented to him to reveal that he was a tiptop student.

In a gabfast, too, he and I became quite convinced that he had really introduced baseball to London before the late John J. McGraw and the major league missionaries from the United States had slipped baseball into a clutch with cricket as the great British sport.

“Come to think about it,” said Remington, “perhaps we five chaps who went over on a cattle-boat after I was graduated from Drexel Institute really did put baseball on first base in London. I want to tell you about that so you’ll be able to understand the whole business.”

Storm Scared Mr. Remington

“When I was graduated from Drexel in 1909 four others and myself made a trip on a cattle boat. The name of the ship was the ‘Crown Point.’ We had 406 head of cattle aboard when we sailed.

“We were about two weeks getting across and before we reached the English Channel we ran into the worst storm that I ever saw. I was scared to death. The waves washed overboard 12 cattle that were on the poop deck and we had three calves born on the voyage to equal things a little.

“We also had a smart aleck in our bunch. When the storm was at its worst and we were afraid that we would never hit dry land again he liked to sit down on a box and play ‘Home, Sweet Home’ for us on a mouth-organ. Maybe we didn’t crown that bird whenever he started that tune.

“When I got to London I got a job with the Western Electric Company at West Woolwich, a suburb of London. We had a lot of other Americans working in the plant. So we started playing baseball. Then we had two leagues, and I guess I helped to found the first baseball leagues that London ever had.

“I remember we had six teams in each league. Our club was called the ‘Nondescripts,’ another was the ‘Crystal Palace,’ a third one was named ‘Shepard’s Bush.’ We played in the Crystal Palace in London and we played TWILIGHT BASEBALL. I’m darn sure that we had the first twilight leagues ever in baseball.

“The days are strange in London. It will be as bright as daylight until 9 or 9.30 p.m. and in a half an hour it will be as black as your hat. The Londoners got to like our baseball and would pay six-pence and a shilling to sit in the Crystal Palace. It wasn’t anything odd to have 3000 or 4000 to watch one of the ball games.”

Limehouse Dens Opened to Him

“I had one experience in London that I’ll never forget—a walk down ‘Petticoat Lane.’ That street harbors more crooks than any in the world.

“It came about in a peculiar manner. At the boarding-house where I lived was another young fellow with whom I became quite chummy. He turned out to be one of the men of Scotland Yard. He took me through the opium dens in Limehouse, then he suggested that we do ‘Petticoat Lane.’

“That’s a street where you find the real cockney in London. It has everything in the way of crooks and criminals. Before we started for ‘The Lane’ this sleuth said to me: ‘Now you’ll get your pocket picked before you have been 10 minutes in ‘The Lane.’”

“He knew where I kept my watch, in my vest pocket. I wanted to outsmart him, and when he wasn’t looking I switched my watch to the fob pocket of my pants. We hadn’t gone 100 steps into The Lane before I put my hand in my pocket and the watch was gone.

“I told the detective and he laughed, then called to a fellow who seemed to be loitering in front of a pool room. When we walked over to the stranger, the fellow on the sidewalk said: ‘This your watch?’ And he handed me my watch, which was once my father’s.

“‘Better keep an eye on that watch,’ the second Scotland Yard man said. ‘You’ll probably lose it again in a few minutes.’ This time I was bound to outsmart the whole Yard. So I wrapped the watch in my handkerchief, and dropped it in my upper vest pocket. We walked down The Lane a little further and seemed to get into a crowd. When I reached for my watch, I’ll be darned if it wasn’t gone again.”

Remington says that he loved football and wouldn’t have quit the gridiron after 14 years of strife and battle save that he was married. “I played for Haddonfield High, for Drexel and for the Frankford A. C. Played halfback and fullback. The games we had in pro football with Holmesburg A. C.—the Yellowjackets succeeded them—were hummers.”

By GORDON MACKAY

FIVE of us sat about the festive board at a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce in Paulsboro not so long ago. Ed Martin, the president, who is also the superintendent of the machine shop of a big oil company, had just recited how an employee had been cajoled into breaking a contract that his firm did not like.

Then up spake Henry W. Peterson. Henry is the president of a big sand company and a member of the South Jersey Port Commission. He is quite a “joiner.” Although Henry dwells in Woodbury he belongs to many of the organizations that are located in boroughs where Henry and his company do business. Henry is 45, looks 35, has a laughing eye, a happy look and is darn good company at any stage of the game. He has a liberal outlook on life and its problems.

While I wouldn’t nominate Henry as a Brain Truster, he’s no hard-boiled Tory or case-hardened conservative either. Just a good scout. Henry recited a story, also. We have heard plenty during the last five years about how “practical” men were needed at the helm instead of “visionaries” who don’t know anything about business.

It seems that Henry’s dad was a butter and egg man in Philadelphia, and did business in such marts as a commission merchant on South Water street. The elder Peterson traveled the Middle West to make contacts to sell butter and eggs for the western farmers.

Inventor Had Some Gadget

“While father was in Minneapolis,” he said, “he met a man named Swanborg, a Swede. Swanborg had been educated in Europe, and entered the employ of Henry Ford, where he rose to the position of chief chemist.

“Along came the war and Swanborg went into the chemical warfare division. After peace was declared Swanborg had a yen to invent things. The first thing he discovered was a motor fuel with alcohol as a base, which could be produced to sell at four cents a gallon.

“You can see what a hit that would make with the Standard Oil Company and other big corporations that sold gasoline. The inventor went to the big fellows and offered them his patent, to be awarded on a royalty basis for the inventor.

“Swanborg didn’t want to make millions on this fuel. He really wanted the public to have the advantage of his discovery, in order that automobile upkeep would be cheap for the average guy. So he asked Big Business to finance the invention.

“Representatives of a big oil company tested the fuel. They had two automobiles run 200 miles on the speedway in Indianapolis, one using gasoline for fuel, the other using Swanborg’s motive power. At the end of the 200 miles’ run both machines were taken down. It was found that Swanborg’s fuel held up just as good as gasoline. This meant that motor fuel had been revolutionized.”

“Sold” Invention to Subsidiary

“But the big oil companies couldn’t market it, because that would destroy the market for gasoline. Swanborg was willing to accept a royalty. The big gasoline company, however, suggested an alcohol distributing corporation, one of the biggest in the country.

“Swanborg entered negotiations with this alcohol corporation which was probably a subsidiary of the oil company. The deal was made, but Swanborg who didn’t know anything about business, did not specify how many gallons of the fuel must be sold yearly in order to insure him a royalty—he was satisfied that the public should have the benefits of this discovery that enabled a man to run his car on a fuel that could be sold for four cents a gallon.

“So the alcohol corporation took over the fuel. And promptly sold enough of it to give Swanborg about $80 a month royalty, but it kept that cheap fuel off the market and prevented a tremendous reduction of the sale of gasoline.”

By GORDON MACKAY

“MARMOTA MONAX, alias A. Groundhog and Samuel T. Corliss can battle over the ranking of weather prophets, but I’ll take Connie Mack or Gerry Nugent for mine. I know that Spring is on the wing, and that the time is near at hand when the young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love, as the poet sings.

For the writer has just received the annual brochure stating where the Athletics and the Phillies will pass the Spring training period in 1938. The Mackmen are going to Lake Charles, La., while the Phillies will move to Biloxi, Miss.

The transfer of the training camps means that Florida is passing out of the picture as the base of the major league baseball clubs. The Mackmen were stationed at Fort Myers, away down on the tip of the state, for a dozen years, while the Phillies traveled to Winter Haven, for a half dozen or more.

When Rommel Tossed ‘Knuckles,’

In those days the Mackmen boasted Cy Perkins, Jumping Joe Dugan, Jimmy Dykes, Eddie Rommel and others. The Athletics were loitering in last place, for this was one of the seasons when the cellar and Connie were constant companions.

The cynosure of the Lake Charles folk was a tall, gangling, slimjim, who stood six inches above six feet and seemed to weigh about as much as a lead pencil. He was Bryan Harris, known as “Slim,” who had a checkered career as a pitcher. “Slim” came from some town in Texas.

Mayor George E. Brunner addressed representatives from clubs of the ward at the headquarters of the Sixth Ward Democratic Club, 548 Walnut Street.

“I want to be reelected in 1939. I like the office and I want to go back. I recall one non-partisan commissioner who said he didn’t care to be returned, but I noticed 20 days before election he was battling for all he was worth to be reelected.

“I won’t stand up here and tell you I don’t care for the office. I do. It’s tougher than managing fighters, or in being a plumber—and I’ve been both—but I like it, and I want to stay right in it, so I’m telling you tonight I want to go back.”

“I am glad you are gathered here tonight,” he said, “because there is no better time to organize for the campaign to elect the city commission than today. The city election is one year from next May, but already our enemies are preparing for the campaign.”

“We found the city on the verge of bankruptcy, going nowhere fast. These three persons went to work to bring the city out of chaos. We have taken advantage of the Federal funds to help our city, we have not been afraid to sponsor WPA projects to keep men and women employed.”

“The city of Camden has cooperated with the Federal government more than all the rest of the communities in South Jersey combined.”

By GORDON MACKAY

TWO South Jersey personages have been recognized recently by the Republican high command as the leaders of the G. O. P. in their respective counties. The persons chosen for this signal distinction are Commissioner Mary W. Kobus of Camden and State Treasurer William H. Albright of Woodbury, Gloucester county.

One North Jersey leader is also recognized. He is County Clerk Lloyd B. Marsh of Passaic county. These nominees were chosen by the vote of representative Republicans in every section of the state. The selections received the unofficial blessing of the party’s high command.

The poll which resulted in this triumvirate being chosen as the outstanding party leaders in the state was conducted by the “Republican Standard Bearer,” an official organ of the G. O. P., fostered by the high command and endorsed by the party chieftains in every section of the state.

Marsh’s Modesty Quite Compelling

Marsh’s choice is quite a tribute to his modesty, as a man named Lloyd B. Marsh is the managing director of the “Republican Standard Bearer.” To think that some other leader in Passaic County should have been chosen in a contest conducted by Marsh’s own newspaper, of course, is carrying human credulity a bit too far.

I seem to recall, too, that considerable bitterness was expressed by numerous lieutenants of Senator Lester H. Clee over the returns from Passaic county on last election day. There were loud blasts from Clee quarters that the Essex county senator had been sacrificed in Passaic and Essex counties. That in the former bailiwick political hari kari had been committed on the G. O. P. gubernatorial nominee.

These accusations, of course, came from partial sources. On the other hand there was the excusatory declaration that Marsh was sold out by his own lieutenants, who butchered Clee to make a Roman holiday, although personally Marsh remained highly loyal to the Clee candidacy.

If the latter view be correct then we ask as a plain, unadulterated newspaperman, who the blazes can reckon Marsh an outstanding leader when he can’t even control the actions of his own lieutenants? If that be leadership it’s certainly a most peculiar type.

By GORDON MACKAY

FREED from the restraint of judicial dignity, former Supreme Court Justice Frank T. Lloyd is back to the simple pleasures of the barrister once more. The justice makes no bones about his release from the ermine. After 30 years tied to judicial duties he told me the other day he “felt like a man free from prison.”

“Maybe that’s hardly the right comparison,” laughed the jurist, “but let’s say that I feel like a boy out of school. You know that’s a trying position, being on the Supreme bench.”

“I’ll say that I went through 2000 books a year. The worst of the experience was that you never were free from your work. Don’t mistake my meaning. You spent your day in the chambers or in the courtroom, then when you went to bed at night the problems, the cases, the decisions, the opinions all raced through your mind during the night.”

“So you like the work of getting back into practice?” we asked the justice.

“Yes sir,” he replied. Then his eyes twinkled as we suggested that perhaps he might run against a contretemps sometime.

“I want to be around the courtroom,” I told the justice, “when you begin to slam an opinion or precedent and find you set them both.”

Might Happen Here All Right

“You know,” he said seriously, “such a thing could easily happen. In fact, it did to one of my colleagues. You can’t keep track of thousands of opinions a year. No man can.

“To refer to my colleague on the supreme bench. He was hearing an argument one day, shortly before I retired from the bench. Counsel for one of the litigants quoted an opinion given in a case similar to the one being heard, and in which my colleague made a ruling.

“It was apparent the justice did not hold much sympathy with the opinion which had just been read.”

“Who wrote that opinion my colleague asked, rather sharply. ‘Well,’ counsel smiled, ‘with all due reference to the court, you did.’”

“Now,” laughed the former justice, “it won’t do for me to make any arguments unless I’m pretty sure of the origin of the decisions and precedents I quote.”

If Justice Lloyd becomes mellow with his release from the judicial serfdom which he says he feels his present freedom to be, I figure New Jersey has judges who should be summarily pushed right into the lay ranks as speedily as possible.

This Garden State, with Hague in Jersey City and some of the judges who wear its ermine, should be rather tolerant of doings below the Hague-Sweatshop Line.

When we scan the destruction of civil liberty in Jersey City, and read some of the unholy decisions of the bench, we stand aghast.

Berry Seems Anomaly on Bench

This Maja Leon Berry seems a veritable anomaly to be wearing the ermine of any judiciary. The decisions that he makes in labor matters are absolutely without reason in either law or fact. He is probably the worst foe that constitutional government knows on any bench of which I have heard.

His ruling that a strike in any plant ends when strikebreakers fill the places, of the strikers’ is such a miscarriage of justice, that, if rendered from a backwoods bench, would be laughed out of court.

No, court can sensibly or in reality declare when a strike starts, or when it ends.

That is a matter for the parties involved, the strikers. To say that a strike ends when strike-breakers fill places is the same, as to declare that no freeholder can vote on a question in Camden, because a spectator is occupying his seat. That decision just about hits the apex of the ridiculous. That any jurist would make such a decision, save at a minstrel show or a comic opera, is proof enough that one vice-chancellor is the “Berry” for legal decisions that can’t be found in Blackstone, Coke or any other lawyer’s mind, save Berry’s.

Along with that masterpiece that a strike ends when there are no vacant places at the loom, Berry climbs another legal Matterhorn. The climax to judicial nonsense that leaves Berry in a class by himself.

Berry has just decreed that a labor union cannot be the judge of its own membership. He has ordered a union to reinstate a member who was ousted, for good and sufficient reasons according to the union.

Berry says no. The member must be reinstated because the union is not to be the sole judge of the qualifications of its own membership, a privilege that has been given to any organization of which I have ever heard or read.

Of course, the opportunity to place labor spies in a union is wide open under such a decision. Judging from Berry’s record that might be the inspiring motive in, both the member’s suit and the bench’s decision.

Vice-Chancellor Berry, too, seems to believe, as did Congressman Tim Campbell, famous Tammany sachem of years ago: “What’s the Constitution among friends?” The vice-chancellor has just decided that peaceful picketing may be satisfactory to the United States Supreme Court; but we’ll have none of those didoes in Ocean County, where justice and freedom sit personified in Vice Chancellor Maja Leon Berry.

Therefore, peaceful picketing of hotels where strikes are in existence in Lakewood, or any other spot, is illegal. We’ll have none of that Russian gold circulating in Lakewood, any more than in Jersey City. We’ll have no sabotage of our kitchens and menus in Lakewood hotels under orders from Moscow.

27th Annual Get-Together Will Hear Gordon Mackay Tell of Oldtime Sports

When members of the Pyne Poynt Social Club gather in the club’s headquarters, southwest corner of Fifth and Erie streets, tomorrow night it will be to mark the twenty-seventh annual get-together which will be observed with a banquet.

Harry F. Walton, first president of the organization, which was formed in the latter part of January, 1911, will be toastmaster. He served as head of the club in 1911 and 1912.

Gordon Mackay, member of the news staff of the Courier-Post newspapers and an authority on sports, will be the speaker. Mackay will give highlights on sporting activities with which he has become so familiar in his 40 years of newspaper work. Frank H. Ryan, managing editor of the Courier-Post, will be a guest.

“Many of the members of the club have gone far afield from Camden,” said Walton, “but on the occasion of the annual dinner they all try to get back home and rekindle the friendships made when they were kids up here in North Camden.”

By GORDON MACKAY

TALK about the long arm of coincidence, wait until you read this. Some years ago there was a senator from Camden county named Albert S. Woodruff. A lawyer of recognized ability throughout the state, he was also a political figure of prominence in the councils of the state government and the G. O. P.

During his tenure at Trenton a measure was adopted which called for codification of the state laws, or something of that nature whereby a good part of the statute law of New Jersey was rewritten.

One of the laws that came into revision was the law that created the Delaware River Joint Commission, the group that has control of the vested interests of the state in Camden Bridge.

And one of the committee that revised those laws was Senator Albert S. Woodruff of Camden county. From this prelude we’ll give the floor to Br’er Woodruff and let him give an interesting revelation as to the reason why the law governing appointments to the bridge commission from New Jersey was rewritten.

“I was fearful,” the former solon told me yesterday, “that we might come to the time when New Jersey would have a Democratic governor who would have the appointment of the bridge commission in his control. I didn’t want the Republican party thus to be stripped of membership on the commission so I wrote, deliberately and with premeditation the clause in the bill that provides for ad interim appointments only until ‘the Legislature meets.’”

“I figured that it was rational to assume that in the majority of elections the Legislature would be under Republican control. In fact, my belief is borne out by the complexion of the two branches since revision.”

See What Future Has Developed

“The intention of that law,” continued the ex-senator, “was to have no ad interim appointment last longer than the date when the Legislature organized. Thus we would always be assured of G. O. P. membership in control of the bridge on the Jersey side because the Legislature would always remain in our hands, I felt.”

Is Zat So! by Gordon MacKay, Camden Courier-Post, June 1, 1938

Of Dead Mouse in Prune Juice

Restaurant Customer Ill After Alleged Discovery of Reputed Rodent; Sues for Damages to Health and Good Nature

Hopelessly divided, six to six, the jury in Camden’s celebrated “arsenic case” was discharged last night in Court No. 4 by former Judge Leroy W. Loder, of the Cumberland County Common Pleas Court, sitting as special justice to hear the case.

After Foreman Richard C. Hutchinson, of Collingswood, stated he did not believe the jurors could agree if sent back for an all night session Judge Loder discharged them.

Allegations she had drunk prune juice, freighted with an arsenic-stuffed mouse, were the basis on which the plaintiff, Miss Celeine Seigle of Camden asked damages from the Home Restaurant Company Camden, of which Frank Testa is manager.

The plaintiff was represented by Charles A. Rizzi, William Tomar and Saul Teitelman while the defendant’s counsel included Charles E. Gant, David E. Van Name and Henry D. Lodge.

Discovered Dead Mouse

Miss Siegle went to the restaurant about 5.30 p.m. on March 6, last. She ordered prune juice, drank the beverage, and discovered the dead rodent at the bottom.

“I was taken deathly sick,” she testified, “and was compelled to return home in a taxicab where I was attended by my family physician. I have been intermittently ill ever since, having lost considerable weight.”

Thomas F. Connery followed her on the witness stand. He said he sat at the table directly across from Miss Seigle and saw the entire episode. Connery, on cross examination, said he had not seen the plaintiff drop anything into the glass. Melvin E. Karns, who said he attended Miss Seigle, described her illness and also the symptoms.

Karns said he discovered by chemical analysis arsenic in the mouth of the mouse and also in the prune juice. He described the amount as one part in 40,000, which he asserted would have been sufficient to cause Miss Seigle’s illness.

Knew His Arsenic

On cross examination Karns detected the presence of arsenic by chemical analysis, and also that he was qualified to describe arsenic poisoning because of the number of such cases he had known.

Testa described the cleanliness with which he said he safeguarded customers, and denied the restaurant was crowded at the time of Miss Seigle’s alleged sickness.

Samuel L. Shapiro, a law student, stated he was the sandwich man at the restaurant and poured out all the fruit juices ordered. He recited and illustrated how he had poured Miss Seigle’s drink, denying anything was in the glass save prune juice.

Miss Myrtle A. Haffer, a waitress, disputed every statement made by the plaintiff’s witnesses. She described how she had fastened her eyes on Shapiro when he poured the juice. On cross-examination by Tomar, she denied “she was very friendly with the sandwich man.”

She also stated she took Miss Seigle to a room after her illness and the girl told her to “go away and leave me alone.”

“She wouldn’t take a dose of aromatics,” testified the waitress, “and she wouldn’t let me get her a glass of water. Why she wasn’t sick after she almost drank the mouse.”

William E. Peel and Dominic Gattuso, court officers, guarded the jury while they were deliberating and Charles M. Ackley, court clerk, was given the verdict of disagreement.

P. S. All this happened at the practice trial by members of the graduating class of the South Jersey Law School as part of the commencement program.