An Inspiration to Democrats

New Jersey's state government has been Republican-inclined ever since 1893, when the Democrats elected one Thomas Flynn, a horse starter at a race track, as speaker of the state assembly. The Republicans have dominated both the assembly and senate for 56 of the last 60 years, have held down the governor's blue chair for a decade, and last year gave Dwight Eisenhower a huge margin of 359,000 votes. With that background, the G.O.P. should be certain of electing its candidate for governor in next week's elections. But what was happening to the G.O.P. in Jersey should have been an inspiration last week to downcast Democrats everywhere.

Friday's Man. Opposed by nothing but the wreckage of a Democratic organization when the campaign began. New Jersey Republicans have been their own worst enemies. Within the year, the G.O.P. administration's prestige and control have been tarnished by exposes of big-time gambling payoffs in corrupt Bergen County. A former clerk in Governor Alfred E. Driscoll's office was indicted for accepting bribes to arrange "protection." Driscoll himself hurt the G.O.P. by declining to back any candidate in the early stages of the campaign, while he made up his own mind whether to run again.

The county bosses finally selected Paul Lyman Troast, 58, a wealthy building contractor from Passaic, pushed him through a bitter, party-splitting primary last April. Troast, with no political experience, was known principally for his chairmanship of the commission that built the $220 million New Jersey Turnpike. But his campaigning has been as flat as his turnpike. He was overconfident, started too late, and let the Democrats gobble up most of the best radio and television time. When he did get on TV he looked and sounded much like Frank Smith, Sergeant Friday's deadpan Dragnet partner. Troast suffered his roundest wallop early in October, when newspapers broke the story that Troast had asked New York's Tom Dewey to commute the sentence of Labor Extortionist Joey Fay.

Feet on the Screen. All this was pure windfall for the Democratic candidate, former State Senator Robert Baumle Meyner (pronounced miner), 45, an eager small-town (Phillipsburg, pop. 19,000) lawyer whose key supporter is Jersey City's current Democratic boss, Mayor John V. Kenny. The Democratic record stems from ex-Boss Frank Hague and is deeply scarred by bossism and unbridled corruption--but this time the Democrats have been successful in wrapping themselves in the mantle of reform. Hague's nephew, former Mayor Frank Hague Eggers of Jersey City, is supporting Troast. One of Meyner's TV films shows three pairs of feet walking down cellar stairs, a reference to the former Republican state chairman's testimony that three gamblers once came to his basement recreation room to demand protection for their payoff. Meyner has flooded New Jersey's redolent air with a radio jingle to the tune of Carolina in the morning:

Nothing could be finer,

Than to vote for Robert Meyner,

In November!

Last spring, a Republican victory in New Jersey seemed so sure that hardly anyone wanted the Democratic nomination for governor. But Meyner has gained steadily. Last week, the most reliable New Jersey poll put him ahead. The Republicans of New Jersey may lose an election they should have been able to win easily. And even if they squeak through they can be credited with rejuvenating a weary and confused Jersey Democratic Party.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.