"When the Big Boy Goes ..."

As the eight professional pallbearers hefted the 700-lb., hammered copper casket out of Lawrence Quinn's Funeral Home in Jersey City, a solemn voice called out to the pressing crowd: "Hats, men." Of the hundreds on the sidewalk, only four men were seen to lift their hats as a final gesture of respect toward Frank Hague, who died last week at 81. He was the last of the great machine bosses and the most absolute of them all. On a salary that never exceeded $8,500 a year during his eight terms as mayor of Jersey City, he came to reckon his personal fortune at more than $2,000,000, his homes at four (in Jersey City, on Manhattan's Park Avenue, on Miami's Biscayne Bay and on the Jersey coast at Deal). He said, "I am the law," and made it stick for more than 30 years. In a sense he performed a service: he helped throw true light on the nature of the U.S. political boss.

From the Tammany Tigers to the Pendergasts and Kellys and Crumps, the lore of the bosses had them as displaying their real inner benevolence by handing out Christmas food baskets and helping poor widows. These things they did, but in quest of power, not out of kindness. To a lavish extent, Frank Hague went through the same motions. As his monument to motherhood, for example, he left behind him the $1.8 million Margaret Hague Maternity Hospital. But Hague was hated and feared, and the secret of his power was that he was feared more than he was hated. Simply by presenting to the public eye his natural, unlovable self, Frank Hague helped destroy the dangerous American myth of the lovable and somehow admirable political boss.

Protection from Drafts. His parents, John Hague, a blacksmith, and Margaret, came from Ulster's County Cavan _and settled in Jersey City's Horseshoe district (so named because the railroad tracks made a loop there). In a frame tenement house he grew up, a sickly child who became a strong and healthy hypochondriac. During his years of power, he rode on the hottest days with all his car windows closed tight to protect him from drafts. Vain, and fearful of age, he did not like to have photographs taken that showed his bald spot or his wrinkles.

Never a scholar, Hague was expelled from school before finishing the sixth grade, went to work at the Erie roundhouse. He came to the attention of Ned Kenny, tavern operator and a factional leader in Jersey City's Second Ward. In 1896 Kenny was involved in a fight with a rival saloonkeeper-politician, and wanted somebody to put up for Second Ward constable. He picked young Frank Hague, gave him $80 and told him to "use your head." Hague did, won the election, went on from there.

Jersey City was just the place for Hague. Its citizens were mostly immigrants who had in common only their bewilderment at the strange ways of American democracy and their Old-World respect for the authoritarian hand of the state. Autocratic Frank Hague rose from constable to city hall custodian to membership on the Street and Water Board to city commissioner. In 1917 Hague took over as mayor, and two years later he struck for state power by successfully backing Edward I. Edwards for governor of New Jersey. By 1922, when he was elected Democratic national committeeman, Hague was recognized as being the most powerful Democratic figure in New Jersey.

Animal Spirits. His rule was a perfect kakistocracy. Hague tax assessors punished property holders who dared speak up in opposition. Hague patronage dispensers padded the payrolls with absentee employees. Hague officials took salary kickbacks from their hirelings (in 1954 Hague was sued by Jersey City--in a case later dismissed--for $15 million in such kickbacks). Hague ward heelers accepted campaign "contributions" just before election days. Hague bullyboys supervised the polling places. In 1921 some Princeton University political science students, in all their innocence, volunteered to watch over Jersey City's polling places to ensure an honest election. Within an hour after the polls opened, five of the students were in hospitals, and Frank Hague was explaining casually: "Animal spirits, that's all. I guess my boys couldn't resist the temptation to have a little fun." Fear of Hague was everywhere and was always present. As recently as a month ago, a Jersey City lawyer was asked by a newsman to recall the Hague days. The lawyer closed his office door to make certain nobody could overhear, dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. Then he caught himself and said sheepishly: "I keep forgetting we're able to speak without reprisal now."

Hague retired as mayor in 1947, and tried to turn his power over to his nephew, Frank Hague Eggers, who was named mayor but did not last long. After Eggers was defeated in 1949, Frank Hague tried several comebacks. He never made it.

The Bitter Scrawl. At his funeral last week, most of his political enemies observed the amenities. But the bitterness that Frank Hague had created also lived after him. An elderly woman held aloft an American flag and a sign on which she had scrawled in crayon: "God have mercy on his sinful, greedy soul."

Before the funeral, Hague's undertaker had been worried lest an embarrassingly few flowers would be sent, and he was right in his concern. Asked about the sparsity, a funeral home aide could only reply: "When the Big Boy goes, it means he can no longer do anything for anybody."

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