Camden People - GordonMackay

GORDON MACKAY was born Massachusetts in 1878.

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 also had written for newspapers in Boston.

He married to Inez Kane around 1913 at the age of 35. Gordon and Inez Kane 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. He was then reporting for the Philadelphia Record.

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.

By 1935 Gordon Mackay had come to work in Camden, as a featured columnist and reporter with 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 also wrote news articles for the Courier besides his regular column,

Gordon Mackay passed away in 1941.

Assorted Articles by Gordon Mackay
Date	Newspaper	Topic
1922	Philadelphia	Boxing- Tommy Loughran vs.- Gene Tunney
12/18/1925	Philadelphia Inquirer	Football - The Pottsville Maroons
11/9/1931, 11/13/1931	Philadelphia Record, Frankford Gazette	Football - The Frankford Yellowjackets
1/3/1938	Camden Courier-Post	Camden - East Camden, Bernard J. "Barney" Tracy
1/4/1938	Camden Courier-Post	Camden - Republican Politics in Camden County
1/5/1938	Camden Courier-Post	Camden - Camden Police Christmas Charity Activities
1/7/1938	Camden Courier-Post	Camden - "A Living Wage" & George Hertline's Bet
1/8/1938	Camden Courier-Post	Camden - The Stanley Sanhedrin, Dave Weitzman, Dora Rose, Gene R. Mariano, Samuel P. Orlando
1/13/1938	Camden Courier-Post	Camden - Andy Bonito's Italian Bakery (known as Oriti's Pastry from the 1940s through early 1970s)
1/14/1938	Camden Courier-Post	Camden - Dave Weitzman, Motor Vehicle Inspections
1/15/1938	Camden Courier-Post	Camden - John McKenna, bar owner, McKenna's Cafe
1/17/1938	Camden Courier-Post	Camden- Child entertainers, show business
1/18/1938	Camden Courier-Post	Camden- Republican Politics, Florence Baker, David Baird Jr., Mary Kobus
1/20/1938	Camden Courier-Post	Camden, Sports - Andy McMahon
1/21/1938	Camden Courier-Post	Camden, North Camden - Tom Homan; Dan McConnell (Note: subject's name was misspelled as "Holman")
1/22/1938	Camden Courier-Post	Camden, Vaudeville - H.L. Keely
1/22/1938	Camden Courier-Post	Camden- John Roskze
1/26/1938	Camden Courier-Post	Camden, Politics - David Baird Jr.
1/27/1938	Camden Courier-Post	Camden, Business - Sig Schoenagle
1/28/1938	Camden Courier-Post	Camden DeSoto Car Dealer - Morris Puro
2/8/1938	Camden Courier-Post	Camden, Immigrants - Mark Marritz, Pat Iarossi, Ann Pennington, The Dooleys
6/1/1938	Camden Courier-Post	Camden, Boxing - Frankie Conway
6/8/1938	Camden Courier-Post	Camden, YMCA - Ken Smullen, William Partenheimer
6/10/1938	Camden Courier-Post	Camden, Lawyers - L. Scott Cherchesky
6/1/1939	Camden Courier-Post	Camden, Law School, Peter Albano

Philadelphia - 1922

Tommy Loughran Has His Work Cut Out
For Him When He Faces Tunney

By Gordon MacKay
Philadelphia, PA
1922

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

Philadelphia Inquirer- December 18, 1925

POTTSVILLE IS KING

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-

Frankford Gazette - November 13, 1931

GORDON MACKAY WRITES ABOUT YELLOW JACKETS

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."

Camden Courier-Post - February 1, 1938

Is Zat So?
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 some, thing 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 un 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.

Camden Courier-Post - February 2, 1938

Is Zat So?
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. Mr. Rudd, as president of the Pennsauken Democratic Club, opposes W. L. Napoleon Rogers, C. P., who as head of the United Republican Club of Pennsauken, Is the big potato of the majority. Mr. Rogers' political sense, I might state, has been greatly heightened. He is a person who reflects the benefits that come through the chastening rod. Since he accepted the defunct nomination of the G. O. P.-less majority in the Board of Freeholders and bared his neck to the blasts, Les has been a huge light and learned to keep the cards he plays closed to his necktie hereafter.

The United Republican Club of Pennsauken has a conspicuous home, around the corner from the rival headquarters.

HARMONY EVER CLUB WATCHWORD

Once inside the precincts of the United Republican Club and harmony sits on the bough like a bird. Sweetness and light fairly ooze through the pores of the members, as they stand at attention and "Heil Rogers" to their heart's content and the danger that the welkin may be shattered.

Peace, amity and harmony form inseparable triplets in the club meetings. Outside the structure the merry members of the U,RC. run as fast as their legs can carry them to grab back their hammers and start working on their leaders. The noise that you hear as you near Pennsauken on nights that the United Republican Club meets is the whir of the grindstones sharpening the axes to be wielded, after harmony hall had its innings and scores no errors, also no runs or hits.

Talk with the leaders of Pennsauken and you discover that everybody is back of W. L. Napoleon Rogers, but some of them carry their knives in their hands waiting the chance to poke it so far into Les' back that you can use the handle for a hat rack.

Perhaps Br'er Rogers is aware of the manner in which harmony masquerades in this fashion. but if not we take this opportunity to inform Les to that general effect, as Mr. Rogers and myself are buddies from the word go, with 'to ---" added .... Having given Old Pal Les a boost and warned him in advance, because we like the C. P. at that, we return to our first idol, Charles Rudd, barrister, Democrat, the man who can keep Walter Olsen, of the township committee, quiet on meeting nights.

Mr. Rudd's greatest worry is Mr. William Harker. Mr. Harker is president of the New Deal Democratic Club which comprises, as near as I can learn, Mr. Harker, member of the township committee, and a lithograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. It seems that Mr. Harker, like the well known Julius Caesar, would rather be "first in Gaul than second in Rome."

HARKER FLOCKS ALL BY HIMSELF

Mr. Rudd's friends will insist that I have misspelled, the word "Gaul" in talking about Mr. Harker but who am I to bother myself with the family quarrels of Pennsauken politics? My Idea was to write about C. Rudd, the attorney and political leader to point out the fact that Pennsauken Democrats could travel farther and do much worse than follow the banner of the urbane and taciturn Charlie Rudd.

We always have had the deepest admiration for the political leader who refuses to envision himself as a combined pocket edition of Demosthenes, Napoleon, Roosevelt and Lincoln. And in this respect we find that Br'er Rudd measures up to our qualifications. He takes the bitter with the sweet. When he says nay, nay and yea, yea, he means it.

One of the most touching spectacles, one which shows the real brotherly love that exists under the gruff surface of Pennsauken politics, is to see Les Rogers buttonholing Charlie Rudd in a corner of Camden City Hall to offer Charlie 30 pieces of silver, if he will hogtie and harrow the Pennsauken Democratic Club.

'Tis a majestic spectacle, too, my countrymen, to witness the lordly manner in which Charlie tells Les to take his low offer and begone. For Charlie's education has enabled him to read of two certain miscreants named Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold, and Charlie Budd wants no part of the role of either.

Charlie's cup of joy ran over In November, 1936, when certain gentleman named Roosevelt ran for President. The G.O.P. ran for cover at the same time. Charlie smiled the smile that won't come off when F.D.R. swept through Pennsauken like rumor that Les Rogers had kissed George Brunner.

Since that red-letter day alas!

Der Fuehrer of the First Jersey Belch, Adolf Hague, Insisted on Meinherr Moore for Governor and that cooked the goose of victory for Charlie in Pennsauken last November.

BUDD LUCKY AS CHIEF OF 600 FAITHFUL

The unanimous manner in which Pennsauken refused to vote for Moore pained Charlie Rudd as a Democrat greatly, but didn't trouble him so much as a leader. Why should the camel strain at a gnat and swallow a mountain, or words to that general effect?

To attend a meeting of the Pennsauken Democratic Club is to at tend a convocation of Democrats who are fighters every inch. They fear neither the storms, that rage, the winds that blow, no the United Republican Club just around the corner.

Of course, they give due credit to such men· as Freeholder Westcott, the Hustling Heckler, for aiding the Democratic cause by sitting in the Camden County Board of Freeholders as a Republican member from Pennsauken.

Now that Charlie Budd can take a deep breath without hearing some good Democrat cuss Moore to the skies, you'll see his qualities if leadership evoke great response. Meanwhile the Democrats of Pennsauken are to be complimented on having such leader as Charlie Rudd. Charlie Rudd is darn lucky to be the president of a club that has more than 600 Democrats in Pennsauken.

And if Charlie finds that the club is in need of funds to make a real fight, let him see Bill Davis. If that man can keep his present financial system intact, not only can he take the Pennsauken Democrats out of the red, but he might be borrowed for that purpose by the Democratic National Committee.

Camden Courier-Post - February 2, 1938

Corliss Spoofs at the Groundhog So Don't Let Its Shadow Worry You	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

Mr. "Marmota Monax"- groundhog to you- consults his weather report for his annual prognostication today while Samuel T. Corliss (Inset), Camden's veteran weather prophet takes exception to his ability and calls him just "another quack."
sounds reasonable to me. It's about the only thing that would bring a groundhog out. "Groundhogs are in the same class with goose bones, heavier pelts, thicker coats on pigeons and the rest of those old-fashioned ways to reveal the coming weather. And none of them is worth a darn. None of them is any good. "Let me tell you a story to illustrate just how little the groundhog has on the ball. There were a couple of farmers in Pennsylvania talking together about the coming Winter. "'This is going to a terrible Winter,' said one of them. 'The animals all have heavier coats, the pigeons are getting thicker coverings, the bark on the tree is growing thicker, too.' . "'My gosh,' replied the other farmer, 'you're not going to have all that to yourself are you. Over in our county we haven't noticed any such things as that, so I guess this Winter is all going to be in your county.' "Same way with the ground hog. He doesn't mean a thing as far as the weather is concerned, whether he sees his shadow or not means nothing." "Then you think the stuff about the groundhog and St. Swithin's Day is bunk?" he was asked. "I don't think anything about that," was the reply. "I just think the groundhog and his shadow is a fable and the stuff about St. Swithin and the weather is a fairy tale. I'll rely on the wind to tell the weather, it hasn't failed me yet. "Give you an idea. Rained hard on Monday and friends of mine wanted to go somewhere today. So they called me up to ask me what Tuesday's weather was going to be. I told them it would be clear and cold but one of them said, 'the weatherman says it will be fair and warmer.' "’That's all right with me,' I told this friend, 'but I say it will be clear and colder.' Who wins?" Clear and cold it certainly was. Then Corliss smiled- the veteran prophet has passed his 80th birthday and is still going strong -and said; "Want to put a knockout on the groundhog, once and for all?" "Sure," he was told, Hit's nice work if you can do it." ' "Groundhog comes out in February doesn't he? Yes. Well I want to say that February and August are, the on]y feminine months in the year. Thougnt that 'feminine' would get you. What does it mean? It means that February and August are the only months in the year that won't be dictated to. "I never make any predictions about either of them, for they'll fool all the weather prophets in the universe. I just want to say that I measured this Winter with the wind the same as always, and I told the Courier-Post we would have a 'normal' Winter. That means not too hot and not too cold. And that s what we have had thus far and that's what we'll have until Spring. "So don't bother about the groundhog. As a weather prophet he is just a ham anyway."

Camden Courier-Post - February 3, 1938

Is Zat So?
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 friend ship 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 tip, we said:

"Take Courtney- and the other bird to win by a kayo."

Benjamin, surname Fogelman, looked at us in a surprise as mute as it was telling. He scratched his head for some time, then said:

"Is that on the level, I could get about 9 to 2 on that bet?"

"It's on the, level for me," I retorted, "and just to prove my heart and tongue are clicking together, I'm writing that fact in the sheet."

“Wait a day or two will you?" begged Mr. Fogelman. As it was not the intention of the writer to spill same prophecy until the Sunday edition, it was with willingness we consented. At that time in our naive way we didn't figure what was rambling through the brain of Bee, the Bee.

In Sunday's fight dope we went to bat, predicting that Courtney would knock out his man and that a similar performance would be recorded with my second favorite winning via a kayo.

On Monday night, the evening of the fisticuffs, Courtney and the other favorite won as per prediction and in a manner so described. Among those who wanted to pat the majestic back of the writer was Mr. Fogelman, the smiling as only Benjamin, the Vagrant, can smile.

CLEANED UP AT 5 TO 1

The mirth, jollity and glee that bathed Mr. Fogelman in such a glow of satisfaction was uncorked even to a greater extent, as he insisted that he drive me back to the office in his own particular gasoline chariot.

"I got 5 to 1 on a kayo," chortled Benjamin, as we rode officeward." "And did I clean up? I didn't get any bets on the decision, but when I said knockout in both of them, I got 5 to 1. Made a parlay on a half a dozen of them, too,"

Which was the furtherance of a beautiful friendship, made all the loftier and cemented the harder be cause after that we gave Mr. Fogelman no tips on bets on pugs. It is enough to tempt the lass and jade called Milady Fortune once, never twice.

Mr. Fogelman, however, continued to pick them in his own way. His picking was extremely one-sided, always wrong, he said. Meanwhile, the business of losing bets seemed to make Benny prosperous, and in a fit of brain inertia he opened a night club. ,

At least that is the manner in which the boys along the Rialto on Broad street gazed upon the venture fathered by Bee, the Bee. Mr. Fogelman, however, seemed to look upon ill-starred ventures with a patronizing eye. He plunged into the vortex called Philadelphia night life with a vengeance and plenty of the do-re-mi, as the boys along the asphalt in mid-city Philadelphia say.

Finally Mr. Fogelman hit upon a fine advertisement for his place. The night life was filled with spots called Chez This and Chez That, and Palais This and Palais That, so Fogelman, with that instinctive luck he owns, called his spot "Benny the Bum's." The name spread like wildfire. In side the palatial night club one found that it was as ritzy as any thing New York offered. Hence prosperity has followed Benny.

Months had fled since we conversed with Benny until the other day, when we ran into him through sheerest accident. The greeting we received was effusive not to say elaborate. Mr. Fogelman intimated that he would rather have Mackay for his guest than Governor Earle, although Benny is quite a friend of the Governor's at that. In fact the Delmonico of Broad street in Philadelphia knows persons, personages and personalities. Benny is all to the good with all of them.

Perhaps his innate modesty would compel him to refrain telling his best story. Mr. Fogelman and a friend were in New York and decided to visit the hot spots. Mr. Fogelman had his card of introduction, okehed by a so-called big shot. The door man turned a frosty face at Benny and his pal.

"I don't know that guy," said the sentry, "you blokes may be all right, but don't you know somebody that can okeh you?"

Quickly did Mr. Fogelman spring to the breach.

"Sure, Benny, the Bum," said that worthy himself.

"Come in," yelled the doorkeeper, "I'm a great friend of Benny, the Bum, myself."

Camden Courier-Post - February 3, 1938

Junior Red Cross Activities Told to Astonished Elders
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 Fire man 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."

While Harry shone because of Rooney's tale, the youngsters basked in the sunlight of their own description of the work they did, told with modesty, and actually astounding the elders on hand.

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 de livered 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 malting them think we think they need soap."

Garments Distributed

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 at tends 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.

Pay for Surgery

"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 per formed 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.

Camden Courier-Post - February 4, 1938

Is Zat So?
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 is 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 F'RENZY

"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 roblem 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 be come 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.".

Camden Courier-Post - February 5, 1938

Is Zat So?
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 patron .age, 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 leader ship 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. 1n 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 "'Ve 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.

Such was the situation until some allies of Hague looked over the Camden county figures. They discovered that with all the odds that were against them, Brunner and Kelleher and their organization had actually delivered 84 percent of the registered Democratic vote to Moore- a performance that was a miracle, in view of the tremendous opposition that arose against Moore among both the G. O. P. and the Rooseveltians in the Democratic ranks.

When some stout soul in North Jersey pointed out that Governor Moore and his cohorts couldn't overlook a leadership that was able to muster 84 percent of the Democratic vote at the polls, despite the terrific battle to which this leadership had been subjected, Moore and his satellites saw a great white light shining. No less an authority than Governor Moore, when informed, told Mayor Brunner and Treasurer Kelleher that all patronage would come through the State committee representatives. The Mayor, fortified with this claim, publicly told the fact at a banquet recently that he and Mrs. Mary Ellen Soistmann, State committeewoman, would handle all patronage. '

How the news and the switch in official viewpoint will affect the other wing of the Democracy is not given to me to divulge. I'm merely stating that the harmony that seems to spread its silvery wings over the Democratic party, has a few sour notes buried in the symphony.

Camden Courier-Post - February 5, 1938

*Heads Banquet*	PYNE POYNT CLUB ARRANGES BANQUET Annual Get-Together of 27 Year-Old Organization Set for February 26 Twenty-seven year's ago a group of North Camden young men banded together to promote sports. Since that time an enviable record or achievements has been set up as the result of that meeting in the home of Albert R. Heap, 544 Bailey Street, in the latter part of January, 1911. There, it was that the young men formed themselves into the Pyne Poynt Social Club. They met there for about three weeks, then moved to the Southwest corner of Fifth and Erie Streets; which has been the headquarters since. The original group and those who joined in the years which immediately followed the organization meeting have scattered, many of them have moved out of the city, but each year they get together at a banquet. Annual Banquet February 26 The time now is 'approaching when the annual banquet will be held. It is scheduled for Saturday night, February 26, in the headquarters of the organization. It is the gala occasion to which the older members look forward through the year- the opportunity to reminisce

FRANK KELLEY
Chairman of the committee which is arranging the twenty- seventh annual banquet of the Pyne Poynt Social Club, which is to be held Saturday night, February 26.
on the days that have gone and to recount the things they have done to promote sports. And, while the years have piled up for them, individually, there's not one of the group of about 60 members, who will attend the banquet, who is not just as peppy as ever in his interest for the original undertaking of the club. "It will be the twenty-seventh annual banquet," said Frank Kelley, chairman of the banquet committee, "and the boys will be coming home for the get-together. They'll come from Washington, from Illinois, Delaware, several sections of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Old friendships will be renewed, old times and the affairs of the Pyne Poynt Social Club of bygone years will be discussed. It will be a night that will' be enjoyed by everybody:" Gordon Mackay To Speak It seems fitting, members pointed out, that the principal speaker should be a man well versed in sports, from the marble games of boyhood, through baseball, football, championship fights- everything in sports. The speaker will be Gordon Mackay, member of the editorial staff of the Courier-Post Newspapers. Mackay, through his 40 years in newspaper work, will recount his experiences in sports- and Mackay knows sports and those who have made history in its various phases. In addition to Kelley, the banquet committee is composed of Hamilton Batten, George Ash, Alfred J. Ross, Jr., Jacob Dreher, Ellery Caskey, Nick Adezio, Edward H. Winters, Alex Kahnweiler and Harry F. Walton. As chairman of the entertainment committee, Ross will be assisted by: Robert Johnson, William Huber and Caskey.

Camden Courier-Post - February 7, 1938

Is Zat So?
by
GORDON MACKAY

THIS writer makes a grand salaam to the school children of Collingswood. The youngsters are members of the junior council of the American Red Cross, itself indicative of the humanitarian objectives of the young folk. Few persons, unless they are cognizant of the grand work of the school pupils in the grade schools and ·the students in the high schools, can realize how effective these youngsters are in their charities and humanities. I

When I stop to consider that, years ago, when this grizzled old codger was a pupil in a grammar school, that the only contact we had with foreign nations was on a round globe that turned on a swivel, the amity and alliances that these Collingswood boys and. girls have built abroad seem a miracle.

We also regard as significant a little Incident connected with this international alliance between Southern Jersey and Central Europe. One realizes that the children in the classrooms reflect the nature of domestic thought, the trend of home training, home beliefs, home aims. This fact was proved to a startling degree by the straw votes taken in the suburban high schools in 1936 on the presidential contest.

The communities ran almost identical at the polls with the straw votes in the classrooms, so that the school children were really revealing the manner in which pa and ma were going to vote at the polls.

. This prelude was merely to allude more convincingly to a little fact that may have escaped particular attention at a recent meeting of the Camden County Chapter of the Red Cross in the Collingswood borough hall. The students in the junior high school made a portfolio last Christmas to send to high school children in Czechoslovakia.

MUNITIONS WORK AT SKODA SHOWN

Naturally as junior members of the great Red Cross, the C.H.S. students included in their portfolio, largely pictorial, scenes that were "interesting to pacific students here, pictures of school work, student activities, and the like.

It is significant that the portfolio which the students in a high school in Prague returned to Collingswood contained pictures of the great munitions works called Skoda. A plant that ranks with the Krupps in Germany, or any of the great plants in our own country.

I have been hearing views given by those who have returned from Europe. These travelers agree Europe is martial-minded, and that war is in everybody's thought, if not on everybody's' lips. It was necessary to take everything with a grain of salt, for after all, an American viewpoint on a European situation is not necessarily reflective of European thoughts.

But a school child's mind is reflective of the thoughts of his elders.

The mere fact that these children in Czechoslovakia should believe that their friends in South Jersey would, be interested in pictures of the great munitions plant reveals to me, at least that Europe is war-minded. I believe the kids disclosed this better than all the premiers, dictators and rulers on the continent.

I shall stick to the original premise that a child reflects its domicile, reflects its parents, reflects the home thoughts and beliefs, and this portfolio, filled with pictures of a munitions plant, is tile best argument to me that Europe is thinking and dreaming of war. Hence the warrant, insofar as I am concerned, for the increase in Uncle Sam's own national defenses.

It also indicates the simplicity of the student mind in Prague. At a distance of thousands of miles these simple children probably felt that the little pals in America were thinking along the same lines as the offspring of the Czechs.

MUCH CREDIT DUE YOUNGSTERS

Hence what could come with greater pleasure to the Collingswood children, or be fraught with a sterner message that we in Czechoslovakia are prepared, too, than to send the Jersey children a book filled with majestic pictures of Skoda's great munitions' plant.

Indeed, to my mind, it was the most telling and significant indication that war is in the European mind from peasant to dictator. To turn to the other side of the picture the work of these children among the needy of the school students is one of the finest examples of brotherly love to be found anywhere.

These youngsters, too, have learned the great lesson of real benevolence- that charity must be anonymous, that giving to the poor must be done in a spirit of helpful ness, in a mood of brotherliness whereby the one who has, gives of his store to the one who has not.

The manner in which these youngsters distribute their Christmas baskets is in this same generous spirit. The families in want are not exposed, their names are a secret. The baskets are filled; each has a number and an address. The almoners deliver these baskets to the addresses. All the children know, unless the person to whom the basket is delivered furnishes the information, is that the right number got the right basket.

The mere fact that these, school children in Collingswood could collect $1001 for their charitable work is in itself a high water mark of excellence and efficiency. And the manner in which the kids distributed the money, the practical uses to which they put the funds, is another feather in their caps.

When I read about this Junior Red, Cross I got the impression that it was one of the usual organizations for the youngsters, an organization that gave them a pin to wear and a sweater to knit, then decided to call everything jake.

That is the usual nature of most of these "junior" organizations- a pair of knitting needles, some wool and a pin: Presto; the whole thing is complete, the entire picture filled, If I was astounded at the international scope of their work, or the fact that these school children were actually carrying on international amity in its most fruitful fashion, between the children of the various countries, the elders present were paralyzed.

If those elders revealed an insight Into their real impression of the junior council, I'm sure they would say that they had had the same idea as Mackay- a pin, a skein of wool, a pair of knitting needles.

When the amplified, expansive labors of, these children were disclosed to them, the elders were flabbergasted, but delightedly so. The children won unstinted plaudits from the chairman, Dr. Leon N. Neulen, and they deserved every tribute, every garland.

So I wish they would take another grand salaam from the author..

Camden Courier-Post - February 8, 1938

Is Zat So?
by
GORDON MACKAY

YOU can always rely on Camden to bring back the normal balance. The more I see of this city the more it is impressed on me that realism can be found anywhere in the place. Camden is a good antidote for pessimism and cynicism, if you only want to find the cure and are fortunate enough to locate it.

This thought seeped into my ken the other day after I had read one of I those kind of magazine articles, that always give me a pain in the neck. It was one of those "expert" articles telling youth how to find its proper sphere in the business world.

The dame who was dishing out the piffle-paffle on that score had the decency to admit that one of her students wanted to "know how he would get a job'' rather than listen to all the ballyhoo about how to fill in your own conspicuous niche.

Accompanying the article was the usual honey from personnel managers about openings that their corporation possessed for the paragons who could answer all the requirements. The fact that these personnel managers declared there was always room for such material made me laugh. For, argued the Mackay, if all these positions are crying and begging for men, how come there are 10 million unemployed in this country, according to unemployment census.

Of course the whole business was a lot of guff and meant nothing in the face of the facts. Certainly these positions couldn’t go begging without being filled fromn the raw material that might be found in the army of 10 million idle workers. That type of hooey is even too tough for an incurable optimist like myself to swallow

LAUGHABILITIES RISE AT DETECTIVE “MAG”

My laughter increased as I read one of those "true detective" publications. What made me laugh was that every article, factually correct, ended with the admonition that crime does not pay. That suited me all right, too. Until I cast a surreptitious eye over the advertisements in this magazine; only to discover that it was packed from cover to cover with all the gyp and sucker advertisements that one can shake up.

The fact that this magazine was pushing out its message that crime does not pay and then purveying to the lads that trim the suckers whenever the trimming was good was too much for my blood. I began to want to exercise profanity, which is something that intimate friends know is a thing that Mackay rarely uses.

So we went fro the domestic hearth in both sorrow and anger, only to bump into Mark Marritz. Mark will never be president of the United States but if Haddon Township remains a G.O.P. citadel it is a fair assumption that Mark will always be solicitor for the township unless he rebels and becomes a Democrat.

Now Mark Marntz is an excellent antidote for skepticism, pessimism and cynicism regarding America and her institutions. Mark was born in Kiev, Russia where he remained until he was 10 years old, when the family migrated to Wilmington.

"You can't tell me anything about Russia today,” Marritz ventured to the writer. ''because I know how it was before the World War. I was born in Kiev and we were compelled to keep a picture of the Czar in the house, in fact every household in Russia had to display the Czar’s picture.”

“Jewish boys in Kiev, where they had massacres and pogroms against the Jewish people, were not allowed to go to school. They were prohibited form getting an education”.

HAD HIS FIGHT TO GET AHEAD

“The only way we Jewish boys- my father was a merchant in Kiev- could get an education was through the rabbi. He couldn’t have a regular school either, he was compelled to teach each boy as a separate pupil.

“I got a good working knowledge of mathematics from the rabbi and also some of the Russian and Jewish culture. Imagine how I felt, too, when my father came to America and we settled in Wilmington. For I had to go into the first class in the lowest grade at school, because I could not speak English.”

"I had to learn the alphabet just like youngsters who were going to a school for the first time. As soon as I mastered English, though, I went ahead more - rapidly, for the rabbi's teaching had given me education along the lines that were necessary to me."

Marritz is a walking advertisement for the destiny and glories of the melting pot. Energetic, good-looklng, personable and with a talent for conversation and a penchant for the law. Mark assuaged some of the indignation that was wrought when we read the hooey that had been printed in those magazines.

Next we get a further advance back to normalcy when we bumped into Pat Iarossi. Pat is a barber but that doesn't deter him from basking in the sunshine at Miami and thanking his lucky stars that his family moved from San Marco in Italy to Camden years ago.

Pat is another excellent example of the melting-pot. His barber-shop is now located at 600 North Third Street, site having been Pat's for the past 14 years. Before that he had a shop on Front Street, where he barbered the native sons and daughters for 20 years.

Make no mistake, Pat has carried the tradition of the America that benefited him so much into his own activities. The years of service of his four employees amount to 52.

The oldest employee has been stropping the razors there for 18 years while the baby of the outfit, who is not so old either, has been employed by Pat for 10 years. Two others enjoy, terms of 14 and 12 years.

Pat’s greatest memories cluster about Ann Pennington, Camden's gift to the Follies and the stage, and the Dooleys, a theatrical family which also is a proud Camden possession.

"I used to cut Ann Pennington’s hair when she was a child," Pat recalled. "And the Dooleys always made my shop their headquarters. Billy Dooley worked for me. The kids, six of them, trained in a patch we called the 'cow lot’. Rae and May were the two girls, while Johnny was the big shot of the boys.”

“They used to turn cartwheels right out in the lot there and come into my shop to do a little vocal rehearsing. Ann Pennington was always dancing, you couldn't keep her feet still. I remember one day Ann, Johnny Dooley and a girl named Moore went over to Lubin's in Philadelphia, trying to break into the movies.

“Lubin wouldn’t handle them and they all came crying into my shop.” Whereupon Pat produced a post card dated in 1911 showing Johnny Dooley starring in the old Bijou Theatre in Philadelphia.

So Pat has no envy of the thespians or of anybody else. Why should he- Miami is some place to spend the Winter.

Camden Courier-Post - February 9, 1938

Is Zat So?
by
GORDON MACKAY

May we not at this time proffer a suggestion to Mayor Brunner, Eddie Kelleher and the other party sachems that should be a sure-fire plan to make Camden county safe for Democracy? We advise that the Democrats gather a fund of $4000, the money to be expended in giving testimonial dinners to Republican leaders, near-leaders and persons who figure themselves to be both.

Engage tables enough to accommodate about 350 persons. Invite representatives of all the various G. O. P. factions in the county, give a half dozen tickets to boisterous Democrats, so that the latter can sit back in their seats and enjoy the subsequent dogfight on a full stomach.

This idea that I am advancing to register about 5000 more Democrats in the county and paralyze the remnants of the once-powerful county G.O.P., was born when I attended the recent testimonial dinner to Louis Bantivoglio, freeholder from the Fifth ward.

Naturally my attendance was purely in a professional capacity. Speeches were made by divers and sundry spokesmen, the high-light being the sales talk for Bantivoglio and Baird by David Baird, Jr. The latter waxed wrathfully but warily in castigating the "half-breeds," as he once sarcastically termed the Republicans of the ilk and stature and political. leanings of Commissioner Mary W. Kobus.

Rarely, too, have we ever attended a banquet, either in the capacity of guest or reporter that ever awakened so many echoes of the past as did the dinner to the Fifth ward freeholder.

MRS. KOBUS ELECTED LOUIS

First came the information from friends of Commissioner Kobus that she was responsible for the election of Bantivoglio from the Fifth ward as freeholder. In view of the fact that Squire Baird seemed to feel that the freeholder's election was a personal triumph; this appeared strange to yours truly.

We moseyed about, however, and discovered that whether the squire likes it or not Mary W. Kobus and her minions did elect Bantivoglio. The leaders of the Kobus faction who put, the thing across were headed by a woman named Madeline Salvatore and a gentleman named "Bucky" Branch.

Bantivoglio was elected by something less than 40 votes, These votes could easily have been given to his opponent but there were strategic reasons why the Kobus faction didn't want a Democrat chosen from the Fifth ward.

So Branch, who is a policeman, I believe, and who was not working on election day, it being his regular day off, went into his precinct and put over the votes that elected Bantivoglio .

And Mr. "Bucky" Branch, I have been informed, has been so sore at the fact that he did elect Louis Bantivoglio that he moans and cries and berates himself ever since the trick was turned ..

Politicos who told me the story about the Kobus support for Bantivoglio gave a rather sensible reason for the step that was taken by the anti-Baird folk. The New Dealers among the Republicans sensed that the division between the Republicans and Democrats in the 1938 Board of Freeholders was going: to be exceedingly close.

Too close, in fact, to take any chances. So it was decided to support Bantivoglio in the Fifth ward, because he was a regular Baird Republican and couldn't be won to the coalition, The reasoning of the Kobusitees was clear and correct.

Had Bantivoglio been beaten by a Democrat, the board would have been divided equally, The Democrats would then have been able to deal with an individual rather than a faction, One vote would have given either side control. Thus by putting Bantivoglio across the Kobus faction made it imperative for the Democrats to deal with that clique; in fact Brunner and his minions had to do that little thing.

In view of this analysis I'm con tent to believe that the Kobus claim that the New Dealers elected Louis Bantivoglio is absolutely okay.

LADY " COPPER" NOT TRADE PARTY

Now don't get the information askew. Mrs. Kobus had no official or personal hand in this matter. It was the keen thought of some of her lieutenants, whose judgment appears to have been excellent, that fashioned this plan and executed it.

Meanwhile numerous politicos have been jibing Baird's statement that he would "rather have one Louis Bantivoglio than 1000 ingrates.". These political seers and soothsayers declared that such a declaration proved that its author was all wet in his political judgment and short sighted in his political history.

These politicos ambushed Mackay the other day, crammed him. into a corner and told him that if it "hadn't been for Bantivoglio Baird would have control of the city commission today."

These chuckling anti-Bairdites not only bearded me in my den, but dared me to disprove their statements by taking a look at the record. A stranger to politics in Camden, I didn't know the import of this statement until I squinted at the ward returns for the 1935 city commission election.

There in black and white is the proof that Baird lost the city commission fight because of the Bantivoglio-Leo Rea alliance in the Fifth ward. Just to take a look at the record again and to refresh jaded memories, the regular Baird slate received the following votes in the Fifth ward:

Bennett, 1016; Leonard, 1001; Lummis, 962; Rhone, 963; von Nieda, 1081. The New Deal ticket, then supported by the Messrs. Bantivoglio and Rea, polled these votes;· Baker, 1032; Brunner, 1022; Hartmann, 1001; Kobus, 1024, and Reesman, 930.

We would call your attention particularly to the Leonard-Hartmann vote. Louis and Leo supported candidates Brunner, Kobus and Hartmann, of the New Deal.

Leonard and Hartmann polled exactly the same vote, 1001. And the recount revealed Hartmann a winner by SEVEN votes, the box score showing Hartmann, 17,338, and Leonard, 17,331. And the Fifth ward turned the trick, for it would have been easy for Louis and Leo to have given Hartmann the same vote that Reesman received, or 71 less, and elected Leonard. There would have been no recount then.

Which scrutiny of the returns would seem to show that Bantivoglio as a friend of the squire proved his valor and vigilance in the cause by seating a New Deal commissioner and owing his seat in the Board of Freeholders to the Kobus clan.

In connection with this fund which the Democrats should raise to give testimonial dinners to G.O.P. leaders et cetera we might suggest that on each occasion they have, David Baird Jr., named for a new office. In order, that my friend, Florence Baker, can show her loyalty and friendship to the Old Guard Field Marshal by asking his election to the said office.

This suggestion to, the Messrs. Brunner, Kelleher and the others is made tax-free, and no charge for usage. If that scheme doesn't make Camden county safe for Democracy, nothing will.

Camden Courier-Post - February 9, 1938

BAIRD AIDES HELD SEEKING CITY RULE
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 arid 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.

Brunner Jests at G.O.P.

"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 far 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."

The prosecutor also prophesied greater honors in the future for the triumvirate who were the guests of the occasion.

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.

She told of the trouble the Democrats in the Ninth Ward, which, she declared, had never elected a Democratic freeholder until Oscar Moore was chosen. Mrs. Hyland told of detectives shadowing her home during election, and of 'the struggles' that she and Moore had known together in fighting for the party in that bailiwick.

"I want to say" continued the postmaster, "that we must all be impressed by the spirit of harmony that this gathering means has come to pass.

"I don't want you, and I will not myself believe all you read in the newspapers declaring we are fighting among· ourselves, for if there is anything like that in progress, I don't know anything about it and I don't believe you do, either."

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.

Camden Courier-Post - February 10, 1938

Is Zat So?
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.

"I want to tell you something about that, to have you know what child labor meant in some parts of South Jersey when I was a kid, 30 years ago. I was about 10 when I started working in the fields there, 4 in the morning until 8 at night. You got a job through a padrone, boss of the Italians.

"Farmers and other businessmen didn't conduct their affairs with you dlrect- everything came through the padrone. You didn't lead a dog's life then, you did worse. You got up before the sun was even up, and you got up in the barn because you slept there in a pile of hay, "You worked for the farmer, and he let you know that you worked for him. You didn't sleep in the house, you didn't eat in the house, you didn't even get your water from the family well. You can imagine that when you were 10 years old; ·and started working at 4 o'clock in the morning and quit at 8 o'clock at night, cooked your own stuff out side and grabbed it as you could, you didn't need any pills to go to sleep at night.

"I did that every summer all the time I went to school. The other kids had never gone to school with an Italian kid before, and the way they jibed 'the little dago' as they called me; was a caution. I had to fight 75 percent of the other scholars in order to live, and my record I guess is filled with an equal number of wins and losses.

BASEBALL GAVE SAM HEADACHE

"In Italy we never saw a baseball game and when I started to play it was a headache. It was weeks before I learned how to hold the bat, and when I got my first hit playing the game I carried the bat down to first base with me, I wouldn't let go of it. They called me 'out' because. I carried the bat to the base and I didn't know any different.

"Despite this tough break I fought right along and soon, they stopped razzing 'the little wop'- you know that 'wop' comes from 'woppi,' which means a 'sport'- and we became fast friends. I like to go back to Bridgeton these days and tell them in that town about the time that I was the first Italian kid that went to school there.

"And the funny part of the whole business is that the Italians are as strong in Cumberland County today as in any part of Jersey; At any rate, they promoted me so fast- you could skip classes in those days- that I really got the eight years schooling in five years.

"You can bet it was a relief, too, to find myself among boys about my own age, but all bigger than I was. That's when the fights, started. And we had plenty. I managed to save some money and got into Lehigh, then went to Dickinson Law School in Carlisle, Pa.

"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.".

Camden Courier-Post - June 1, 1939

Jury Dismissed in Arsenic Case
Of Dead Mouse in Prune Juice
Restaurant Customer III 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.

Beside Hutcheson the jury comprised Peter Albano, Audubon; Alandria Kozak, Florence; R. Beverly Loring, Wilmington, Del.; Davis F. MacGhee, Moorestown; Gabriel Rudolph, Gloucester; Harold A. Uhl, Glassboro; Veronica Weidman, and Evelvn C. Berg, Martha Essig, Zaven A. Hovsepian and Marjorie S. Smith, all of Camden.

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 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.

Camden Courier-Post - January 27, 1938

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Camden Courier-Post - January 20, 1938

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Camden Courier-Post - January 21, 1938

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Camden Courier-Post - January 22, 1938


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Camden Courier-Post - January 26, 1938

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Camden Courier-Post - January 29, 1938

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Camden Courier-Post - June 1, 1938

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Camden Courier-Post - June 8, 1938

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Camden Courier-Post - June 10, 1938

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