The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1892-09-17
DISORGANIZHD MILITIA
The Old Second Regiment
of Hoboken Kicks at the
New Regime.
BUT FEW MEN AT DRILL.
Plain Talk by 0fficers-What Will
the Outcome Be?

There is a fine little row brewing in
the Second Regiment of Hoboken which
was recently consolidated with the Fourth
Regiment of this city. The fact that
Colonel Abernethy is Commander of both
regiments is very distasreful to the Ho-
boken militiamen and as a result the
regiment is in open revolt The Ho-
boken contingency refuse to obey the
orders of Colonel Abernethy and the
prospects are that many court martiaIs
Will enliven regimental campfires in q
short time.
Last Thursday evening an order was
issued for drill in the Armory at Ho-
boken. II being the first drill since the
consolidation OF the two regiments, the
event was looked forward to with much
interest. 1t was broadly hintad that the
Ho6oKenites would decline to attend, and
thus take advantage of the first opportun-
ity to ignore Abernethy's orders
At nine O'Clock Acting M ajor H. W.
Sagenderf formed the companies. The
companies were very short in numb
and many militiamen present were wild
with delight at noticing what a failure
the drill was The militia Is in 4 bad con-
| ditlon aud at present is unfit for service.
| The whole fight hinges on the treatment
| the Second Regiment officers received at
| the hands OF the Fourth Regiment men.
THE SECONDS POSITION.
+. A. LIE Point. Lieutenant Colonel of
| the Second. in Offering an explanation of
| the difficulty. said:-"When The regi-
ments were consolidated. slate was
made, with Wanser for Colonel. Erlen-
| frr i1,,t + Trlo a
| for Major. Everything was satisfactory
apparently, to the members of the two
| regiments All we wanted and asked for
was one field officer out OF the three to be
| elected. Both regiments had five COM
panies but in numbers we were in the
lead. The unfortunate part of the affair
for US at that time was that we mad four
vacancies of officers in our com
panies. This gave us only eleven
| votes against the fifteen held by
the Fourth. it having full complement.
| The night of the election came, and be-
fore the meeting was called the Fourth
| Regiment men held caucus. Then it
leaked out that Wanser was not caudi-
date for Colonel. We at once suspected
trouble. We made inquiries as to the
| chances of our man Erlenkoetter and
were informed that we We're not going to
be given the one field officer promised US.
This caused considerable i'll feeling. The
| tIODOheu BnlllblAme0 WOulQ NOT attend
| the meeting. aud the FourtI's officers put
through their ticket. Every officer of the
! Second at once rendered his resignation
| Those designations are now in the hands
| of Major General Plume at Division
| HEADQUARTERS. | have attended no drills
and will not. l have resigned and that is
all there is about it. If we had been
treated fairly this trouble would not have
occurred"
| COLONEL ABERNETHY's VIEW OF IT.
Colonel Abernethy, when interviewed
by JERSEY CITY NEWS reporter on the
matter, said:-'I have not been officially
| notified of any trouble in the ranks /
| have learned from outsiders that there is
| some ill feeling Tho cause is attrlbut-
able to the unsatsfied ambitions of some
| of the Seconds officers to obtain promo
ton. have no doubt but what the
trouble. if there be any. will be settled in
short time. will receive an official no.
| tifcation of the success or failure OF last
| Thursdays drill tonight. The only com.
pany, as l understand il, that did not
| take part in the drill was Company g."
The Hoboken milttiamen demand a
reorganization of the regiments. If this
is done the old Second will probably dis
| band and allow the old Fourth to take
| full control in this county.