Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-10-18
STOKES IS GRILLED
IN FIELDER SPEECH
Democratic Candidate Answers
Charges and Points to Rec
ord of Republican.
CALLS g. O. P. CANDIDATE
FRIEND OF THE RAILROADS
Acting Governor Given Big Re-
ception During Tour of Cape
May County.

CAPE MAY. Oct. 1S.-Aeting Gov
ernor Fielder made a tour of Cape
May county yesterday. He was
greeted everywhere by large and en-
thusiastic assemblages of the voters,
and to all of them he carried the
message of promise for good govern
ment and the faithful performance
of all platform pledges. The can
didate was accompanied by Congress-
man j. Thompson Baker. of Wild
wood. who made several telling
speeches.
Fielder continued his exposition of
his Republican opponent as a crea-
ture of the railroad and utility cor
porations. He said Stokes, while in
the Legislature, had introduced and
worked for measures favoring the
railroads. but all that he ever did
detrimental to them he was forced
into doing. The acting governor re-
scented bitterly accusations contained
in county paper to the effect that
he had stood sponsor for a bill for the
abandonment of the Morris canal,
which greatly favored the Lehigh
Valley Railroad Company, which is
the owner of the canal. He said the
statements are absolutely false and
misleading"
Answers Stokes.
Governor Fielder made short ad-
dresses at Cape May Court House,
Ocean City. Woodbine. Wildwood and
in this city. At Cape May Court
House he took up the recent Stokes
statement in reply to the criticism
that had been made of his record.
Mr.. Stokes" the governor said, "at
the outset of his campaign, said that
he would confine himself to a digni-
fed discussion of issues, free from
personality and misrepresentation
Let us see. The next sentence in his
reply begins as follows: The public
utility law. which was a Republican
measure. originating in my (his) adj
ministration.' etc.
Does he think that the public
memory is so shoRt-lived as not to
remember that the law passed in his
administration was mock and a
sham. that 1t was known as the rail-
road commission act, that it provided
for the appointment of commission
ers who under that act were mere
ngureheads without power to enforce
their recommendations, that all eff
forts to clothe them with authority
to regulate rates, to investigate is
sues of securities and give them plen-
ary control over gas, electric, trans
portation and other utilities were re-
sisted by the Republican Legislatures
until Democratic governor with
the power of public opinion behind
him forced an honest public utilities
law through?
Points to Record.
"Can it be that Mr. Stokes has for
gotten that while he was governor
and exercised a commanding influence
over the legislature in the year 1907,
Everett Colby, then Senator, intro
duced a public utilities bill which
was practically the same as the one
which is now the law and that it was
killed and the railroad commission
act, the joke law for which Mr..
Stokes claims credit, appointing three
commissioners at large salaries, with
out power or jurisdiction to enforce
their recommendations, was passed
In its stead?
HE says some of the members of
the railroad employees organization
of the State recommended the change
which he proposed to put in the pub
lie utilities law, namely, to provide
for the appointment of practical rail-
road men to advise the commissioners.
hope that Mr. Stokes will pardon
me for having difficulty in believing
Mis-, because, first, the railroad men
who suggested it never intimated
their desires to me or to the Demo-
cratic convention in any way, al
though they always sought and got
our aid in the past; second, the rail-
road employees associations are
among the most intelligent bodies
of men in the State and must know
that the public utilities board already
has the power to appoint railroad men
to advise them, in fact, have railroad
men advising them, and that their
chief inspector of the railroad de-
partment is a railroad man who rose
through the ranks TO a superinten-
dency; third, the chairman of the
legislative board of the Brotherhood
of Railroad Trainmen, which is by
far the largest railroad employees
organization in the State, and who for
the six years that | served in the
Senate looked after the railroad
mems legislative matters, says that
he never knew of any request by his
association for the insertion of the
plank in the Republican platform
(which is causing so much comment
Ind if the trainrhen desired any such
blank it would be communicated
Through his board.
ut was for these reasons, and also