Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1921-11-25
G. ROWLAND MUNROE AND e. c.
STOKES CAN'T AGREE


Anti-Saloon League of New Jersey,
today made the following comment on
the formal statement of Republican
State Chairman E. c. Stokes, concern
ing the election in Essex County:
Governor Stokes statement con-
corning our Essex County election is
quite characteristic. There nee was
an Indian Chieftain named Young
Man Afraid of His Horses-but that
is another story.
In reference to the defeat of Mrs.
Van Ness, Mr.. Stokes is reported to
have said: The defeat of Mrs. Van
Ness = = = was not a personal de-
feat. = She CHANGED to be the
obliging i%ntroducer, and those who
were opposed to the Van Ness Act
evidently thought they could make
their opposition most manifest by
aiming at her. The vote in this con-
nection is most significant and con-
tains a warming. = = Only the
blind can fail to realize a large num-
Der of Republicans voted against our
ticket for a reason that is most mani
fest
Leaving aside for the moment other
questions, let us examine the returns
a bit to see what basis there is for
such an assertion. What defeated
Mrs. Van Ness? Three things: LIST,
Sex; I'd, The Doctors misguided at
tack; Sd, The Van Ness Act. And l
say now, without hesitation, that with
out the first two the Van Ness Act
would not nave defeated it's i%ntroducer.
Had the introducer been a man, the
attack would utterly have failed.
First, then, the sex element. Mrs.
Van Ness was defeated by TIA votes
an average of less than two votes to
an election district. Everyone of the
four women voted for in Essex ran
many times that number behind the
head of her ticket. Mrs. Laird ran
1865 below; Mrs. Reuss, the Demo-
crat, 4,497; and Mrs. Harris, the Re
publican freebooter candidate, 4,464.
Who, then, will deny that if Mrs. Van
Ness had not had this sex handicap
she would have received the paltry
additional TIA votes she needed?
Second, what of the doctors? The
returns show that their misleading
campaign evidently cost three of the
objects of it's attack-Champion, Ho-
bart and Taylor, who ran within 165
votes of each other-an average of
1,406 votes each (the number by which
this group fell below the group made
nm af COOn Elatnn and Elliot who
stood with them ON the Van Ness Act,
but were not attacked by the %doctors).
Mrs. Van Ness was the fourth n the
doctors attacked, and against her they
were particularly successful in arous-
ing unjust prejudice because of her
Christian Science belief. Without
doubt they easily cost her twice the
715 votes she needed to elect her.
$50 these gallant gentlemen may
credit themselves with the defeat of
this courageous, able and conscien-
tious little of the best
legislators Trenton has seen in many
a year.
Third, then, what of the concen-
trated hatred and prejudice against
the Van Ness Act? This was made the
overshadowing issue by the Demo-
| Gratis, and they were aided by the
Democratic annex, which ran their
campaign, and did their advertising
and c~ircularizing for them, known as
the "A. A. P. A. to which a certain
number of renegade Republicans
such as Eddie Gray, 'Milt' Crawley,
and Bob Ward-were proud to lend
their m Still it utterly failed.
Naturally, Mrs. Van Ness suffered
most because her name was attached
to the act, but Mr.. Hobart was as
widely known as the acts chief de-
fender, and he won by 1881 majority.
Besides, there were seven of his asso-
ciates, equally responsible, with Mrs.
Van Ness and him, for its support in
the Legislature, and yet not n of
them was beaten; Chaplain Coon, for
instance, only ran SO votes behind
Menninger, who had not voted for the
act, and was widely announced as in
favor of changing it to suit the vets
while Mrs. Laird, its most outspoken
enemy among the Republican canqi-
dates, ran 1892 behind Coon, being, in
fact, tenth among the eleven elected.
SO evidently the vets alone cut very
much less figure than was expected,
and, absolutely, did not defeat Mrs.
Van Ness.
in view Of all this it might have
been expected the State Chairman
would have come out with a ringing
statement, rejoicing in a decisive vic
tory which upheld his party in passing
this most effective enforcement act,
and rejoicing also at the sure augury
of victory for next year-instead OF
which zones this q%uavering warning.
What would Mr.. Stokes have had in
Essex? Competition with Nugent for
wet votes? \ repetition of his mas
terry Bugbee campaign, trying to hold