Hague, Frank

Frank Hague (1876–1956) was born on January 17, 1876, in Jersey City, New Jersey, the son of poor Irish Catholic immigrants, John and Margaret (Fagen) Hague. When he left school at age 13 in the sixth grade, the tall, tough, self-confessed juvenile delinquent worked as a blacksmith's helper in the Erie Railroad yards and managed a professional boxer. He began his political career when he was elected in 1896 as a constable with the help of the Second Ward Democratic Party boss. Quickly, Hague moved up the ladder to city commissioner in 1911 and mayor from 1917 to 1929. Hague married Jennie W. Warner in 1903, and they had two children and an adopted son.

Hague dominated Jersey City and Hudson County politics and was the Democratic Party boss of New Jersey from 1917 to 1947. His power base was unrivaled on the East Coast. From 1924 to 1952, Hague was also a national Democratic Party vice chairman. Often compared to Alfred E. Smith, Hague supported Smith for president in 1924 and 1928, but in 1932, Hague transferred his support to Franklin D. Roosevelt to swing New Jersey for the New Deal coalition. With President Roosevelt's support—and by controlling city and county patronage as well as most governors between 1925 and 1940—Hague created a model political machine. When women got the right to vote in 1920, Hague was quick to see the important role they could play in his political machine. He kept the railroad, oil, and utility corporations in check and prevented labor unions from disrupting the state's fragile economy.

However, his frequent and lavish vacations in Florida and Europe, as well as his expensive apartments at the Plaza and Waldorf-Astoria hotels in New York City, aroused some criticism. In 1939, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against his side in Hague v. CIO (1939), which was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union to overturn civil rights violations in a local ordinance limiting free speech and free assembly. Hague prevented Norman Thomas, the Socialist Party presidential candidate, from campaigning in Jersey City and denounced the CIO in 1937 as a communist organization. The Communist Party also investigated Hague in 1938 for political corruption as mayor.

Although uneducated and often crude and abusive to his staff and critics, Hague provided efficient public services for Jersey City voters, reorganizing the fire and police departments, building schools and a modern medical center, and creating efficient child welfare programs. He was a faithful Catholic who neither smoked nor drank, and he barred gambling, nightclubs, and prostitution from Jersey City. His dapper clothing, lavish lifestyle, and fondness for horse racing, boxing, and baseball seemed harmless to most voters. He clashed with FDR during the 1940 campaign for New Jersey governor, however, and Republican victories for governor in 1943 and 1946 marked the decline of his Democratic machine. The New Deal's social welfare programs and the rise of rival Italian and Polish candidates undercut his power base. Hague resigned as mayor in 1947 in favor of his nephew, Frank Hague Eggers, who was so inept that Republicans and younger Democrats won most postwar elections. Hague supported Harry Truman's [Page 322]election in 1948 with a massive political rally, but he resigned as county party leader in 1949 and as Democratic national committeeman and national vice chairman in 1952. His attempted comeback in 1953 was futile, and the death of Eggers in 1954 ended his long career. Boss Frank Hague died in his Manhattan apartment on January 1, 1956, at age 79, largely forgotten as a Democratic Party leader and master machine boss. He is buried in an impressive mausoleum at Holy Name Cemetery in Jersey City. His name remains synonymous with the 20th-century urban American political phenomenon known as bossism.

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