Preacher and Parsi

P: In Newark, N. J. a file of shackled prisoners on their way from courthouse to jail passed the Second Ward, Fourth District polling place. "Hey, wait!" shouted the head man in the file, "this is where I vote." He was hustled off to prison.

P: In Atlantic City, 817 votes for State Assemblyman were recorded for William H. West, running as an "Independent Republican." William H. West is an inmate of the Atlantic County Mental Hospital, where he was confined several weeks ago when G-men discovered that he had been writing letters to Franklin Delano Roosevelt saying that he had brought about his nomination in 1932 by means of "thought waves," would turn his thought waves in other directions unless he was properly rewarded.

P: In Jersey City, all four members of an election board were arrested when a deputy superintendent of elections walked into the Sixth District, Fifth Ward polling place, ten minutes before it closed, asked to see the tally sheets, found they had already been marked up.

Events like these last week by no means astounded New Jersey whose politics has a strong savor of its own. They were in fact the normal accompaniment of a primary election in which the major issue was to choose gubernatorial candidates to succeed Republican Governor Harold Giles Hoffman whose political star has been waning. In the Democratic primary Arthur Harry Moore, up for a third term as Governor after time out to be elected to the U. S. Senate (1935-41), was unopposed. A party split made the Republican race more exciting. Backed by Governor Hoffman's once powerful Republican machine was State Senator Clifford R. Powell, whose campaign was run by Mrs. Powell. His opponent, also a State Senator was a Newark Presbyterian pastor, Lester Harrison Clee, who when returns were counted had won the nomination by 247,876 votes to Powell's 186,690.

Before he descended from the pulpit of Newark's Second Presbyterian Church to go into politics, Dr. Clee had organized two of the largest adult Bible classes in the U. S. He became Speaker of the State House of Representatives, in 1935 forced repeal of a State sales tax for relief money. Macmillan will publish Dr. Glee's The Preacher in Politics this month. Stocky, eloquent, liberal in both his ecclesiastical and political opinions, Dr. Clee will campaign on a platform of clean government and economy. Whether or not he is elected Governor in November may depend largely on how strongly Messrs. Hoffman and Powell live up to their promises to support him in the regular election.

First shot in New Jersey's gubernatorial campaign was immediately fired not by Democrat Moore nor Republican Clee but by an Independent, a Parsi named Dinshah Pestanji Framji Ghadiali, whose first name means "King of Duty." Born in Bombay 63 years ago, King of Duty Ghadiali has been, according to his own account, a wireless experimenter at Hillsdale, N. J., a medical student, export manager of a smelting company at Union, N. J., an assistant professor of mathematics in Bombay, manager of Bombay's first cinemansion, a commander in the New York Police Air Service, a mechanical engineer in Punjab, a law student, editor, lecturer on Xray. He has also been an inmate of Leavenworth Penitentiary. Paroled by Calvin Coolidge after helping to foil a jail break, King of Duty Ghadiali was almost deported as an Oriental alien in 1934, reinstated as a citizen by Franklin Roosevelt within the last year. He is now head of the "Spectro-Chrome Institute" at Malaga, N. J., which claims to cure diseases by colors and light rays, as well as a candidate for Governor. Last week he opened his campaign with a speech to an audience of eight in Newark's Berwick Hotel. Said King of Duty Ghadiali: "Senator Clee will not make a good Governor because his mind is toward God. He won't be able to cope with political deviltry."

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