Speechless in Jersey

In New Jersey's teeming (pop. 700,000) Hudson County, where annual county and city elections are among the liveliest in the U.S., newsmen who are willing to turn out speeches and publicity for political candidates have long found a rewarding short-term market for their talents. Reporters on Sam Newhouse's Jersey Journal (circ. 98,565) have enjoyed a virtual monopoly as political pressagents. The opposition Hudson Dispatch, the county's only other comparable pool of literary talent, has traditionally barred its employees from participating in political campaigns, while the Journal's policy has been to grant staffers leaves of absence.

With luck and an appreciative candi date the interlude can even become permanent. After Democratic Boss John V.

Kenny defeated the Hague machine in 1949 eight Journalists landed full-time propaganda jobs on city and county pay rolls (cost to taxpayers: more than $60,000 a year). Eight other Journal staffers have since taken publicity leaves and returned to their newspaper jobs after elections.

In recent weeks political prosewriters have been in greater demand, at higher salaries, than ever before. With countywide primaries as well as Jersey City and Hoboken elections set for April and May,

an all-time record number of candidates (total to date: 150) are running for 54 jobs. But last week, when veteran Court house Reporter Haig Anlian, 38, asked for a twelve-week leave from his $104-a-week newspaper job to work as a candidate's pressagent for $300 a week. Journal Editor Paul A. Tierney refused. "I won't stand for a wholesale raid on my staff," snapped Tierney, 62, who transferred from Newhouse's Long Island Star-Journal to the Jersey Journal only eight months ago.

Up on the city-room bulletin board went a warning to staffers that "disciplinary action" would be taken against any reporter who accepts even a part-time job from a candidate. Tierney also sent out letters to every office-seeker in Hudson County, pointing out that it would be "manifestly unfair" to allow reporters to work for some candidates but not others.

"An even weightier reason," Tierney explained dryly, "is the conflict of interest arising from such employment of members of our organization." For the first time in Hudson County history, it looked as if many politicians will be left to their own devices and/or speechless at election time.

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