Theory & Practice

During the five-week course just concluded at St. Peter's College in Jersey City, all the rough-and-tumble of tumultuous Jersey politics was aired in the classroom. Under the benign prodding of St. Peter's chairman of political science, a Jesuit priest named Francis P. Canavan, local politicians blabbed trade secrets with such candor that the course drew more than a hundred students from all walks of life, regularly made Jersey headlines.

Guest lecturers took particular delight in separating theory from practice for the benefit of their students. John M. Deegan, Democratic campaign manager for Hudson County, earned the nickname "Honest John" after telling the class a first law of politics: "If businessmen don't contribute [to campaign funds], business won't be so good next year." Acknowledging that his own organization spent $250,000 in a Senate campaign, more than double the legal limit, he shrugged: "Nobody pays attention to those things."

Tomatoes & Jail. Others offered equally frank, fascinating glimpses of political life. Hal Kierce, deputy director of Jersey City's parks department, explained how democracy functions: "In real life the average voter doesn't have much to say about the choice of candidates." Attorney Francis X. Hayes gave some career counseling: "Percentagewise, in politics the chances for material rewards are greater for the lawyer than the layman." Hudson County Sheriff William Flanagan delved into history and also infuriated Republicans (who are threatening to sue) by suggesting that Republicans stuffed the ballot box at midnight in 1954 to assure the election of Senator Clifford Case. Said another politician: "In Jersey City, the dead still rise on election day to cast their ballots."

Practical politicians often clashed with idealistic students in class. John R. Longo, a ward boss and city personnel director, taunted a student who deplored the spoils of politics: "When I was your age, I was carried off the speaker's platform, hit in the face with tomatoes, put in jail twice. I never wanted anything, either."

Morality & Politics. Father Canavan not only brought politicians into the class room; he also took his students out into politics. Last fall he had them round up signatures to get a referendum on the ballot authorizing a reorganization study of Jersey City's commission-type government. When the referendum won, entrenched politicians grumbled that Canavan's students were paid off in good grades.

But Canavan never lets practical poli tics escape the discipline of theory. A member of the American Political Science Association, he spent a year in England researching a recently published book, The Political Reason of Edmund Burke: "The fascinating thing about Burke was that he was able to reconcile morality with politics."

Politicians learned so much about theo ries of morality and students so much about practical politics in his course that Father Canavan plans to continue it as a lecture series. Even though he had to listen to a politician attack newspapers for supporting political candidates who buy full-page ads, Editor Gene Farrell of the Jersey Journal was only exhilarated. Said he in an editorial: "It has been a wingding of a course."

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