Rampage in New Jersey

Political Boss Frank ("I am the law") Hague put Jersey City on the map by making it the most corrupt municipality in the U.S. When Hague's 30-year stranglehold was finally broken in 1949, Jersey City seemed destined for lingering obscurity. But last week that drab, gritty city (pop. 275,000) was back on the map again. For three nights, hundreds of Negroes rioted, looted and tossed fire bombs in a racial rampage that was grimly reminiscent of last month's Harlem and Rochester violence.

It began when police were called to Ward F, a slum-ridden and low-income-housing area that is home to most of Jersey City's 47,000 Negroes. They arrested a Negro woman for drunkenness, also took into custody a Negro man for interfering with the arrest. Almost instantly there mushroomed a rumor that the police had beaten the woman. Within half an hour, 20 Negroes were demonstrating at the Fourth Precinct station house; before long, 800 angry Negroes were milling around a Ward-F housing project looking for trouble. It wasn't long in coming.

Negro youths began pelting cops with rocks, bottles and garbage-can lids. One of them broke a liquor-store window, grabbed two bottles and fled. When a policeman fired two warning shots, the mob, which had begun to disperse, went wild. A crowd swarmed into Grand Street, surrounded a car driven by a 22-year-old white man, John Hudak. They smashed the car windows, dragged Hudak from the vehicle, and beat him with a baseball bat before police could rescue him.

The marauding eased off, only to resume the next night, and the next, as helmeted police tried to bring order. Negroes hurled Molotov cocktails at police and fire trucks. A Negro youth was shot in the shoulder; a policeman's ankle was broken. One gang stabbed a baker in the back four times, then set fire to his delivery truck; another pulled a bus driver out of his bus and beat him mercilessly. The three-night toll: a $100,000 loss in property damage; two Negroes shot; 46 people injured, 22 of them police; 65 people arrested, mostly Negroes. Said Jersey City's Mayor Thomas J. Whelan, a man who hitherto had been highly regarded by civil rights leaders but who now suddenly became a target of criticism: "I came from a marginal family. I was one of 13 children. I know what it's like to try to do homework with seven kids around the table in a cold kitchen. I know what it's like to compete against people with better education. But being poor is no excuse for taking the law into your own hands. I will not condone violence by anyone for any reason. This is a simple case of hoodlumism versus public order. Anyone touching a policeman better be ready for the consequences."

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