Camden Courier-Post – February 9, 1938
By Gordon Mackay
May we not at this time proffer a suggestion to Mayor Brunner, Eddie Kelleher and the other party sachems that should be a sure-fire plan to make Camden county safe for Democracy? We advise that the Democrats gather a fund of $4000, the money to be expended in giving testimonial dinners to Republican leaders, near-leaders and persons who figure themselves to be both.
Engage tables enough to accommodate about 350 persons. Invite representatives of all the various G. O. P. factions in the county, give a half dozen tickets to boisterous Democrats, so that the latter can sit back in their seats and enjoy the subsequent dogfight on a full stomach.
This idea that I am advancing to register about 5000 more Democrats in the county and paralyze the remnants of the once-powerful county G.O.P., was born when I attended the recent testimonial dinner to Louis Bantivoglio, freeholder from the Fifth ward.
Naturally my attendance was purely in a professional capacity. Speeches were made by divers and sundry spokesmen, the high-light being the sales talk for Bantivoglio and Baird by David Baird, Jr. The latter waxed wrathfully but warily in castigating the “half-breeds,” as he once sarcastically termed the Republicans of the ilk and stature and political. leanings of Commissioner Mary W. Kobus.
Rarely, too, have we ever attended a banquet, either in the capacity of guest or reporter that ever awakened so many echoes of the past as did the dinner to the Fifth ward freeholder.
MRS. KOBUS ELECTED LOUIS
First came the information from friends of Commissioner Kobus that she was responsible for the election of Bantivoglio from the Fifth ward as freeholder. In view of the fact that Squire Baird seemed to feel that the freeholder’s election was a personal triumph; this appeared strange to yours truly.
We moseyed about, however, and discovered that whether the squire likes it or not Mary W. Kobus and her minions did elect Bantivoglio. The leaders of the Kobus faction who put the thing across were headed by a woman named Madeline Salvatore and a gentleman named “Bucky” Branch.
Bantivoglio was elected by something less than 40 votes, These votes could easily have been given to his opponent but there were strategic reasons why the Kobus faction didn’t want a Democrat chosen from the Fifth ward.
So Branch, who is a policeman, I believe, and who was not working on election day, it being his regular day off, went into his precinct and put over the votes that elected Bantivoglio.
And Mr.” Bucky” Branch, I have been informed, has been so sore at the fact that he did elect Louis Bantivoglio that he moans and cries and berates himself ever since the trick was turned.
Politicos who told me the story about the Kobus support for Bantivoglio gave a rather sensible reason for the step that was taken by the anti-Baird folk. The New Dealers among the Republicans sensed that the division between the Republicans and Democrats in the 1938 Board of Freeholders was going to be exceedingly close.
Too close, in fact, to take any chances. So it was decided to support Bantivoglio in the Fifth ward, because he was a regular Baird Republican and couldn’t be won to the coalition. The reasoning of the Kobusitees was clear and correct.
Had Bantivoglio been beaten by a Democrat, the board would have been divided equally, The Democrats would then have been able to deal with an individual rather than a faction, One vote would have given either side control. Thus by putting Bantivoglio across the Kobus faction made it imperative for the Democrats to deal with that clique; in fact Brunner and his minions had to do that little thing.
In view of this analysis I’m con tent to believe that the Kobus claim that the New Dealers elected Louis Bantivoglio is absolutely okay.
LADY "COPPER" NOT TRADE PARTY
Now don’t get the information askew. Mrs. Kobus had no official or personal hand in this matter. It was the keen thought of some of her lieutenants, whose judgment appears to have been excellent, that fashioned this plan and executed it.
Meanwhile numerous politicos have been jibing Baird’s statement that he would “rather have one Louis Bantivoglio than 1000 ingrates.” These political seers and soothsayers declared that such a declaration proved that its author was all wet in his political judgment and short sighted in his political history.
These politicos ambushed Mackay the other day, crammed him. into a corner and told him that if it “hadn’t been for Bantivoglio, Baird would have control of the city commission today.”
These chuckling anti-Bairdites not only bearded me in my den, but dared me to disprove their statements by taking a look at the record. A stranger to politics in Camden, I didn’t know the import of this statement until I squinted at the ward returns for the 1935 city commission election.
There in black and white is the proof that Baird lost the city commission fight because of the Bantivoglio-Leo Rea alliance in the Fifth ward. Just to take a look at the record again and to refresh jaded memories, the regular Baird slate received the following votes in the Fifth ward:
Bennett, 1016; Leonard, 1001; Lummis, 962; Rhone, 963; von Nieda, 1081. The New Deal ticket, then supported by the Messrs. Bantivoglio and Rea, polled these votes;· Baker, 1032; Brunner, 1022; Hartmann, 1001; Kobus, 1024, and Reesman, 930.
We would call your attention particularly to the Leonard-Hartmann vote. Louis and Leo supported candidates Brunner, Kobus and Hartmann, of the New Deal.
Leonard and Hartmann polled exactly the same vote, 1001. And the recount revealed Hartmann a winner by SEVEN votes, the box score showing Hartmann, 17,338, and Leonard, 17,331. And the Fifth ward turned the trick, for it would have been easy for Louis and Leo to have given Hartmann the same vote that Reesman received, or 71 less, and elected Leonard. There would have been no recount then.
Which scrutiny of the returns would seem to show that Bantivoglio as a friend of the squire proved his valor and vigilance in the cause by seating a New Deal commissioner and owing his seat in the Board of Freeholders to the Kobus clan.
In connection with this fund which the Democrats should raise to give testimonial dinners to G.O.P. leaders et cetera we might suggest that on each occasion they have, David Baird Jr., named for a new office. In order, that my friend, Florence Baker, can show her loyalty and friendship to the Old Guard Field Marshal by asking his election to the said office.
This suggestion to, the Messrs. Brunner, Kelleher and the others is made tax-free, and no charge for usage. If that scheme doesn’t make Camden county safe for Democracy, nothing will.
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