Frank Hague

We hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to myself, "That man is a Red, that man is a Communist." You never hear a real American talk like that.

Frank Hague (17 January 1876 – 1 January 1956) was an American Democratic Party politician who served as the mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey from 1917 to 1947, Democratic National Committeeman from New Jersey from 1922 until 1949, and Vice-Chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1924 until 1949.

Quotes

• Listen, here is the law! I am the law! These boys go to work!
  • Speech on city government to the Emory Methodist Episcopal Church in Jersey City (10 November 1937), quoted in New York Times. (11 November 1937), p. 1, responding to the director of the Board of Education's special service bureau, upon being told that the law required two young delinquents to go to school rather than work, as they would have preferred.

• As long as I am mayor of this city the great industries are secure. We hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to myself, "That man is a Red, that man is a Communist." You never hear a real American talk like that.
  • Speech to the Jersey City Chamber of Commerce (12 January 1938), as quoted in The Last Three Miles : Politics, Murder, and the Construction of America's First Superhighway (2007) by Steven Hart, p. 137.