essential issue. Everett Colby, a young Republican assemblyman from Essex, led the fight for limited franchises. He was beaten but the defeat showed what the state government represented.
So they went home to raise the real question. Fagan and Record to Jersey City, Colby and the Orange men to Essex. The Orange men had seen that Carl Lentz, the Republican boss of Essex County, who ruled them at home, was the agent, at Trenton, of the railroads and of the Public Service Corporation. They went after him. Lentz declared that Colby should not go back to the legislature; since he represented the people, not the corporations, he should not be renominated. But Assemblyman Colby said he not only would go back; he would go back as a senator, and he would take his nomination and his election from the people. Fortunately, George L. Record, far-sighted, practical reformer that he is, had engineered through the legislature a primary election law. The people had a chance to control their parties, and the Republicans of Essex went to the primaries, and they turned the party over to Everett Colby. Then the whole people of Essex turned in, and they elected Colby senator and with him, a solid assembly delegation pledged to represent the public interests.
