STILL IN CHARGE AFTER 40 YEARS By Michael Powell, Staff Writer, The Record, FRIDAY, May 29, 1987

It was Palm Sunday 1946 when Frank E. Rodgers, mayoral candidate in Harrison, was summoned to the lair of Hudson County Democratic boss
Frank “I am the law” Hague.

Rodgers, short and stocky, found Hague, 6-foot-3 and massive, slouched behind a desk the size of a pool table in his Jersey City office.

Without a word of greeting, Hague demanded to know why Rodgers was challenging Harrison’s mayor, Fred Gasset. Didn’t Rodgers realize that Gasset was a Hague ally and counsel to the Archdiocese of Newark?

Yes, Rodgers answered, he knew that.

Then get out of the race, Hague ordered: “I make and break judges and governors, and I’ll break your career in two.”

Two months later, Frank E. Rodgers beat Gasset in Harrison’s Democratic primary, and two years later Hague went to jail under the weight of accumulated misdeeds.

Tomorrow, Rodgers, whose lineage can be traced to the political breeding grounds of Ireland’s County Mayo, will celebrate 40 years of unbroken mayoral rule in Harrison, the longest run in the United States.

“You could say I committed a double sacrilege by beating Hague and the archdiocese,” the 77-year-old Rodgers recalled last week. “You could also say Frank Hague underestimated Frank Rodgers.”

His challenge to Hague aside, please don’t call Frank E. Rodgers a reformer. He’d take it as an insult.

“I’m a loyal Democrat. That’s all I know and all I am,” said the white-haired man with a voice as soft as cotton. “I never turned my back on another county leader.”

Rodgers has hewed faithfully to the tenets of Hudson County’s Democratic machine for four decades: Never miss an election, a wedding, or a wake, and never forget that winning is where the jobs are.

Rodgers has lost count of exactly how many supporters he has placed in county or local government during his 40 years as mayor, plus 10 previous years on the Harrison council. He is just pleased to do them a favor, as long as they’re happy and vote Democratic.

“You have to be friendly to make friends. In politics, if someone asks for a favor, you try to help.”

Rodgers hasn’t done badly by the system either. Since World War II he has been a guard at the Hudson County Courthouse, county supervisor of roads, secretary to the Board of Freeholders, a freeholder, superintendent of the county mental hospital, a member of the New Jersey Racing Commission and the New Jersey Highway Authority, and a state senator. At present he holds three titles: mayor, county clerk, and turnpike commissioner. He also has two pensions.

“Politics are my life,” he said, thumbs tugging on the red suspenders under his blue three-piece suit. “I don’t have to remind people I’m in charge.”

Stickball and American-made cars

That Rodgers seems a product of an earlier time should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Harrison. A mile square, wedged between Hudson County’s swamps and the Passaic River, Harrison can give visitors the impression that they have tumbled into a time warp.

Men wash American-made cars on the streets, children play stickball under the eyes of stoop-sitting mothers, and the siding on the single-family homes is well-scrubbed. The town’s moment of fame was a mention in the “Guinness Book of World Records” for “Most bars, per capita.”

Though Harrison has seen an influx of Portugese and Asian immigrants during the past decade, the town’s tone is still set by the working-class Irish, Italian, and Scottish immigrants who have lived, eaten, and breathed Democratic politics for a century.

“We’re Democrat, that’s 100 percent,” said George Lugin Jr., coach of the Frank E. Rodgers Little League team. “The mayor tells us to go vote for someone, we go vote.”

Father was the police chief

Rodgers tested that allegiance when he endorsed Governor Kean, a Republican, for reelection. Rodgers said he came to respect Kean when he served on the turnpike commission. On Election Day, a town that rarely gives 20 percent of its vote to a Republican gave 80 percent to Kean.

“We’re a closely knit town,” was Rodgers’s explanation.

Rodgers was the first of his clan to formally enter politics, though one can assume that his father, Michael, knew a thing or two about the game.

Michael Rodgers arrived from Ireland in 1890, and 10 years later he was appointed Harrison’s police chief, a position he held for three decades.

“My father was no fool,” Rodgers said.

How he upended Imperiale

Rodgers has long understood that if one is to keep power, one must use it. Example: Route 280, which snakes through Harrison, used to be inaccessible from town. But Rodgers sat on the turnpike commission and, not surprisingly, the highway now has two exits and one entrance ramp in Harrison.

Another example: In 1977, Rodgers ran for the state senate against incumbent Anthony Imperiale, a tough-talking, pistol-toting politician from Newark’s predominantly Italian North Ward. During the campaign, Imperiale liked to walk up to Rodgers and lift him in the air. It became embarrassing after a while, and Rodgers took to grabbing Imperiale in a preemptive bear hug.

Rodgers took his revenge at the polls, winning even in Imperiale’s North Ward.

“Not bad for an Irishman, eh?”

Rogers’s tactics, along with monotonously unanimous council votes and his total control of the police, public works, and schools, prompted former policeman Bill Sweeney to call Harrison “that little gulag by the Passaic.”

“Rodgers loves adoration and he loves the crunch, and if you don’t behave, you get crunched,” Sweeny said.