Jersey

Once the paradox of salt water in the lower reaches of the Delaware and Hudson rivers has been noticed, it gets easier to understand current theory that southern New Jersey was once an island. Like Long Island, it was separated from the mainland by a sound, but in this case the sound silted up from Trenton to New Brunswick, creating the peninsula of "West" Jersey by uniting the island with the mainland. The colony was even named after the island of Jersey off the coast of England, a gesture for Sir George Carteret, who was given the American area out of gratitude for his military efforts in that other Jersey. Furthermore, Cape May was probably another island later joined to the larger one by the conversion of silted ocean into the bogs of the Maurice River. Cape May started as a whaling community, populated by Quakers from New York and New England, always maintaining something of a social distance from the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. The long Atlantic beaches of New Jersey now repeat the geological process, with barrier islands generated by the ocean separating by a brackish bay from the mainland, and the bay then slowly silting up. In a larger sense, the process consists of the former mountains of Pennsylvania crumbling into the ocean.

It should be no surprise, therefore, that southern New Jersey is flat, broken up by turgid meandering streams which empty in both directions. The head of Timber Creek, which flows into the Delaware, is only eight miles from the head of the Mullica River, which flows to the ocean. During the Revolutionary War, the British found it to be extremely dangerous to sail up these winding creeks, since at any moment they might make a sharp turn and be facing a battery of cannon. The system quickly grew up that buccaneers would build ships out of the heavy oak forests and sail them out to Barnegat Bay, hence out one of the inlets of the barrier islands and into blue water. The financiers of Philadelphia, many of them with names now in the Social Register, would sail up the Delaware River creeks, and walk a mile or two to privateer headquarters on the Atlantic creeks. Auctions were conducted, in which the ships were examined, the captain interviewed, and the crew observed in target practice. If you bought a small share you would be rich when the ship returned, and if it never returned, well, you invested in a different one. New Jersey is indignantly of the opinion that these privateers were mainly responsible for winning the Revolution, but given little credit for it. Many more British sailors were lost to the privateers than soldiers were lost to Washington's troops, and the economic loss to Great Britain of the ships and cargoes eventually became serious. Since much of the profit from privateering was recycled into the American war effort by Robert Morris, the British found themselves facing an enemy much more formidable than just the ragged frozen troops at Valley Forge on the Schuylkill. Meanwhile, William Bingham was conducting much the same privateering operation with Morris from Martinique, but that's another story.

In later centuries, the traditions and geography of the Jersey Pine Barrens suited themselves to smuggling and bootlegging during the era of alcohol Prohibition, and even after Repeal, high taxes on liquor kept bootlegging profitable. Even in the 1950s, there were divisions of FBI men prowling the woods of South Jersey, on the lookout for trucks carrying bags of cane sugar, or coils of copper tubing. Even today, when housing developments have started to invade the forests, the hard-ball politics of the South Jersey region reflect a culture formerly thought more characteristic of South Philadelphia.

New Jersey: A Keg Tapped at Both Ends (1)

Trenton has an urban revival but -- so far -- very few visitors tour the much-restored Statehouse. It's worth a trip.

Dr. Fisher

When Ben Franklin referred to New Jersey as a keg tapped at both ends, he was speaking of the land traffic down the eighty-mile waist, connecting the ports of New York and Philadelphia. Trenton is located at the northernmost navigable point of the Delaware River, and Perth Amboy (the original capital) is tucked behind Staten Island in New York's outer harbor. New Jersey continues to connect the two metropolitan areas, but today with rail and highways following somewhat different paths. Either way, Franklin's quip continues to apply to the sociology and politics of the former Garden State.

Frank Mazzei, chief of the legislative library of the Statehouse in Trenton, appears to be the world's expert on early New Jersey history. From him we learn the first constitution of the state was an informal sort of thing, whose authority derived from the personal reputations of the men who wrote it, leaders of the rebellion or otherwise notable in the region in 1776. Under the circumstances, the rebels against the king were very concerned to limit the powers of the Governor to little more than a clerk or administrator. Real power was given to the Legislature, who made laws mainly in response to petitions from the populace. New Jersey had very low taxes. As time went on, there were several revised constitutions, and the 1966 version has ended up creating the most powerful Governor in the nation -- and the highest taxes, plus a $58 billion unfunded debt for state employee pensions. Incidentally, the power of citizens to introduce legislative bills by petition has been forgotten. The source of the Governor's power lies in two abilities: to appoint the top officials of the state including the Supreme Court, and to excercise a "line item" veto. It really seems extraordinary that two vague provisions would lead to such a profound change in the nature of the government, but here's a stern warning about some similar proposals currently noised about on the federal level. The Republic has fumbled its way into a delicate balance among the three branches of government; anything which gives one branch the power to appoint the other, or to defy the wishes of the other, upsets that balance. New Jersey's Supreme Court is restrained in its ability to thwart the actions of either the Executive or the Legislative branches by finding its own appointment in the hands of the Governor; unlike similar Federal appointments by the President to the U.S. Supreme Court, the New Jersey Justices must retire at the age of 70. That seems like a small difference, possibly even a good one. But in the case of Justice Stevens, George Bush would achieve 6-3 decisions instead of 5-4; that would make a big difference. The votes might even still be 5-4, but points at issue would migrate further toward the President's position.

Similarly, a line item veto would greatly diminish the power of the U.S. Congress, because it limits the ability to compromise. There are many situations where two bills, each of which would surely fail, are welded together into an omnibus bill which effectively passes both of them. There are other situations where a critical vote in Congress is purchased at the cost of some egregious pork barrel favor to a hold-out member. It's easy to see why editors and commentators screech with outrage at such contemptible tactics. And in fact the underlying point is that the Congressional leaders who sacrifice their principles in order to advance a significant proposal, know that even better than outsiders do. It hurts, you must hold your nose, but it must nevertheless be done. This is a price that leaders of a republic must pay for progress and one reason so few are willing to engage in it. The astonishing point about the New Jersey experiment is that the line item veto does not save money, it effectively results in unrestrained spending, increased taxes and public indebtedness. If someone would write an eight-hundred page book instead of a three-paragraph editorial on the topic of the line-item veto, reporters in the gallery might be less disposed to malign the American system.

In an era when we are endlessly reminded that America is a nation of laws and not of men, it is disconcerting to learn that the New Jersey legislature considers over 11,000 new laws a year, and enacts about 300 of them. Just to record the three hundred laws would fill a thousand-page book, which even a full time lawyer would have difficulty reading, let alone remembering. In this connection, a story is told of the law about driving while sleepy. If it's illegal to drive while intoxicated, then surely it should be illegal to drive while too sleepy to remain alert. The New Jersey legislature debated the fine points of this idea, eventually deciding that it should be illegal to remain at work for more than 24 hours. It took longer than that to pass the legislation, so the legislature found itself in the position of making it illegal for itself to drive home.

A Keg Tapped at Both Ends (2)

The New Jersey legislature began by ratifying the Declaration of Independence, then concerned itself with debts, then the railroads, then corporations, and now -- with debt, again.

The New Jersey legislature ratified the Declaration of Independence in the Indian King Tavern of Haddonfield, then moved to Princeton, and since then has been in Trenton. The Statehouse in Trenton is the second oldest in the nation, after the one in Annapolis, although it has grown like a snail with the original building nestled inside many additions. In one sense it is totally unique; it's the only state capitol in the nation where you can look out a window and see another state. It's right on the water's edge of the Delaware, a hundred yards from the Hessian barracks that Washington surprised in 1777.

In its early years the legislature concerned itself with raising troops and paying for them during the Revolution. After that, it spent a great deal of time settling debts. From that began the traditional rivalry, even hostility, between the northern and southern halves of the state. The northern half, with many Dutch settlers spilling over from New York, was mainly a population of debtors; debtors like inflation, because it cheapens the cost of their repayments. The southern half of New Jersey, mainly Quaker in settlement, was where the creditors lived; creditors like to see sound currency, hate inflation. The Mason Dixon line, extended, crosses New Jersey. However, it was the northern half of the state which favored the Confederacy during the Civil War, while the Quakers in the south were strongly opposed to slavery. Irritation over Atlantic City gambling was only one of various issues which prompted South Jersey to try to secede; the proposition was actually on the ballot in the late Twentieth Century. Up until 1966 the Republicans always dominated the Senate, but that was because each of the 21 counties had its senator. Then, it was ingeniously designed that the state would be re-divided into 40 numerically equal legislative districts; the Senate has had a Democrat majority more or less ever since, in spite of Republican majorities in the overall state elections. The legislative districts are re-apportioned every ten years with the new census; it is close to the truth that the gerrymandering of that reapportionment effectively forecloses the politics of the legislature for the following decade.

Over time, the early legislature began to devote most of its time to incorporation because there were no universal corporation laws, and during the early Industrial Revolution lots of new businesses sought the authority to limit investor liability. Each corporation had its own deal, its own set of rules and conditions. Along came the first railway, Stevens's idea of the Amboy and Camden Railroad. The New Jersey legislature, no doubt suitably persuaded by private arrangements, not only gave the Amboy and Camden permission to use eminent domain to acquire its right of way, it conferred a perpetual tax exemption, and perpetual monopoly. For fifty years, the legislature then concerned itself with hardly anything except railroad matters.

Perpetual is a pretty unambiguous adjective, of course, and it might be an interesting topic in judicial gymnastics to observe how the state would get itself out of an impossible economic straight-jacket. That proved unnecessary however, when the proprietors of the Stanhope Railroad slipped exemptions and enabling legislation into one of the thousands of corporation bills which flooded through the legislature, unread by anyone. After the Governor who also hadn't read the bill, signed this sleeper into law, the uproar was predictably loud and accusatory. In a sense, the wrangle about New Jersey railroads was not settled by the legislature but by the Pennsylvania Railroad, which crossed the Delaware at Trenton, and went south to Philadelphia along the Pennsylvania side of the river. New Jersey preferred to get a new constitution with a new organization of matters, but one thing about New Jersey never seems to change. Between eleven and twelve thousand bills are still introduced, every year. It's remarkable that New Jersey accomplishes this by having the legislature sit for 30 or 40 afternoons a year, usually Monday and Thursday, from November to May. We are a nation of laws and not of men, but it would be hard to praise the application of that truism in New Jersey, where quite obviously the Governor does most of the deciding.

27 Million Tons of Gunk

Henry Hudson

When Henry Hudson reached the mouth of Delaware Bay in 1609, the river was so full of snags that he simply went up to what is now New York rather than try to sail his little sailboat up the Delaware. By 1900, there had been enough dredging and removal of islands that the channel was 17 feet deep all of the ninety miles up to Philadelphia. One of the consequences was that the new river edge was down at Delaware (Columbus) Avenue, rather than up at Front Street. When you make it deeper, the width of the river narrows.

Now, the proposal is to deepen the channel to 42 feet, a number mandated by present size of cargo container ships. Another limiting factor is the construction of the bridges, so the Port of Philadelphia is moving South of the Walt Whitman bridge. That's potentially of great value to the longshoremen who live in that region, although whether it will really bring prosperity is up to them, depending on whether they restrain their aggressive wage proposals.

You deepen the channel to 42 feet, 800 feet wide (1300 feet at bends in the river), you can be calculated to bring up 27 million tons of sludge. You have to dump that stuff somewhere else, and the current plan is for Philadelphia to build a retaining wall out into the river next to the Packer Avenue terminal area, and dump Philadelphia's share of the stuff behind it. In time, the water will drain out of the gunk, and quite a few acres of dry land would make its appearance. Some engineers question whether the force of the river would permit this. Environmentalists have objections to this project relating to stirring up pollutants lying dormant on the river floor, but without likely effect on the tin ears of those who are presently congratulating themselves on obtaining Federal money to accomplish this "big dig".

The really serious obstructions are coming from the State of New Jersey, which would acquire 9 million tons of gunk as their fair share. Right now, New Jersey is raising taxes and cutting state spending because of a budget deficit, so they are not anxious to take on another big project, particularly one whose benefits will have to be shared with Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania was momentarily sympathetic with this problem, until it was learned that New Jersey is actively promoting a FIFTY foot channel in the Hudson River. Immediately it becomes obvious that there is not enough money for two projects, and there are more New Jersey voters up near the port of New York than down around the Port of Philadelphia. Both New Jersey and Pennsylvania have Democrat governors, while New York has a Republican one. Ordinarily, this would be a decisive point, but the preponderant location of voters up in North Jersey seems to trump that. Keep watching the Saturday papers, on the editorial page down below the fold, the place newspapers ordinarily reserve for retractions, apologies, and local political truths.

What's going on here is an attempted exploitation of geographical advantages. Philadelphia is at one of three navigable openings in the Atlantic coast barrier islands adjoining the New York-Washington megopolis, or five openings if you call it a Boston-Richmond megopolis. Obviously, a seaway opening in the middle is superior to one at the ends, so it really comes down to a New York and Philadelphia competition, with Baltimore a poor third because European ships have to go down to Norfolk and then come come back up the Chesapeake. There's a huge amount of rail and truck traffic North and South, so crossing the T with ocean traffic arriving in the middle could make quite an economic center. Passenger rail traffic from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh and beyond is pretty anemic, but freight traffic is healthy and could be more so with cargo supplied by container ships. This is the dream, New York is the enemy, New Jersey is the villain, and the longshoremen are the main beneficiary. It is even possibly to imagine eighty dollar per hundred in wages for Workman's compensation, but that would be cynical.

Because of the New Jersey problem, proposals have been made to fill up abandoned coal mines with dredging sludge, and let the water seep out wherever it please. Somehow, this isn't thought to be practical, and other suggestions seem to be very welcome, a rather unusual circumstance in itself.

Let's ask ourselves whether we want to return Philadelphia to its old industrial mightiness, or whether we want to encourage the development of a service economy, computers and all that. One way to measure success in the container cargo race is to count the unloading cranes. Philadelphia has about five of them, and most of the time they are sticking straight up, unused. There are many times that many in Seattle, and in Yokohama there are over a hundred. The port of Kobe has far more, too many to count as you go past on the bullet train. However, there's a secret truth about container ships. When they get to Seattle, there is no cargo to fill them with for a return voyage, and in fact the empty container pile-up is a rather serious problem. Bill Gates is shipping lots of software to Japan, but it doesn't fill cargo containers, and the economy of the region is going to have high transportation costs until someone figures out a bulk cargo product to ship from Seattle. This is exactly the situation of a century ago when the New York Central, the Baltimore and Ohio, and the Pennsylvania RR were battling it out for transcontinental supremacy. The Pennsy won that battle, because oil was discovered in Bradford Pennsylvania, and refineries were built on the Schuylkill to process the oil. The Pennsy had thus found a round-trip cargo for filling its empty East-bound freight cars, and it beat out the other two railroads which didn't. Cheaper freight rates became possible, and therefore other industries prospered in the region.

Right here is a topic which somebody at the Wharton School had better start talking about. No matter how much software and other service industry prosperity a city region may support, it has to find a way to supply bulk cargo to all those container ships that are bringing in the BMW's for the service industry hotshots to drive.

Meanwhile, what does New Jersey do with 9 million tons of gunk?

Battleship New Jersey: Home is the Sailor

Home is the sailor, wrote A. E. Housman, Home from the sea. In this case, the sailor is the Battleship New Jersey. The U.S.S. New Jersey rides at permanent anchor in the Delaware River, tied to the Camden side. You can visit the ship almost any afternoon, and with reservations can even throw a nice cocktail party on the fan tail. It's an entertaining thing to do under almost any circumstances, but the trip is more enjoyable if you spend a little time learning about the ship's history. The volunteer guides, many of them still grizzled veterans of the ship's voyages, will be happy to fill in the details.

In the first place, the ship's final bloody battle was whether to moor the ship in the Philadelphia harbor, or New York harbor, when the U.S. Navy got through using it. You can accomplish that and remain in the state of New Jersey either way, but there's a big social difference between North Jersey and South Jersey, so the negotiations did get a little ugly. Because of the way politics go in Jersey, it wouldn't be surprising if a few bridges and dams had to be built north of Trenton to reconcile the grievance, or possibly a couple dozen patronage jobs with big salaries but no work requirement. The struggle surely isn't over. Battleships are expensive to maintain, even at parade rest; if you don't paint them, they rust. Current revenues from tourists and souvenirs do not cover the costs, so the matter keeps coming up in corridors of the capitol in Trenton.

Battleship design gradually specialized into a transport vehicle for big cannon, ones that can shoot accurately for twenty miles while the platform bounces around. Situated in turrets in the center of the vessel, they can shoot to both sides. That's also true of armored tanks in the cavalry, or course, with the side history in the tank's case of the big guns migrating from the artillery to the cavalry, causing no end of jurisdictional squabble between officers trained to be aggressive for their teams. Originally, the sort of battleship John Paul Jones sailed was expected to attack and capture other vessels, shoot rifles down from the rigging, send boarders into the enemy ships with cutlasses in their teeth, and perform numerous other tasks. In time, the battleship got bigger and bigger so in order to blow up other battleships had to sacrifice everything else to sailing speed and size of cannon. Protection of the vessel was important, of course, but in the long run if something had to be sacrificed for speed and gunpowder, it was self-protection. There's a strange principle at work, here. The longer the ship, the faster it can go. Almost all ocean speed records have been held by the gigantic ocean liners for that reason. If you apply the same idea to a battleship, the heavy armored protection gets necessarily bigger, and heavier as the ship gets longer, and ultimately slows the ship down. As a matter of fact, bigger and bigger engines also make the ship faster, until their weight begins to slow them down. Bigger engines require more fuel, and carrying too much of that slows you down, too. Out of all this comes a need for a world empire, to provide fueling stations. Since the Germans didn't have an empire, they had to sacrifice armor for more fuel space and more speed, to compensate for which they had to build bigger guns but fewer of them. Although the British had more ships sunk, they won the battle of Jutland because more German ships were incapacitated. When you are a sailor on one of these ships, it's easy to see how you get interested in design issues which may affect your own future. An underlying principle was that you had to be faster than anything more powerful, and more powerful than anything faster.

The point here is that the New Jersey, as a member of the Iowa class of battleship, was arguably the absolutely best battleship in world history. At 33 knots, it wasn't quite the fastest, its guns weren't quite the biggest, its armor wasn't quite the thickest, but by multiplying the weight of the ship by the length of its guns and dividing by something else you get an index number for the biggest baddest ship ever. The Yamamoto and the Bismarck were perhaps a little bigger, but the New Jersey was at least the fastest meanest un-sunk battleship. Air power and nuclear submarines put the battleship out of business, so the New Jersey will hold the world battleship title for all time. Strange, when you see it from the Ben Franklin Bridge, it looks comparatively small, even though it could blow up Valley Forge without moving from anchor.

One story is told by Chuck Okamoto, a member of the Green Berets who was sent with a group of eight comrades into a Vietnamese army compound to "extract" an enemy officer for interrogation. When enemy flares lit up the area, it was clear they were facing thousands of agitated enemy soldiers, and Okamoto called for air support. He was told it would take thirty minutes; he replied he only had three minutes, and to his relief was told something could be arranged. Almost immediately the whole area just blew up, turned into a desert in sixty seconds. The guns of the New Jersey, twenty miles away, had picked off the target. The story got more than average attention because Okamoto's father was Lyndon Johnson's personal photographer, and Lyndon called up to congratulate.

A number of similar stories led to the idea that naval gunfire might have destroyed some bridges in Vietnam which cost the Air Force many lost planes vainly trying to bomb, but, as the stories go, the Air Force just wouldn't permit a naval infringement of its turf. This sort of second-guessing is sometimes put down to inter-service rivalry, but it seems more likely to be just another technology story of air power gradually supplanting naval artillery. Plenty of battleships were sunk by bombs and torpedo planes before the battleship just went away. If you sail the biggest, baddest battleship in world history, naturally you regret its passing.

Tourists will forever be intrigued by the "all or nothing" construction of the New Jersey. Not only are the big guns surrounded by steel armor three feet thick, the whole turret for five stories down into the hold is similarly encased in a steel fortress. This design traces back to the battle of Jutland, where a number of battle cruisers were blown up because the ammunition was stored in areas of the hold not nearly so protected as the gun itself. Putting it all within a steel cocoon lessened that risk, and had the side benefit that when ammunition accidentally exploded, the damage was confined within the cocoon. It must have been pretty noisy inside the turret when it was hit, sort of like being inside the Liberty Bell when it clangs. But not so; stories have been told of turrets hit by 500 pound bombs which the occupants didn't even notice. The term "all or nothing" refers to the fact that the gun turrets are sort of passengers inside a relatively unprotected steering and transportation balloon. In order to save weight, most of the armor protection is for the gun. That's a 16/50, by the way. Sixteen inches in diameter, and fifty times as long. With the weight distributed in this odd manner, the Iowa class of dreadnought was more likely to capsize than to sink. Accordingly, the interior of the hull is broken up into watertight compartments, serviced by an elaborate pumping system. Water could be pumped around to re-balance a flooded hull perforation, certainly a tricky problem under battle conditions.

State Capitol Think tanks

States rights will be neglected as long as state governments remain so second-rate.

Setting aside one's political party preferences, it is hard to deny the considerable increase of new and sophisticated ideas generated by the Republican party in the past twenty years. For fifty years before the Reagan Revolution, it was quite the reverse. All of the bright new ideas -- good and bad -- seemed to bubble out of the Democratic Party, while the Republicans just sulked and muttered. Even when Eisenhower swept the Democrats out of power, he was riding a crest of idea fatigue. Leave us alone for a while. Thirty years before that, Harding came into office promising a "Return to Normalcy". The country does occasionally get fed up with pesky innovation, but for nearly a century we became accustomed to ideas ("reform") coming from the left, resistance coming from the right.

Yes, the pendulum does swing back and forth spontaneously. And yes, Adolf Hitler inadvertently stirred the American intellectual pot by chasing the Austrian school of economics to our shores, primarily landing at the University of Chicago. Nevertheless, a case can be made that it was the establishment of a number of think-tanks in Washington which brought conservatism to life as a positive force. The model was already in place, at the Brookings Institution and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In each case, a very wealthy man decided to endow an institution for the promotion of congenial ideas. In the case of Bamberger the department store mogul, the think tank was mainly created to house one man, Albert Einstein. While Bamberger and Brookings were liberals, their model was copied by Otis at the American Enterprise Institute, Coors at the Heritage Foundation, at the Cato Institute.

It does not seem to have occurred to the existing think tanks that one of their favorite ideas might be accomplished internally, within the think tank world itself. That idea is devolvement of power from centralized Washington to the fifty various state governments. Anyone can see, on any weekend, that Washington DC has outgrown its blood supply. The traffic jam out on Fridays is matched by equal paralysis on Monday morning as the crowd returns to work. In spite of a splendid highway system, designed at least in part with emergency evacuation in mind, the place is both unlivable and dysfunctional as a place to work. Twice each week, the Southern half of the nation is cut off from the Northern half by this gigantic traffic jam, just as effectively as if Generals Lee and Grant were conducting battles there. Components of one administrative department are cut off, not only from other departments, but from other components of the same department. The headquarters of the Department of Health and Human Services are eight miles away from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, and thirty miles from Medicare headquarters in Baltimore. The headquarters of the whole country are cut off from the rest during the working week, and essentially deserted on weekends. The need to decentralize the federal government in some way is a case that can be made on physical issues alone, quite ignoring the philosophical issues of states rights, local autonomy, or shortening the chains of command.

And yet, it must be admitted. State governments are just terrible. They are almost all located in small one-industry towns, at a considerable distance from population centers, universities, business and commerce. Almost no state capitol has a good airport or good air service. The hotels are mostly despicable. As for entertainment, there is essentially nothing to do, there. It doesn't matter how this came to be the case, but Illinois provided an illustration when Abraham Lincoln helped some railroad and real estate interests by dropping the state capitol in Springfield, enriching a large number of local landholders. The state capitals used to be in Philadelphia, New York and Boston; now they are in Harrisburg, Albany and Springfield. The elected representatives clearly prefer to do their work out of sight, and because it is out of sight it is incompetent, corrupt and unaccountable to anyone. It is a hopeless task to move the capitals back into the sunlight, and because state government are such a hopeless mess, it is unthinkable to devolve the federal functions to them.

So, if state governments flee from the sunlight, let's chase them with sunlight. Who knows a likely billionaire, able and willing to start a think tank in the sticks? If it works, perhaps others will imitate it.

Starving the Beast

Inflation-targeting, unless someone is keeping a big secret from us, is the only arrow in the quiver of a nation's central bank, in our case the Federal Reserve. We think there is reasonable evidence to believe that adjusting interest rates and the supply of money was powerful enough to keep inflation less than 3% for two decades. And avoiding inflation was enough to prevent recession. We think Paul Volcker may have proved the issue in another way. During the Carter Administration, the country experienced "stagflation", meaning we had inflation and economic stagnation at the same time; making one better might well make the other worse. But Volcker promptly jacked up interest rates a great deal -- and both inflation and economic stagnation then seemed to go away.

If inflation targeting is a powerful as that, and as simple as that, what could go wrong? One present worry is that so much American money might fall into foreign hands that the Federal Reserve could lose control of whether there is too much or too little within our borders. But there is a second source of danger. Broadly speaking, this concern is that public opinion might demand inflation -- or demand policies which would surely cause it -- and in a democracy the time might come when the Federal Reserve would have to give people what they demanded. You could even conjecture that Ronald Reagan warned us about that.

Government isn't the solution, government is the problem, were words of a California governor. And yet neither Reagan nor the two Bush presidents who followed him made the slightest apology about increasing the federal deficit. It is a Democrat, Governor Corzine of New Jersey, who has been thrown to the lions in 2006. We are about to watch one of the most eminent financiers of the country come to the public realization that no accounting trick or delaying strategy is available to help him avoid a public confession of what is wrong, and adopt a correction for that problem rather than an aspirin for its pain. You don't get to be chief of the largest investment bank on Wall Street without being fast on your feet, so we will be treated to some fancy tap-dancing before he addresses the painful issue. But the Republicans will surely help him blurt it out, if he seems to hesitate.

For a number of decades, New Jersey has been increasing the number of state employees and their pension and health benefits. As is so often the case, these state employees and their union have become the core voting bloc for the party in power, usually Democrats. Not only are there a remarkable number of employees observable in each of the local offices for the Bureau of Motor Vehicles for example, but New Jersey decided to include the local municipal and school employees in the state health and pension system, a decidedly unusual step. These are not trivial costs. As life expectancy gets longer the pensions become more expensive; the health benefits get more expensive by raising health worker wages and by offering more generous home and nursing home care. Just how a ten-mile ambulance ride gets to cost $1700 is a related story, passed over here. And then, a few years ago it seemed like clever bookkeeping to float a bond issue to bring the state pension system up to required full funding. Long term full funding tends to mean a stock portfolio, so buying stocks with the proceeds of a bond issue is the same as buying stock on margin. By a stroke of exceedingly bad timing, the stock market promptly responded to the dot-com boom by crashing, taking the state's margined stocks down even farther, faster.

New Jersey has always had high real estate taxes, and they are now painfully high. But Jersey residents used to console themselves that they had no sales tax and no income tax. Now, the sales and income taxes are in the top five states of the country, and just about every other form of state taxation has crept up to painful levels. Doesn't matter, the state is running a $5 billion deficit and will run a greater deficit than that for as long as anyone can predict. Forbidden by the courts to borrow money, it's not easy to see what Corzine can do except raise taxes some more. Well, perhaps there is one thing, if the unions will let him. He can extend the retirement age of state employees from the present age 55, to age 75.

Just try to do that without anyone noticing.

The Decision of Trenton (1782) Under the Articles of Confederation

As the Revolution was drawing to an end, it became time to settle the inter-state grievance of Pennsylvania and Connecticut. If they were all going to be United States citizens, it didn't matter much whether the residents of Wilkes-Barre (as it was now known) were governed by the laws of Connecticut or Pennsylvania. But bloody grievances die hard, and slowly. The genteel debates envisioned by the Articles of Confederation were not not equal to settling blood feuds, but they tried. The two states selected judges to represent them, in a negotiated settlement which took place on neutral ground, Trenton, New Jersey. After protracted testimony and prolonged secret deliberation, the judges emerged with a very brief and unexplained decision: Wyoming Valley belonged to Pennsylvania. Period.

Almost every scholar of this subject is convinced that the unwritten decision contained two other provisions. Connecticut was given a piece of Ohio, Western Reserve. And the Pennsylvania representatives privately assured the group that the Pennsylvania Legislature would in time recognize the land titles of the Connecticut settlers who were actually resident on the land. Unfortunately, it is hard if not impossible to enforce an agreement that is secret, and the Connecticut claim to Ohio was eventually eliminated, while the Pennsylvania promise to recognize the land titles of people whose ancestors killed your ancestors, was much delayed, watered down, and resented.

British Headquarters: Perth Amboy, New Jersey, in its 1776 Heyday

Not everyone would think of the town of Perth Amboy as part of Philadelphia history or culture, but it certainly was so in colonial times. Sadly, the town has since declined to the condition of a quiet middle-class suburb. There are quite a few Spanish-language signs around, and some decaying factories.

NJ MAP

To understand the strategic importance of Perth Amboy to Colonial America, remember that King James (the First, the one Shakespeare knew) thought of New Jersey as the land between the North (Hudson) River, and the South (Delaware) River. This land has a narrow pinched waist in the middle. It's easy to see why the Seventeenth Century regarded the bridging strip of New Jersey narrows as the likely future site of important political and commercial development. The two large and dissimilar land masses which adjoin this strip -- sandy South Jersey, and mountainous North Jersey -- were sparsely inhabited and largely ignored in colonial times. The British developed the quite sensible plan that subjugating this New Jersey strip would simultaneously enable the conquest of both New York and Philadelphia at the two ends of it.

PERTH AMBOY MAP

Perth Amboy is a name modified from local Indian words. Like Pittsburgh at the conjunction of three rivers, Perth Amboy's local importance was that it dominates the mouth of Raritan Bay (an extension of the Raritan River) as it empties into New York Bay just inside Sandy Hook. The third "river" of the three-way fork is really just a channel between New Jersey and Staten Island. Viewed from the sea, Perth Amboy sits on a bluff, commanding that junction. Amboy was the original ocean port in the area, soon overtaken by New Brunswick further upriver when increasing commerce required safer harbors. It was the capital of East Jersey, and then the first capital of all New Jersey after East and West were joined in 1704. The Royal Governor's mansion stood here, as well as the grand houses of the Proprietors and Judges overlooking the banks of the bay. The last Royal Governor was William Franklin, the illegitimate son of Benjamin. When Benjamin was stationed in London as a representative of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, he arranged the appointment of William to a plush job in the colonies. That was sort of the normal method of government, although patronage favors were made somewhat worse by King George III. Urged on to be a really King-like King by his mother, George III had considerably expanded the system of buying the loyalty of important people by giving them jobs and favors. Where people were already rich and powerful, they could still be offered monopolies and protective tariffs in return for their loyalty. Irritation at these intrusions into trade was to become a main incitement to the American Rebellion. William and Benjamin Franklin eventually had a permanent falling-out over political matters, and naturally American historians take the side of the father, who was greatly hurt by the ingratitude. However, it would appear that William was a very good governor, a charming and diplomatic person, who used his considerable talents to smooth over the local conflicts between his King and his neighbors. Even after hostilities broke out and the rebels took over the government, William Franklin stayed on trying to calm things down, instead of fleeing behind the British lines as most Loyalists tended to do. His reward was to be packed off to confinement in Connecticut.

By the time of the Revolution, the New Jersey strip was mainly inhabited by rich farmers who tended to favor the Loyalist cause, while the pine barrens to the South and the hilly woods to the North were inhabited by later immigrants who were still poor and hence favored the rebel cause. In his autobiography, Benjamin Franklin relates how, as boy, he came from Boston to Philadelphia by coming down from Perth Amboy (the capitol of East Jersey) to Trenton and nearby Burlington (the capitol of West Jersey), and then down the Delaware to Philadelphia. To jump ahead in our story, Washington would retreat down the same path from his defeats in New York, hotly pursued by the British. After the battle of Trenton, Washington promptly chased the British back up the Raritan to New Brunswick and Perth Amboy, and bottled them up there by establishing winter quarters in Morristown. Much later, when the British General Henry Clinton was put in command and later abandoned Philadelphia, which General Howe had captured by coming in the back door from the Chesapeake. The British marched back up the same Raritan waist of New Jersey by first crossing the Delaware from Philadelphia to Haddonfield, up the king's Highway to Trenton/Burlington, and then East to New Brunswick and the British fleet. This was the main highway of the middle colonies, and the persisting term "King's Highway" was once entirely appropriate.

When considering the relationships between New Jersey's Raritan Strip and Philadelphia in later decades, the names of Aaron Burr, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, Doris Duke, and Charles Lindbergh come up, along with a number of others whose tales need retelling. College football was invented in a game between Rutgers and Princeton, eighteen miles apart, and Woodrow Wilson started the movement to put an end to college fraternities, called eating clubs at Princeton. But the strip itself seems to have been directly glorified only by Thornton Wilder.

A short play called A Happy Journey To Trenton and Camden has been a favorite production by the drama societies of Rutgers, Princeton and Lawrencevile for almost a century. As written by Wilder during the time when he was a school teacher at Lawrenceville, the occupants of a Model T rattle and bump along the strip, commenting on the passing scene. Both the play and the strip deserve more attention than they usually get.

Perth Amboy Revisited

It's moderately complicated to find Perth Amboy, New Jersey, even after you locate it on a map. Like New Castle DE it flourished early because it was on a narrow strip of strategic land, and like New Castle it eventually found itself cut off by a dozen lanes of highways crowded together by geography. It's an easy drive in both cases only if you make the correct turns at a couple of crowded intersections. Both towns were important destinations in the Eighteenth century, but by the Twentieth century both were pushed aside by traffic rushing to bigger destinations. Industrialization hit the region around Perth Amboy somewhat harder than New Castle, destroying more landmarks, and bringing to an end its brief flurry as a metropolitan beach resort. If you aspire to preserve your Eighteenth century glory, it's easier if you don't have too much progress in the Nineteenth. In Perth Amboy's defense, it must be noted that Jamestown and Williamsburg, Virginia had just about totally disappeared when noticed by Charles Peterson and John Rockefeller, but neither of those towns was run over by Nineteenth century industrialization. So, while New Castle has treasures to preserve and display, Perth Amboy seems to have only one notable building to work with, the Governor's mansion. William Franklin, the illegitimate son of Benjamin, was the royal governor installed in this palace shortly before 1776.

While it is true that some wealthy local inhabitants did a lot to restore and maintain New Castle (and Williamsburg), the Governor's mansion in Perth Amboy was bought and made the home of Mathias Bruen, who in 1820 was thought to be the richest man in America. If Bruen had only had the necessary imagination and generosity, this was probably the best moment for Perth Amboy to have had a historical restoration. Instead, he added some unfortunate features to the mansion, it later became a hotel, and later on, an office building. Public-spirited local citizens are now trying to set things right, but the costs are pretty daunting. Someone has to find an inspired Wall Street billionaire like Ned Johnson to make over an entire town. Occasionally, a state government will do it, as has been done with Pennsbury. Or a national organization might become inspired, as happened with Mt. Vernon and Arlington. Its present state of peeling paint and makeshift repairs suggests uninterest in Perth Amboy's Governor Mansion by the State, and the absence of whatever it is that occasionally inspires fierce and determined local leadership. Perth Amboy needs some help, and needs to forget about its handicaps. Sure, it's hard to commute anywhere, it's even hard to drive across the highways to the countryside. The bluff on the promontory was once quite arresting, now a rusting steel mill occupies that spot. Other than that, it doesn't look ominous or dangerous at all. It's just forgotten.

Aside from the Royal Governor's former mansion, it is hard to find a historical marker or monument in this scene of former prosperity and glory, but there is one. Down on the beach is a bronze plaque, commemorating the 150th anniversary of the founding of -- Argentina. So there's a clue, which is not difficult to associate with all of the hispanic names on the stores, and the hispanics in evidence on all sides. They all seemed to know that this was once the capital of New Jersey, seemed pleased with it, and could point out the famous building. They were pleasant and friendly enough. Perhaps even a little too comfortable. Because, as William Franklin's famous father once said, all progress begins with discontent.

Perth Amboy to Trenton (2)

The Revolutionary War had been raging for a year in New England before the Declaration of Independence, a point that never ceased to bother John Adams whenever Thomas Jefferson or his devotees took credit for "starting" the Revolution -- a year after the Battle of Lexington and Concord -- with a piece of paper nailed to a lamp post. To be fair, this interval of a year, however, allowed for the organization of the Continental Army, and Washington's maturing military background by the summer of '76. But it also explains the landing of Sir William Howe's army on Staten Island at the end of June, 1776. A month or so later, his brother Admiral Howe landed some more troops. By September, 1776, not all of the signers had yet put their names to the Declaration of Independence, but there were about 40,000 British troops parading around the essentially uninhabited Staten Island in New York harbor, in plain sight of the inhabitants of New Jersey's capitol in Perth Amboy, scarcely a mile away.

The British were quite shrewd in selecting New York harbor as the center of their operation, since their Navy was able to move quickly from New Jersey to Rhode Island, up and down the Hudson as far as Albany, and around the considerable expanse of Long Island, not to mention Manhattan. Meanwhile, Washington was faced with crossing numerous rivers to defend hundreds of miles of shoreline, and moving foot soldiers to the necessary position. He tried to defend New York, it is true, but the battles on Brooklyn Heights, Harlem, Fort Washington and Fort Lee were essentially unwinnable, and the best he could really do with the situation was escape with an undestroyed army.

By the fall of 1776 Howe had consolidated his hold on New York, and Washington was reduced to scattering clusters of troops around the places Howe might next choose to invade at any time. In early December, he started landing in New Jersey and marched toward New Brunswick. Washington thought that meant he was going to head for Trenton, and then down the Delaware to Philadelphia. There was not much to stop him except skirmishers and Minute Men, but it was not even safe for Washington to move his troops from the New York region until the intentions of the British were really clear, by which time it would probably be too late to stop the advance.

Since the Raritan Strip along which Howe and Cornwallis were advancing, was prosperous and Tory, things went pretty well for the British. After two weeks march, they finally arrived in Trenton around December 20. In this triumph they failed to appreciate the significance of several things, however. Washington was hurriedly summoning about six little colonial armies of five hundred to a thousand men each, to join him now that the intentions of the enemy were clear. Furthermore, the Whigs or rebels of New Jersey were aroused in the Pine Barrens of the South and the hills of the North; New Jersey was not as Tory as it seemed during the initial march down along the Raritan. And, finally, the British and Hessian mercenary soldiers had ravaged the countryside almost as much as the spinmeisters of the Whig patriot cause shouted out they had. The Quaker farmers were particularly upset by the activities of the camp followers, who pillaged curtains and other things not normally attractive to marauding soldiers. And the sharpshooters, loyalist and rebel, were close enough to their own homes to dispose of other booty. It was a cakewalk down to Trenton, but it was not going to be the same coming back.

Washington was getting ready to defend the Capitol in Philadelphia, and the wide Delaware river was the best place to do it. When Howe and Cornwallis reached Trenton, they found no boats available for miles up and down the river, artillery was planted in strategic places on the Pennsylvania side, ice was beginning to form on the river, it was cold and the December days were short. To them, Washington posed no particular military problem with his naked ragamuffins. Howe had some lady friends in New York, while Cornwallis was planning to spend a month in London before the spring military season. So the British generals made an overconfident miscalculation, and posted their troops in winter quarters, strung out in outposts from Perth Amboy to Trenton and down to Bordentown. A thousand Hessians were quartered in Trenton. By December 20th, it looked like a peaceful but boring Winter.

Easy Ride: Perth Amboy to Trenton

The Revolutionary War had been raging for a year in New England before the Declaration of Independence, a point that never ceased to bother John Adams whenever Thomas Jefferson or his devotees took credit for starting the Revolution with a piece of paper nailed to a lamp post. This interval of a chaotic year, however, allowed for the organization of the Continental Army, and Washington's maturing military background by the summer of '76. It also explains the landing of Sir William Howe's army on Staten Island at the end of June, 1776. A month or so later, his brother Admiral Howe landed some more troops. By September, 1776, not all of the signers had yet put their names to the Declaration of Independence, but there were about 40,000 British troops parading around the essentially uninhabited Staten Island in New York harbor, in plain sight of the inhabitants of New Jersey's capitol in Perth Amboy, scarcely a mile away. The Massachusetts and other New England patriots have a point when they claim that the Declaration of Independence marked the end of the first year of rebellion against British rule, while the other colonies prefer to say July 4, 1776 was the beginning of the war for independence.

The British shrewdly selected New York harbor as the center of their operation, since their Navy was thereby able to shift quickly from New Jersey to Rhode Island, or up and down the Hudson as far as Albany, or dominate the considerable expanse of Long Island, not to mention Manhattan. It was only eighty miles across the narrow waist of New Jersey to the top of Delaware Bay at Trenton, potentially also leading to control of Philadelphia. Meanwhile, Washington would be faced with crossing numerous rivers to defend hundreds of miles of shoreline, moving foot soldiers to defensive positions. He tried to defend New York, it is true, but the battles on Brooklyn Heights, Harlem, Fort Washington and Fort Lee were essentially unwinnable, and the best he could really do with the situation was escape with an undestroyed army.

Cornwallis

By the fall of 1776 Howe had consolidated his hold on New York, and Washington was reduced to scattering clusters of troops around the places Howe might likely invade. In early December, he started landing in New Jersey and marched toward New Brunswick. Washington thought that meant he was going to head for Trenton, and then down the Delaware to Philadelphia. There was not much to stop him except skirmishers and Minute Men, but it was unsafe for Washington to move his troops from the New York region until the intentions of the swifter British were really clear. By that time it might well be too late to stop an advance.

Since the Raritan Strip, along which Howe and Cornwallis eventually chose to advance was prosperous and Tory, things went pretty well for the British. After two weeks march, they finally arrived in Trenton around December 20. In this triumph they failed to appreciate the significance of several things, however. Washington was hurriedly summoning six little colonial armies of five hundred to a thousand men each, to join him now that the intentions of the enemy were clear. Furthermore, the Whigs or rebels of New Jersey were aroused in the Pine Barrens of the South and the hills of the North; New Jersey was not nearly as Tory as it seemed during the initial march past the big houses along the Raritan. And, finally, the British and Hessian mercenary soldiers had indeed ravaged the countryside almost as much as the spinsters of the Whig patriot cause shouted out they had. Many neutrals were converted to rebels. The Quaker farmers were particularly upset by the activities of the camp followers, who pillaged curtains and other things not normally attractive to marauding soldiers. And the sharpshooters, loyalist and rebel, were close enough to their own homes to dispose of other booty. It was a cakewalk down to Trenton, but it was not going to be the same coming back.

Washington

Washington was getting ready to defend the Capitol in Philadelphia, and the wide Delaware river was the best place to do it. When Howe and Cornwallis reached Trenton, they found no boats available for miles up and down the river, artillery was planted in strategic places on the Pennsylvania side, ice was beginning to form on the river, it was cold, the December days were short. To them, Washington posed no particular military problem with his naked ragamuffins. Howe had some lady friends in New York, while Cornwallis was planning to spend a month in London before the spring military season. So the British generals made an overconfident miscalculation, and posted their troops in winter quarters, strung out in outposts from Perth Amboy to Trenton and down to Bordentown. A thousand Hessians were quartered in Trenton. By December 20th, it looked like a peaceful but boring Winter.

Disorderly Retreat: From Trenton Back to Perth Amboy

Washington

Aweek later, they got a bad jolt, when Washington declined to play by their Winter rules. At the Battle of Trenton, Washington was 44 years old, six feet-four inches tall or more, a horseman and athlete of outstanding skill, and as the husband of the richest woman in Virginia, accustomed to housing, feeding, transporting and getting cooperation from two hundred slaves. All of those qualities may have been of some use in the battle. But after the Battle of Trenton, Washington emerged as a remarkably bold General. In the Battle of Trenton can be seen the elements of audacity, timing and courage that were notable in Stonewall Jackson, George Patton -- Virginians, both -- the Normandy Invasion, and the Inchon Landing. He forged, if he did not create, the American military tradition of inspired risk taking. And he did it with a collection of starving amateurs against the best Army in the world at the time.

On December 21, Washington thought Howe was immediately going to sweep on through Trenton to Philadelphia. In a day or two, he saw that wasn't the plan, organized the famous re-crossing of the Delaware in horrible weather, and caught and captured a thousand Hessians with a three-pronged attack which cut off their retreat and made resistance useless. Nowadays, the event is marked by a reenactment on Christmas Morning, although it took place on December 26, 1776. The timing did not have to do with religious observance, it had to do with hangovers. To the great disappointment of his troops, he had them abandon the great stores of booze in Trenton because a second detachment of Hessians was in nearby Bordentown, and retreated back to the Pennsylvania side of the river. As you might imagine, Howe's Cornwallis promptly came charging down from New Brunswick to exact bitter vengeance. Instead of trying to rescue their comrades in Princeton, the Bordentown Hessians took off for New Brunswick. Defiantly, Washington taunted his enemies by again recrossing the Delaware to the New Jersey side, putting up fortifications, and waiting for them to make something of it.

Princeton

Well, that's the way it was meant to seem. On the night of January 2, the two armies were facing each other with about five thousand men on both sides, but with the British much better trained and equipped. The Americans had the advantage of not being exhausted by a fifty mile forced march, except for about a thousand who had been deployed forward to skirmish and delay the British advance with sniping from the bushes. The Americans made a great deal of noise, and had many bonfires behind their fortifications. But when they advanced the next morning, the British found out where the Americans really were by hearing distant cannon fire coming from Princeton, ten miles away.

Washington had slipped five thousand men wide around the enemy flank during the night, and had taken a parallel country road to Princeton where a major detachment of British were then defeated at the Battle of Princeton. An infuriated Cornwallis wheeled his army around in pursuit, and the race was on for the supplies left undefended in New Brunswick. Washington might have been able to get there first, except his men were too exhausted, and he was afraid to risk his main strategy, which was to avoid head-on collisions with the main British Army.

So Washington went into winter quarters in nearby Morristown, and thousands of British soldiers were thus bottled up in winter quarters in Perth Amboy and New Brunswick, where scurvy, lack of firewood and small pox gave them a few months to consider their miscalculations. But the most important action of all was to get news to Benjamin Franklin in Paris, to tell the French king of the victory. Franklin even dressed it up a little.

George Washington Defends Philadelphia (2)

Not everyone would think of the town of Perth Amboy as part of Philadelphia history or culture, but it certainly was so in colonial times. Sadly, the town is now so run-down that almost no one would fight over its ownership very vigorously. The best advice given to a visitor is don't get out of your car.

To understand the strategic importance of Perth Amboy to Colonial America, remember that King James thought of New Jersey as the land between the North (Hudson) River, and the South (Delaware) River. This land has a narrow pinched waist in the middle. New York Bay pinches on one side, Perth Amboy marking the deepest penetration of that pinch on the East. The Western pinch is from Delaware Bay, which has a sharp angle at Trenton marked by waterfalls in Colonial times, where the Delaware River makes an abrupt turn from Easterly to Northwesterly. Quite naturally in the Nineteenth Century, a canal was eventually constructed along this narrow waist between two large bays, and it is easy to see why the Seventeenth Century regarded the connecting strip of land as the likely future site of important political and commercial development. The two large and dissimilar land masses which adjoin this strip -- sandy South Jersey, and mountainous North Jersey -- were sparsely inhabited and largely ignored in colonial times.

The name, Perth Amboy, is modified from local Indian words. Like Pittsburgh at the conjunction of three rivers, Perth Amboy's local importance was that it sits at the mouth of Raritan Bay an extension of the Raritan River as it empties into New York Bay, just inside Sandy Hook. The second "river" of the fork is really just a channel between New Jersey and Staten Island. Viewed from the sea, Perth Amboy sits on a bluff, commanding that junction. (Staten Island, in a sense, here seems more naturally a part of New Jersey than New York). Amboy was the original ocean port in the area, soon overtaken by New Brunswick further upriver, as increasing commerce required safer harbors. It was the capitol of East Jersey, and then the first capitol of New Jersey after East and West Jersey were joined in 1704. The Royal Governor's mansion stood there, as well as the grand houses of the Proprietors and Judges overlooking the banks of the bay. The last Royal Governor was William Franklin, the illegitimate son of our Benjamin. When his father was stationed in London as a representative of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, the appointment of William to a plush job in the colonies was just the normal method of government, made somewhat worse by King George III. Urged on to be a really King-like King by his mother, George III had considerably expanded the system of buying the loyalty of important people by giving them jobs and favors. Where people were already rich and powerful, they were offered monopolies and protective tariffs in return for their loyalty, and irritation at these intrusions into trade was to be a main incitement of the American Revolution. William and Benjamin eventually had a permanent falling-out over political matters, and naturally American historians take the side of the father. However, it would appear that William was in fact a very good governor, a charming and diplomatic person, who used his considerable talents to smooth over the local conflicts between his King and his neighbors. Even after hostilities broke out and the rebels took over the government, William Franklin stayed on trying to calm things down, instead of fleeing behind the British lines as most Loyalists tended to do. His reward was to be packed off to confinement in Connecticut.

Speaking geologically, the Raritan River is a little trickle running along the path of what was once Delaware Bay. In prehistoric days, southern New Jersey was a sandy barrier island, but the gap gradually filled in along the route from Perth Amboy to Trenton, leaving sheltered harbors at both ends of a strip of unusually fine farmland attractive to early settlers. By the time of the Revolution, the strip was mainly rich farmers who tended to favor the Loyalist cause, while the pine barrens to the South and the hilly woods to the North were inhabited by later immigrants who tended to be poor and hence favored the rebel cause. In his autobiography, Benjamin Franklin relates how, as boy, he came from Boston to Philadelphia by coming down from Perth Amboy (the capitol of East Jersey) to Trenton and nearby Burlington (the capitol of West Jersey), and then down the Delaware to Philadelphia. Later on, Washington was to retreat down the same path from his defeats in New York, hotly pursued by the British. After the battle of Trenton, Washington promptly chased the British back up the Raritan to New Brunswick and Perth Amboy, and bottled them up there by establishing winter quarters in Morristown. Much later, when the British General Henry Clinton later abandoned Philadelphia, which General Howe had captured by coming in the back door from the Chesapeake, the British marched back up the same Raritan waist of New Jersey by first crossing the Delaware to Haddonfield, up the king's Highway to Trenton/Burlington, and then East to New Brunswick and the British fleet. This was the main highway of the middle colonies, and the persisting term "King's Highway" was once completely appropriate.

When considering the relationships between New Jersey's Raritan Strip and Philadelphia in later decades, the names of Aaron Burr, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, Doris Duke, and Charles Lindbergh come up, along with a number of others whose tales need retelling. College football was invented in a game between Rutgers and Princeton, eighteen miles apart, and Woodrow Wilson started the movement to put an end to college fraternities, called eating clubs at Princeton. But the strip itself seems to have been glorified only by Thornton Wilder.

A short play called "A Happy Journey To Trenton and Camden" has been a favorite production by the drama societies of Rutgers, Princeton and Lawrencevile for almost a century. As written by Wilder during the time when he was a school teacher at Lawrenceville, the occupants of a Model T rattle and bump along the strip, commenting on the passing scene. Both the play and the strip deserve more attention than they usually get.

Assessment: To Philadelphia, or Saratoga?

General Howe

Nations at war commonly vilify the leader of the enemy, and Sir William Howe has usually been portrayed as a lazy, illegitimate uncle of the King, a womanizer lacking in military savvy. To go on this way is quite unfair to Washington, who outfoxed and out-generated a very clever soldier who was by no means a pushover.

Winter 1777

In retrospect, it can be seen that Howe's army was crammed into winter quarters on the Perth Amboy-New Brunswick bluff across the river from Staten Island in the winter of 1777, following the defeat at Trenton. Washington's troops were meanwhile in a fairly impregnable position around Morristown. If Howe went back along the Raritan toward Trenton and Philadelphia, he could expect to be butchered by snipers behind trees. If he embarked on his ships, we would be vulnerable during the two days of so required to break camp and load the ships. Washington's problem was actually just as bad. He had no way of knowing whether he had to defend against an encircling movement at Morristown, against a renewed invasion toward Trenton and Philadelphia, or against a quick movement at sea by the battleships. If Howe embarked, he might be going to Albany to rescue Burgoyne, or to Fort Lee to encircle Morristown, or to Philadelphia, or even to Charlestown. Any one of these choices would mean that Washington would have to hurry overland to catch him.

It now seems clear that Howe had decided it was safe to abandon Burgoyne. He might have tried to capture Philadelphia and get back to Albany by September, but evidently this seemed too ambitious and fraught with unexpected accidents, as events later proved to be true. Clear and unambiguous orders by Lord Germain in London were mislaid and never reached him. By implication, he was being told to use his best judgment. So he decided on a double option. He would send sorties out in all directions to keep Washington guessing and to entice him to come down from his mountain fastness into a pitched battle with British regulars. Failing that, he would get on his ships and take Philadelphia. Furthermore, Howe never told another soul what his plans were, except by sending a spy with misleading plans sewed into his coat, intending for him to be captured by the rebels. Washington, however, essentially refused to budge.

Norfolk

Finally, Howe ordered an embarkation onto his ships, and actually loaded a contingent of Hessians on board. Although Washington was mistrustful of a trick, his officers persuaded him to attack the "vulnerable" British while they were loading onto the transports. As soon as Howe heard of Washington's movement he immediately issued orders to turn the whole army around and trap Washington. He thought he now had his chance to catch and destroy the Continental army.

As things turned out, it didn't work and Washington escaped with most of his troops. Fearful of another such trap, he then held back perhaps too long and helplessly watched the ships load, weigh anchor, and sail out to sea. Where were they going? Not another person on the British (or Loyalist) side knew the answer, and the ships were far out to sea, invisible, before they turned in whatever direction they were going. Was it North, or South?

A week later, word came to Washington that the fleet had been sighted off the mouth of the Delaware. It was time to move South, in a big hurry, on foot. Howe was going to go to Norfolk, but it wasn't even certain whether he was coming back up the Chesapeake, or going still further South to Charleston. It remained conceivable that he would wait for Washington to move his troops South, then double back to New York and Albany to Join Burgoyne.

As we now know, Howe did turn up the Chesapeake to land in the rear of Philadelphia. And then Washington also guessed right, and had lined up his troops at Chadds Ford of the Brandywine Creek. Both of them were shrewd, and very quick. Howe had won a major victory with superior resources. But as we shall see, Washington wasn't through with him.

Day One: Camden to Cape May

Pine Barrens occupy the center of South Jersey. Settlements for three centuries have clustered along the Delaware River, like beads on two strings.

Dr. Fisher

The Capital of southern New Jersey alternated between Salem and Burlington, and the King's Highway ran between them atop a clay ridge all of fifty feet above sea level. Colonial villages are strung along Kings Highway about ten miles apart, just like villages in the Midwest and for the same reason. That was about the distance a farmer's wagon could travel to market and return in one day. Travel by boat modified that somewhat. One unexpected feature: the marl clay ridge was eventually found to contain the first known dinosaur bones, now proudly on display at the Academy of Natural Sciences Below the big river bend at Salem, we'll defer until Day Two describing the interesting origins of the coastal route on the Delaware side of the bay. In New Jersey the counterpart is the Del-Sea Drive, rapidly disappearing in response to school crossings and traffic. Although almost everything of interest is along these three roads, for this tour we propose taking President Eisenhower's interstate highway system, with side-trips as needed.

The retreating British Army sailed out of Philadelphia in 1778, went from Camden to Haddonfield and turned north on King's Highway. For this tour, we go south from Haddonfield, pausing for a glance back at Camden. Poor Camden scarcely exists any more, but the battleship New Jersey is parked there, the waterfront view is awesome, and Walt Whitman's home is open to tourists. Once the home of ship building, Campbell's Soup, RCA Victor, and the terminus of railroads at the ferries to Philadelphia, the town was first injured by the Pennsylvania Railroad going down the other side of the river, and then the construction of the Ben Franklin Bridge in 1926. Toll houses could be found along the turnpike to Haddonfield until 1960, but the automobile made Camden obsolete. What's left begins with the suburbs five miles away.

Haddonfield was a plain little Quaker town with undiscovered dinosaurs buried underneath it until the Revolution, when the fugitive New Jersey legislature met in the Indian King Tavern. Because the fortifications of the Delaware River at Fort Mifflin/Red Bank blocked the British fleet, Hessians were sent to attack Fort Mercer from the rear, staying overnight in Haddonfield. One young Quaker, a famous runner, ran ten miles to alert the defenders of Fort Mercer, who then defeated the Hessian attackers the next day. Later on after the British occupied Philadelphia, General "Mad Anthony" Wayne rounded up cattle in Salem County and drove them to Trenton, then over to Valley Forge to relieve Washington's starving troops. The British responded to this with a famous massacre in Salem County by cavalry under Col. John Simcoe. So off we go to National Park, originally called Red Bank, to see Fort Mercer. From here we travel to Salem, seeing its sadly dilapidated Colonial buildings, and the oak tree which was already famous among the Indians for its huge size in 1683. Along King's Highway we pass through Mickleton, Mullica Hill, and Woodstown, three cute little Quaker villages about to be overwhelmed as suburbs.

From here we go to Greenwich, named for Connecticut settlers, where Paul Revere stirred up a tea-burning party in sympathy with the Boston event on the same occasion. Greenwich is sometimes referred to as a second Williamsburg, but what's here is original, not reconstructed. In passing, this tour takes us past Hancock's Bridge where Simcoe massacred those farmers who sold cattle to Anthony Wayne. That's local history speaking; in fact, Tory-Rebel reprisals were very bitter on both sides. Until ten years ago, this blood stained site stood alone in the lonely moors, but unfortunately it's pretty much built up and hard to find in the new suburbs.

From Greenwich we go on to Cape May, with a brief detour to Bivalve. The point about this stop is the perfectly gigantic pile of oyster shells left over from the days as a center of oyster harvesting. Notice the roads; they're paved with oyster shells. Oysters eat algae, sewage fertilizes algae. Overfishing the oysters caused rotting algae and bacterial overgrowth in the river. The result was depletion of the dissolved oxygen, dead areas for fish, murky water instead of a clear stream. It's an opportunity for oyster farming, but the vast piles of shells at Bivalve are a warning of how far we have to go before we restore the river.

Cape May was the first Atlantic Ocean beach resort, reached from Philadelphia and Tidewater Virginia by boat long before roads were usable. We are told Cape May was formerly a separate barrier island, joined to the rest of South Jersey only later. It was originally a whaling port, and the Quakers of the region were more related to Nantucket than to Philadelphia. As you would expect, this cute little place has many fine restaurants and hotels. The hotels are so authentic that strangers share common bathrooms the way they always used to do, so bed and breakfast places can be preferable for snootier tourists. Those whose great-grandparents once stayed in places like the Chalfonte, however, find it important to rough it in traditional summer places. From here, we take the forty-minute ferry ride to Lewes, Delaware.

Cape Henlopen, on the Delaware side of the entrance to the bay, is appreciably southeast of Cape May. That means that a line directly east from Cape May points to Slaughter Beach, or Mispillion Point. The ocean salt water turns to fresh river water at about this level, making for remarkably good fishing at certain times of the year. Furthermore, horseshoe crabs come ashore here on both sides of the bay to lay eggs. Birds who took off from South America months earlier swoop out of the skies to eat the crab eggs on the appointed day. Hawks pause in the woods to fly together in flocks over the bay, based on their own signals. Mispillion Lighthouse is the greatest place on the Atlantic fly-way for bird-watching, crab-watching, fishing and nature loving. But you have to know when to go there, and remember the best local hotels do get filled up.

Greenwich, Where?

Greenwich NJ

As you sail up the Delaware Bay, you go past Rehoboth, Lewes, Dover, New Castle, Wilmington -- on the left, or Delaware side. On the right, or New Jersey side, it's a long way from Cape May to Salem, the first town of any consequence. That is, the Jersey side of the riverbank is still comparatively uninhabited. When the first settlers came along, with vast areas to choose among, it might have seemed attractive to settle on the Delaware side, because the peninsular nature of that area would give access to two large navigable bays, the Delaware, and the Chesapeake. To go all the way up the Delaware to what is now Pennsylvania would give trading access to a whole continent, and that eventually proved to be where immigration was headed. But as a matter of fact, the Jersey shore seemed even more attractive for settlement for quite a long time.

A settler has to think abou