Everett Colby

Everett Colby (December 10, 1874 – June 19, 1943) was an American banker and politician who represented Essex County, New Jersey in the New Jersey Assembly and the New Jersey Senate from 1906 to 1909. He developed a record as a reformist and opponent of corporations and machine politics, often drawing him into conflict with the leaders of his own Republican Party. In 1913, he ran as the Progressive Party nominee for Governor of New Jersey.

Early life

Everett Colby was born in Milwaukee on December 10, 1874. His father Charles L. Colby was the Vice President, and later President, of the Wisconsin Central Railroad.

Colby attended the Browning School in New York City, where his classmates included John D. Rockefeller Jr., Percy Rockefeller, and Harold Fowler McCormick. His teacher J.A. Browning said that Colby was a good sportsman but poor scholar, who had great difficulty concentrating or reading but enjoyed woodwork.

Colby graduated from Brown University in 1897, again alongside John D. Rockefeller Jr. He was still an avid sportsman and played tennis, golf, baseball, and football. He was football captain in his senior year.

In 1898, Colby's father died, and he made a tour of the world. He then studied law and played polo. He married and settled in Llewellyn Park, Orange, New Jersey. He became a Wall Street broker and entered politics. His father had campaigned in Wisconsin as a railroad man and Everett had become convinced, from an early age, that he would one day become a politician. With this end in mind, he had studied law and joined the debating society in college. He openly acknowledged that he enjoyed the showmanship of politics and was at first unsure of the course his political career would take. He simply wanted to go into politics–not to accomplish anything in particular. At first he served in minor positions, assisting other politicians and over time he developed his own political consciousness.

Colby became convinced that the American political system had become perverted from a representative democracy to a plutocratic tyranny. He had been advised to gain experience by joining forces with Major Carl Lentz, the chairman of the Republican County Committee of Essex County. Lentz allowed him to be the introductory speaker at some meetings and Colby gained experience in giving speeches. He then transferred to the staff of Governor Voorhees. Voorhees appointed him a Commissioner on the State Board of Education. Colby worried that his own desultory education might make him unfit for the position but he did very well and Lentz made him chairman of the executive committee of the Republican organization of West Orange in 1902. The next year, Lentz encouraged Colby to run for state senator for Essex. When Colby pointed out that he was under the constitutional age for the senate, Lentz offered to "fix the Manual" where the statistics of legislators were kept. Colby refused but agreed to nomination for the State Assembly and was elected Assemblyman from Essex.

New Jersey State Assemblyman

Colby's session as an assemblyman was a gradual education and disillusionment. One day, early in the session, Sam Dickinson asked Colby to introduce certain excise bills. Dickinson was Secretary of State and Republican leader of Hudson County. Colby found the proposed taxes dubious and an attempt to take control of Hudson County from the Democratic Party. Colby went to consult Governor Franklin Murphy and when Murphy pronounced the bills "all right", Colby was reassured. At the same time, Colby wanted to introduce a bill to clean up pollution of the Passaic River but the Republicans did not have enough votes for all the bills to pass. Colby and some other Republicans appealed to the Democratic assemblymen from Hudson who agreed to support the clean-up bill if the excise bills were dropped. Dickinson consented and Colby's bill was passed. Then Dickinson asked Colby to reintroduce the excise bills. Colby was astonished and refused to break his word. "Your word to a Democrat doesn't mean anything," they told him in those very terms. The party jammed through the excise bills but Colby voted against them, retaining his honor.

Leader of the House

Colby continued to make enemies in his own party by voting in opposition to their views on major issues. Later he acknowledged that some of his decisions were bad ones. They tried to buy his cooperation by making him floor leader of the Republican majority House. They handled him very carefully, concealing information from him and approaching him through men he liked. Republicans had attempted to introducing a bill requiring twenty percent approval by shareholders for a lawsuit to be filed against a corporation by its workforce. The party sent Percy Rockefeller to convince Colby to support the bill. He failed and Colby convinced Rockefeller that the bill was a bad one. When both Governor Murphy and Governor Stokes then attempted to convert Colby, this opened the eyes of the young legislator to the fact that his party represented the interests of corporations.

During the 1904 session, Mark M. Fagan, the mayor of Jersey City

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