People sometimes do the darndest things, even in Warren. "The post-election atmosphere in Warren took a sour turn," reported the Mountain Echoes of Nov. 17, l960, "when on Saturday morning, early motorists discovered an eight-foot effigy of Mayor Earle B. Pierson Jr. hanging from phone wires on the corner of Mt. Bethel road and Mountain boulevard, one of the busiest intersections in the community." "Alarm and shock was expressed by local officials and residents during the weekend. Township employees removed the dummy early Sunday morning and later in the day the figure was found in the driveway of the Municipal Building." A Republican, Pierson had endorsed Albin Ehrhardt, a Democrat, for election to the open seat on the 3-member Township Committee. Ehrhardt's Republican opponent, Harold Mundy, refused to support the township's proposed Master Plan, a stance Pierson had found unacceptable. For his efforts, Pierson was expelled from the Republican Club along with Mrs. James Higgens, a reporter for the local paper. Then, on Election Day, township voters further confounded Mayor Pierson by electing Mundy over Ehrhardt by a margin of 1290 to 1263. Actually, Pierson's support of the Democrat had made a difference, although not enough, as Mundy's 27-vote victory margin paled in comparison with the l014-vote pounding Vice President Richard Nixon gave Senator John Kennedy. "At a special meeting Tuesday night of the Warren Township Republican Club," continued the paper, "Harold Mundy, the GOP winner for the governing body seat, expressed his regrets at the effigy incident." The club passed a resolution "condemning" the "persons unknown" who hanged the mayor in effigy. Mayor Pierson had the last laugh -- of sorts, anyway --when Mundy resigned his seat on the Township Committee in March l961, barely three months into his term. |