Newton Bugbee

October 8, 2007 - 9:43am

The New Jersey Governor who shot himself in the head

The race for Governor of New Jersey in 1919 centered around the national debate on prohibition, with Democrats running as the wet party and Republicans taking the dry position.  One week before the election, the Republican-controlled Congress passed the National Prohibition Act, overriding Woodrow Wilson's veto.  

The winner was Democrat Edward Edwards, a 56-year-old former banker who had been elected to represent Hudson County in the State Senate two years earlier.  He defeated Republican State Chairman Newton Bugbee by a 49%-46% margin.  Edwards called himself "as wet as the Atlantic Ocean," while Bugbee said he was personally wet but politically dry.  (He even drank a beer at a public event in Clifton to demonstrate his point.

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