Robert B. Meyner

Robert Baumle Meyner was born on July 3, 1908, in Easton, Pennsylvania, to Gustave Herman Meyner Sr. (1878–1950) and Maria Sophia Bäumle (1881–1968). His father was a German American loom fixer and silk worker from Manchester, New Hampshire. His mother was German, but born in Birsfelden near Basel, Switzerland, to Robert Bäumle from Harpolingen, Baden and to Franziska Oliva Thüring from Istein, Baden. Robert had an older brother, Gustave Herman Meyner Jr. (1907–1996), and a younger sister, Olive F. Meyner Wagner (1913–1982). In 1916, the Meyner family moved across the state border to Phillipsburg, New Jersey. They briefly moved to Paterson, New Jersey but returned to Phillipsburg by 1922, living on Lincoln Street in a house built by his grandfather. He financed his education by working in the silk mills near Easton and Phillipsburg, including as a weaver at the Gunning Silk Company. He was a brother of the Alpha Chi Rho fraternity and in 1928, Meyner formed the Young People's Al Smith for President Club at Lafayette, supporting the unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidate in the 1928 United States presidential election. In his senior year, Meyner was editor in chief of "The Lafayette", a student newspaper. After graduating from Lafeyette in 1930, Menyer attended Columbia Law School, where he was awarded an LL.B. degree in 1933. ==Legal career and early political involvement==

Following his graduation from Columbia, Meyner was employed as a law clerk in Union City and later Jersey City by J. Emil Walscheid and Milton Rosenkranz from February 1933 to April 1936. He was admitted to the New Jersey bar in 1934. After the start of World War II, Meyner enlisted in the United States Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps, where he used his legal training to defend sailors in courts-martial and became commander of a gun crew on a merchant vessel. He was discharged with the rank of lieutenant commander, which he kept in the United States Navy Reserve. In 1946, Meyner made another run for office, challenging Republican U.S. Representative J. Parnell Thomas. Thomas easily defeated him. New Jersey Senate In 1947, Meyner made another run for New Jersey Senate, defeating Wayne Dumont to represent Warren County. In the Senate, Meyner gained political experience and a reputation as a critic of the Republican administration of Governor Alfred E. Driscoll for failing to clean up corruption in Bergen County. Meyner cast the sole vote against the creation of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, arguing that any such body would "become grossly irresponsible to the will of the people." In 1950, Meyner became minority leader of the Senate and served as permanent chairman of the Democratic Party state convention. Despite his growing influence within the Democratic Party, he was defeated for re-election in 1951 by Dumont. == Governor of New Jersey ==

1953 election After leaving office in 1952, Meyner's political career appeared to be at a dead end. Failing to carry his own home county, which was largely rural, and being an apostate from the Catholic Church were serious political liabilities in a party which relied on votes from urban Catholic communities. At the 1960 Democratic National Convention, however, Meyner received 43 votes for president, finishing fifth behind Kennedy, Johnson, Stuart Symington and Stevenson. His decision to oppose Kennedy on the first ballot and withhold New Jersey's votes led to the decline of his political career. Within New Jersey, Meyner focused his second term on transportation improvements and conservation. His administration spent $93 million per year on the construction of roads and establishing the Rail Transportation Division for rail improvements and consolidations. He initiated plans for the Port Authority of New York to assume leadership of the bankrupt Hudson and Manhattan Tubes. In 1959, his proposal for a statewide mass transit program was defeated by opposition from Hudson County and rural areas. He began reclamation of the Meadowlands region through the creation of the Meadlowlands Regional Development Agency and established a "Green Acres" program designed to regain land for recreational uses. He continued to increase funding for higher education, mental health treatment, juvenile delinquent rehabilitation, elderly care, and consumer protections. Amid a period of economic prosperity in the state owed to extensive investments in industrial plants and research, he continued to avoid broad tax increases by relying on the state's corporate income tax. In 1959, Meyner appointed Thelma Parkinson as president of the New Jersey Civil Service Commission, making her the first woman to serve in the governor's cabinet. Meyner left office in January 1962, prohibited from serving more than two consecutive terms. == Later career ==

In 1962, Meyner and Stephen B. Wiley formed the law firm of Meyner and Wiley in Newark, New Jersey. (Wiley was later elected to the New Jersey Senate in 1973.) Meyner accepted lucrative positions with banks and insurance companies and became administrator of the cigarette industry's code on fair advertising. After his Democratic successor, Richard J. Hughes served two terms, the Democratic Party turned back to Meyner as their gubernatorial candidate in 1969, but he was defeated in a landslide by U.S. Representative William T. Cahill. ==Personal life==

Meyner married Helen Stevenson on January 19, 1957, in her hometown of Oberlin, Ohio. She was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1974 and served two terms from 1975 until 1979. ==Death==

Meyner had a stroke in 1986 and died on May 27, 1990, in Captiva, Florida. == References ==