Shore reacts to veep’s resignation: From the Asbury Park Press archives

0Here’s a look at the front page of the Asbury Park Press from 53 years ago.Thursday, October 11, 1973 — 53 Years AgoSpiro T. Agnew becomes the second vice president in U.S. history to resign the office after he pleads no contest to tax evasion when serving as the governor of Maryland six years earlier.

President Richard M. Nixon, himself embroiled in the unrelated Watergate scandal, would move quickly to nominate House Republican Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford to succeed Agnew.

Ten months later, Nixon resigned and Ford would succeed him as the 38th president of the United States.

County-level politicians of both parties were upset by Vice President Agnew’s resignation, but discounted any serious effect on their political contests this November.

“I’m heartbroken,” was the initial reaction of Benjamin H. Danskin, Monmouth County Republican chairman. “He’s a victim of a political system that, at the time these things happened, was accepted by both parties as normal politics.”

Mr. Danskin said he can’t believe the vice president “ever took the money for personal gain” and that his no defense plea is probably to protect a lot of other people.

The Republican leader also pointed out that he feels that “out of the whole thing we’ll probably see healthier party situations” and that the Agnew resignation won’t affect Republican candidates for county and legislative offices.

“Monmouth has been governed by Republicans absolutely unblemished for 30 years and I can’t believe that the voters would take it out on our candidates for what happened in Washington and Maryland,” he said.

Monmouth County Democratic Chairman John Fiorino said Agnew’s resignation and plea was “a victory for democracy and our democratic form of government because it shows that under our system of criminal justice that even the vice president isn’t beyond the law.”

Mr. Fiorino said the effect will also be “a good number of people will be turned off politically and think that politicians are unsavory from the top down.”

He said, however, that the public should be positive about the situation and rest assured that “we can ferret out these things and still go on.”

“I also think it’s a tribute to the newspapermen who pursued this thing and serves as a landmark for the guarantee that newsmen can protect unnamed sources,” Mr. Fiorino said.

OCEAN GROVE — Conversation at the corner of Main Avenue and Pilgrim Pathway here buzzed yesterday over the resignation of Vice President Agnew.

“Agnew was a great vice president and I think his being forced to resign is playing right up the sleeves of the Communists,” said Lester Coon, who lives on Mount Tabor Way.

Mr. Coon had just stepped off a bus returning from the Jungle Habitat theme park in West Milford Township.

“Agnew is no worse than any other politician,” agreed his wife, Lucy. “So you can tell it’s a Democratic rub-out, coming so close to the election.”

When Miss Ida Wild of Abbott Avenue was informed of the vice president’s resignation by a reporter, she said: “Oh my goodness, Jeane Dixon was wrong.”

Miss Wild said she had just heard a prediction by Miss Dixon, the prophetess, that both President Nixon and Mr. Agnew would stay in office.

But J. Richard Rice, a retired pressman for the Ocean Grove Times, said he expected the resignation because he thought all along that Mr. Agnew “had his hand in the till.”

Mrs. Ethel Halliday, Collingswood, was visiting her sister here and both had just returned from the trip to the Jungle Habitat.

“What they ought to do (next) is go to the bottom of this Ted Kennedy thing and find out if that girl in Chappaquiddick was pushed into the water or what,” said Mrs. Halliday.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Shore reacts to veep’s resignation: From the Asbury Park Press archives