Paul A. Volcker – The First Township Manager (1930-1950)

Former Cape May Head Slated to Get Post — Confirmation Due at Inauguration — Place Salary at $7,500 — Has Brilliant Record

Little doubt remains about the identity of Teaneck’s new township manager. All sorts of remors have been flying in the township for many weeks about who the man would be to fill the job. The new manager, according to information obtained from a reliable source through not officially confirmed, is Paul A. Volcker, who has been the city manager of Cape May since 1925.

It is reported that Volcker was selected last week by the incoming councilmen after much deliberation.

The official confirmation of Volcker is expected to be known tomorrow after the councilmen have assumed their new offices. It is said that the salary to be paid the new executive will be $7,500. Though this might seem high, it is also a pretty well established fact that his service may only cost Teaneck $2,500 a year. The mathematical procedure by which this is arrived at is from another unofficial report that there will be no specially appointed executive to run the affairs of the township engineering department. Volcker is an engineer himself and as such there is a big possibility that he may take over the actual supervision and production of the engineering works of the township, thus eliminating the $6,000 salary paid annually to the township engineers in Teaneck heretofore.

Darby Gives Praise

Assuming that the information obtained on the new city manager of Teaneck is correct, it is timely to quote an excerpt from a letter written by Walter R. Darby, state commissioner of municipal accounts in 1926, which reads as follows:

“If what has been accomplished in Cape May is a proper indication of what city manager government can accomplish, I would like to see more of our municipalities operating under this form of municipal government.”

The letter was written to Volcker by Darby on Sept. 8 1926, and was dug out of an application filed with the council-elect some time ago.

Volcker is a true native of the state. He was born here, is forth years old, is married, has four children and is an Episcopalian.

Volcker is a graduate civil engineer of the class of 1911 Rennselaer Polytechic Institute, Troy, N. Y. He is a registered professional engineer in Pennsylvania and a member of the honorary society of Sigma XI.

From July 1911 to April 1914 Volcker served with the New York state engineer’s department on large canal construction work as rodman, leveller and assistant engineer. Volcker was in responsible charge of construction of bridge abutments and superstructures, locks, diam and power house; hydraulic and dipper dredgings; foundations from rock to thirty feet piles, steel sheet piling and crib cofferdams.

From April 1914 to January 1916 Volcker was with the New York State Highway commission working as an assistant engineer on road construction.

Was City Engineer.

From January 1916 to November 1922 Volcker was employed as city engineer with the city of Lebanon, Pa., a commission governed community with a population of 26,000. He inaugurated and completed about a million and a half dollars worth of public improvements while in the post without getting into any legal entanglements. The work he did at the time included sewage disposal plant, sanitary sewers, flood prevention project including storm sewers, paving, reinforced concrete culverts and bridges and a new water supply.

Volcker was next employed as general manager of the Lebanon Chamber of Commerce from November 1923 to May 1925, during which time he built up the membership and finances of the organization, carried through a varied program of constructive work, one phase of which was commented upon editorially by the Saturday Evening Post. Volcker made an industrial survey, assisted in agricultural survey, community campaigns, worked with merchants on retail problems and did many other things to bring the Lebanon chamber to the front rank of the entire state group.

Volcker started as city manager of Cape May in May 1925. During this period Cape May has been brought out of financial chaos and rehabilitated physically through the construction of new boardwalk, water plant, beach protection structures and strengthening, rebuilding and adding to other public structures. Entertainment features were improved and many additional comforts and conveniences provided. Volcker acts as advertising manager and publicity director for Cape May and has supervision of the police, fire, street and water departments, lifeguards, assessments, tax collections, engineering and other features of the city government. He revised Cape May’s office procedure and clerical work and the yearly budget is about $325,000 with additional yearly capital expenditures of $100,000.

“The Public Dollar,” published by the U. S. Chamber of Commerce last year is quoted as follows: “The four year transition of Cape May, N. J., is an epic in small city management.”

Volcker has made thousands of friends in every connection he has been in. His sterling and outstanding record is spoken of in the highest of terms by his former employers who also prophesied great future success for him in his undertakings.

The people of Teaneck have placed their faith in the new form of government and have been, if Volcker is the man hired, unusually fortunate in obtaining a manager of such high type, a native of the state familiar with the problems here and eager to make good.

Paul A. Volcker, who became New Jersey’s first city manager in 1925 when Cape May pioneered the way by adopting the manager plan of government and who has been township manager here since Teaneck adopted the plan in 1930, has announced his intention to retire in two years.

However, true to his principles opposing “political appointments,” Mr. Volcker has hired a deputy whom he hopes to groom as his successor.

“Government is a science,” Mr. Volcker ways, “and I am happy that the officials and the people of this community agree that the man who is to manage it should be thoroughly trained in the science of government. Under the manager plan it is possible to do things like this.”

Mr. Volcker’s deputy is James T. Welch, who was the mayor of Steubenville, Ohio, and who in the war was military governor in the Marshall Islands. He has been hired at a salary of $5,000. Mr. Volcker receives $9,500 as manager and an additional $1,000 for serving as township engineer.

When Mr. Volcker took over the administration in Teaneck after five years as manager of Cape May, the township had a population of 16,000 and a bonded indebtedness of $5,000,000. Today the population is 33,000, and the bonded indebtedness has been cut to $1,800,000.

“We were suffering in those days from the devastating results of the real estate boom that had gone bust, with the consequent overdevelopment of streets and sewers,” he explains.

In 1930 there were no park lands; today there are ninety five acres of developed parks; the per capita debt was $301, today it is $56.85.

“We have had our growing pains, and our battles,” Mr. Volcker recalls, “but the township has never lost faith in the manager form of government.”

Despite Teaneck’s success with manager government, not many municipalities in New Jersey have embraced it, although many have voted on the question.

“There are seven manager municipalities in the state now: Clifton, Hackensack, Keansburg, Teaneck, Medford Lakes, Teterboro and Fairlawn, which just adopted it,” Mr. Volcker points out.

One of Mr. Volcker’s most bitter battles for the clear-cut rights of the city manager occurred in 1938 when the Township council challenged his right to appoint a police captain. He took his claim to the New Jersey State Supreme Court and was upheld.

Before becoming city manager to Cape May, Mr. Volcker was city engineer in Lebanon, Pa., and later State Highway Department. He is a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Upon retirement on pension when he becomes 60 years old, Mr. Volcker intends either to teach engineering or becomes consulting engineer.”

It is a friendly joke locally to point out that Mr. Volcker, Mrs. Volcker, and their three children are all well over six feet in height and reside on Longfellow Avenue.

By Mary Carves

Dozens of tributes were paid this week to the late Paul A. Volcker, retired Township manager, who died at his home in Lyons, N. Y., last Saturday.

The Rev. Lyman B. Greaves, pastor of Christ Episcopal Church, has set April 24 for a memorial service for Mr. Volcker pending arrangements with the immediate family. Mr. Volcker was a past warden of the church and active in all church programs.

Speaking at the Township Council meeting Tuesday night, Mayor Matthew Feldman stated: “Undoubtedly most of your know that Paul A. Volcker, Teaneck’s first Township manager, passed away at his home Saturday. Mr. Volcker became manager in November, 1930, after the voters chose the township-manager form of government, and he filled the post with distinction for 20 years until his retirement on Sept. 1, 1950.”

“I speak for all the people of Teaneck when I extend my sincere sympathies to his family on their profound loss.”

Suggests Memorial

William Brett asked that councilmen discuss setting a memorial as tangible recognition of Mr. Volcker’s work in establishing a model town under the manager form of government and for bringing national recognition through his personal study of government matters.

Suggested memorials were a bronze bust in the municipal building and naming of a public park, school or building. The matter will be discussed in executive council session.

Mr. Brett suggested formation of a citizens’ committee to further the idea.

Mr. Volcker was the first municipal manager in Bergen County and claimed to be the first in the state. Prior to his position here he served with the New York State Highway Department as an engineer and was municipal manager of Lebonan, Pa., and Cape May.

Following his retirement, he continued as an independent consultant on municipal matters on which he was considered one of the nation’s leading authorities. He aided in selecting a manager for Fair Lawn.

Varied Activities

During World War II, Mr. Volcker was active in Red Cross War Relief Committee works in Teaneck. In 1948 he was named chairman of the New Jersey State Housing Council by Gov. Alfred E. Driscoli.

During his 20 years of service here, he served on many community projects and civic activities. he was past president of the Teaneck Rotary Club.

Private funeral services were conducted at Lyons, home town of his wife, Tuesday.

Besides his wife, Alma Klippel Volcker, he is survived by three daughters, Miss Ruth and Miss Louise Volcker and Mrs. Virginia Streitfeld.

If an institution is the lengthened shadow of a man, the tall shades of Paul Valcker, will pervade both the official and private life of Teaneck for a long time to come.

What are the qualities that make a man outstanding among others of equal position; that cause him to be remembered with respect and affection and that raise his municipality to a position of prestige and influence among neighboring towns and the entire state?

First, although he was figuratively and actually the head man in a large official organization and could have thrown a lot of weight around, Paul always kept in mind that he was dealing with people — all kinds of people with their faults, their idiosynerasies, but also their innate decency.

Paul seldom if ever, made snap judgements. If any one went to him with a suggestion, an idea or a complaint, he’d most likely take a long puff on his pipe, remark that he hadn’t thought of it that way, but if the caller would come back on Thursday at 2 p.m., he’d have an answer. And he’d have the answer and a cracking good reason for his decision.

Perhaps his most endearing quality was that he always believed in the spirit as well as the letter of the laws and ordinances. There were many times when he did not make his decisions by the book.

A “for instance.” When men by the scores were being mustered out of service, the housing situation in many cases was desperate. People were installing sinks and baths in one-family residences and Paul knew it. He told a group of reporters that he certainly wasn’t going to tell people that they could make such installations and openly flout the law, but in such a dire emergency, neither was he going to tell them they couldn’t.

He kept his weather eye on the situation and as soon as the house situation had eased, he quietly ordered every one of those houses restored to one-family status. It was done with neither fanfare or objections and his whole handdling of the situation left a sweet taste in everyone’s mouth.

On the rare occasions when he was irked or angry, his emotion never took the form of arm waving or shouting. Few people ever heard him raise his voice. Rather, you sometimes had to cup your ear to hear what he was saying.

Most men of wisdom are guided to some extent by the precepts of their forebears. This one from George Washington, still hangs in the office of Township Manager Schmidt, next to Paul’s picture:

“Do not suffer your good nature when application is made to say Yes when you ought so say No. Remember that it is a public, not a private cause that is to be injured or benefited by your choice.”

A memorial to Paul Volcker is among the musts for Teaneck. It might be possible to coldly appropriate a sum of money from Township funds and erect a tablet in the library or Town Hall or dedicate a tree in his name. This would be no memorial at all to the man who raised Teaneck to the position of respect and prestige it enjoys, but above all, who made it the nice place it is in which to live.

A committee of his close friends and associates will be appointed shortly to decide what form the memorial shall take. all the people of Teaneck who knew him and remember him with affection, willhave an opportunity to make their donations to some living and lasting form of memorial.

Acknowledging the tributes paid to Paul after his recent death, Mrs. Volcker wrote to Mayor Matthew Feldman:

“In a very special way Mr. Volcker loved Teaneck. For 20 years he watched it grow and mature into an outstanding community, gaving it his best always. His interest did not lessen when he retired nor when he moved away…”

Yes, Mrs. Volcker, that’s just how the people of Teaneck felt about him.

I, for one, will always be glad I knew him.