STATES & CITIES: Princeton Plan (Cont’d)

Princeton Plan (Cont’d)

Just before the New Jersey Legislature adjourned in June it waded around a mass of legislative trivialities to pass an important bill authorizing the Governor to appoint a State Fiscal Commissioner. The office had been recommended as part of the reform program offered by Princeton’s Professor (now President) Harold Willis Dodds, whom Governor Moore had invited to survey the State Government (TIME, July 3). By the terms of the Princeton Plan, the Fiscal Commissioner was to be a dictator of the State’s finances, with power to suspend or withhold appropriations, reduce personnel. Last week Governor Moore, still true to the Princeton Plan, selected John Colt, 43, able Princeton banker and onetime assistant professor of politics at the university, to fill the null position. Fiscal Commissioner Colt, dapper, popular, brainy, is a Republican. His appointment gave evidence that Democratic Governor Moore was sharply avoiding politics in public expenditures. Son of a Kansas City minister, “Dictator” Colt studied at Princeton, served with the A. E. F., returned to teach at Princeton. He married Eleanor Boyd, sister of Author James Boyd (Drums}. In 1928 he joined Princeton Bank & Trust Co., soon became its president. Since last March he has been Director of State Emergency Relief.