Franklin Murphy

Franklin Murphy was of the older generation in Republican politics, when political preferment came to those who had seen service in the political ranks. He had seen service, indeed, in more ways than one, for he shouldered a musket in no less than nineteen battles of the Civil War and marched with Sherman to the Sea. In New Jersey politics he rose successively from member of the Newark Board of Aldermen to President of the Board, to member of the State Assembly, and in 1901 to Governor of the State. Mr. Murphy’s term as Governor was a period of useful and beneficent reforms; some of which, like the New Jersey primary law—the first adopted by any State—and the broad legislation for the improvement of labor conditions anticipated the movement of events in the country as a whole and were the result of his personal initiative.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1921 Century Association Yearbook