Editing Winfield Township, New Jersey (section)

===The creation of Winfield Township===
[[Image:Winfield5th48-49.jpg|thumb|Winfield Township School 5th Grade Class 1948–1949, Winfield Township, New Jersey.]]
On June 30, 1941—six days after the construction of Winfield Park had begun—Union County Assemblyman Pascoe presented a bill to the [[New Jersey General Assembly]] establishing Winfield Township, New Jersey (originally, the bill called for the establishment of Lindark, New Jersey). After presenting the bill, Pascoe asked for and received a suspension of the rules so that the vote on the bill could follow its first reading. The bill passed the assembly 35 to 20 and was sent immediately on to the [[New Jersey Senate]], which also suspended its rules and voted the bill through 14 to 0 on July 14, 1941. On July 21, 1941, Governor [[Charles Edison]] [[vetoed]] the bill returning it to the legislature with a letter chastising the members for approving a bill that he believed was counter to the needs of the national defense program. In his view, it was [[discriminatory]] towards defense workers; it did not consider the important passage of Title II of the Lanham Act by Congress on June 28, 1941 (another indication that money was only a partial driving force for opposition against Winfield); it created an unprecedented "Federal Island" in the State of New Jersey; it failed to consider that the State's constitution would not permit Winfield's new residents to elect local government officials until they had resided in the town for at least one year. It ignored that the bill's passage violated the [[New Jersey Constitution]]'s specific guidelines concerning public announcements and opening hearings before a bill could be passed. Governor Edison's letter was read before the Legislature on July 28, 1941. At the reading's conclusion, there was no debate; Assemblyman Pascoe once again asked for a suspension of the rules, and the veto was immediately overturned by a vote of 33 to 24. The bill was immediately sent to the Senate, which suspended its rules on the same afternoon and overturned the Governor's veto by a vote of 11 to 5. Thus on July 28, 1941, Winfield Township, New Jersey, was established. Forty Clark Township opposition leaders were present in [[Trenton, New Jersey]] on July 28, 1941, and celebrated Winfield's establishment in the halls of [[New Jersey State Capitol|Capital building]].<ref>New Jersey General Assembly, "Minutes of Votes and Proceedings of the One Hundred and Sixty-Fifth General Assembly of the State of New Jersey," pp. 1010, 1027–1029, 1089, 1117–1119, 1178, 1188; New Jersey Senate, "Journal of Ninety-Seventh Senate of the State of New Jersey," pp. 847-849, 929–930; Elizabeth Daily Journal, July 22, 1941, July 29, 1941.</ref>

Winfield Township is a unique municipality in the United States. No other defense housing project had been established as a separate municipality. This unique status also created a number of unique problems. As the ''Elizabeth Daily Journal'' reported:

<blockquote>
"Now [[Uncle Sam]] owns a town. Uncle Sam cannot tax himself or vote for himself. The occupants of houses cannot be taxed like a regular homeowner and he has promised them low monthly charges, but with all the benefits of living in town."
</blockquote>

The construction of Winfield continued unabated and the establishment of Winfield Township resulted in the unforeseen effect of permitting the project's residents to control their own future. In an article entitled "County Clerk Places Winfield On His List," a local newspaper reported:

<blockquote>
"Winfield has attained a modicum of recognition in these days of rebuffs and snubs among the powers. On all lists of municipalities required for records of official business in the office of County Clerk Henry G. Nulton, it now appears with its rebellious neighbors, Clark and Linden, the other towns. The fact that it is at the bottom of the list, insisted Abraham Grosman, in charge of revising the list, is that it alphabetically falls there, wrestling the last position from [[Westfield, New Jersey|Westfield]]."<ref>Elizabeth Daily Journal, July 29, 1941, Aug. 2, 1941; Rutgers Bureau of Economic Research, An Economic Profile of Winfield Park, N.J.: Including Alternatives For the Use of Community Resources, p.7.</ref>
</blockquote>

Winfield's official history, written in 1976, even begins with the following:

<blockquote>
"Winfield, Winfield Park, Winfield Township, is a big title for the 'baby of [[Union County, New Jersey|Union County]].' Most of us use the plain 'Winfield' address simply because it is the quickest to write. People still say, 'Where's that?' However, after thirty-five years of the same question, we are accustomed to the remark. Sometimes the remarks given to our town, when a person knows where Winfield is, are far harder to swallow than when he is ignorant of its location. Some milder titles are, '[[barracks]]', or 'oh, those places.' We are so tiny, that even state and county [[Cartography|cartographers]] sometimes forget to put us on their maps. Sure, we feel a bit miffed at times, but we then look across our 'Green Acres' and realize our blessing."
</blockquote>

But this local community pressure also had the positive effect of forcing Winfield's residents to work together more closely and form a more tightly knit community than could ever have been anticipated in the original site plan.