Up
for auction a RARE! "New Jersey Congressman" Charles Joelson Signed First Day Cover Dated 1964. This
item is authenticated by JG Autographs and comes with their Certificate of
Authenticity.
ES-8215E
Charles Samuel Joelson (January 27, 1916 – August 17, 1999)
was an American lawyer and politician. Joelson,
a Democrat,
succeeded Gordon Canfield as
the Representative for New Jersey's 8th
District for eight years, lasting from 1961 until his
resignation on September 4, 1969, when he became a judge in the Superior Court of New Jersey. Joelson was born and raised in a Jewish family
in Paterson, New Jersey. After
graduating from Montclair Academy,
he went on to college and attended Cornell University. After
graduating Phi Beta Kappa with
a Bachelor of Arts degree
in 1937, Joelson went to attend the university's law school. He graduated
with a Bachelor of Laws degree
in 1939, and was admitted to the bar in 1940. He first started his law practice in Paterson, New Jersey and
continued until he enlisted in the United States Navy in
1942. During World War II, Joelson served as an ensign in the Far Eastern
Branch of the Office of Naval Intelligence,
where he learned and mastered the Japanese language. After the war, Joelson first ran for the
House seat in New Jersey's 8th
congressional district against incumbent Gordon Canfield. In a close election, Canfield captured 59,191
votes, just 148 more than Joelson, and was proclaimed the winner of the
election. Joelson then served on Paterson's city counsel
from 1949 to 1952. He then served as deputy Attorney General in New Jersey's criminal investigation division for three years,
starting in 1954. That same year, he again ran for the Representative seat
for New Jersey's 8th District, but again lost to incumbent Gordon Canfield. Joelson received 45.1% of the vote, in
comparison to Canfield's 54.8%. Afterwards, Joelson then went on to
the Passaic County's
Prosecutor's Office and then became the director of the state's criminal
investigation division and served that post from 1958 to 1960. He
won the seat for New Jersey's 8th
District's in the November 1960 election. Canfield was not a
candidate for renomination in 1960, and so Joelson was pitted against Republican
Walter P. Kennedy. Joelson won the election by nearly 14,000 votes, capturing a
52%-43.8% majority. He was sworn into the United States Congress on
January 3, 1961. As Congressman, one of Joelson's achievements was a piece of
legislation in 1969 that saved many school libraries. The legislation
appropriated over a billion dollars for public school libraries, remedial
programs and guidance counseling. After
his resignation, then-state cabinet member Robert A. Roe was elected as a Democrat by
special election on November 4, 1969 to fill the vacancy left by Joelson Joelson
had asked the state's governor at the time, Richard J. Hughes for a seat in the New Jersey Superior Court.
He served on the bench for fifteen years, spending time in the Chancery Division and
the Appellate Division, before
retiring in 1984. A
resident of Paramus, Joelson died at
the age of 83 in Freehold Township, New Jersey[2] on August 17, 1999.