Robert Clark Crane (September 25, 1920 – April 24, 1962) was an American newspaper publisher and Republican Party politician from New Jersey.
[3] During World War II he served in the Quartermaster Corps of the United States Army in North Africa, Italy, and Germany, rising to the rank of captain and receiving the Bronze Star Medal.
[5] In 1959 the Journal was sold to the Ralph Ingersoll chain and became part of Mid-Atlantic Newspapers, Inc.[5] Crane remained as head of the paper until early 1960.
[7] He was re-elected to a second term as State Senator in 1959, just narrowly defeating his Democratic opponent, former Linden Mayor H. Roy Wheeler.
[8] In 1961, Governor Robert B. Meyner planned to nominate Plainfield attorney William Phillmore Wood as the first Black to serve on the New Jersey Superior Court.
[10] In November 1961, Crane announced that he would resign his Senate seat early in 1962 after spending a year battling cancer.
[4] After Crane's Senate seat remained vacant for nine months, creating an upper house evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, a new law was eventually passed that allowed State Senate and Assembly seats to be filled in a Special Election that was not necessarily held at the same time as a regularly scheduled General Election.