Split in Pennsylvania

The big new fact in Pennsylvania politics is that the Grundy machine, pronounced dead only a year ago, is back in power again. That fact may vitally affect the political fortunes of Ike Eisenhower and Robert Taft.

When ex-Governor Jim Duff went to Washington as U.S. Senator last year, he thought he had licked old Republican Boss Joe Grundy once & for all, and had left the state in safe hands. In the bitter Republican primary, Duff denounced Grundy and his Pennsylvania Manufacturers' Association as a bunch of "high-button-shoe reactionaries." Duff won, against all the power that 87-year-old Grundy could bring against him. With him ran his hand-picked successor as governor, a superior court judge named John Fine.

Welcome Back. Jim Duff was barely settled in the Senate when he realized he had made a bad mistake. Even during the campaign, while Duff thundered against Grundy's "privileged-few" brand of Republicanism, Judge Fine was meeting secretly with Grundy's faithful lieutenant, G. Mason Owlett, in a room in Philadelphia's Ritz-Carlton. A few days after the governor's inauguration, Mason Owlett reappeared in Harrisburg. In other days, Owlett was the man who brought to the governor's office a budget prepared by the Grundy machine. Duff had ordered him out. Governor Fine welcomed him in. Owlett has been making himself at home ever since.

Fine ignored his old patron, Senator Duff. He did not call on him, telephone him, or write. Grundy's policies became Fine's policies. Soon Fine was in a pitched legislative battle with loyal Duff Republicans over his proposal to saddle Pennsylvania with its first state income tax--a measure loudly endorsed by Grundy's man Owlett.

In the Outfield. Duff men, fighting the Grundy forces in what has now become the longest session of the legislature in 99 years, appealed for help. But Duff, with dogged consistency, insisted that he had never tolerated meddling when he was governor and he would not try it now. Duff men at Harrisburg wondered whether there really was much that Jim Duff could do. Said a G.O.P. politico sadly: "Jim Duff, hell, he's just a junior Senator from Pennsylvania down in Washington. He's off in deep left-field and he's got the sun in his eyes. One of these days the ball's going to get out of the infield and he won't even see it."

Jim Duff cannot afford to stay in the outfield for long. As eastern manager of the Eisenhower-for-President forces, he counts on controlling Pennsylvania's big, 67-man delegation to the Republican convention. By instinct and inclination, Grundyites prefer Taft. With Governor Fine running the state government and playing ball with Grundy, Jim Duff is in danger of finding himself a manager with only half a team.

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