Battle of the Socialites

Pennsylvania has the fattest patronage payroll in the U.S.: some 55,000 jobs for whichever political party elects its Governor. Largely because the spoils are so sweet, Pennsylvania's Democrats and Republicans have for years fought bitterly among themselves and with each other. This year, with both the governorship and a U.S. Senate seat at stake in November, the scrambling has been at its height.

After months of infighting, the king makers of both parties finally settled last week on their candidates for Governor. For the Democrats, it was Socialite Yaleman Richardson Dilworth, 63, who resigned after six years as mayor of Philadelphia to seek the nomination. The Republicans picked Socialite Yaleman William W. Scranton, 44, a first-term U.S. Representative who defeated an incumbent Democratic Congressman in 1960 while Jack Kennedy carried the state.

Ivy & Irish. Dick Dilworth is a two-war Marine veteran who was wounded in the Soissons drive and won a Silver Star on Guadalcanal. He has itched to be Governor for most of his political life. He ran and lost in 1950. Another try for the nomination in 1958 was blocked by a political friend turned foe: Philadelphia Democratic Boss William Joseph Green Jr., 52, the rosy-faced, soft-spoken son of an Irish saloonkeeper. It was Green who first helped Dilworth toward public office; in 1951 Dilworth was part of a reform ticket that ended 67 years of corrupt Republican rule in Philadelphia. But Green soon came to consider Blueblood Dilworth too independent, and a bit of a snob to boot; and Dilworth had little feeling for Old Pro Green's brand of politicking. After Dilworth became mayor in 1956, Green feuded with him regularly over Philadelphia patronage.

When Dilworth began his gubernatorial maneuvering this year, Bill Green insisted that his polls showed that Dilworth could not win and would not even carry Philadelphia, where Dilworth moved belatedly last year to clean up a scandal in the city government. Dilworth imported Pollster Lou Harris, Jack Kennedy's trend spotter. Harris found Dilworth the strongest possible Democrat in the field, and told the President so. Despite the fact that Green had helped Kennedy win both the Democratic nomination and Pennsylvania's 32 electoral votes in 1960. Green got the word from the White House to get out of Dilworth's way. Last week in Harrisburg, he sat glumly as key Pennsylvania Democrats voted to make Dilworth the organization candidate.

Dilworth announced that he had no commitment "one way or the other" from Green--but was sure that Green would back him "wholeheartedly." Dilworth needs all the support he can get: the 1961 scandals in Philadelphia hurt, despite Dilworth's impressive progress in urban renewal, and there were still plenty of old-line Democrats who did not care for Mainliner Dilworth's liberal ways.

Bell Ringer. In Bill Scranton, the Republicans introduced a young, fresh face, the scion of a wealthy and prominent Pennsylvania family (the state's populous coal-mining city bears their name). Bill Scranton flew transports in the Army Air Force for four years during World War II, serving in South America, Africa and the Middle East. He was Special Assistant to Secretary of State Christian Herter before he fought his way to victory in Pennsylvania's largely Democratic Tenth Congressional District with a doorbell-punching campaign that stressed local issues, including his part in bringing new industries into unemployment-plagued Lackawanna County.

Scranton's road to his party's nomination for Governor was as tortuous, if not as rough, as Dilworth's. Last month Scranton said that he was content to run for re-election to the House, wanting to get more experience there, would consider the governorship only if he had support from all factions of the party and if his nomination would stop the bickering. Last week he got it, after a good deal of intraparty warfare from which he personally remained aloof.

Pennsylvania's Republican Old Guard, inheritors of the right-leaning tradition of onetime State Chairman Joe Grundy (the inspiration for Grundyism, a byword for stiff-collared conservatism), started off by backing a political nobody: Superior Court Judge Robert E. Woodside, 57. Then U.S. Senator Hugh Scott jumped into the race, ready to step aside if Scranton ran, and touched off a major melee by quoting Gettysburg Republican Dwight Eisenhower as saying he would "rather see a primary fight than be forced to take a miserable ticket"--a thinly disguised blast at Woodside. The Old Guard reluctantly retired Woodside, brought out U.S. Representative James E. Van Zandt, 63, for Governor. At week's end they finally abandoned him and went along with the Scranton candidacy; Van Zandt ended up as the G.O.P. Senate nominee to oppose the popular incumbent, Democrat Joseph S. Clark. Said Bill Scranton, who calls himself a progressive Republican: "I would have thought there would have been considerable scars left, but there are practically none."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.