(See Cover) The Democratic candidate for Gover nor of Pennsylvania is a proudly emotional man. His right fist punches the air, a forefinger lashes out, his face flushes furiously beneath his silver hair. Philadelphia's former Mayor Richardson Dilworth. all atremble, stammers slightly and the savage words about his opponent spill out: "My family on both sides were here long before those robber barons of his showed up. His family sold out their interests in Lackawanna County and then moved out their money . . . This man who claims to be a gentleman . . . this Little Lord Fauntleroy . . . this Ivy League Dickie Nixon . . . this man who seeks on-the-job training.''
The performance is genuine. But it is also calculated to enrage the Republican candidate, to shatter the armored suit of imperturbability that has frustrated Dilworth as few things have before. In open debate, U.S. Representative William Scranton permits a thin smile to flicker across his face while his opponent heaps on abuse. Then he rises to reply—and that reply, despite its cool, deliberate cadence is whiplash in its bitterness against Dilworth. "We have got graft and corruption." he charges. "We have got it in Philadelphia, and we know what has not been done about it ... He cries in front of the courtroom and on television to try and stop any kind of investigation . . . This crown prince of failure . . . who whined and cried and fought tooth and nail to protect the grafters and corrupters."
The use of such invective is a dis appearing art in U.S. politics. This, to connoisseurs, is a pity. But it is being revived with a vengeance in Pennsylvania, where political partisanship runs deep and the stakes are immense.
The Place of Power. The Governor of Pennsylvania is probably the most powerful in the U.S. He has no fewer than 50,000 jobs to hand out. The result is a spoils system second to none. The army of state jobholders knows whom it is working for, and this makes for a built-in, self-perpetuating political machine. In presidential election years, that machine can be used both to throw vital convention votes and to deliver crucial electoral votes.
For decades, Pennsylvania's Republican Party held power, and manipulated the state bureaucracy to its own vast advantage. But the tide turned. Just ten years ago. Republicans held a registration advantage of 1,000,000; now Democrats are ahead by more than 200.000. Democrat George Leader served as Governor from 1955 to 1959; he was succeeded by Pittsburgh's Democratic Mayor David Lawrence. Until two years ago. Pennsylvania since the Civil War had voted for only one Democrat for President—that, of course, was F.D.R. But in 1960, under Lawrence, the state went for Kennedy over Nixon by 116.000 votes—and gave the winner 32 of the 84 electoral votes that he won by.
Unfortunately, all this political power has served Pennsylvania badly. And the Keystone State—all the way from the anthracite regions of the east, across the Allegheny Mountains to the steel mills of Pittsburgh in the west—is in desperate economic shape. Pennsylvania has some 350,000 unemployed. Of its 67 counties, 56 are designated by the Federal Government as depressed areas.