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It also served Andrew W. Mellon, oil man, aluminum man, steel man, Secretary of the Treasury under three Presidents for eleven years.
These were the men for whom Ed Martin labored. He observes: "Of course my enemies always call me Mellon's errand boy. I did enjoy the confidence of Mr. A. W. Mellon." He always refers to him as "Mr. A. W. Mellon." Ed Martin is a respectful man.
Ed became state auditor general, subsequently state treasurer. He had got into an oil business, which prospered. He went broke in the depression and had to settle some $428,000 in debts at 12½¢; to 15¢ on the dollar—an unhappy episode which political opponents dig up regularly at election time.
Meanwhile he had acquired a further honorable record on the battlefield. As an officer in the Pennsylvania National Guard, he had fought with Pershing on the Mexican border. In World War I he had served in France, where he was wounded, gassed and decorated. In 1939, a major general, he commanded and trained Pennsylvania's famed 28th Division. But when war came again, Old Soldier Martin was retired. Heartbroken, he saw his 28th march off under another man's command.
But the party had use for an old soldier, even if the Army did not. Joe Grundy and Joe Pew—who had thrown himself and his Sun Oil Co. wealth into the party largely on account of his hatred of Roosevelt—wanted him for governor. Ed Martin was a natural for the job in wartime Pennsylvania, organizing for civilian defense, for war production. Even John Lewis' miners, despite their leaders. voted for General Ed. He won in a walk —57 out of 67 counties.
Position Taken. "You know," Ed Martin once remarked, "there's never been anything colorful about me. I've just had to work like the devil." This is an accurate appraisal. The most colorful thing about him is his Army cussing. When the members of the First Presbyterian Church of Washington, Pa., wanted to make him an elder, he demurred. "I take a highball and cuss a little," he explained. They elected him anyhow. Actually he drinks very little, smokes not at all. His gravelly throat is the result of his gassing in the war.
He is a man who leads a disciplined life and exercises a military discipline over others. He is even-tempered, courteous, gracious to the ladies. In the fieldstone house which he had the state build as the governor's summer mansion in Indiantown Gap, his polished boots and riding clothes are arranged in precise ranks. There his wife, Charity, has lovingly collected Pennsylvania Dutch antiques. One of the General's chief diversions is riding over the smoky Blue Mountains. He does not care so much for the old gloomy governor's house in Harrisburg.
He is a man of very modest intellectual attainments. His reading is chiefly military biography and military history—especially Pennsylvania's. The books he studies most are books he himself has compiled. One black notebook contains all the industrial, agricultural, religious and political facts, county by county, of the great and polyglot state which he has run for four years. Another tabulation shows the county by county vote for governor for many years back. On political history and facts the general is solid.