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Since the Democrats took office in 1955, employment in the state's primary metals industries has dropped by 37,000. Hot-rolled iron and steel production slipped from 22.8 million tons in 1956 to 15.8 million last year. Bituminous coal production was at 72 million tons in 1954, skidded to 62 million last year. The state has 429,000 people on relief. In Pittsburgh, 9.4% of the labor market is unemployed; in Johnstown, more than 12% are idle.
Both Lawrence, who is not eligible to run again, and President Kennedy, who promised Pennsylvania much but has delivered little, are being widely blamed for these troubles. While Lawrence has done a creditable job of holding down the state budget, and showed a $16.6 million surplus last year, he is catching much of the heat for upping the state's sales tax to 4%, which, with a stiff corporation tax, provides half the general revenue.
Room for Difference. It is against this background that Bill Scranton and Dick Dilworth are contesting each other for Governor. And as a result of this sorry story, they are battling with a bitterness rare even in Pennsylvania's turbulent political history.
Between the two, there is plenty of room for difference. At 64, Dilworth is a veteran Democratic politician who wears his New Deal-style liberalism on the sleeve of his double-breasted suit. Scranton, as a freshman Congressman, is a relative newcomer to elective politics, and he is not in the least dogmatic about his views. Dilworth has been busily running for one public office or another for 15 years; Scranton has been tugged reluctantly into every public job he has ever held. Dilworth was a brilliant reformer who made a lot of enemies and is now harried by those hostilities within his own party. Scranton. fresh and unmarked, is backed by all Republican factions, despite their own fratricidal history.
Perhaps more than anything else, the difference is one of personality. Dilworth is basically a shy man. He feels and appears uncomfortable while partaking of that backslapping, handshaking routine that, curiously enough, has become increasingly important to political campaigning in this day of television. But put him behind a microphone on a formal platform, and Dilworth is second to no one as a slashing speaker. Now shouting, occasionally weeping, he can carry an audience along with him on rolling waves of emotion.
Scranton, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoys street-corner politicking. Thus, in a Reading paint plant, he recently scrambled up a wobbly ladder to shake hands with a worker on a 20-ft.-high scaffold, ignoring the open paint vats below. Said the surprised workman: "Nobody ever went this high for my vote." On the stump. Scranton is far less flamboyant and eloquent than Dilworth. But he is much more controlled. He has an analytical mind that travels fast to the major points.