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Scranton ignored the tradition that a freshman Congressman should be seen but not heard. He offered major amendments to the Administration's 1961 housing bill and the 1962 public-works bills, saw both of them adopted. In each case, they reduced the amount of money a local community would have to pay as a share of federal projects. Overall, Scranton voted for those Kennedy programs he felt his home area needed, proved more liberal than most of his state's G.O.P. delegation. "What I try to figure out," he explains, "is whether there's a need to be met by Government. If so, I usually vote for such a bill."
There was not much doubt by this time that a new call to try for another public office would soon come to Scranton. And so it did. Pennsylvania's fuddy-duddy regular Republican organization, disheartened by the Kennedy victory, had just about given up hope of dislodging the Democrats from the statehouse this year. But the regulars were still determined to keep control of the party machinery by naming the party's candidates. A Pennsylvania Republican named Dwight Eisenhower resolved to head off the Old Guard.
A Four-Letter Word. Scranton thus got an invitation from Ike to talk politics at the former President's Gettysburg farm. Scranton knew what was in the wind. But by now he had fallen in love with his House job, had no ambitions about the governorship. Scranton listened politely to Ike, but kept shaking his head. Finally, just as Scranton was about to leave, Ike unleashed a cruncher. "Bill," he said, "this all comes down to a four-letter word-duty."
That four-letter word kept echoing in Scranton's ears. The regular Republican organization went right ahead and backed a colorless party trooper for Governor. Ike was furious. He was quoted as calling it "a miserable ticket," a "goddam rotten setup." By now, the pressure was really on Scranton. He finally agreed to run for Governor—but only on the incredible condition that all 67 of the state's brawling county chairmen endorse him. To his vast surprise, they did.
And that brought him into his present nerve-shredding name-calling conflict with Democrat Dilworth.
The Other Side. The Dilworths were in Pennsylvania even before the Scrantons. They also had a town named after them: Dilworthtown. in Lancaster County. By the time Dick Dilworth was born, on Aug. 29, 1898, the family had moved to Pittsburgh, established a profitable iron firm. Like that of the Scrantons, the Dilworth family fortune was founded on turning out iron for the state's rapidly expanding railroads.
Dick's father, Joseph, was a rigid Republican, the sort who considered Teddy Roosevelt a wild radical. Dick did not shake this Republican influence until he had fought with the Marines in World War I, returned to Yale, and become aroused by the way Republicans were assailing Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations. His defection to the Democrats shook his parents to their Republican roots.