Governor William Warren Scranton II (1963-1967)
I was, you might say, an accidental observer to the entry of William Warren Scranton II into elective politics and public service in Pennsylvania and the nation.
It happened in the spring of 1960. I was serving as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Intelligence Corps. My duty station was Washington, D.C. My hometown Congressman from the Scranton area at the time was a Democrat named Stanley Prokop. Congressman Prokop was a likeable fellow from one of the bedroom communities outside the city, but never was regarded as a political power in his own right.
Still, my father encouraged me to pay a courtesy visit with him. He had come while serving on Scranton City Council to know Prokop through their mutual travels in Lackawanna County Democratic Party politics. “He’s a nice guy, you’ll like him,” my dad told me. “Stop in and say hello.” So I did. In fact, that’s exactly what I was doing when our conversation was interrupted by a telephone call from his Lackawanna County District Office.
“No kidding,” I heard the Congressman say. “Well, that’ll certainly make things interesting this year.”
As he cradled the telephone into its receiver, he looked up at me and smiled. “I’ve just learned who my opponent will be this fall,” he said.
“Who might that be?” I asked.
“William Scranton of the Scranton Scrantons,” he replied.
Instinctively, I thought to myself, now that’s going to be trouble. But I tried to be supportive. “How ‘bout that!” I offered. “Well, he’s new to politics. That should work in your favor.” I think we both knew we were whistling past the graveyard, in a manner of speaking.
From the sidelines, there was more than enough political logic to having this engaging young Congressman carry the Republican gubernatorial banner (in 1962). He was a proven winner, a winner no less than in a Congressional District that had long belonged to the other party. His service in the State Department and the Congress, though brief, had established his bona fides as a public servant. He had the upbringing and education to legitimize his candidacy. His political pedigree was impeccable. Most important, Scranton had the smell of a winner, and that’s what the Party wanted most—a winner. Congressman Van Zandt remained on the ticket as Scranton's running mate for the U.S. Senate against Democratic incumbent Joseph Clark.
The campaign proved to be as combative as its billing, in a fascinating sort of way. Here were these two patrician blue bloods doing battle in the rough-and-tumble world of elective politics with no holds barred. (Democrat Richardson) Dilworth was blunt, outspoken and in-your-face as advertised. A former Marine, he never flinched from the hand-to-hand kind of warfare political campaigns often demanded. As a successful reform Mayor of Philadelphia, he had already established he had the inner toughness to carry the Democratic fight to the largely untested Scranton.
Scranton, on the other hand, was playing on a large political stage for the first time. He had been challenged for the Republican nomination by J. Collins McSparran, the president of the Pennsylvania Grange, a statewide farm organization. The challenge, though credible, was beaten back rather handily. Now the real test was to come.
Scranton…proved he had more than enough inner mettle to parry Dilworth’s frontal assaults. One face-to-face encounter in the city of Scranton was particularly memorable. The Philadelphia Bulletin’s Duke Kaminski described the event in this way for those of us in the Capitol Newsroom who were not there to witness it for ourselves.
Dilworth’s campaign seemed to be faltering as the election drew near. He decided to take the fight directly to Scranton, and to take the stand in his opponent’s hometown. He challenged Scranton to a televised debate on one of the city’s major television stations. He even offered to pay for the time. The Scranton campaign politely declined (probably offering the customary excuse that they, not the opposition, will set their own schedule, thank you.) That was fine with Dilworth. He bought time for a Saturday evening debate on Scranton television, anyway. There was an empty chair set on the stage to dramatize Scranton’s absence. Democrats billed the event as the “Empty Chair” debate. The tactic had worked with some success for Dilworth once before in a 1947 Philadelphia mayoralty race. Dilworth strategists hoped it would work as well again. It didn’t.
Just minutes before airtime, who should pop into the studio but William Scranton. He was carrying a whitewash bucket, a prop to reinforce his campaign charge that Dilworth was whitewashing some of the transgressions (alleged or otherwise) of the incumbent Democratic Lawrence Administration.
According to Kaminski, Dilworth, an excitable personality to begin with, was visibly unnerved, angry and clearly thrown off message by Scranton’s 11th-hour appearance. Whatever advantage the Democratic nominee hoped to gain from the event was lost. Scranton’s drop-in was the storyline for the night. And not only did he gain great press for his campaign; he achieved it at Democratic expense since the Dilworth campaign had paid for the airtime. In politics, that’s about as win-win a situation as one could imagine. Dilworth was incensed when the two candidates encountered each other in a corridor outside the studio after the show had ended. It made for great political theatre and the press was there to record it.
As Kaminski told it, with perhaps in a bit of hyperbole, Dilworth got right in Scranton’s face, boiling mad. Scranton pointed a finger at him in rebuke.
“Don’t you point your bony, effeminate finger at me!” Dilworth shouted at his opponent. According to Kaminski, he appeared just inches away from getting physical. But Scranton refused to be baited.
“You, sir, are a desperate man,” Scranton responded coolly as he turned and walked away. Kaminski said he had a smile on his face when he did. Probably for good reason.
The incident was certainly the most memorable of the campaign. But it was not the decisive factor in the outcome. Scranton defeated Dilworth by 438,000 votes.
The team Scranton assembled around him was remarkable by Harrisburg standards. Remarkable for its comparative youth and its undisputed unfamiliarity with the ways of the State Capitol. The “Whiz Kids,” they were called. The brain trust was headed by Chief of Staff Bill Keisling, Scranton’s ranking congressional aide and speechwriter extraordinaire, a former reporter for the Scranton Tribune. Jack Conmy, a friend and peer of Keisling’s from their days together at the Tribune, was recruited from the Dupont Company in Wilmington, Delaware to serve as press secretary. Jim Reichley, whose political roots were in New York state, was the resident thinker and intellectual. He was appointed Legislative Secretary, but also doubled up as a speechwriter and policy advisor. The only “veteran” on the staff, so to speak, was Bill Murphy, a trusted confidant to Republican Senator Hugh Scott. Word had it that Scott insisted he have his man on the inside of the new and still-to-be tested state Administration. Murphy was pegged as that guy.
Scranton and his team brought a high sense of energy, what seemed to be perpetual motion and a new operating style to Harrisburg. They were to the Capitol at the time much like the Kennedy crowd was to Washington in the same era. They certainly were eager; they were bright; they also were smart enough to recognize there was much they didn’t know about the State Capital and its ways. To that end, they forged effective alliances with their veteran Republican leadership in the legislature. Meanwhile, newly elected Republican legislators like Matt Ryan of Delaware County, a future Speaker of the House, and Bob Butera of Montgomery County, a future House Republican floor leader, rallied to the Administration’s agenda with their compatible political views and objectives. It was a fun time to be a Republican in the State Capitol.
With the 1964 Presidential election just two years away, it was not unusual in those days for national political reporters like David Broder (then of the New York Times, now the dean of the Beltway correspondents with the Washington Post) to come to Harrisburg to meet the Governor and take their mark of the man and the future he might have in national politics.
I encountered Broder one day in the food line of the Capitol cafeteria. “What is it about Bill Scranton,” I asked, “that seems to fascinate the national press corps? He doesn’t seem all that special to us here.”
“You’re probably too close to it,” Broder replied diplomatically. He could have said something like, “You guys don’t know what you have here.” He would have been right, too. Instead, he continued: “From where we sit, he has all the attributes a party might look for in a potential presidential candidate. He’s young, articulate, a winner in a Democratic state who runs by all measures a very successful state Administration. He has access to money; in fact, he has money of his own. His political bloodlines are first rate. For starters, that’s not bad at all.” Broder was on target in his assessment of Governor Scranton. The Capital Press Corps did tend to be parochial and often oblivious to the potential of the Pennsylvania politicians they knew best.
Inevitably, I suppose, one’s most lasting impression of public officials such as the Governor of Pennsylvania is framed by memories of experiences or personal contacts they had with a particular chief executive. I had three such experiences with Governor Scranton which reinforced for me his extraordinary ability to relate to people. He had the Clinton charm without the swarm.
Bill Scranton Sr. was one of the two best governors I observed at close hand from the early 1960s to the mid-1990s. (David Lawrence would be a solid third). But what distinguished him most was the class he brought to public service. He was a class act from start to finish. He was a class act when he entered public life. He was a class act during his tenure in public office. And he was a class act when he returned to the private sector. Most important, he served his Commonwealth and his nation when called upon with great skill and distinction. As public careers go, your legacies don’t come much better than that.