PENNSYLVANIA: Street-Corner Crusade

Republican mayors are a Philadelphia tradition, like scrapple and pepper pot. The tradition, unbroken since 1884, has been hard on Philadelphia. Corruption and civic stagnation have become chronic; as often as not, the city’s mayors have been bumbling party hacks. But Philadelphia voters have been too apathetic to throw the rascals out.

Last week, with a municipal election coming up on Nov. 4, the voters were getting an unprecedented shaking-up. A political novice named Richardson Dilworth, candidate for mayor on the Democratic ticket, was giving the slothful Republican machine the roughest pre-election working-over it had had in many a year.

The Fighter. Until he started campaigning in mid-September, few Philadelphians had heard of Dick Dilworth. At 49, he is a handsome, socialite lawyer with a family of eight children (four by his first wife, two by his second, two stepchildren). He fought with the Marines in both World Wars. Between wars, he finished his undergraduate work at Yale (class of ’21), stayed on to get a law degree, and, in 1926, settled down to practice in Philadelphia. He subsequently specialized in libel law. Among his clients: the Curtis Publishing Co., the Inquirer, N. W. Ayer & Son, Inc.

Dilworth, who heretofore had done no more than dabble in politics as a Democratic speechmaker in presidential campaigns, got the mayoralty nomination largely because none of the Democratic regulars were anxious for the job. The party’s fortunes were at a low ebb. In 1946, the Philadelphia organization had lost all six of the city’s congressional seats. It had little hope, less money and no newspaper support. Even labor was cool.

To the Barricades. But Dick Dilworth came out slugging. He hired investigators to rake into the Republican muck, rounded up a bevy of girls to wear “Dilworth for Mayor” streamers across their bosoms, and rented two sound trucks. He scheduled four or five street-corner meetings a night, hoping to cover each of the city’s 52 wards at least twice.

His first haymakers were aimed directly at his opponent, Mayor Bernard Samuel. Dilworth charged that 67-year-old Barney Samuel, a city payroller since 1903, tolerated bookmaking even at City Hall. He charged that City Hall workers and some merchants are annually dunned to buy the mayor a birthday present—e.g., a station wagon and a motorboat. Under Samuel, said Dilworth, a police inspector could easily pick up $30,000 a year in graft—and some inspectors were doing it. As for solving the city’s acute sewage, parking, paving, housing and airport problems, the mayor has not even come close.

In reply, confident Barney Samuel, who is not wasting much energy campaigning, cried: “Mud-slinger.” The response of voters was much livelier. Attendance at Dilworth street rallies zoomed from 50 to 3,000 (for one rally last week, a crowd of 7,500 jammed the busy intersection of Chestnut and Broad). Dilworth himself was not the only attraction. At rallies he was often preceded by Hegeman’s string band, one of Philadelphia’s famed Mummers’Parade organizations. His family went campaigning with him—and turned out to be just as belligerent as he. Once his wife, Ann, smacked an obscene heckler with her handbag. Another time, Daughter Deborah, 11 , handed out a leaflet to a man who promptly tore it up and threw it in the gutter. “You can’t do that to my Daddy,” yelled Deborah, and beaned the man with her whole bundle of leaflets.

More Broadsides. Encouraged by the big turnouts, Candidate Dilworth widened his attack. He accused Sheriff Austin Meehan, one of the most powerful of Philadelphia Republicans, of keeping ex-convicts on his staff. He also laid into many a lesser Republican, including a magistrate, charging them with protecting bookmakers and speakeasies.

One of his targets countered with a $25,000 libel suit. Sheriff Meehan, a triple-chinned 200-pounder who likes to gobble ice cream by the quart, called Dilworth “an old gossip.”

Meanwhile, the odds on a Dilworth victory, prohibitive at the outset, plummeted daily. The Republicans still appeared likely to pull through on the strength of their customarily overpowering majorities in 20 downtown and river wards—the “controlled” wards. But Dick Dilworth was giving them a scare. Said one unhappy ward heeler: “It’s getting so they’re afraid to take a bet at City Hall.”