PENNSYLVANIA: Big Red & the Grundykins

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From U.S. Steel's sprawling Fairless plant in the East to Pittsburgh's glowing furnaces in the West, Pennsylvania is bursting with prosperity. In Election Year 1956, the voter can savor ground breast of ox at his political picnics. Yet. in the midst of such plenty, a once mighty Pennsylvania institution and a once unbeatable Pennsylvania leader have fallen upon breadcrust-hard times. The institution: Pennsylvania's regular Republican Party organization (still known as the Grundy machine after its longtime boss, stiff-necked Uncle Joe Grundy, now 93 and removed from politics). The leader: Republican Senator James Henderson

("Big Red") Duff, as willing to fight at 73 as when he was a brawling lad in the wildcat oilfields, but now trailing in his campaign for re-election against Philadelphia's ultraliberal, former Mayor Joseph Clark.

Jim Duff and the Grundy machine are not falling together. They are, by mutual choice made years ago, falling apart. It was progressive Republican Duff who first demonstrated the vulnerability of the Republican organization grown fat, arrogant and corrupt. With the help of the Grundy machine, Duff was elected governor in 1946—and was one of the state's ablest. A major reason for his success was his refusal to show fear or favor toward the machine that demanded both. The breakup was swift and spectacular: Duff's Senate election in 1950 was almost as bitter to the Old Guardsmen as Democrat Joe Clark's Philadelphia mayoralty win in 1951 or Democrat George Leader's gubernatorial victory in 1954.

"Ike Told Me." In the last four years the Republican organization has seen its statewide registration lead plunge from more than 1,000,000 to about 400,000. This year the machine may not be able to raise enough money to pay for poll watchers in Philadelphia. Such is the sorry state of the regular G.O.P. organization that it could not even produce 100 ushers for Vice President Richard Nixon's Philadelphia speech early this month. (The Citizens for Eisenhower finally rounded up the volunteer ushers, picked up the radio and television tab, turned the affair into a success.)

As a U.S. Senator, Jim Duff soon played into the hands of his old enemies. A free-swinging heavyweight (6 ft. 1 in., 182 Ibs.) and distinctly an executive type, he needed more room to punch than the Senate cloisters could give him. He stepped down from the Senate's back benches only to give early, effective preconvention support to Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. Although he has since been one of the Administration's most loyal supporters, he has also been one of the least influential. In his distaste for the Senate, bristle-haired Jim Duff neglected both friend and foe back home; e.g., last spring, when the Republican State Committee met in Philadelphia, Duff did not even show up to contest the old Grundy machine's control. Unhappy Jim was reluctant to stand for re-election this year, finally agreed only because "Ike told me he needed me."