Nation: Down with Corruption

The industrial Northeast has long been a pillar of the Democrats' national strength. The party maintained that stronghold in last week's election, despite some important Republican victories. One issue that tilted a number of races was resentment of widespread statehouse corruption.

Outgoing Pennsylvania Governor Milton Shapp's administration Grasso victorious has been riddled by indictments and resignations. So when fellow Democrat and former Pittsburgh Mayor Pete Flaherty, 54, decided to run, he made a show of his independence of the Governor and of the entire state Democratic organization. That wasn't enough. A former U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh, Richard Thornburgh, 46, an underdog in the gubernatorial race, staged a comeback in the final weeks to defeat Flaherty by more than 200,000 votes.

In Philadelphia, the campaign to amend the city charter to permit Mayor Frank Rizzo to seek a third term also rebounded against Flaherty. Democrat Rizzo, whose campaign had strong anti-black overtones, angered many Philadelphians. They voted 2-to-l against the mayor and in the process failed to give Flaherty the necessary margin to offset Thornburgh's advantage elsewhere. The Republican victory in the gubernatorial race is important, since it gives control of a populous Eastern state.

As if to prove the wisdom of Philadelphia's refusal to give Rizzo a chance at another term, a federal grand jury last week heard charges that his administration was responsible for the failure of perhaps hundreds of voting machines, most of them concentrated in anti-Rizzo wards. One of the city's election commissioners, Margaret Tartagalione, a Rizzo supporter, was arrested for having ordered voting machines in other anti-Rizzo districts moved away from regular polling places.

In neighboring Maryland, the state Democratic administration had also been scarred by corruption. The Governor himself-Marvin Mandel, was found guilty and forced out of office. One of his cabinet members, Transportation Secretary Harry Hughes, 51, quit in May 1977 in protest against an attempt to meddle with Baltimore subway contracts. Hughes, once so obscure that he was described as "a lost ball in long grass," in September upset Mandel's successor, Acting Governor Blair Lee III. Last week, Hughes' fresh face was too much for for mer Republican Senator J. Glenn Beall Jr., who had difficulty explaining why he had accepted campaign funds in 1970 from an illegal fund-raising operation organized by the Nixon White House. Hughes buried Beall 71% to 29%.

New York's incumbent Governor Hugh Carey, 59, with a scandal-free and creditable record as the state's chief executive, trailed his silver-haired Republican opponent, Perry Duryea, 57, until the final weeks of the campaign. Duryea then refused to disclose fully his personal finances and to make public his tax returns. While no improprieties were charged, Carey hit hard on the issue and found the electorate in no mood to tolerate secrecy in such matters.