By Dick Miller
WE.CONNECT.DOTS: In 1958 George Leader was in the last year of his single four-year term allowed as Governor.
Gov. Leader believed he would actually be more comfortable in the U.S. Senate. Unfortunately U.S. Representative Hugh Scott aspired to the same office and, Republicans still held a solid registration edge. Still, Scott, another moderate populist, only won by 33,000 votes, over Gov. Leader in November, 1958.
Gov. Leader followed his father in a State Senate seat in 1951, according to a well-written article by Mike Argento published this week in the York Daily Record.
Mr. Leader died Thursday morning at the age of 95.
Gov. Leader returned home from World War II Naval service, borrowed some money and began his own chicken hatchery. His father had been a school teacher, raised poultry and was a Roosevelt Democrat in York County. Gov. Leader earned a degree from University of Pennsylvania and did graduate work intending to be a teacher.
There weren’t many people who thought Mr. Leader had much of a chance when the Democrat Party asked him to run for Governor in 1954. He would be a token candidate to Republican Lloyd Wood. The GOP had a 900,000 voter registration edge.
State Sen. Leader ran a tireless campaign, asking for votes in all 67 counties. Historian Paul Beers estimated Leader traveled 30,000 miles and shook 100,000 hands. He won by a stunning 280,000 votes. For his landslide victory, Time Magazine put him on the cover.
By accounts of people who predated me in state politics and personal observations of reactions to Gov. Leader 1968 to 1980, he was far and away the most popular Keystone Democrat politician ever. Even though Pennsylvania was a solid “red” state in his era, Gov. Leader achieved success in major reforms through the political process.
Gov. Leader improved school funding, raising teacher salaries from $4,000 to $5,000 annually. Inheriting a significant deficit from his predecessor Governor John Fine, he talked the legislature into bumping the sales tax from one to three percent. The backlash to this tax hike was thought to be the difference when he lost to Sen. Scott in 1958.
Gov. Leader created the Pennsylvania Industrial Development Authority to offer low interest financing for manufacturing growth. In the first 30 months PIDA helped create 12,000 jobs, stunting the effects of a national recession at the time.
Even most recent Democrat Governor Ed Rendell said “He served in office for a relatively short period of time (PA governors were limited to a single four-year term until 1971.) . . . and yet he was a dominant, impactful figure in the life of the state for six decades. You always knew where you stood with him. He was never afraid of anything.”
Matthew Brouillette, CEO of the Commonwealth Foundation, a conservative think tank, said this week:
“I had the great pleasure of working arm in arm with Gov. Leader, his family and a broad coalition that transcended partisan boundaries to help bring substantive correction reform to Pennsylvania in 2012. Governor Leader’s passion for serving the underserved, from his elder care business to his philanthropic work to better serve the lives of the poor, the imprisoned and their families, is an inspiration to all of us.”
Throughout his post-governor life Gov. Leader spoke at many graduation events. He delivered most of these speeches behind bars. In a conversation three years ago with Jeanette Krebs, an editor at Harrisburg Patriot-News, Gov. Leader said he believes “the prison system is broken and our lawmakers need to fix it.”
Five or six times a year he would visit a state correctional institution and congratulate prisoners for making it through a program that he largely funded, according to Krebs.
When Leader was governor, the state tended to 7,000 inmates. Today our prison population is about 52,000.
He campaigned for statewide Democrat candidates often through the sixties and seventies. All the good words published after his death explain why party faithful would flock to him and pump his hand at every event.
