Wall Flower

If the Democrats re-elect a Governor in Pennsylvania this fall he will probably control 72 votes at the next Democratic National Convention, might easily have the deciding say on who got the Presidential nomination. That is the biggest piece of the political booty over which Keystone State Democrats, having despoiled the Republicans in 1934, continued to gouge, rabbit-punch and foul each other last week, with the May 17 primary just 20 days away.

Attorney General Charles Joseph Margiotti is running independently for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination and, feeling a bit like a wall flower with no one slinging any dirt in his direction, he started slinging on his own. Candidate Margiotti charged that Philadelphia's Contractor-Boss Matthew H. McCloskey and Secretary of State David Lawrence in 1935 obtained a $20,000 bribe for supporting legislation favorable to Pennsylvania brewers. Although Mr. Margiotti solemnly declared that the voters should not think for a moment that his old friend Governor George Howard Earle III had anything to do with the matter, the Governor could hardly overlook the fact that the accused were his principal backers for the U. S. Senatorial nomination. Whereupon he summoned the accuser to the brownstone executive mansion in Harrisburg, ordered Mr. Margiotti to shortcut his projected grand jury investigation and dump all the evidence in the Governor's ample lap. When the indignant Attorney General declined to do so, only naming the man supposed to have passed the bribe, Candidate Earle fired Candidate Margiotti. Out with him, by discharge or resignation, went two of his deputies, his publicity man, and his secretary, Miss Mary Jane Peach.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.