Interview with Norman Berson

February 8, 1979

Trying to describe how I first got interested in the political problems in takes a little bit of telling. We were married I guess in '55 and lived in Center City ever since Lenore and I were married. It became clear, I guess, at the end of when Dick Dilworth resigned to run for Governor and Jim Tate became mayor that the kind of government that we were having -- that we had in Philadelphia under Clark and Dilworth was not going to continue. I don't remember what year it was that you ran in the primary against Jim Tate — '63? At that time we participated in some small way in your primary election. There was a slate of candidates for Council at that time running with you. In my recollection there was Joy Takiff, Judge Takiff's wife; Dave Savitt, who is now the administrative judge of the Common Pleas Court; there were a couple of others who I can't recall who were on that Councilmanic slate, who all ran that year and we did a little fundraising for that councilmanic slate and we got interested at that point.

Then I guess it was a year or so later that Tom McBride, a very distinguished Philadelphia lawyer, had been appointed to the Supreme Court of . He would then have to run for a full term. I guess Governor Leader had appointed him. And -the regular Democratic organization selected the man who is now the present Chief Justice of Pennsylvania in preference to McBride. Several of us met with McBride and finally prevailed on him to go into a primary race for the seat on the Supreme Court, but McBride lost. We had sort of been peripherally involved up until the formation out of that McBride thing and out of your campaign grew the Central Philadelphia Reform Democrats — that was a group of people who had been involved in the Walter Phillips campaign for mayor in the primary election in '63. Gordon Cavenaugh, who is now the head of the Farmer's Home Loan Administration in the Carter administration. Gordon was the prime mover in forming the reform democrats. Gordon lived up here on Woodstock Street just off Race and he was one of the prime movers. I got involved — Libby Goldstein, there were several others. Cathleen Mulhearn, who owns the Garden Restaurant, was involved. There were a whole group of people. We could see we were getting regularly beaten because of the ward organization that had 2.

been created in the city and what we thought we would do is start at the bottom level and try and create -- take some of these committeemen's jobs and take over some of these wards and get some voice in the politics of Philadelphia — particularly Democratic politics because it seemed at that point that it was a hopelessly Democratic city. It was just no way it was going to change back — at least not for a long time. And in '64, I guess, we ran a slate of candidates in what was then the old 7th ward and in the 8th ward — fewer candidates in the 8th, many more in the 7th. Those have all now since been amalgated into the 8th ward. And while we did fairly well in the 7th ward, after a number of law suits and shooting and hollering, in the 8th ward I was the only one that was able to get elected committeeman in '64 and again in '66. Now in '66 I ran again and at that time all of these small center city wards had been amalgamated into — we had a bunch of what we called rotten borroughs — wards that were just a couple of blocks long and a couple of blocks wide. And there was a ward realignment and all of them were amalgamated into one — all the Center City wards west of Broad Street from the Parkway down to Lombard were amalgamated into one big 8th ward.

I guess it was basically Gordon Cavenaugh who got me interested in this, although we had worked in the McBride campaign and in your campaign even before the Reform Democrats were formed and I guess it was Gordon basically who formed it and who got me interested. Gordon had been a classmate of mine at Penn law school, as had Dave Savitt and we had known each other for a good many years and were good friends.

We — the Reform Democrats have attempted to reform the policies of not only city government but as it has developed since the days of Clark and Dilworth. But also we have never been able to work in very close harmony -- or any kind of harmony — with the regular organization. We have tried from time to time to get them to slate the kind of people we think they ought to slate, but we have been rarely successful. I first ran for the state legislature in 1966 as a result of one man, one vote decision of the Supreme Court. They realigned all of the legislative districts to make them equal in population and it then became clear that they had carved out a kind of new district in Center City and I ran for that in an election where the organization used every method under the sun to try and defeat me and I just barely won that. They tried again to defeat me two years later in a primary and they tried two years after that, so I have fought three very difficult primary elections with the organization.' I think I was able to win because my 3.

wife's a better politician than they are and we just worked harder and we had basically the kind of approach that appeals to people in Center City, which is government officials who are accountable and who are responsible and have some sense of honesty and integrity and don't serve their own interests but serve the interests of the voters.

(WMP: You had a complete organization of committeemen, I guess.)

What happened with that was by the third time that they had run candidates against me in the primary election I decided that it was really very important that I not have to go through the job of recruiting poll workers every two years and that it would be so much better if we just took over the regular ward structure in the 8th ward and what we did in 1970 was to run a slate of committeemen in every division in the ward against the regular organization committeemen, except in those few divisions where we already had people.

(WMP: How many divisions were there?)

There are 29 divisions and we ran 58 candidates. We started a year before — one solid year before — to recruit people to run. It took a year to find the 58 candidates in every division. We were looking primarily for people who had their roots, who lived in the divisions, who had lived there, who weren't transients, who had their roots in the divisions and knew people in those divisions so we could get votes on election day. And sure enough we were successful and we elected the overwhelming majority of the committeemen in the ward. Fortunately for us the ward leader at that time was State Senator Benjamin Donolow, who was a very convenient target to shoot at because Donolow didn't live in the ward. He was a non-resident and treated Center City as a sort of political plantation. (WMP: He was sort of a shady character.)

I don't know. He. was -- Philadelphia magazine once described him as a connoisseur of the unsavory. I'll rest with that description of him. I'm told that one shouldn't speak ill of the dead so we'll just let it go at that. But he was a convenient target to shoot at. He was an absentee. He wasn't a very pleasant personality and people in Center City couldn't for the life of them — paying the high rents and enjoying the neighborhood as they do — understand why a man who represented the area in Harrisburg and was the ward 4.

leader wouldn't want to live there. But he didn't. He lived out in Overbrook Park out in Montgomery County and didn't make very much of a real hard attempt to conceal it. It was rather brazen. His car was registered out there and his children, if you looked at their school records it showed that that was their home address. He really didn't make any terrific effort. People in Center City just have to watch who is walking through Rittenhouse Square each day on their way to work to know who really lives in the area and who doesn't and it's not hard. It's a neighborhood. More cosmopolitan than most, but people know.

(WMP: How did Donolow get into that position?)

He got in on the first swing that took Joe Clark into the mayor's office. A bunch of these characters rode in with him, like Morrie Osser, and Benny Donolow, and some of these others.

(WMP: I'm amazed because I thought Jim Finnegan, who was running the party at that time, wouldn't have gone for them.)

I get the impression that they never really felt that they could oust the incumbent Republicans who had been there for a hundred years. And they just let people run and lo and behold Clark swept in and he took everybody in with him. So there they were with a bunch of pebple who just came in with the tide. And they were there ever since. I must say that I've been fortunate in having Ben as an opponent because he was a convenient target to shoot at and he did sort of symbolize very conveniently everything about the organization that people were uptight about. A certain unsavory reputation, an absentee landlord kind of treating his senatorial district as a plantation to be exploited for his own end. ^ / (WMP: Where did the Ostroff's fit into it?)

The Ostroff's were kind of involved in the formative period of the Reform Democrats but Ella was in my judgment very difficult to deal with. She had some very fixed ideas about how things should be done and she — I don't know, we just all suddenly felt that it was too hard to deal with her and she sort of faded out of the picture and Gordon more/and more took on complete responsibility for it. But at the beginning she was a factor and she was helpful and we met many times in their house. I guess their law offices were on the first floor in the 1900 block of Walnut Street. 5.

I think in assessing credit for forming the Reform Democrats it would have to go to Gordon Cavenaugh, primarily. He was the leading light. He was the fellow who said this is what we are going to do and this is how we are going to do it and he got the first nucleus of people together to do it. And he is a remarkable guy.

The ironical outcome of all this was that after Tate — not even after Tate — when Tate was coming up for reelection in '67 and realizing he had to broaden his base within the party and make some overtures to some people, Gordon became Tate's housing and development coordinator and so did Phil Kalodner, who was more active with ADA than he was with the Reform Democrats, although Phil was always on hand to give us advice and help with the Reform Democrats. Phil came in also at that time with Tate and both of those fellows had been very active in I guess what today would be called the liberal wing of the Democratic party. But Jim Tate knew one little bit of political wisdom and that is that while you can come out of one sector of the party if you want to survive you've got to reach out and try and broaden your base and reach out the other sectors of the party if you are going to survive in this business. He did it successfully too and that's something that this fellow now in City Hall has never learned. And never will learn. And we won't have him around to give him the lesson either. We gave him the lesson I guess in November.

How were people recruited for the Reform Democrats? I guess mostly it was one of those kind of processes where you say who do you know and who lives near you that you think would be interested and would they run for committeeman. And when you get them inside the tank you say to them who do you know and where do you come from and what kind of work do pu do and do you know people who would like to join the Reform Democrats and would they like to run and are they interested in volunteering in political campaigns. It was just a continuous reaching out process to get people.

(WMP: Did you have a headquarters?)

No, we've never had an office of any kind. The Reform Democrats secretary, Mrs. Dunbar, has always had an empty ice box in which she keeps all the card' files and records of all types relating to the organization's membership lists and so forth. She's very efficient but she's got it all 6 .

in an abandoned ice box. So she claims. I've had a campaign headquarters. But the major meeting place in Center City for all these groups has always been the Unitarian church at 2125 Chestnut Street. They have a big hall in the basement and that is traditionally where all the groups have always met. ADA has meetings there. The Reform Democrats. We have our meetings there. The church has always been very generous.

(WMP: Was there a factor of social conviviality in the Center City Democrats that helped hold them together?)

You had a certain social cohesiveness because what you have living in Center City at the time were people who were basically from the same social class. They were middle class professional people or middle class businessmen who were in a section of the city that had not had the benefit of a great deal of city money to redevelop it. Not unlike Society Hill which was basically redeveloped with city money. West of Broad St. — going from Broad St. to the Schuylkill — that area had declined over the years very badly. At one point in the late '40's and early '50's there was even talk of taking Rittenhouse Square and making a parking lot out of it. So some of the older people in the area had participated in the fight to save Rittenhouse Square. The one elementary school in the1 area, which for years had been at 17th and Pine had long been torn down and closed by the school district because there were simply no children who lived in center city. So the other battle that the younger people had been involved in was to get the school board to have a school in center city. And that they opened in a building next to the YWCA. In the 2000 block of Chestnut Street. A lot of people had participated in that battle. That was the first time in the early '50's that we got an elementary school back in Center City west of Broad St. McCall had always been there east of Broad but we hadn't had an elementary school in center city west of Broad St. for 20 years at least. Maybe more. What kids there were in Center City either went to McCall or went to private school. The school district just didn't think it was worthwhile. We finally — many participated in that fight. That was preliminary to other community activities.

(WMP: You have one now?)

Oh yes. Now we have the Greenfield School. The YWCA finally said that they needed the space in the building and a lot more pressure was put upon the school board and luckily Dick Dilworth was President of the school board at that time and he was receptive and understood the needs of locating 7.

a school in Center City. It was vital.

(WMP: He was a center city resident himself.)

That's right. East of Broad St. So he knew how important to the economy of center city and the vitality of it it is to have a decent school. And Greenfield is an excellent elementary school and it still draws kids from — well, every kid in the city wants to get into it, but it is primarily for center city Children.

The relationship between ADA and the Reform Democrats has always been a very very close one. We have always worked closely with ADA and they have always worked closely with us, but they are not identical obviously. ADA covers the whole Southeastern Pennsylvania area with members drawn from all of the counties — Montgomery, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, as well as Philadelphia. It is known as the Southeastern Pennsylvania chapter of ADA. Reform Democrats are largely restricted to this area in center city comprising the 5th the 8th and the 15th and 30th wards and we don't pretend to operate in that big a scale. What we have always been trying to do is run candidates for committeemen and take over the — become the regular democratic ward organizations in the areas in which our people live and try and give the people of that area the kind of politics we think they deserve.

(WMP: How has ADA fared since Leon Schull went to Washington?) I

I think ADA has had its ups and downs but of course ADA executive directors always turn out to wind up very well so Norville Reese has wound up as Governor Shapp's right-hand man and then became Secretary of Commerce in the Shapp administration. I can't remember who came before Norville. I guess there was somebody in there before him but now Rich Chapman, the latest director, is going to run for City Controller. He announced yesterday, because Klenk resigned, that he was going to run for City Controller and resign as executive director of ADA. Terry Delmouth, who was an executive director of ADA was Shapp's executive assistant for educational programs and generally our executive directors do very well. The organization itself has its ups and downs in terms of supporting candidates who win. We supported Shapp twice. I think he did a good 8.

job in his first term but was more than somewhat disappointing in his second. That couldn't be anticipated but I think on the balance his administration probably did some very good things but most of it was done in the firstcouple of years he was in office and very little after that.

I first decided to run for the General Assembly in 1966 when the seat — as I said before,one man one vote had forced-the general assembly to redistrict -- under court supervision, with a gun to their head — the whole state.

(BF: What does one man one vote mean?)

There was a decision called Baker vs. Carr — United States Supreme Court. It was a landmark decision in 1965 which held that legislative districts -- districts apportioned for legislative, councilmanic, or whatever purposes — state senatorial purposes — could not — must be in proportion to the number of people who resided in them. You couldn't have a district such as we have in Philadelphia with 10,000 people in it and another legislative district with 50,000 people in it because the 50,000 people votes were diluted because they only had one representative whereas the 10,000 people who had one representative had their votes enhanced. The only exception to that was the U.S. Senate, but that was because the Constitution provided that each state no matter what size had two Senators. The impact of that was law suits all over the country to compell legislatures to redistrict the state strictly in accordance with population. All districts being of equal size with only very small variations-permitted. And'that's what happened in Pennsylvania in 1966. The reapportionment was completed and a district comprising all of the 8th ward and the 30th ward was created. At that point — the other thing the decision did was to elminate double member .districts. There were districts in Philadelphia that were represented by two people, not one. So that was eliminated also by the Supreme Court's decision — one person per district was representing. If you were going to have two people per district than every district had to have two people. So they eliminated the old double member districts which was what kind of a district we were in. And at that point there really wasn't an incumbent although it would be hard to say — one woman did live in the district. Cianfrani was the other member in the double member district — didn't live in the new district. 9.

So I decided that it was a real opportunity. Gordon Cavenaugh called me and said do you want to run. I said yes. He said there was another fellow who was also interested in running. Would we abide, each of us, by the decision of the Reform Democrats . We both agreed that that would be what we would do. And we met and I was endorsed by the Reform Democrats and the other fellow very graciously stepped aside -- that was Jerry Kaplan, who also had been active in ADA and active in the Reform Democrats in its formative years and I'm sorry that I left his name out of this because Jerry was very active in its formative years. And Jerry very kindly stepped aside and I ran. And it was a tough primary but at the last minute Donolow, thinking he was the super politician, outsmarted himself and backed two candidates against me, thereby dividing his own vote. One of these incredibly stupid moves. If he just stayed with one candidate he would have licked me -- not by much but he would have licked me. By dividing his votes and telling some of his committeemen to go for one person and other committeemen to go for the other one he divided his own vote and I squeaked by with 39 votes. And then went down to Puerto Rico for a rest and they called me to come back right away they were suing. Having tampered with the machines on election day — Dick Sprague was the first Assistant DA at that time and he drove around with a machine repairman in a car from the DA's office getting these machines fixed. You couldn't pull my lever for half the day. And then they turn around and sue me for something — I never did know what the basis of the suit was. Greg Harvey and Phil Kalodner represented me in the suit. Old judge Francis Shunk Brown was the judge and he heard the suit in the morning but Judge Brown was always very precise about having lunch at 12 o'clock on the dot. So he told everybody that was all he was going to hear about the evidence in this suit and he retired the chambers — he always brought his lunch with him in a little bag and he had his lunch and his cup of tea. Then he came back on the bench and announced that he was throwing the suit out and that was it. So we all had to sit around during his lunch hour waiting to see what was going to happen! But he came back and said case dismissed and that was it. And they never appealed it and I was elected.

And they did it to me again in '68 and again in '70. They ran candidates. Inspired by Donolow. Ran candidates against me and each time I would win and win by bigger margins than I had won before. 10.

In my first campaign there were a number of issues. I guess there was a whole host of things that were on people's minds. The financial stability of the state was a much bigger issue then than it is today. Pennsylvania was living off a sales tax primarily to try to finance its whole state operation. And the issue of the income tax had started to come to the fore more and more. The level of welfare grants in the state was very very low and the states simply didn't have the money-they claimed to finance it. So financing was a big thing and then there were the usual array of other problems that were peculiar to Pennsylvania that bob up from time to time. Milk price control was a big thing in those days. I can't think of some of the other things.

(BF: But political reform wasn't a big issue?)

Of course reform of the political system was then and still is a big issue. The issue of honest decent people being elected to office was always a kind of subliminal unspoken kind of an issue. You just didn't want to vote for somebody because he was an organization candidate and they said he is a Democrat, vote for him.

I think you are talking primarily about my campaign. And reform was an-issue but it is hard to blow your own horn and say I'm an honest guy but the other guy is no good. You have to put it on a much more philosophical broader base than just sit there and say I'm great and the other guy's a bum.

(BF: Did you identify yourself as a Reform Democrat?)

• * ' v \ Absolutely. Oh yes. In those days the reform movements, both in Philadelphia and — New York particularly — was very very strong. We were hoping that this would lead to a proliferation of reform candidates throughout the city. In Ifew York the reform groups were much larger and much more powerful and were making much greater headway. Russ Hemingway, who was head of the reform groups in New York — they have political clubs they call them up there — reform clubs — they had a kind of umbrella organization and Russ Hemingway headed that. He came down here to tell us how it was done. And one of the best labels you could have in '66 was that you were a reform candidate. Because at that point people were getting fed up with machine politics and we were getting a double dose of it here in Philadelphia and state-wide for that matter. And the reaction has been slow 11.

in coming to that sort of thing but I think we saw some of the reaction in the rejection of the charter change last November. That was an overwhelming thing. Reform faded as an issue over tie years because of the impact of race in politics. And the race question has had a very difficult impact on reform politics. Reform is -- those preoccupations are middle class preoccupations -- honesty, integrety, diligence in your job, are fundamentally middle class preoccupations. With the entrance of large numbers of blacks — poor blacks, largely -- onto the voting rolls, that is not what they are worried about. They are worried about something much more basic — a roof over your head, food on the table, -- and they are not too interested in how it gets there or what kind of politicians put it there. They are dependent largely on the government to give them a chance -- just any kind of a chance -- to get their head above water. Because of a long long history that you are as familiar with as I am. Their preoccupations aren't honesty, integrety, and hard work — they are who is going to let us get out head above water. Those are the kind of politicians we want. Those are the ones vwho are usually machine politicans -- they get results. So largely for black voters, I suspect, — well, they want honest decent people, too — but that I don't think is their first priority. Their first priority is black representation, a voice for black voters, and the honesty, integrety, and hard work can take a back seat for the time being in exchange for black representation and in exchange for people who will vote for measures that will let blacks get a start in this society.

(WMP: How large is the black voting block in center city?)

In center city it is very small. We have hardly any black population in the 8th ward at all. Very small. The legislative district— my legislative district was reapportioned again in 1972 in accordance with the 1970 census. Now it is much different than it was when I first ran. Now it goes all the way out into West Philadelphia around the University of Pennsylvania, Drexell, and then down into (?) , so it's got a large black component in it now. Much more than it did in the past, although it did have the 30th ward in it then and that was 90% black ward when I first ran but with a light population. 12.

Once I was in the legislature I -- when you are a back bencher, when you are first in there, you don't get to do a lot, but in the last couple of years I've been a committee chairman and we've been in the majority and that gives you a chance to do some things. I've been chairman of the judiciary committee and of course our primary job has been with the courts and dealing with them. And we've done a lot of work in the judiciary committee. There's a lot that is still to do.

(WMP: what sort of problems did you have?)

Well, we had problems with juveniles and we rewrote the juvenile laws. We've had problems with abuse of women and children. We've passed statutes relating to child abuse and I call it wife abuse, but the technical name is protection from abuse act, where women who are being beaten by their husbands, and vice verse I suppose, can go into court and get an order throwing the guy out of the house. Something they couldn't do before. The court's attitude was that since both parties were either on the lease or on the deed to fee house one had as much right to be there as the ether and therefore they couldn't enjoin somebody who had an ownership interest in a piece of real estate from being on the premises. So we passed a statute. We have been in fee last session been extremely concerned about the growth of plitical corruption in Pennsylvania. This was a major, major concern. We had seen several members of the legislature go to jail. We had seen according to the Bulletin about 200 officials throughout the state be indicted or convicted for various forms of malfeasance in office. - We take a back seat to no one in terms of corruption in this state. And several of the district attorneys were telling us — and the federal attorneys ( were telling us -- that one of the reasons this was going on was because the pendulum in Pennsylvania had swung too far the other way. We could not have investigating grand juries in this state except under extremely unusual and very limited circumstances. There was no wire tapping in Pennsylvania permitted under any circumstances. We even went further in not permitting any sort of eavesdropping or surveillance of any kind in this state. Our crime commission was extremely limited in the investigations that it could conduct. So that in the last session, we passed an investigating resolution that the judiciary committee investigate all this and we came up with a package of bills which now permit wire tapping under certain court-approved circumstances and we have investigating 13.

grand juries and we have a strengthened crime commission. And maybe in view of that we will redress the balance and try to eliminate some of the political corruption. And organized crime — that was the other thing. It was flourishing. Some of the Mafia families in Jersey who had flourished there for years had spilled over to this side of the river, particularly in Bucks County and the Poconos. They had seen the Poconos as a future gambling center and had been buying up land through all kinds of straw names and things like that. And we hope we can keep them out of the state, but my suspicion is that we are rot going to be successful. We still have some major things to deal with. My suspicion is that we are not going to be successful.

We still have some major things to deal with in the legislature, such as divorce reform and merit selection of judges and things like that, which we have not been able to successfully deal with up to this point. But I will try once again to see if we can't get some form of merit selection for judges. - I think if I can get it to the door I will have the majority of the legislature with me, but getting it to the floor has always been an enormous problem. I got it out of the committee twice only to have tie bill buried in the appropriations committee. It goes through appropriations only because any constitutional amendment has to be advertised. Any excuse to bury it. I'm1trying a slightly different version this time and seeing if I can get more help by limiting it to just merit selection for appellate court judges rather than including all the judges. Maybe we can do what New York did -- they started last year with merit selection of appellate judges. Maybe that's more palatable. We had merit selection on the ballot in '66. Statewide. It had been approved by the constitutional convention that year — I guess it was '67. And it failed. The voters rejected it. But my suspicion is if we could get it again and if we do a good hard educatioal campaign the voters will approve it.

As a legislator my relationship with the Democratic City Committee has always been a very poor one. We do not do well together. I don't take direction from them and I think also there is more to it involved there. There has always been the feeling among the Philadelphia members in the legislature that somehow the city — the Democratic party officials and the city officials — will somehow determine for us what we ought to be doing in Harrisburg rather than us in Harrisburg telling the city officials what 14.

is realistic — what the program ought to be and what can be passed. City officials in Philadelphia and Democratic party officials have no conception of what Pennsylvania is. It's a big state. There's 11 million people here. And they don t look kindly on Philadelphia. And somehow we have managed through our control of leadership posts over the years to get a good deal of what we wanted, but that's all over with now. And to think that the school district of the city can keep coming to Harrisburg and raiding the treasury is all gone. And the idea that legislators from Philadelphia simply want to wait for whoever is the city chairman to pass the word as to what they should do, that's a mistake, too. I've never believed that that's the way to operate and I've always believed that it should be the other way around. We should be telling the city what is possible, what is feasible, and what they ought to be doing.

(BF: Is there anybody here that you can tell?)

Nobody is home! But maybe after next November somebody will be home. They have been out to lunch over there for a long time.

As to competition between the western part and the Eastern part of the state, I don't quite see it that way. Everybody is after a piece of the pie. The westerners have gotten smart and realized that the reason that Philadelphia was getting such a nice hunk of the pie was that they control leadership posts and were cohesive. Everybody stuck together. Now, the westerners are playing the same game. They've got the leadership posts. The majority leader in the Senate is from Pittsburgh. Last session the majority leader, the speaker of the house, was from Pittsburgh, and the majority leader was from Westmoreland County — both western counties. The Governor of Pennsylvania today is from Pittsburgh. The westerners are feeling their oats. They've gotten cohesive. They've learned to 3:ick together because they are going to get their piece of the pie. But it is a pie — there are only so many pieces — and we have to attempt to make sure it is divided fairly. They have a legitimate complaint. They have a complaint -- how legitimate remains to be seen. Philadelphia was getting a disproportionate share of the pie. I don't think that's true, but in politics it is not what is true that counts, it's what people perceive to be true. 15.

Do you see a future for the Center City of Philadelphia as a residential area? Yes, I see Center City as continuing to be — in feet, I see other areas of the city bordering on Center city continuing to be a very desireable residential area. As the cost of transportation inevitably goes up people are going to want to live closer and closer to their jobs so that areas like Fishtown and Brewery Town are coming back as desireable residential places. People can hop on the bus and be in Center City in five minutes. Living close to your job and close to good public transportation is essential.

(BF: What are the issues about the city that you are concerned about in Harrisburg?)

Primarily we are concerned with the financial integrety of the school district at the moment, which looks to be badly, badly managed and badly in debt. There have been a number of proposals and I don't know which is the best of them. One proposal is that since we have control over this is to provide for an elected school board with taxing powers. That is the situation in every other country in Pennsylvania. The school board is elected, it has the pwer to levy taxes, and it is responsible to the electorate for the qperation of the school district. The electorate doesn't like the way the district is being run, they throw them all out. That might be one solution, I don't know. I'm a believer in democracy. I'm a believer in letting people vote and decide for themselves. Sometimes it just doesn't work out very well. * vV There is another group which feels that what we ought to do — I think everybody agrees this board has got to go. They are just too bad. And what we ought to do is make the school district a department of city government. We've got a commissioner of police, and a commissioner of licenses and inspections, there ought to be a commissioner of schools. And that department of city government ought to be responsible because fundamentally city council has to raise the taxes to pay for this, but they have no control over how it is spent. So let's make it a regular cabinet department of city government and let it be run like that. Now all the cries that that will lead to further politics in the school district — I can't believe it can get any more political than it is." But I don't think it will come to a head until the school district comes to Harrisburg again to try and plug t 16.

this deficit. At that point there is going to be an absolute — I think everybody is going to be determined to abolish this board and get rid of them. We've tried every way to deal with these people but it is just a completely incompetent board and the leadership of the district is very very poor. Marcase is not qualified in my view to run the school system. You just can't put people in like that. We've got to start from scratch. Maybe a new mayor with a new school board can do something. Without changing the superstructure.

I think I've covered everything you were interested in and if yDu've got any more questions I'd be glad to answer them.

(BF: I'm curious what effect the change in Governors is going to lave)

It's too early to tell. It will be interesting though, because historically what has happened in Pennsylvania is that a Governor gets in and he says we're not going to do it the old way — we're going to put good people in cabinet offices — the way that Thornberg has so far done it. I think by and large his cabinet selections have been good professional, non-politicians. Of course there is a great substructure of appointments -underneath that. And they haven't been filled. What is going to happen, I suspect, is Thornberg, like Shapp, is going to come up against a situation where he is going to have to have taxes. That's the hardest vote you can get is to impose new taxes on people, especially in an inflationary period that we are in today. And that's when the members are going to go to him and say ok, I'll vote for your taxes but what are you going to do for me? And at that point a Governor has a very difficult choice. He can do what I suspect Shapp did and say what do you want and try and whittle down the demands to something reasonable. Of course the first thing is they want the dome off the Capitol but with a little bargaining you can get them down to two jobs in the highway shed in Cambria County and a job as a third assistant clerk in some department. You can play that game. The positions are there to be given out. And you can get your votes to pass -- something that's very unpopular, just as Shapp passed the income tax-. He did it that way — he dealt with the leadership, he dealt with the meu-bers and everybody got something.

Or you can take your courage in both hands and call in the press, the radio and the television and go on statewide television and tell everybody just what is happening. That's a heck of a gamble because if you throw those dice and if they come up snake eyes you've lost and you've lost good. 17.

You ain't going to get votes for nothing. Now, it's going to be interesting to see what Thornberg does. He's got presidential ambitions, I suspect. And the only way he can run for president is to master the legislature. He's got to show he is their master and not their servant. That's where Shapp's ruination was. He was immediately perceived as being controlled by the legislature. He played ball. He made deals. He gave out things. And he had his eye on the presidency, too. That's what brings them all to heel.

In my view, if Thornberg is serious about his presidential ambitions he is going to have to show that he is indeed the master of tie legislature. And I'll be interested to see when this tax vote comes up what he is going to do.

I think I've told you all I know.