Beware of politicans during campaign seasons
Our small group of do-gooders received a half-million dollars from the state, which of course raised eyebrows. One particular politician was especially excited by the prospect of nabbing frauds, unraveling a web of deceit and law-breaking. The media, too.
It was the early nineties. The non-profit of which I was president had only recently set into motion a series of events that would, by the end of the decade, result in the George C. Marshall Memorial Plaza, at the five-corner intersection in the west end of Uniontown.
The ground upon which the plaza would be built was a mess: an abandoned gas station surrounded by broken concrete slabs. A real eyesore, like so much of downtown Uniontown in those days. We — The Friends of George C. Marshall — thought we could improve the place.
That, along with paying tribute to Marshall, was the goal used as target practice by Barbara Hafer, who then occupied the office of Pennsylvania auditor general. In the wake of the announcement of a state audit of our books, scandal watch swept the news media. The watchdogs at WTAE-TV were especially alert to notions of wrong-doing.
Expressing indignation at the size of our “walking-around money” grant, Hafer, then a Republican but later a Democrat, went out of her way to suggest we were cheats and liars scamming our way to riches at the public’s expense. She would bring us to account, to justice.
She was the one who was doing the bamboozling, Hafer and the media. We had done nothing wrong, as soon became apparent to her honest, hard-working staff auditors. My response to Hafer’s antics uttered only privately until now, was “But, Madam Auditor General, what are your plans to fix what ails Uniontown and other small towns?”
It looked to me then, as it does now, that Hafer could have cared less about the future of small-town Pennsylvania. Her only thought, in auditing The Friends of George C. Marshall, was to horsewhip some low-hanging miscreants. Her political antenna was up. She sensed a public relations bonanza, a political grandslam.
And to hell with Uniontown.
I’m not trying to elicit sympathy for The Friends. Nothing was done that was permanently harmful. We built the plaza.
I’m not targeting Hafer. She largely withdrew from public life a while ago.
I’m telling this story as a warning: Be aware of politicians hamming it up for the cameras, especially politicians in the throes of an election campaign. Pols without real, honest plans for making things better should be eyed with suspicion, deep suspicion.
Here is an example. Several years ago, Tom Smith, running as a Republican against Sen. Bob Casey, aired a TV commercial featuring a young man — I took him as a real life coal miner — who decried the “war on coal” and the destruction of the coal miner’s way of life.
The bigger issue, as the commercial implied, was the eradication of a family culture — a culture spun to life by generations of hard-working, self-sacrificing mothers and fathers.
Smith, who amassed millions in the coal business in Armstrong County, would put an end to the assault. With Smith in the Senate, family tradition would be reclaimed and reinvigorated. Future generations would yet mine coal, nurtured, as always, by loving families.
The warm and fuzzy obscured a hard truth: The “way of life” traditionally associated with coal mining was wrecked by a variety of forces, including the decline of the domestic steel industry and the steady and inevitable advance of alternate energy sources.
In the Connellsville coke region, the die was cast a century ago. That’s when experts first predicted mining would begin to peter out in Fayette and Westmoreland counties around 1930. And, as a matter of fact, beehive coke production, the very essence of the region, peaked in 1915 and began to fade as early as 1918.
Leaders should have been active then to prepare the way to a new deal for coal miners and their families. Real leadership today should insist on education for the young, job training for the furloughed, and secure pensions for the retired. And these are just the beginning.
Leadership on this issue should not consist of feeding the mirage of “saving a way of life.” It ain’t gonna happen. That cat jumped the candle long ago.
So, voters, be on your toes. Be wary. Insist that the Barbara Hafers and the Tom Smiths of the world explain what they would do that is positive and forward-looking.
It’s not as easy as it sounds. It’s one of the reasons democracy is the worst form of government — except for all the others.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown and is the author of two books of local history: “Grand Salute: Stories of the World War II Generation” and “Our People.” He can be reached at grandsalutebook@gmail.com.