A PROUD REPUBLICAN IN NAME ONLY (RINO)

 

To understand the political changes that have occurred in Washington County, and especially its venerable Republican Party, it helps to have a good friend who has lived through its incredible metamorphosis. Stephen I. Richman, Esquire (Steve) will celebrate his 90^th birthday next year. While Steve is now retired from the practice of law and rarely participates in the business and Republican politics that shaped his professional career, his keen memory continues to provide me with a wealth of information.

Over the past several years, Steve has graciously edited my weekly commentaries that appear in this newspaper. His sharp pen and eye for detail have saved me from publishing thoughts that were either too vague or inaccurate. It is time that I shared with OR readers the remarkable life and fascinating stories of Steve’s career.

Steve’s parents were proud Republicans and active participants in the business and political life of Washington County. When Steve was attending college at Northwestern University in Chicago, his father’s good friend George Bloom, a native of Burgettstown, was head of the Pennsylvania Republican Party. Mr. Bloom got access for Steve to attend the Chicago Republican Convention 70 years ago in July of 1952. The oratory of Everett Dickerson and the negotiations that led to Eisenhower defeating Taft for the Party’s nomination fascinated him. Steve was hooked on the American Political System.

Steve recalls that the major civil rights cause during his time at Northwestern was integrating black students into white dormitories. He was amazed when he learned in the late 1960s that the issue had come full circle. In the face of the Black Power movement, Northwestern Black students were demanding their own segregated campus living space.

Steve attended The University of Pennsylvania School of Law and graduated in 1957.  There were only three women and one black in his class. He joined the Washington County Bar Association the next year and began his notable career. Steve would become a recognized expert attorney in non-traumatic occupational disease, especially lung disease.

Steve’s career also reached into the business community where he was Director of Three Rivers Bank & Trust, General Partner of the Executive House, and President of the Washington Trust Building. He remains a trustee of the Washingon Mall Shopping Center.

Steve served in many different functions within the Washington County Republican Party from the 1960s through the 1990s. He remembers his work as an uphill battle, with Democrats holding a five to one registration advantage. Republican complaints concerning widespread corruption in Washington County rarely gained traction with the voters. One high point was the year that the admired Republicans Barone McCune and Harold Fergus, Sr. were elected to the Court of Common Pleas and District Attorney, respectively.

Steve has many humorous war stories while performing his responsibilities as District Republican Chairman. On one occasion, he introduced a candidate running for judge who was so intoxicated he took a swing at Steve and fell off the stage. On another, a reformist candidate for District Attorney finished his stump speech on cleaning up illegal gambling. There was complete silence until a listener raised his hand and informed the candidate that the building addition in which he was speaking had been purchased with illicit gambling funds.

Steve continued to attend national Republican presidential conventions as a spectator. He was in San Francisco in 1964 when Barry Goldwater was nominated as the Republican candidate. He was there to help Governor Scranton and Senator Hugh Scott hold the line against the conservative radicals. Senator Scott would later ask him to run his Washington County reelection campaign.

 Steve was also an observer at the 1968 GOP convention in Miami Beach when Richard Nixon was nominated. He recalls talk of closing all the bridges to the convention center to prevent an invasion of young antiwar protestors.

By the 1972 election year, Steve’s political views began to diverge from the national GOP. He continued to view himself as a life-long, loyal Republican but in the moderate tradition of Republican Governors William Scranton (1963-67) and Raymond Shafer (1967-71). Rather than support Richard Nixon for reelection, Steve locally organized what may have been the only “Republicans for McGovern” fund raising event. The economist and diplomat, John Kenneth Galbraith, headlined the sold-out affair that raised an astonishing $5,000.00 for the McGovern cause.

Unlike today, Steve recalls the Washington County Republican Party as a prim and proper organization made up primarily of moderate business leaders and concerned farmers. The goal was to do away with corruption and develop a modern, business-friendly community. Lou Waller was Steve’s close friend who had one foot in the business world and the other foot in the civil rights movement. Steve joined the local chapter of the NAACP and followed Mr. Waller’s eloquent lead in working to advance the employment prospects for African Americans in Washington County.

Steve Richman remains a registered Republican in the honored tradition of his family. These days Steve contributes to many Democratic campaigns and is thrilled he was able to pay for the placement of a large “Josh Shapiro, Democrat for Governor” sign on his brother’s front lawn.

Steve knows that the present leaders of the local Republican Party disparage his positions and consider him a RINO. Nonetheless, he is proud of his accomplishments within the GOP, in the true Pennsylvania Republican tradition of such leaders as Dick Thornburgh and John Heinz.