Michael T. Mondak speaks: 40 til 40 day 18

We made it to day 18 of the 40 til 40 series of blog entries, about anything and everything relevant to the number 40 which leads to my 40th birthday on July 10.

In my last entry I talked about 40 of my fellow Hampton Roads natives outside of Portsmouth.  This particular entry talks about Milton Shapp, the 40th governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

On June 25, 1912, Cleveland, Ohio gave the world the future 40th governor of Pennsylvania, Milton Shapp (born Milton Jarrold Shapiro).  His father Aaron Shapiro was a businessman and his mother, the former Eva Smelsey was an outspoken suffragette.  In 1933 Shapp graduated from what is now Case Western Reserve University with an electrical engineering degree, but he was unable to find work in his field due to the Great Depression.  Instead, he drove a coal truck.  In 1936 he relocated to Pennsylvania where took a job selling electric parts.  During this time he changed his name from Shapiro to Shapp to avoid prejudice.  In 1939 he married the former Harriet Nolte; the marriage ended in divorce in 1947.

During World War II, Shapp served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps in Africa and Europe.  Following his 1946 discharge where he attained the rank of captain, he relocated to Philadelphia and founded Jerrold Electronics Corporation, which pioneered the cable television industry, using a $500 loan from the G.I. Bill.  By 1948, Jerrold Electronics (which was taken from his middle name) became a major player in television, which made him a multimillionaire.  By this time, he had remarried to the former Muriel Matzkin; they had three children.

In 1960, Shapp entered the world of politics when he successfully campaigned for John F. Kennedy as the president of the United States.  He was instrumental in the creation of the Peace Corps, which he served as one of its first advisors following Kennedy’s election.  Shapp also was a consultant to the Secretary of Commerce.

In 1966, Shapp sought the office of governor of Pennsylvania.  But the Democratic party supported Robert P. Casey, but ran an independent campaign thanks to his multimillionaire status.  Shapp wanted to capitalize on an anti-establishment mood and defeated Casey in the primary by 50,000 votes.  However, Shapp lost the general election to Republican Raymond Shafer.  The main reason for Shapp’s loss was his unsuccessful quest to stop the merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad with the New York Central Railroad, which brought several enemies against him.

In 1970, Shapp tried again to seek the governor’s office as Shafer could not run for a second term.  This time around, Shapp proposed to fix a fiscal crisis in the commonwealth.  Shapp again defeated Casey in the primary, then challenged lieutenant governor Raymond Broderick in the general election.  By this time, Walter Annenberg, who successfully sabotaged Shapp’s 1966 campaign, sold the Philadelphia Inquirer to Knight Newspapers after being appointed ambassador to the United Kingdom, and Stuart Saunders had vanished following the Pennsylvania Railroad bankruptcy.  Shapp defeated Broderick to become the 40th governor of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Shapp’s first term in office saw him institute a flat, no-deductions income tax, create the Pennsylvania Lottery to benefit older Pennsylvanians, and sign major reforms for the Pennsylvania Turnpike.  He also oversaw consumer rights reforms, and the creation of the Sunshine Act requiring transparency with the public by governing bodies (take that, madame president!).  Shapp and his wife Muriel even had to be rescued from the governor’s mansion during Hurricane Agnes in 1972 where 48 Pennsylvanians were killed in rising floodwaters.

Shapp’s predecessor, Raymond Shafer could not run for reelection in 1970 as the Pennsylvania constitution had been amended during Shafer’s term to allow for governors to be elected to a maximum of two terms.  Shapp took advantage of this, and defeated Republican challenger Drew Lewis in a landslide 1974 gubernatorial election.

In 1976, Shapp sought the Democratic nomination for President, but dropped out after he lost the Pennsylvania primary to Jimmy Carter.  Shapp settled into his second gubernatorial term without enacting any significant reforms.  As Shapp could not run for a third term, Dick Thornburgh succeeded Shapp as governor.

Shapp died on Thanksgiving Day in 1994 from Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 82.