Bucks politician served 1971-86 in state Senate

In his unsuccessful 1988 bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, Edward L. Howard of Doylestown Township staged an unusual $10,000 raffle.

An Inquirer report stated that Mr. Howard's money would go "to the winner of an 'opinion poll' raffle."

"The 'polls' would be ads printed in leaflets and newspapers in the district and would compare the two candidates' stands on the issues. All registered voters who clipped the ad, answered the 20 questions, and sent it in would be eligible to win the raffle . . . regardless of how they responded."

Mr. Howard, a Republican, was trying to unseat the five-term Democratic incumbent, Rep. Peter H. Kostmayer, in the Eighth Congressional District in Bucks County and a slice of Montgomery County.

He was no political novice.

On Tuesday, Jan. 4, Mr. Howard, 84, from January 1971 to November 1986 the state senator in the 10th Legislative District, which covers parts of Bucks and Montgomery Counties, died of complications from dementia at his home.

At his campaign headquarters on the morning of Election Day in 1988, Mr. Howard picked, from the 8,283 entries stuffed into a quilt cover, the entry of Aloysius C. Gidlewski, 72, of Ottsville, a retired Marine veteran of World War II and the Korean War.

Gidlewski said he would use the money for debts and perhaps a vacation.

In Harrisburg, Mr. Howard was a man who was noticed.

A 1973 Inquirer profile carried the headline "A Reformer Only His Voters Could Love."

"He is one of those odd politicians who makes a campaign promise, and then - to the dismay of some of his colleagues - keeps it," the reporter wrote.

The story noted that "he has charged forward with boundless energy, lobbying furiously - and to little avail - for full disclosure and accountability in every area from lobbyists to government spending, relentlessly challenging the most formidable of political foes: Senate committee chairman."

When he resigned in 1986, Mr. Howard was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

Born in Jacksonville, Fla., and raised in Excelsior, Minn., Mr. Howard graduated from Excelsior High School and was an Army military policeman in 1944-45 in a unit preparing for the invasion of Japan until that nation surrendered.

After the war, he earned a bachelor's degree in history at the University of Minnesota.

He was a salesman for a flour-milling firm in Minneapolis, said his son, Judd, and at some point became acquainted with Harold E. Stassen, governor of Minnesota from 1939 to 1943, president of the University of Pennsylvania from 1948 to 1953, and an unsuccessful candidate for Pennsylvania governor in 1958, mayor of Philadelphia in 1959, and the presidency numerous times.

"Dad met him by working on a couple of political campaigns," Judd said, and when Stassen and other investors bought National Fiberstok Corp. in Northeast Philadelphia, "they needed somebody young."

From 1961 to 1986, Mr. Howard was president and chief executive officer of that firm, a manufacturer of filing systems and office supplies, which he eventually bought from the Stassen group.

He was also a director of Neshaminy Valley Bank.

From 1962 to 1976, he was a member of the Young Presidents' Organization, and in 1969-70, he was a Bucks County representative on the SEPTA board.

A founding director of the Bucks County Racial Crisis Committee organized by the Bucks County Association of Churches, in 1971 he earned the committee's first humanitarian award.

Mr. Howard was also a member of the Bucks County Fair Housing Committee.

In the 1990s, his son said, he was an adviser to U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, and from 1998 to 2006, he was a consultant to local political campaigns.

Besides his son, Mr. Howard is survived by daughters Kim Ulrey, Dana, and Tracey; a sister; and nine grandchildren. His wife, Barbara, died in 1986, and their daughter Cory died in 2004.

A visitation was set for 10 a.m. Monday, Jan. 10, at Doylestown Presbyterian Church, 127 E. Court St., before a memorial service there at 11. Burial will be in Doylestown Cemetery.