George N. Wade: Consummate Politician

There are two different types of success in the world of politics. Some men succeed as statesmen, and others as politicians. Statesmen usually adopt innovative and sometimes unpopular methods in order to promote what they see as the public good. Politicians, on the other hand, feel that their duty is to further the interests of those whom they represent, and to work to satisfy their constituents.

Based upon these definitions, and according to Judge Dale F. Shugart, who has been one of the leading figures in Cumberland County politics for decades, Senator George N. Wade was a "consummate politician."¹ During his long career, the art of politics became ingrained in his personality and made up pan of his nature.

George N. Wade was born in Washington, Butler County, Pennsylvania, on 13 August 1893. One of nine children, he finished high school, starting work in the oil and later in the coal industry at age sixteen, and attended a small, two year school called Washington Institute. Later, he got a chance to attend a business school owned by his uncles in Lancaster. He married Anna Ruth Platt, known to most as " Pat" in 1916, and soon had an only son, George Jr. In 1917, he volunteered for the army engineers, went to France in the summer of 1918, and served through the end of the war, working under the adjutant general into 1919.²

After he returned home, Wade moved to Palmyra in Lebanon County. From there he commuted to his office in Harrisburg, where he had begun a thriving insurance business, becoming one of Ohio National Life's top agents in the nation. As his business flourished, he began to branch out into other areas. He took up permanent residence in Camp Hill, Cumberland County, in 1924, where he eventually became principal stockholder and chairman of the Camp Hill National Bank. Through connections in the American Legion he became involved in politics, serving on both the Camp Hill School Board and Borough Council before becoming a state legislator in 1930. His political position made him a much more influential business figure, and the combination of political and economic influence he had made him one of the most powerful and well known figures on the West Shore, pan of Cumberland County, - 'ross the Susquehanna from Harrisburg. In fact, when three West Shore banks were planning to merge in 1954, in order to keep from being muscled out by one of the larger Harrisburg banks, board members of the banks felt that the only chance they had for success was to make Wade Chairman of the board.³ The merger was successful, and the bank, now CCNB, was chaired by Wade for eighteen years.

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