Major Battleground

As the Democrats saw it, Governor Tom Dewey's decision to run again was dirty pool. Certainly it had knocked out an elaborate Democratic plan to run all the balls off the table. The plan was largely based on the proposition that aging (74) Lieut. Governor Joe Hanley would head the Republican ticket. In such a situation New York's Democratic bosses had figured they could win the governorship with a nobody--particularly since they had gone to the trouble of arranging a mayoralty election in New York City to make sure of a big Democratic majority downstate.*Dewey's change of plans put the game onto a new table; New York had suddenly become a major political battleground of 1950.

Overnight, Democrats were plunged into deepest gloom. Meeting in Rochester's Hotel Seneca last week, convention delegates glumly went through the motions of approving the ticket their bosses had chosen for them. Their nominee for governor was to be Representative Walter Lynch, an able but colorless six-term Bronx Congressman with an undeviating New and Fair Deal record. Facing the press, State Chairman Paul Fitzpatrick bravely discussed his qualifications.

"Do you consider Lynch a strong candidate?" Fitzpatrick was asked. "Very strong," Paul replied.

"Why?" "On his superb record in Congress."

"What is his superb record in Congress?" "Well," said Fitzpatrick, obviously unprepared for such probing, "uh . . . uh . . . Lynch is a member of the Ways and Means Committee--I think that is the name of it."

One Familiar Name. All that remained to be done was to talk Congressman Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. out of his stubbornness. F.D.R. Jr. had the moral support of a sizable group of delegates who apparently felt he was the only man with a chance to beat Tom Dewey, but the New York City bosses would have none of him. Junior was finally persuaded that it would be best to quit. With a broad but mechanical grin, ambitious Congressman Roosevelt announced that he was all for good old Walt Lynch, and put away his gubernatorial dream until the 1954 convention.

Having dutifully settled for Walter Lynch, the convention nominated Senator Herbert Lehman, 72, a four-time governor, for another term in the Senate. He was the ticket's only familiar name and its only conceivable hope for drawing votes to unknown Mr. Lynch.

Out of the Deep Freeze. The only real cheers for the Democratic slate were heard not in Rochester, but 200 miles east in Saratoga Springs, where the Republicans were gathered for their own convention. Like the Democrats, the G.O.P. delegates also were on hand simply to light the burner under a meal which had been precooked several days ahead and stuffed in the deep freeze until needed. The big difference was, however, that the Republicans figured Tom Dewey gave them a sure thing.

On the big day, Tom Dewey and Joe Hanley trooped arm in arm through a clutter of cheering delegates, falling confetti and exploding balloons. The Governor himself nominated Joe Hanley for Senator; Hanley reciprocated by nominating Tom Dewey, "a beacon light on a stormy shore--steady, clear, unwavering."

The Republicans were not long in getting down to business. In a lusty acceptance speech, Candidate Dewey set the stage for the G.O.P. campaign: "Most of the delegates at that Rochester convention never even heard of their candidates. Yet we are asked to abandon our state in time of crisis to the mercies of unknown or inexperienced men selected out of a telephone book--you know, like they do on Stop the Music, or is it Break the Bank?"

Into Mothballs. But Tom Dewey apparently was not going to waste much of his campaign time discussing New York issues. His main target was the Democratic Administration in Washington and its foreign policy: "We are sick of midnight reversals, sick of politics which invite war, sick of weakness, sick of an Administration which in five years wrecked America's defenses . . . put its tanks and ships and now its brains in mothballs."

And this time he was going to start right out fighting and carry the attack all the way. "No election is won except by hard work," said Candidate Dewey. "We learned that a couple of years ago and I'm the leading authority on that subject." This time, "I will fight the Democrats ... on every street corner in the State of New York."

*A plan that was somewhat upset by Acting Mayor Vincent Impellitteri's insistence on running as an independent against the Democrats' hand-picked nominee, State Supreme Court Justice Ferdinand Pecora.

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