The Hanley Affair

New York Democrats were acting as if Mighty Mouse had been caught stealing bubble gum. Even Tammany's politicians, delighted at having for once caught Tom Dewey in an embarrassing position, moulded their faces into expressions of self-righteous indignation.

All week long, Dewey tried to soften the crushing effect of the Hanley letter (TIME, Oct. 23). There was a lot to explain away: 74-year-old, debt-ridden, half-blind Lieut. Governor Joe Hanley, "humiliated, disappointed and heartsick" because he was not going to run for governor and Tom Dewey was, had written that Dewey had made him "certain unalterable and unquestionably definite propositions" to free Hanley of debt, if he would take the Republican nomination for U.S. Senator instead.

Wall Street Sunday. Dewey, angrily defensive, said that nobody had offered to pay Hanley's debts (more than $30,000), and furthermore that there was nothing wrong if someone had. Referring to books by Democratic Bosses Flynn and Farley, Dewey made the point that when Franklin Roosevelt was asked to run for governor in 1928, "he owed a large sum of money to the Warm Springs Foundation,"* and that John J. Raskob promised to take care of it. "I just wish we had a Raskob in the Republican Party," said Dewey. Candidate Hanley betook himself down to Wall Street on a Sunday afternoon, had himself photographed on the deserted street looking at the imposing facade of Lehman Brothers, the family investment house in which his opponent, Senator Herbert Lehman, was once a partner. "This is very interesting to me, for a poor man to come down where all the money comes from," said old Joe Hanley in the corniest publicity stunt of the New York campaign.

Democratic Deals. Though the Hanley letter had been a windfall, the Democrats' moral outrage over political deals was something new considering their own maneuverings. Boss Ed Flynn, anxious to get a big New York City vote, had arranged a nice ambassadorship for Mayor William O'Dwyer, timed just right to require a Nov. 7 New York City election for his successor. And then when Acting Mayor Vincent Impellitteri, a docile Tammanyite, had refused to get out of the way for Boss Flynn's candidate (Justice Ferdinand Pecora), Impellitteri had been offered a 14-year judgeship on the state supreme court, paying $28,000 a year. That buying-out deal had gone wrong; Impellitteri was still running for mayor, but at least Boss Flynn and Tammany had tried hard. In the confusion, there had seemed little chance for Flynn to deliver a big Democratic majority either for Lehman or for his hand-picked candidate for governor, lackluster Congressman (and Wall Street lawyer) Walter A. Lynch. But then, providentially, had come the Hanley letter.

Republicans admitted glumly that the Hanley letter had cost Hanley whatever chance he had ever had to defeat Lehman, would probably cost Dewey votes but not (they hoped) the election. Said old Joe Hanley ruefully: "God knows I've said a lot of things I shouldn't say."

* Roosevelt put $200,000 into the Warm Springs Foundation. The Foundation paid off the investment over the years, a process which contributions by Raskob & friends to the Foundation presumably speeded.

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