NEW YORK: The Letter

“This whispering campaign has finally got under my skin,” said 74-year-old Joe R. Hanley. With that, he broke a startling story which—he had reason to believe—was about to come out anyway. It was the story of why he gave up what he wanted and had been promised, the Republican nomination for governor of New York.

He had stepped aside in September to let Tom Dewey run again, and had been given as consolation prize the Republican nomination for U.S. Senator. At the time, Hanley had said he was “happy . . . and proud to do it.” With the Korean war on, Dewey was a fitter man than he to run the state. But there had been another reason for his decision, and this week he told it.

Propositions. To reporters, he handed a copy of a letter he had written to a friend September 5: “Today I had a conference with the Governor in which unalterable and unquestionably definite propositions were made to me. If I will consent to take the nomination to the U.S. Senate, I am definitely assured of being able to clean up my financial obligations within 90 days, so that I would be clear for the first time in twenty years . . . This . . . will enable me to face the future with confidence and the knowledge that even if I lost my eyesight, I would still have a comfortable living … I can assure you that within a short time you will receive from me every cent that I owe you … I am humiliated, disappointed and heartsick, but … I can do nothing else . . . Please try to see this in the fairest light possible.”

The Leak. “Through some way or other,” Hanley told reporters, “copies of the letter have been circulated all over the state,” and he wanted to explain it. “I have been in debt practically all my life. I assumed a staggering obligation years ago as a matter of honor.” A bank, in which Hanley and his widowed mother owned stock, had failed, Hanley had taken on a debt of more than $100,000.

A veteran of two wars (Spanish American and World War I), Hanley had been in New York State politics since 1926. Recently he had become worried about going blind (his right eye was removed in 1948), and concerned about his livelihood. This summer, he had borrowed a reported $30,000 from two prominent Republican friends, to make the race for governor. One was Publisher Frank Gannett. The other was former State G.O.P. Chairman W. Kingsland Macy, to whom he had written his letter.

How had it leaked out, so that even Democratic headquarters had a photostatic copy? The New York Times reported that Macy had sent copies of it to friends who shared his dislike of Dewey. Presumably it then fell into Democratic hands. The incident showed a deep rift in the Republican Party in New York.

A “nefarious crime,” cried Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Walter Lynch, speaking as if he were full of pity for what had happened to “a broken-hearted old man.” Tom Dewey, when reporters reached him, said that he was delighted that Joe Hanley had “met the facts head on.”