National Affairs: Postscript

Joe Hanley’s famed, indiscreet letter came home to roost last week. Republican Congressman W. Kingsland (“Dear King”) Macy, to whom it was written, had spread copies of it around, in hopes that it would embarrass Tom Dewey (TIME, Oct. 23). It didn’t; it was King Macy who got hurt. When the final count was in, Macy had been beaten, by 126 votes, by Democrat-Liberal Ernest Greenwood, a retired schoolteacher. Macy, running for his third term in the House, angrily demanded a recount. It was the first time in 36 years that the district had failed to elect a Republican Congressman. Dewey himself carried the district by 59,000 votes.