Change of Command

It was the 1948 Republican Convention all over again--the same faces, the same factions--only this time the forces of Thomas E. Dewey, so cockily in control at Philadelphia, were in retreat. One hundred and two Republican national committeemen had gathered in Washington's Shoreham Hotel to choose a new party chairman.

They had also come to bury, but not to praise, outgoing Chairman Hugh Scott, who had quit before he could be thrown out (TIME, Aug. 1). Scott, a faithful workman in 86-year-old Joe Grundy's Pennsylvania political machine, had gotten the job as part of the Pennsylvania Deal which gave the nomination to Dewey at Philadelphia. Now he made one final plea for party unity. "For 17 years, we've been taking in each other's washing without enough outside business to break even . . ." It was now a choice, said Scott, between Republican revival and President Truman, the "Typhoid Harry of Statism."

But nobody wanted unity on Scott's terms, and for the moment, the committeemen were less interested in the Democrats than they were in the control of their own party. The old, uneasy Taft-Stassen alliance of the Philadelphia days had settled well in advance on New Jersey's Guy George Gabrielson as its candidate for national chairman. He was an Iowa boy who made good in the big city as a Wall Street lawyer and industrialist. "Even Paul Robeson couldn't find fault with Gabrielson," said a Negro committeeman from Mississippi. Trilled the committeewoman from Iowa: "I'm in love, I'm in love with a wonderful Guy."

Nip & Tuck. This time it was the Dewey leaders who were trying to fight somebody with nobody: Committeeman Axel J. Beck of Elk Point, S. Dak.

The battle lines were drawn. Behind Gabrielson were ex-Willkieites Ralph Cake of Oregon and Sinclair Weeks of Massachusetts, hard-shelled ex-Chairmen Carroll Reece and Harrison Spangler, Minnesota's indefatigable Stassenite Mrs. F. Peavey Heffelfinger. Behind Dewey were many Westerners who resented the idea of a Wall Streeter in the chairmanship. Also behind Dewey was old Joe Grundy.

It was nip & tuck all the way. With all 48 states accounted for, Gabrielson and Beck were locked solid 45 votes to 45. Alaska's one vote put Beck ahead. Then Gabrielson went into the lead with two votes each from the District of Columbia, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Before the final vote was announced, one Nebraska committeeman switched his vote to give Gabrielson a bare majority of 52.

A Promise of Neutrality. The winning margin was not calculated to make the future any easier for Chairman Gabrielson. To smooth over old party rifts and put the G.O.P. back on a paying basis would take more than ordinary talents for diplomacy and organization.

A self-made businessman, a graduate of Harvard Law School, Gabrielson is 58, a calm, pipe-smoking conservative. He served four terms in the New Jersey state legislature, became speaker of the assembly, ran the state campaigns in 1936 and 1940. He supported Ohio's Bob Taft last year, was later peeved by Dewey's do-nothing campaign. He insists, however, that he will be neutral on the job: "The chairman's job is to elect candidates, not select them."

The Deweymen forces were completely routed. In a radio interview, retiring Chairman Scott admitted: "I certainly don't think that Mr. Dewey ought to run in 1952." New York's Committeeman J. Russel Sprague, who ran the Dewey floorshow in Philadelphia, put it more bluntly: "We New Yorkers . . . won't have a candidate in 1952. We'll just sit back and get some of the loving for a change."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.