national campaign. Edwin Jaeckle of Buffalo had backed Dewey in 1938 and used the election results to win the State Chairmanship later that year. Jaeckle had become disgusted with the stagnant leadership of the New York GOP and used his position to recruit young, progressive candidates to rebuild the party from the ground up. Nassau County boss J. Russell Sprague had served as New York's member of the Republican National Committee since 1940 and supported Dewey partially for party unity, and partially to maintain his own power within his Long Island fiefdom. The third member of this triumvirate, attorney and former state legislator Herbert Brownell, was the chief tactician of the group.20 Like Dewey, Brownell had joined the New York Young Republican Club in the late 1920s just as it was challenging Tammany Hall. A transplant from Nebraska, Brownell graduated from Yale Law School in 1927 and began a promising legal career in Manhattan. He had a talent for political organization and quickly became one of the top precinct men for the Young Republicans. In 1930, he had run for the New York State Assembly on an anti-Tammany, pro-good government platform, but came up short despite his efforts to revive the local Republican organization. Dewey managed Brownell's campaign in that abortive effort. Two years later, Brownell won his seat by a 307 vote majority amidst the national Democratic landslide. His penchant for compromise made him a successful legislator in Albany and his ability for grass-roots organization and campaign management allowed him to defend his seat easily in 1934 and 1936.21 20 Dewey and his organization kept tabs on the delegations in every state and worked to gain the support of Bricker supporters and fence sitters. See Paul Lockwood, Memo to Edwin Jaeckle, 21 January 1944. Copy in Folder 2 (1944 Presidential Campaign Delegates), Box 15, Series II, Dewey Papers. 21 Smith, Thomas E. Dewey and his Times, 121-2.