best in entertainment, often giving potential supporters baseball, boxing, and theater

tickets.8 While the tangible effect of these tactics is impossible to quantify, the Albany

group had the financial resources and the geographic base to provide the finest

hospitality, making a meeting with Dewey more attractive for potential delegates.

 Aviation magnate Harold Talbott supervised Dewey's fund-raising effort but

limited most of his activities to corporate executives and scions of the wealthy rather

than smaller, grass-roots contributions. Active in Republican politics since 1940,

Talbott had solicited donations for the GOP in the 1944 campaign and had remained

an ardent Dewey backer. In 1947 and 1948, Talbott went outside of the party fund-

raising apparatus and contacted former donors directly. He also organized dinners for

small groups of industrialists to meet with Dewey and discuss his programs and their

impact on the business community. These meetings often led to sizable contributions

and kept the coffers filled.9 Talbott's operation raked in thousands of dollars for the

Dewey campaign and gave the Governor a firm foothold on the climb to the 1948

Republican National Convention, making him the darling of the business community.

 The Dewey camp ran a tightly-constructed, well-oiled pre-convention machine.

Brownell, Russell, and Sprague each managed a number of states and cultivated

support for a Dewey nomination through correspondence, telephone calls, and face to

face meetings. Taft, however, entered the 1948 election cycle grossly underestimating

Dewey's efforts. In March 1946, Taft admitted that Dewey showed signs of being an

active candidate, but by December those thoughts had all but disappeared.10 The Taft


8 Thomas Stephens, Letter to William Pheiffer, 15 June 1948. Copy in Folder 2 (Delegate File), Box
40, Series II, Dewey Papers.

9 Harold E. Talbott, Letter to Thomas E. Dewey, 31 January 1948. Copy in Folder 12 (1948 Dewey -
Memorandum To), Box 40, Series II, Dewey Papers.

10 Letter, Robert A. Taft to R.A. Forster, 21 March 1946. Copy in Folder (Politics 1946 (1)), Box
878, Taft Papers.