As a four-term Governor of New York and 1928 Democratic presidential nominee, Alfred E. Smith was celebrated as an honest politician in a corrupt milieu. But a chapter deleted from the recently published autobiography of Thomas L. Chadbourne, a wheeling-dealing corporation lawyer, claims that during the 1920s Chadbourne gave Smith cash and stock options worth $400,000. The motive was high-minded: the payments were designed to augment Smith's $10,000-a-year Governor's salary so the Happy Warrior could live "without bread-and- butter worries." Chadbourne, who died in 1938, admits he was miffed when Smith later refused to support a subway-fare increase, which would have...
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