The Pittsburgh Press (October 23, 1944)
Flynn replies to Dewey charge
$25,000 fee called ‘moderate’
New York (UP) –
Edward J. Flynn, former Democratic National Chairman, denied last night Governor Thomas E. Dewey’s charge that his law firm had received an exorbitant fee from the Railroad Brotherhoods for political reasons and charged Mr. Dewey with signing a previously-vetoed bill which gave “hundreds of thousands of dollars which rightfully belonged to the City of New York” to clients of John Foster Dulles, Mr. Dewey’s foreign relations advisor.
In a statement issued at Democratic National Headquarters, Mr. Flynn said the fee, referred to in Mr. Dewey’s Pittsburgh speech, paid his firm, Goldwater & Flynn, for representing the brotherhoods before the Railway Labor Panel in February 1943, was “extremely moderate,” that he had nothing to do with the brotherhoods’ strike vote and never had discussed the matter with President Roosevelt.
Mr. Flynn charged Mr. Dulles with having found the “back stairs” to the Governor’s office and asserted further that he and other corporation lawyers would find the back stairs to the White House if Mr. Dewey were elected.
The bill, which Mr. Flynn did not refer to by name, was said to have been vetoed by former Governor Herbert H. Lehman and signed over the protest of Mayor F. H. La Guardia.