who was Samuel Seabury, and how did he fit into the picture of a muni- cipal inquiry which was clearly partisan and of Repub- lican origin?
A clipping from an article in the New York Times, published on September 2, 1932, will perhaps prove illuminating. This article was a laudatory sketch of Judge Seabury’s career. It was entitled : “Seabury Long a Foe of Tammany Hall” and the concluding para- graphs were: “He served on the Court of Appeals from 1914 to 1916, during which he strengthened his position in the State as champion of progressive Democracy. So strong had he grown politically that in September, 1916, he won the nomination in a State-wide primary as Demo- cratic candidate for Governor of New York. Tammany endorsed him, but Tammany’s support was not evident beyond question on election day, while the Progressives, under Theodore Roosevelt, opposed him because he had declared himself for Woodrow Wilson. “Seabury ran a close race for the governorship against Whitman and it was generally thought at the time that he would have won if Roosevelt had endorsed 306 JIMMIE WALKER him, as Seabury expected him to do, and if Tam
