BITTER ATTACK ON AL. SMITH.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18576, 26 September 1928, Page 4

BITTER ATTACK ON AL. SMITH.

DECLARED TO STAND FOR TAMMANY METHODS. (United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) NEW YORK, September 24. A report from Warren, Ohio, states that the bitterest personal attack upon Governor Alfred. Smith, the Democratic Presidential nominee, thus far made by an important Republican official was to-night launched by Mrs Mabel Walker Willebrandt, Assistant Federal Attorney-General, and one of Mr Hoover’s closest advisers. In an address before a group of Presbyterians here she declared that Mr Smith’s policy of “retreat” on prohibition was in line with his “ years of Tammany training.” She alleged that Tammany had always protected the saloons and that Mr Smith’s Tammany connection was a serious reason for opposition to him. She said; “Mr Smith has not enlarged the horizon of his early life, and has used the forces of Tammany and the underworld as stepping-stones, with the inevitable political obligations thereby imposed.” She quoted from the Encyclopaedia Britannica to back her statement that Tammany was an organisation of corruption, blackmail and vice.—Australian Press Association.