Solid Gold Sulky

Governor Thomas Dewey, who got his flying start in politics as an investigator, is now in the embarrassing position of seeing some of his closest political friends caught in a Dewey-ordered investigation. Last week another chapter in New York's harness-racing scandal disclosed that some of the most highly placed Republicans in the state had made fantastic profits from the racket-ridden $272 million-a-year New York trotting tracks.

Sprague's Daughter. J. Russel Sprague, G.O.P. boss of Nassau County and longtime Dewey lieutenant, resigned from the Republican National Committee last fall when he was identified as an owner of stock in Yonkers Raceway. Last week Sprague testified that he still owns a large block of Yonkers stock and has netted $64,000 from holdings in Roosevelt Raceway in his own Nassau County. Race-Track Counsel George Morton Levy added that in 1946 Levy had bought $2,500 worth of Roosevelt stock for Sprague's daughter; this was listed in Levy's name "so that people wouldn't think Sprague owned it," and was sold for $150,000 last fall "in anticipation of these hearings."

Secretary of State Thomas J. Curran, Republican leader of Manhattan, said that he got $10,000 for introducing two lawyers who wanted to negotiate the purchase of the Yonkers track site. From another source, whose connections were never fully explained, Curran's wife got 500 shares of Yonkers stock. "I told him [the donor] not to," said Curran, "and I didn't think he would." Mrs. Curran hesitated for almost two years, however, before returning the stock just as the investigating commission was set up. Among other freeloading Republicans:

P: State Public Service Commissioner Benjamin Feinberg whose family collected dividends on stock held in his son-in-law's name. Purchase price, paid out of dividends: $2,100. Present worth: $100,000.

P:John R. Crews, Republican leader of Brooklyn, who invested $200 for stock now worth $20,000; and Frank Kenna, Queens borough boss, who harvested $2,800 in dividends from stock a friend bought on Kenna's tip.

P:Pat E. Provenzano, who abruptly resigned as assistant secretary of the state senate last fall, and last week disclosed that the Genesee Monroe Racing Association had been paying him $25,000 a year. Besides, he owned $180,000 worth of Yonkers stock.

On the Other Side. Some Democrats were among those exposed. Irving Sherman, pal of onetime Mayor William O'Dwyer and of underworld big shots, was named as the former owner, under another name, of $336,800 in Yonkers stock. Mrs. Jeanne Weiss, daughter of the late Democratic Leader Irving Steingut, paid $250 for Yonkers stock later valued at $45,000. James J. Dunnigan, son of a onetime Democratic state senator who co-authored the New York pari-mutuel gambling law, bought control of the Buffalo Raceway on a loan, put his father on the payroll for a seven-year total of $182,816. James himself, and other members of his family, did even better, clearing $511,000 within a ten-year period.

New York bubbled with speculation as to how the week's revelations would affect Tom Dewey's pending decision whether to run for another term as governor. Dewey himself gave no clue, but this week made it clear who had appointed the harness-racing investigators in the first place. "I instructed them to turn harness tracks upside down and inside out," said Dewey. "They have done exactly that."

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