over the world literally. there was sections of his area where he lived. there were russians, there were jews, there were people from italy, people from chinatown up the road. he lived in this enclave that was surrounded by all this. he would go blocks down the treated and there would be ships from all over the world. this shaped his image. he thought he knew america. he knew what it meant to be tolerant and see different ethnicities. this was his world. it's this melting pot. that caused a lot of problems. some of that came back to scene

phobia. some came back to anti religion, his accent. it was almost a kind of way for them to say you're foreign, you're not like us. >> we'll get to calls going to in just a minute. he went to work in about 1886 at 13 years old. where did he go to work? >> he had probably one of the toughest careers i've ever heard of. he starts by leaving early and he goes and sells newspapers. he goes to start -- after school i'm going to sell newspapers. he makes a few dollars that way. it's not enough. his mother incidentally had to go and get a job the day that they buried his father. she comes back from the funeral, goes back to the fore lady who lived in the neighborhood in the umbrella factory where she worked prior to marrying al smith sr. and gets her job back. it's not enough. she takes piece work home. not enough. smith selling papers, it's not enough. eventually he goes through a

rapid series of jobs, working in a small candy store his mother was the proprietor of. he goes and works in a company that is a truck spotting. he used to run around the south end, lower manhattan and pick up different trucks for his company and report them. don't come back. go to this spot. a truck spotter. eventually he gets the most famous job he's most well known for, fulton fish market. as a young man who's a teenager getting up at 4:00 in the morning rolling barrels, shoveling crushed ice, coming home smelling like fish. and he didn't get home -- he'd go there at 4:00 and get back at 4:00 in the afternoon. this led him into eventually getting a job with taniny hall where he wasn't getting up at 4:00, smelling like fish. the good thing about it was he got to take home all the fish he wanted which he used to joke about and say if you could pile all the fish up that him and his family ate it would rip the rafters off the capitol and slide down state street hill 15 feet deep. that's how poor he was. fulton fish market gave him a lot of free food. >> this is "the contenders."

we're talking about al smith and the 1928 presidential election. first up for our two guests is east greenbush new york, wayne, you're on c-span. wayne, you with us? >> i'm here. howdy. the question is twofold. one, just in what al smith's role and commitment was to both the new york state civil service system and labor. and how he championed that when he campaigned on the federal level. what specific things did he do to help reform new york state politics and particularly the civil service system and his commitment to labor? what did he do for the labor movement in new york state and later on the federal -- >> thank you, wayne. john evers. >> that's a really good point that always separated al smith when it came to labor issues. in 1911 there was the famous

triangle shirtwaist fire factory down in manhattan. smith was on the commission that was passed by the legislature to study labor law. and smith drew closer. he became good friends with francis perkins, schneiderman. in past in this very chamber, the labor laws which would regulate fire escapes, hours of service, health codes, workman's compensation. hand in hand with that probably was the advent of civil service. being a taminy man there was always rumors he wanted to pack everything with democrats. he used to say, and this grew up and it became more prevalent as he got towards the end of his gubernatorial career, is that the most qualified person should have the job. smith was well known to have people in his cabinet that were republicans, that were not enrolled. people that had nothing to do with government at all. in fact, his highway commissioner was a military engineer who had, i believe,

republican affiliations. so smith wanted the most qualified people around him. some of that bled over into the civil service. so he wanted to have good civil service and he also wanted to have strong labor relations. he stood up for those when it came to labor that were often shunted aside and the reactionary forces often in the republican party fought him on this. he took that nationally when he campaigned and had support of the afl/cio -- afl, i should say. the afl championed him in the state but not nationally in his 1928 campaign. >> beverly gates, those issues john evers was just talking about, were they -- did they play out nationally? and how strong were the forces behind those issues? >> they did. i think al smith's a really good example of someone who was sort of radicalized over the course of his time as a politician.

i mean, really starts out as an unexceptional taniny guy who is not putting forth particularly creative ideas from what anyone can tell. we toent doent know that much about what he was doing when he was an early assemblyman. but both through the kind of social turmoil that you had during the progressive era and then particularly through the triangle fire, which does seem to have been this kind of eye opening moment for him, 146 people die in this fire. right? they're mostly teenage girls. mostly teenage immigrant girls who are locked in on the eighth and ninth floor of the triangle shirtwaist building. they're forced to jump to their deaths. so he ends up on this commission. and he becomes sort of a true progressive in both what i would say is the sort of radical and not radical sense of that word. when he begins to work on the commission, they revamp fire

codes, they pass legislation to protect women and children. and so he becomes an advocate of kind of paternalistic labor, labor laws and of revamping building codes. he's never a super strong supporter of kind of grassroots organizing from its base. and one of the things that's often left out of the triangle story is the fact that there had been strikes under way at that factory and throughout the shirtwaist industry. and that doesn't really become something that he champions in quite the same way that he does champion legislation that's going to e meal yor rate industrial conditions. that's very much his stance by the time he's running for president in the 1920s. the 1920s are not a good decade for american labor. and so he's -- it's not one of the big issues of the campaign. but, nonetheless, he holds on to this progressive tradition. one other thing that's worth noting as well, i actually first encountered al smith when i was doing some research on a bombing that happened in new york in 1920 which was this attack on

wall street at the time. but i encountered al smith because he had just become governor. and this was in the midst of the red scare after the first world war. and five socialist assembly men who had been seated and voted in from districts in new york and had been seated in the new york assembly were thrown out. and al smith actually turned out to be a champion of their right to stay in the assembly. there was a lot of concern in the wake of bull she vick revolution. al smith stood up. he said they have every right to be here. he was one of the great champions and one of the few voices speaking out in favor of a very broad vision of democracy and political opinion at that point. >> john evers, knowing what you do about al smith, how do you think he'd feel about the current occupy wall street movement down in new york. >> that would be interesting. smith always championed -- it was just the luck of the draw -- the underdog.

because he was an underdog. when smith -- we talked about the socialists. smith went out there and took on popular stances. he got up there in 1920 and told the speaker of the assembly the next day, i'm going to put out a press release championing the right of these people to hold their seats. and it just -- it was flabber gasting. no one would do that. we're in the middle of a red scare. these people are anarchists. the same with labor. smith would go and settle labor strikes when he was governor by sending not only state employees from the labor department but in one case francis perkins, a woman who had to settle an upstate labor dispute. they'd say he's not only sending government people, he's sending women now. he was unconventional when it came to that. it was an entering wedge into more diversity when it came to new york state government. when it comes to something like that, i think smith would probably look at it and say, what is it for the best -- good of the people? he would not in his early days a big champion of big business.

>> francis in cincinnati, thanks for holding. you're on "the contenders" on c-span. go ahead. >> good evening. i have been privileged to have gone to school in albany. and i would like to know if you could address the back -- financial backing that al smith had by john j.rascop and the contention that there was because smith was catholic. thank you very much. >> francis, where did you go to school here in albany. we've got several colleges represented in our audience this evening in the assembly. >> i went to the academy of the sacred heart on south pearl street which unfortunately has been closed and is now for sale. >> okay, frances. thank you very much. the financial question. >> rascoff --

>> who is john j.rascoff? >> who was the very good friend of the due pont family and key people at general motors. he was a multimillionaire. as i mentioned earlier, early in his career smith was not a huge champion of business. he voted as he was told to vote. he later on drifted more towards pro-business. that was after the roosevelt fallout and the american -- the liberty league. but rascoff was a multimillionaire, and he wanted to be involved in politics. and he got to be friends with al smith, and smith makes him the head of his campaign in 1928 much to the consternation of many people around him who said this guy's not a politician. he's not active in democratic politics. why are you doing in? a lot of people thought it was because of the money. later in life smith also became good friends with many people, bill kenny was one, rordan was another. these new york irishmen who made a lot of money, became

millionaires and gave smith jobs. made him head of the empire state building corporation. rascoff on that time was a -- smith wanted him as a friend. of course, he brought a lot of money. >> right. i think it's true. the question that came up about what would he think about occupy wall street, it really depends which al smith we're talking about. and, you know, al smith -- there's al smith as a young man who's really, as i said, just a kind of straightforward taniny politician. he's voting as taminy tells him to vote. he's coming up through the ranks. there are no glimmers of greatness through the years. then he becomes this progressive politician both as governor of new york and when he's running for president in 1928 and throughout the 1920s. after that, he takes a turn in which he becomes deeply, deeply hostile, actually not only to the new deal but takes up some of the kind of red baiting tactics that he himself had fought so hard against.

in terms of trying to judge how is smith going to respond to the social movements of his day, some of which were deeply anti-wall street, it kind of depends when you run into him. if you got him at the right moment, he would have been, i think, exactly as john says. he would have been kind of gesturing in support if not being deeply in support. later in his life he would have been calling them communists. >> john evers, before we got started you pointed out where al smith sat in the chamber as a member of the assembly. he started out somewhere in the back, you said. >> way -- >> unexceptional, as beverly gauge said at that point, right? >> way in the back. seat 143, i thipg it was. he used to say he used to get confused with the bystanders and visitors. that was before they had microphones. for two full years he never spoke. which is hard to believe. >> and then he sat in two seats that are right here where we've got two gentlemen. we've got jeman here with the beard raising his hand. >> the majority leader. >> and when he served as

majority leader of the assembly. and this gentleman over here in the tie. yes, you. >> that's when smith was the minority leader. that was in 1911. smith became majority leader when the democrats took over. in 1912 they went into the minority. and then in 1913, he wound up being the speaker. so he sat -- >> right behind us is the speaker's chair. but right off the chamber, maybe 20 steps from where we're sitting, is the speaker's office that al smith used. the current speaker, of course, sidney sheldon -- sheldon silver, i'm so sorry about that, uses the office there. there is a portrait of al smith. >> they came from the same district. both democrats. both were speaker of the assembly. it's interesting that when you talk about -- it's almost 100 years ago that smith was

speaker. and 100 years later we have a speaker from the same district, same political party. the neighborhood is still a very diverse neighborhood. smith became speaker on a fluke. new york state reapportionment was so heavily weighted in favor of the republicans that the democrats rarely held this chamber. smith was here 12 years. he was only in the majority twice. and it was only became democratic, once in the '30s. then you had to go all the way in the '60s before the democrats took over. i think smith would be most proud to see that the democratic party finally got the equal representation it needed when they changed the whole voting system in new york to match federal one man, one vote. you could then allow new york city to send its proper amount of legislators to new york and it's resulted in another manhattan speaker. >> well, we talked with speaker sheldon silver about al smith. here's what he had to say. >> well, i think he was a man ahead of his time.

you know, his reaction to the triangle shirtwaist fire, putting in legislation to deal with child labor, with labor generally, providing rights. you know, we today commemorate that triangle shirtwaist fire. we commemorated the 100th anniversary of it in the legislative session. but all of the legislation protecting workers are things that we in the assembly do today. al smith when he was then the governor of the state, you know, he talked about having the wealthier pay a little bit more. you know, he had some great quotes about it. you know, i remember one -- i actually wrote one down because it's as appropriate today as it was in 1930. and he said, what do we say about our colleagues who reject

an income tax amendment? what do they say? they reject it. why? they were unwilling to say that great wealth ought to bear its share of the burden of government. they're unwilling to subscribe to the indisputable principle that he who benefits the most should pay the most. and that was al smith in 1930. and that debate is taking place today again. >> john evers, that portrait or that photograph of al smith that's in that speaker's office, when was that taken? >> that was probably taken when he was the speaker. a very young man. smith was elected to the assembly when he was only about 30 years old. and so he would probably be in that picture, you know, mid-30s or so. maybe close to 35, 36 or so. that might have been one of his official portraits as an assemblyman and it might very well have been his portrait as

the speaker. >> how powerful was the speaker of the house -- speaker of the new york assembly and how does that compare with the power today? >> well, the speaker is always the most powerful person. i'd say it was comparable. back then when smith was just starting out, and as i mentioned he sat way in the back row, he didn't even meet the speaker, fred nixon from chautauqua county until three days before the session adjourned. the speaker back then was almost regal. today it's more -- the power is more diffuse. there's more people -- more chairmen. it's not as arbitrary as it used to be. still the speaker has tremendous control over the bills that come to the floor, over the chairmen that are made chairmen, who's on what committees, what the program will be. it's still a key job. one of the three most powerful in the state, the senate leader, assembly leader and the governor. >> beverly gage, state politics

in new york, 19 -- the teens, and today. >> well, as i said, new york is this key state nationally. but it has its own particular political culture. and i think in many ways reflects some of the same things we see today. the difference between your sort of urban core, your new york, at that time largely dominated although not exclusively by a taminy machine. upstate new york you've got cultural differences, you've got political differences there. and because you had all of these differences, it was always a question of what kinds of issues you were actually going to be able to deal with at the state level. one of the things i guess that al smith really ends up doing as governor, as i understand it, john, anyway, is that he tries to make it possible for the governor to do more than he's been able to do. it's not a particularly strong post at that point. certainly for taminy hall your power is really concentrated in

nu nye city. and so al smith is sort of an ambassador from the city to the rest of the state in certain ways. but he's also trying to make it possible in this kind of progressive impulse to actually make more things possible, to consolidate a little bit of executive power up here in albany in ways that you hadn't seen before. >> and we'll talk about his career. as for term governor of new york after we take this call from ft. lauderdale. hi, neil, you're on "the contenders." >> how are you guys this evening, lady and je e men. first of all a commentary and then a question. your forum is absolutely incredibly stimulating. i have the credentials you both do. i consider myself an armchair historian. as far as mr. smith is concerned, catholicism should not enter into the picture. he was clearly a proponent of the middle class and pro-labor.

gene yunly well intended individual. i was wonder ing iftoday if we had a candidate running for the presidency of the united states, would a candidate with mr. smith's mindset be able to pull it off? but despite that, thank you so much. and i enjoy watching. >> beverly gage. >> yeah. i think that's a really interesting question. i think you're absolutely right. smith goes through a very weird political transition in the 1930s. after he's lost the presidential election, he really does flip on a lot of what he stood for up to that point. i know we're going to get to talking about that a little bit later in the show. but he was a populist of sorts. he wasn't an absolute populist and he certainly wasn't a william jennings bryan populist. he was a sort of urban populist. think it's absolutely true that

he's an advocate of the middle class. he himself is a figure who embodies and then advertises that he embodies the kind of working your way up through the american system from childhood of poverty up to success. and so would a candidate today who had that kind of populist message or at least pseudopopulist message, would it be successful? i think it's really hard to say. i mean, smith was not particularly successful in his day ultimately on the national stage. and i think populism has had a kind of mixed history in the united states. >> is there a politician today that you would compare to al smith? >> i don't know. i was thinking about this. in today's race, he might be more of the technocrat. populism itself that smith embodied was almost like a

compassionate technocrat. fdr later said, i don't know why al smith's complaining. i'm just doing in d.c. what al smith did in new york and what fdr did in new york. with the way that the economy is today and the debates over government and smart sizing, smith would probably lick his lips and say i'd love to go to d.c. and try to figure this out. that's what he did in albany. and he did in a republican state with a republican legislature. so even the discussions now with the bipartisan gridlock and everything, smith had that in new york. so he would probably sell himself very well today by saying, i've done this in new york. i've battled the legislature that's hostile. i know how to get government under control. i know how to get the economy back moving again. so i think he would be seen almost as a technocrat. not flashy. but probably some of that would be almost the brain trust kind of guy. >> james in dayton, ohio, good

evening. james? >> yes. i was wondering if -- i know that al smith lost the election in 1928. in 1929, of course, wall street collapsed initiating the great depression. i was wondering if he had any party platform which might have contributed to, perhaps, avoiding that -- anything that would check margin trading, any of the other abuses by the moneyed classes on wall street which led to that collapse and then ultimately the depression. if he had been elected in 1928, would he have done anything that might have possibly avoided and/or diminished the effects of the depression that followed? >> thank you, james. beverly gage? >> one would like to be able to say yes. if al smith had been elected, none of the -- none of the depression ever would have happened. wall street would have -- i don't think that that's true.

i don't think on economic issues by 1928, i mean, the 1920s turn out to be a relatively conservative decade on things like labor policy. smith himself is not running an anti-wall street campaign in 1928. and the real sort of progressive candidate had been four years earlier. that was bob la follett running in 1924 on a progressive party platform as the progressive candidate. and that had a much more sort of vocal anti-wall street sentiment. it had much more strict set of regulations and had a lot more focus on economic issues. so, unfortunately, i don't think that smith actually would have done a whole lot significantly different. and i'm not sure, to be honest, that any president was really in a position to foresee what was coming or really had the tools at that point to prevent it from happening. >> i think that -- that's kind of what hoover at the end with

his reconstruction finance corporation and the ideas and i'm going to experiment with government intervention and this, i heard somebody say, a historian say once, that if smith had run and won in 1928, hoover would have been the obvious type of candidate in 1932. because they'd say, this is what we need. we need a businessman. we need somebody that's a model of getting the economy going. so i think no matter who won in '28, they would have been unprepared, at least at first, to stop this avalanche of financial ruin. >> let's take it back ten years. 1918. al smith is elected governor of new york for the first time. how? >> the accidental governor. it took al smith until maybe 1925 or '26 to get it in the minds of the republican party in new york state that he wasn't going to lose. he runs in 1928 against charles whitman.

>> 1918. >> 1918. lost to history. but charles whitman -- maybe it wouldn't have been harding. maybe it would have been charles whitman if he had beat smith. smith unseats this sitting governor largely because there's a flu epidemic. he campaigns around upstate new york. he turns out the new york city vote. he wins by a very slight margin. he gets in there. and in 1919 and 1920 the legislature just crosses its arms and says we're not going to do any of these things. >> republican legislature. >> republican assembly and republican senate. but smith starts the campaign right off by saying i'm going to have a reconstruction commission capitalizing on the transition from wartime economy to the private sector economy. he starts saying -- pay as you

go. we're going to bond so that we can have capital improvements spread out for many years instead of just having the infrastructure start to crumble. so he's got a lot of these great ideas. the legislature said this guy will never win in 1920. that'll be the presidential year. back then new york governors ran at the same time that the presidents ran and the coat tails were long. sure enough, smith gets re-elected in 1920. has very little to show. >> he loses in 1920. >> he loses in 1920. he's got very little to show when he goes up to 1920. and they run a very conservative upstate republican who wins. sure enough, al smith goes away. that's what everybody thought. that he'd never come back. he does run again in 1922. and then in '24. and then in '26. he starts to avalanche his success. >> but at the same time, all of his elections for governor are pretty close. >> they're close until the last

two. he has a very, very close election, which is like 15,000 votes, in 1918. he loses somewhat of a close election in 1920. the ticket, the national democratic ticket in 1920 goes down in new york state by over 1 million votes. smith only loses by 75,000. that's where one famous person said to him, it was like swimming up niagara falls and you came the closest that anybody ever did. he comes back in 1922 and wins a squeaker. then in 1924 he starts to add to his totals and he wins against teddy roosevelt jr. and then ogden mills in '26. he didn't have light opponents, either. it was only in the 1920s when he terms start to pay -- come to fruition. in 1919, 1920 he's seen as the stenl governor. >> 1920 women get the vote. does that make a difference in al smith's electoral career? >> al smith is intereg