1901, i think. please edit that. the -- mckinley is assassinated and it's blamed on -- in a lot of the media, it's blamed on the hurst press. because william randolph hurst papers tended to be democratic and thend are tended to rabble-rouse about rich and poor. >> the other papers were blaming? yes, the more staid papers especially. by that time the hearst papers were ultra sensationalistic and there were other sober papers like "the new york times." and it basically discredits. it's one of the things that seriously discredits old-style, super-partisan journalism when -- the president got killed because they -- of the way they whipped up the people. you're watching american history tv all weekend, every

weekend on c-span3. for more information, follow us on twitter @c-spanhistory. now, the contenders, our 14-week series on key political figures who ran for president and lost but nevertheless changed political history. we feature former governor of new york al smith who was the democratic presidential candidate in 1928. this two-hour program was recorded at the new york state assembly chamber in albany, new york. each sunday at this time through labor day weekend, you can watch "the contenders" on "american history tv" on c-span3. i come here tonight to the al smith dinner knowing i'm the underdog in these final weeks. but if you know where to look, there are signs of hope. there are signs of hope, even in the most unexpected places, even in this room full of proud manhattan democrats, i can't shake that feeling that some

people here are pulling for me. i'm delighted to see you here tonight, hillary. >> i was thrilled to get this invitation, and i feel right at home here because it's often been said that i share the politics of alfred e. smith and the ears of alfred e. newman. it is an honor to be here with al smith. i obviously never knew your great grandfather. from everything senator mccain has told me -- [ laughter ] the two of them had a great time together before prohibition. >> of course i am delighted but not surprised by the final repeal of the 18th amendment. i felt all along that when this matter was properly submitted to the rank and file of our people, they would readily see that it had no place in our constitution. it would be very difficult, if

not impossible to estimate the benefits that would come to this country from the lessons taught to the coming generations to make it their business to see that no such matter as this is ever again made the subject of federal constitutional law. >> and you've been listening to the 2008 presidential nominees talking at that year's annual al smith dinner followed by al smith himself talking about the lifting of prohibition in 1933. hello and welcome to "the contender" series. we come to you live from the new york state assembly chamber in albany, new york, where al smith served for 12 years before being elected governor and becoming the democratic nominee for president in 1928. our guests for the next two hours as we relive the 1928 presidential election and the life and career of al smith,

john evers, the former historian for the new york state assembly and a phd candidate at suny albany and doing his dissertation on al smith and also joined by beverly gage of yale university, the author of "the day wall street exploded." she is a history professor there. professor gage, if you could, set the scene for us to begin. 1928, the united states. what was going on in this country? what were some of the issues that were going to be discussed in the 1928 election? >> the 1928 election is one of the most interesting and one of the most interesting and also one of the most vicious elections in american history. we have two candidates who, i think, really embody two different sorts of americas that are coming into conflict in the elections. we have al smith who is the subject tonight. al smith is urban. he's from new york city. he's an irishman. he is catholic and he represents

a kind of immigrant urban america that has come of age in the last 30 years. on the other side, as a republican candidate we have herbert hoover who in many ways could hardly be more different from al smith. he's from the midwest, from iowa. he is very strait-laced. he's distinctly non-urban. he's pious. he wears very starchy collars, and these two men in 1928 as they go up for the presidential election really encapsulate some of the most important cultural and political clashes of that moment, clashes over prohibition, to some degree clashes over the economy. but in many ways this turns out to be a cultural election that hinges on which of these two americas is the america that's going to be voted into office. >> it's been said the three ps influenced this election, in 1928, prohibition, prejudice and prosperity.

>> i think the three ps really do capture it. on prohibition, we have al smith who is one of the nation's most outspoken opponents of prohibition. prohibition has been in effect by 1928 for almost a decade. it has been a real problem for most of that time, and throughout al smith, like many urban politicians, has said that it's a bad idea, not only because it infringes on americans' freedoms, but because it's causing a law enforcement crisis and there are many people who are quite concerned about this by 1928. so what's going to happen to prohibition is one of the big questions. we have herbert hoover on the other side. in terms of prosperity, as you might imagine, both of them are running in favor of prosperity. the problem for al smith is you've had eight years of republican rule, first warren harding and followed by calvin coolidge. so the republicans sort of have a leg up on the prosperity

front. you have the 1920s, a boom decade for wall street, for large segments of the economy, although less for farmers and agriculture at that point. that's our second p. that's our second "p." i think the darkest part of this election and the reason i said it really is one of the most vicious elections in american history is our third "p." is the question of prejudice. and al smith -- i think most americans today are probably more familiar with john kennedy as a catholic candidate. and even in 1960, that causing a real stir, a real set of questions about the presidency, but al smith raised all of those questions much earlier in 1928 which already had been a decade that has been seized with a lot of questions about immigration, immigration reform, the rise of the ku klux klan and those come into play in his candidacy. >> john evers, the role of catholicism in the 1928 election, how did it play out? >> well, it was a vicious campaign.

smith was not -- this was not new to him, when he ran in new york state to be governor of new york state he faced it then. in 1914, martin glen who assumed the office of governor, faced anti-catholic prejudice. it showed up in the 1915 constitutional convention as a bit of a whispering campaign. smith went into this a full year in advance of the campaign knowing this would be an issue. in fact, he addressed this issue in 1927 in his reply to the "atlantic monthly" discussing why a catholic man could be president, which was a very good statement, although it was intellectual. it went over everybody's heads and it didn't help his campaign. >> as we mentioned earlier, we are in the new york state assembly chamber in albany, new york, in the new york state capitol building, finished in 1894. we're also pleased to have join us a studio audience of albany area residents, some college students, some historians, some

interested in al smith folks here. and they'll also have a chance to ask some questions of our two guests about al smith and the 1928 election as will you. we'll put the phone numbers up on the screen. we're not going to take phone calls up for a little while. we'll put them up on the screen so you can start to dial in now. this is the sixth in our 14-week series "the contenders," the focus, 1928 election, al smith. 202-737-0001 in east and the center of -- central time zones. 202-737-0002 if you live in mountain and pacific time zones. john evers, what kind of candidate was al smith in 1928? >> he was a fighter. if you look at him and you see the short stature and the pugnaciousness of him. his gravelly voice comes out. this is one of the first campaigns where radio plays a

role. he campaigns from the back of trains which is very common, but he goes out there and tries to engage america on issues important to americans. as we already talked about, they didn't want to talk about those issues. prosperity was there. so he couldn't talk about issues and say, i'm the candidate of prosperity. that's the republican party. he wanted to talk about water power. his speeches were well reasoned. on paper he was a fantastic candidate. but he just was swimming uphill the whole time. >> beverly gage, electoral vote count at the end of 1928, 444 for herbert hoover, 87 for al smith. what states did he win and why? >> well, it was definitely a blow-out election. and i think the real -- in some ways we can almost say so al smith, maybe he should thank his lucky stars he didn't win the 1928 election and herbert hoover -- we might remember al smith's name a little more, but

what would we remember him for? i think it was really one of these blow-out elections and i think it was really heartbreaking for smith and submit's supporters in part because it had been such a nasty campaign. one of the big questions of the election ultimately became was it prosperity? was it simply the fact that republicans could take credit for this boom decade and, therefore, smith really never had a chance, or was it a rejection of all the things that smith really felt deeply and he stood for? i think smith really took that to heart. he was very concerned about that and the real nastiness of that campaign. he had some support but not a whole lot. >> there's a fourth "p" i want to talk about, and that's progressivism. al smith was known as a progressive during his time in the legislature, as governor. did that play an issue at all? how were progressive politics identified back in this era? >> progressivism, when you think about it as a historical

phenomenon, you think about it as a turn of the century phenomenon that begins around 1900, teddy roosevelt as our pioneer progressive. what it means by the 1920s is very hard to define in many ways. there were people who called themselves progressives who supported prohibition and who were very impassioned about it. there were people who called themselves progressives who opposed prohibition like al smith and were also very impassioned about it. the basic idea of progressivism was a sense that had come about and that al smith really did stand for, that you could use government in new and sort of proactive ways to deal with some of the really pressing social and industrial conditions that americans faced back in the early part of the 20th century. al smith as governor and then running as a candidate for president, really tried to make that case. he changes his mind a little bit later when the new deal comes along.

we'll get to that probably. that was really the basic idea of progressivism, was the idea that you could use federal power in some significant way to really change people's lives for the better. >> i think that's a key point about smith is, we talk about the new deal today and all the programs, the social security issues, all the things that fdr brought in. when smith ran for president, he had experimented with all these things in new york state. he was a champion of the labor issue. he was a champion of hydroelectric power, a champion of parks and recreation. he was one that wanted to spend money for the social programs of new york state. they were all forerunners of the new deal. when he ran in 1928 people didn't want to hear that issue. it was overclouded by prosperity, a whispering campaign about his religion, it was this unknown politician with this thick new york accent that came out to the farm country. even smith when he campaigned -- in fact, he had one funny story, he was driving on the train through wyoming.

they were about an hour out. he sees a horse out in the field and says, oh, we must be getting close to civilization, there's a horse there. the guy says no, that's a wild horse, we have about an hour to go. it showed how much smith was out of his element. he said, oh, okay. he was really used to new york. and i think the country was used to somebody other than a new yorker. they were used to that prosperity, calvin coolidge, warren harding, herbert hoover. >> if you were elected governor of new york in this time, were you a shoo-in or automatic for consideration on the national stage? >> absolutely. al smith was nominated -- it was always the favorite son candidacies. when the first balloting happened in 1920, they nominated al smith for president. >> in 1920? >> in 1920. it went one round. of course they dropped the votes and they go with -- eventually it was cox from ohio. in 1924 they really went out for smith. it was in new york city, 103

ballots. eventually he has to withdraw and they had a compromise candidate, also a new yorker. in 1928, of course, he wins the nomination. all through history, the new york governor, this is even modern history, the new york governor is considered presidential material. if you look at the people who have run and won and those who have run and lost, you'll see new yorkers all through history. >> i'll jump in there. yeah, and i think that it's -- new york was incredibly important. there really were two key political states, new york was one of them. ohio was the other one. they kept producing president after president. i don't think we really have states quite like that anymore. maybe we could look to something like texas. it's also not just within the democratic party. you see when you look at the republican party, teddy roosevelt, charles evans hughes, all these figures coming out of new york politics. when you look at the democratic party, you see al smith, you see franklin roosevelt.

new york as a state has two machines really going, and it has a pretty significant national effect. >> two machines? >> the famous machine is the tammany machine, but the republicans had an incredibly powerful network as well. >> what is tammany hall? >> tammany hall is technically just the new york city democratic party. the manhattan democratic party. tammany hall from the mid 19th century was best known as the machine of machines in urban america. it was identified as a primarily irish machine, a machine in new york that really depended on neighborhood power, word power, and that was as much about sort of taking care of your neighborhood and coming up through the neighborhood as it was anything really about national politics. tammany, absolutely the most powerful force, certainly in new york city politics at that moment, but really in new york state democratic politics as well.

>> john evers, how did tammany hall fit into the 1928 election? >> that was the brush that painted smith into a corner. we talk about the religion issue. this started at the convention in 1928. tammany hall would go to the conventions, and they'd always have -- as we said, new york was a key state. they would nominate the democratic candidates. in fact, many elections we had both a democratic candidate and republican candidate from new york state like teddy roosevelt ran in 1924 against alton brooks barker, the chief judge in new york state. court of appeals. one was a republican, one was a democrat. tammany hall was always seen as the corrupt machine. it was seen as boss tweed, people like william jennings bryan would rant and rave about tammany. he wanted their votes, but didn't want a tammany man there. they didn't want them pulling the strings. eventually smith is the tammany man and the candidate. it shocked many of the people within the democratic party.

>> al smith lost new york in the 1928 election. >> he did. he had the sad fate of losing the race for president of the united states, in seeing his hand-picked successor win. as we've already discussed -- >> for governor. >> for governor. fdr wins. it smith the dynamics of smith/roosevelt relation. ultimately roosevelt winds up where smith wanted to be and smith winds up in retirement. >> we will get into that. beverly gage, when we asked you prior to the show some of the issues you thought were important to the 1928 election, one that you mentioned was the role of the media in 1928. why? >> i think particularly for al smith he had come of age as a media battler, particularly william randolph hurst was after him and after him, one of the most powerful newspaper tycoons in the country. smith i think had a certain amount of confidence by 1928 that he knew how to fend off

these kind of press attacks, but ultimately in the election, one of the interesting things about the catholic issue is we now understand it to have been absolutely crucial to this election. submit openly acknowledged it. but a lot of it was done and talked about through innuendo. john mentioned earlier the idea of a whispering campaign, right? it wasn't something that was going to be said in the press. but at the same time, the press was going to kind of feed into these images. and so i think smith, from my reading of it anyway, was sort of behind from the first with the press, in part because there was so much coded language being used. in part because the press liked the irascible, feisty personality. they liked to write about it but were also quite contemptuous of it and fed a public narrative that didn't accord him the respect he might have deserved.

>> i think one of the things interesting about smith and the press is he loved the press. he used to hold press conferences here in albany. the press corps got to be very close to him. he had a great relationship with what's on the record and off the record. except for the battles with hurst and nosh state. he really enjoyed that. when he left the safe confines of new york state and there were papers that weren't friendly to him and wouldn't cover the issues that were important in the campaign, smith was greatly hurt by that. he also wasn't used to the media of the day. used to call the microphone that you'd speak into, right in the roster up here, he accepted the nomination from president of the united states. he didn't like to read prepared speeches. smith used to write. he'd take out of his coat pocket an envelope and read everything on the backs of envelopes, long after lincoln, i guess. he used to have that custom of saying these are the points i'm going to make and i'm going to address the nation on these

things and i'm going to speak from the heart. when the campaign started to be more of the prepared speech, he was not used to that. he was used to getting down and doing the campaign the old way, meeting people and greeting them. >> just to jump in, you talked about the rise of radio, and i think that made a huge difference in how americans were able to perceive smith. he was a new york guy, i will not attempt -- do you want to attempt to do an al smith impersonation? >> no, i don't have a deep enough voice. >> people could hear him, and he sounded foreign. he didn't sound like he came from another country, but he sounded different from them, and that became another big issue in the campaign. >> so this was the first time ever that people were able to hear in mass media their candidates, correct? >> oh, yeah. there was always -- as radio started to get bigger and the media started to circulate, and

tv came later, and people would hear the campaigns from the political machines, and they would read it in the paper. they didn't see the candidate, let alone hear the candidate. when you have a candidate that comes out there and pronounces radio rado, people would say, is this guy foreign? that added to that whispering campaign. >> again, we are live from the new york state assembly chamber in albany, new york. "the contenders," al smith. this is our sixth week. we're look at al smith, four-time governor of new york, 1928 presidential nominee for the democrats. throughout the two hours we will be talking about al smith, we will turn to the election as often as the callers and questioners want to, but we want

to learn a little bit about what and where al smith came from. here is a little of al smith talking about how he was raised. >> i was born in a little house right under the brooklyn bridge. you know the bridge was erected when i was a small boy. my father was at the oakland ceremony. and when he came home, he said alfred, i've just witnessed a great spectacle, but at the same time, a very bitter disappointment. >> what did he mean? >> here's the story as he told it to me. he said son, this bridge has kept thousands of men work for years. the steam cables, concrete, the wiring, the machinery. cost millions of dollars. today was the opening. bands were playing. flags were waving. they cut the tape and finally it happened. >> what happened? >> why, they found out that all you could do was go to brooklyn.

>> this is the neighborhood where al smith grew up. it was down by the fulton fish market, and he raised his children here. and he went to school in the same area right around the block until eighth grade. and he had to go off to work to support his mother and sister. but this is where his accent came from. this is where it all began for him. it was all irish and italian. they came off from over there from ellis island and they settled in here and they got involved through this neighborhood and grew from there. >> and that second speaker we heard, of course, was al smith the iv, and his great grandson. what is the lower east side and

its importance in al smith's career? >> the first thing is i never knew vocal cords could be inherited. that sounded a little like his greatgrandfather. the lower east side is the southern tip of manhattan. that's where smith was from, a little on the southeast side. it was a port. it was not like it is today. but there were ships. smith wrote when he was a kid that that was his playground. he came from an irish family, but it's interesting that it's not well known, although it's being rediscovered now, smith's father was actually from german and italian roots, but smith used to claim he didn't know this, and he probably didn't. he grew up in the bustling area. the sent you were of -- he used to work, sell papers. the sad part about smith's early life and what shaped him forever, he lost his father very young. he was about 12. his father was a trucking man, a teamster, and he would cart

goods up through the city, and he died young, and he never graduated from the 8th grade. if you trace his red bookin' trees which is the official biographies of the new york state assemblymen, he said he graduated from the 8th grade, which was not true, and he inherited his father's truck business, which was not true. but that might have been consciousness of sitting in a place with wealthy men from upstate. but the struggling diehard neighborhood shaped him forever and made him tough. for the rest of his life, it was a catholic church, a family, a democratic party. >> so he went through seventh grade? >> he had to leave a month or two prior to graduating 8th grade because things were too tough at home. >> paint the larger picture, what was new york like in 1873?

>> well, 1873, new york is growing increasingly different actually from the rest of the country in many ways. so at that point we are eight years out from the end of the civil wars, and that remains for much of the country the dominant political fact of recent history. in nrk -- new york, you're beginning to see the country change in interesting ways. you had this first massive wave of immigration from places like ireland, from places like germany, and irish and german immigrants had settled the city. by the time you're getting into the 1870s, '80s, '90s, in particular, you're beginning to get waves of immigration from new areas. so new york is really becoming the way that we think about it, as a kind of paulyglot city, and that's the age where that is beginning to

really become an important part of the city's politics, and as part of this, all of the groups are beginning to organize. as we said, this is sort of the hey day of the irish machine getting its bearings in new york in the middle of the 19th century. there was not much by way of sanitary areas, and enormously crowded conditions, and often you have big problems with disease on the east side because sanitary conditions are poor. but in many peoples' memories you have tight-knit ethnic neighborhoods, which had powerful institutions, and sometimes churches for many people, and sometimes labor unions, and they are beginning to emerge during these years.

the lower east side at that moment is this tightly packed very intense place in new york, and for a lot of the country it's a symbol for many people, the urban ills that are beginning to really impress. oppress upon the country. poor working conditions. disease, and for many people, this continues through to the 1920s. immigration itself being a symbol of a way that the country is changing. >> i think that in smith's day, it was the same. he would talk about the sailors from the different countries. he would meet people from all over the world literally, and there was sections of his area where he lived. there was russians, there were jews, there were people from italy, people from chinatown, which is up the road. he live mid this little enclave that was surrounded by all this. you could go over a few blocks,