reaction to hearing that? >> well, it's really remarkable how quickly and how viciously al smith ends up going after the people who had once ben his greatest supporters. and i was trying to think if there's been another party presidential candidate who in less than a decade after he had run on his party's platform is actually endorsing actively the candidates of the other party? -- >> joe lieberman. >> i guess so he is sort of hard -- was he ever really a democrat? i don't know. but, so going around and actually doing these endorsements in 1936, in 1940, and i think in this way that is incredibly out spoken, is vicious, he makes a speech in 1936, where he is accusing the new deal and fdr themselves of being socialists, and

communists, he picks up the worst language, calls roosevelt a tyrant and says he is abusing the constitution and becomes a standard bearer of the liberty league, which is a business funded -- it's funded by the dupont family, but a group that begins in the 1930s to attempt to push back the new deal and it really is a puzzling, puzzling moment in his career. and there are people that tried to sit and trace, he always believed in these platforms and believed in state level power or he had a technicratic view or he had a more limited view of government, i do not think they are answers. i think he went through something specially at that point and that his circle in new york, as he is beginning to be the head of the new york state building and the alliances of the business men, that becomes his world in the 1930s.

>> we will talk about that part of his life in just a minute. but we have another questioner here in the new york state assembly. tell us who you are and what you are doing here tonight? >> i'm a professor at a community college. i teach administrative law. as my students and i talk about government and how government are getting larger and we discuss state and federal agencies we talk about immigration reform as it relates to the department of homeland security, we talk about al smith and his background and having come from new york city, being raised among a lot of ethnically diverse groups, what would an immigration policy look like today in terms of al smith. one the ethic groups that are coming in are different than what he grew up with, and largely we are looking for policies in today's immigration

platform that deals with labor issues. whether or not people who have been here illegally should have the right to work after having been in the country for a certain number of years. so where would al smith stand on that type of issue, immigration as it relates to labor and racism, as you talked about. we do not see much in terms of the kkk anymore, but we see internal racism with agencies as it relates to immigration, would he be as strong, or would it depend on at what point in history he met mr. smith? >> i think that smith would be understanding of loose immigration, that would probably be because of where he grew up. smith was exposed to all kinds of ethic groups, and immigrants, his mother was a daughter of immigrants and his father was a son of immigrants, he worked in an area that had sailors from

all over the world. he worked in a neighborhood that had all kinds of people from all over the world, in fact he had joked at one time that represents from china town came up from one of the marriages of the daughter. he would be more understanding of an open immigration or a widely construed program for immigration, because that is what he grew up with. >> beverly you want to add anything? >> i think it's true that that was at the core of who al smith presented himself to be to the world. and this question of immigration and labor, it was one of the hot issues, so, immigration law when it was being immigration restriction, which is passed in the 1920s, it was -- you had decades of debate about the relationship between wages and labor and immigration and in fact, during al smith's day,

immigration policy was actually under the department of labor. and so, these things were really tied then. when he ran for president in 1928, it was in the wake of a wave of native sentiment, if he stood for anything it was a push back of this native imism, woul have been able to push back immigration restrictions if he was president? it seems unlikely. but the feelings around this issue last for 40 years. during al smith's childhood there was almost no restriction on immigration whatsoever, so we saw this kind of conrestriction and that constriction was not opened back up until the '60s. >> about 25 minutes left in the program on al smith. howie in philadelphia, good

evening to you, you are on the air. >> caller: i wanted to shed light on prohibition, and the states did not do the job themselves. it was in 1923, around may, when al smith signed the repeal of the prohibition act, can you shed light on kansas politics leading to the election where al smith blew the whistle on the new deal? >> i think that prohibition the heavily identified with al smith, he never favored it. it was not an issue that he championed. he did not like how new york state ratified it anyway. they did it by simple resolution through the legislature, he felt it should be a referendum, and i believe it was in 1924, so they had a referendum in new york state about what you think about

prohibition, do you change the percentage of alcohol, i think in the federal it was 1.5, they wanted beer and white wines to be allowed and it passed in new york state, but it was just a memorialization of congress, it did not mean anything, smith himself was elected the president of the convention in new york state, 1933 to repeal the prohibition amendment in this chamber. the 150 delegates voted, and they voted for al smith to be president. he got the last laugh on that. they brought out the secretary of state to second the nomination and pat him on the back. it shaped him because he thought it was ridiculous to say, that you could use the constitution to control individual behavior. it actually took a right away from people, rather than the amendments giving rights to

people in the bill of rights. and he felt it was hypocritical, he said that he saw more people that were coming out and saying they were dries, having their community break the law, whereas all the wets were out there trying to enforce the law, the wets who wanted the repeal of the law. he found it asser almost ridiculous. >> and if i can add one thing on that issue, it was tied to all of the questions about immigration, and rural versus urban america, and a lot of the imaginary that was used to promote the law was imaginary about the german saloon or immigrants running loose in the city. and he took offense to those images. >> beverly gage was prohibition a christian right issue back

then kind of like gay marriage or abortion today? >> i think it was an issue that -- it was a cultural issue that mobilized certain section ises of the population. but i would not necessarily call it a right wing issue in its day. but it got a lot of its base of support from religious groups and during that day, this again being a great issue of the 1920s. questions of fundmentalism are at the forefront of american political debate at the time. but you had reformers who had been progressive on any number of other issues who were also supporters of prohibition, saving you from your drunken husband kutype thing, so it doe not line up neatly to left right spectrum. >> okay, in between presidential

runs, 1928, his last time he was nominated, 1930, what happened to al smith in 1930? >> well, al smith, he retires from the governorship here in new york, he actually as a side note, he believes, and a lot of people attribute this to him, that he will help fdr out, that fdr will need help. he will draft the budget for him and hold his hand. that turns out to not tb case. fdr wants to stand on his own and have nothing to do with smith. so smith goes back to new york city and he gets a job to run the empire state building. it was going to be built. they were knocking down the waldorf to break ground for this right around the time the stokt market crashes. they continue through, the moaned interests that wanted the building, this huge building that goes up just as the

depression happens, just as the rents are -- everybody is leaving their leases nobody wants to rent anything it's dubbed the empty tate building and smith who is making $50,000 a year. >> a large amount. >> but he is running a million in deficit. and he goes to fdr and said, can you put some of your government agencies in here. and he attacked the president. but then he goes and says, glad to see you, can you rent some space. that is his job and he holds it until he dies. the economy changes and he does recover. it was a difficult sdwrob have to rent space when nobody is buying off a space in new york city. >> you have to feel for him, we talked about his failures and one of his failures is really bad timing. he ended up in the democratic candidate in 1928, if it was

1932, he would have been a shoe in. and he takes over a building that ends up as the president. he had a timing problem in the early' 30s. >> we have another question from the audience, hi? >> hi, i'm jonathan, i'm a junior political science major. and i have a question. when andrew quomo first came to office as governor, he said that he wanted to emulate some of the kwaumts al smith, earlier in the program, we talked about how at one point the governor's office was a very weak political office. can you just -- if anything, go over what he did to make the office of governor stronger and what example did he leave behind for others to follow? >> thank you, sir. >> that is probably one of the lasting legacies of al smith. and when govern cuomo entered

office, he put smith's picture up. so that everyone would see that picture. and he replaced teddy roosevelt. and governor cuomo instituted a save commission, which investigated government and would make it more efficient. the point that smith is probably being emulated the most for is efficiency in government. smith took 187 massive rolling bureaus and departments and rolled them into the 20 departments of government and had the legislature pass the constitutional amendments and then they were ratified by the people to make the governor a strong governor. and this is prior to fdr reforming the executive office of the presidency in d.c. smith wanted to make sure if i a point a commissioner i want him to answer to me.

prior to that, the terms overlapped, the health commissioner had six year terms and certain commissioners like the insurance commissioner could be appointed by the previous governor and the governor that assumes office cannot remove him. or certain boards or bureaus, like the department of agriculture were appointed by a board of regents, so he made it overhauled. that has been his lasting legacy. and it has been adopted by a lot of states. albany new york. mark, we are here in your hometown, what is your question on al smith? >> well, my question is this, and by the way, i do work for state government, i'm an internal audit director for a public authority. and i teach a two-day class to

state employees about the state budget process. and one of the things i teach them is, as i understand it and i wonder if you can talk about this, al smith also reformed how budgeting is done in new york state and i was surprised that prior to him becoming governor and making reforms in this year, that budgeting was not done very well and also, it may have been, the budget may have been put forward by the legislature and now we have a strong executive budget that is put forth by the governor and that is another legacy to this day that exists for al smith, and in my opinion, that is one of his strong contributions of the state government structure, i wonder if you can comment on that? >> mr. evers? >> that is a great point, prior to smith getting executive budgeting it was done by the legislature and basically they would get together the budget estimates and what they thought it would take to run government.

very inefficient, you had executive agencies reporting to the legislature saying this is what i need. and the agencies reported they worked for the governor. smith would joke about it and say, when the initial budget bill was presented it was then added to by the legislature so much so that the original budget bill was not recognizable, they would laiden it with pork. and they joked that they claimed a clerk passing the bill from one house to the next house, added his own budget auitem in there. the budgeting was so bad, they said that the budget should be submitted based on estimates that he made. that made budgeting more responsible to one individual, the governor of new york. that is how it is today now. >> we began the show with a video of the al smith dinner.

what is the al smith dinner and how did it come about? >> it's most famous as a place that presidential candidates show up every four years and they show up, democrats and republicans, it's really a memorial dinner for smith. and it's the thing, if anyone has heard al smith's name at this point in time, that that is where you have probably heard about al smith, unless you hang around these halls. in general, it's probably his most lasting public legacy, the place where his name gets out. and it's -- but it's held every year, not just every four years, you have figures comes in and it's a memorial dinner, it's a catholic charity dinner and it's a place that people get together and try to assess the legacy of al smith and presidential candidates always especially try to crack good jokes about each other. >> and in fact, they show up together most times, they show up both the democrat and

republican nominees show up together. we want to show you some of the past al smith dinners. >> might i ask if mr. clark would come up here, either the president of the united states or i am without a seat. and i have no intention of standing. >> i must say, i have traveled the circuit for many years and i never quite understood the logistics of dinners like this and how the absence of one individual could cause three of us to not have seats. >> mr. vice president, i'm glad to see you here tonight, you said many, many times on this campaign that you want to give america back to the little guy. mr. vice president, i am that man. >> as i looked out at all the white ties and tales this evening, i realized i have not seen so many people so well dress since i went to a come as

you are party in kenny bunk port. >> we just had good news out of you'll -- out of yugoslavia, the president has stepped down, that is one more polysyllabic names to remember. >> it is an honor to share the stage with a descendant of the great al smith. and al, your great grandfather was my favorite kind of governor. the kind who ran for president and lost. about 15 minutes left and glenn, in freeland, michigan, you are on "the contenders"

please go ahead. >> caller: thank you very much, the question i have is with all the anti-roman catholic racism and his being the first major party american presidential candidate that was roman catholic and everything, how much international attention did this get specifically did the pope at the time ever weigh in or comment on any of the campaign he ran or anything like that? thank you very much. >> thank you, glenn, beverly gage you want to start? >> in terms of polls, you do not have the same polling mechanisms that we have today, so they were harder to gauge in the 1920s. you did not have polls that took what part of issues you cared about more, so it's tough for

historians, and historians usually make grand claims. on the international aspect, it's interesting because yes there was a lot of attention paid to this. and it came in the wake of two trials as well that really raised these questions about america's national character. the first with the scopes trial in 1925 and the second, well the trial had happened earlier, but the second was the execution of sacco, and vance eddie. they were two anarchist that happened in the 1920s. so the immigration policy, and attitudes toward radicalism, all of these things were out there already by the time that smith became the candidate, so his candidacy on the world stage is another moment to ask those

questions and call the questions. >> well, after the election, and he loses, he does go to europe at one time. he does meet the pope, he recounts on a few occasions that in many of his travels they thought he was the president, they knew he had run. he goes to the house of commons. had he a very good relationship with winston churchhill, it did push him to the world stage. so in that sense is, he was famous around the world as well. >> beverly gage, catholics in 1928, serious woman contender in 2008, potential mormon president in 2012. fair comparison? >> i think it's a fair comparison in certain ways. in that sense, al smith was absolutely a trailblazer on this front. and i think that in many ways it's hard for people today to understand the depth of

anti-catholosism, when he was to campaign trail. in places he had never been before and did not know much about. his train would pull in town and crosses would be burning. he faced physical dangers around the questions and he faced a lot of conspiracy theories that he would be taking orders from the pope, all of these intense theories that are hard to remember, although in certain ways we have seen other theories come up in more recent years. but the intensity of the anti-catholic feeling that he faced can be hard to remember, and so that is a nice way to kind of bring in the parallels. >> another member of the studio audience has a question. >> i'm a student in new york,

and my question is how has president obama reflected al smith's legacy thus far? >> who wants to start? >> i went to sienna, so very good. i think one of the things that there's a great parallel between the two is the working with a legislature that is seen as hostile, that is seen as the two party, the partisanship, he faced that every year that he was in office here in albany. he only had control of the senate for two years, and that was by single vote. and the other eight years it was eight years republican dominance in this chamber and in the other house, he had the one term. i would think that the problem of dealing with the other party is something that smith had to battle with and undertake, that is something that the current president has a problem with as well. the other thing that he has is,

it's remarkable the sense of humaner, president obama has a good sense of humor, and al smith is the same way, he knew he could be funny on occasions but not all the time because then people would not take you seriously. he could play a good statesman with a good sense of humor, which is a good parallel. >> i would add that i'm not sure that barack obama has learned how al smith could make it all happen. i am not sure that he learned how to deal with a hostile legislature. >> that is true. >> joe, good evening to you, go ahead. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. my first question, i know smith lost new york in 1928 to hoover. how well did he do in the 5 burrows. and i want to know, was the

anti-catholic feeling more prevalent in the southern states as compared to the midwest, say kansas, nebraska, etcetera, and i want to know, he had a fallout with fdr, surprised they even were together in 1940. but i would like to know how did he feel about social security? >> all right. >>. >> caller: thanks. >> he did well in new york. he always did well in new york city. he did extraordinarily well in his own district. but, he just couldn't make it up over the whole state. the other question, what was the other? >> he wanted to, did he win new york city, do you know off hand if he won in 1928? >> i don't recall, i don't think he did. >> not even new york city? >> it had outer burroughs that had republican dominance that is still the case in stanton island, and pockets of queens as

well. >> social security was the other question. >> the issue on social security is something that smith had tried to implement in new york state when it came to widows and orphans pensions. he tried to experiment with health insurance for industrial workers and he also tried to do all kinds of social security issues when it came to trying to support those that were down trodden, make work projects were something that he experimented with and it may have been one of the policies he carried to the new deal had he won. >> i want to address one other aspect that came up and that was the south. one of the strange things that came out, was anti-catholic feelings more powerful in the south than the midwest, that is a fairly hard question to answer. but we have been talking about the democrats versus the republicans here, and one of the things that was difficult for smith was the divisions within the national democratic party, so that the whole south at this

point is a democratic south with smith as their national candidate. and so, you have real tensions within the democratic party with the urban core that smith was coming to represent, and the more southern wing and other wings of the democratic party as well. so there's inter party tensions that were just as important as the tensions between democrats and republicans. >> and to recap, herbert hoover, 444 eelectoral votes. al smith, 87 electoral votes. and the eight states al smith won -- we have another question from the audience, hi? >> yeah from boston, hope i'm not too close, two questions. if you were to grade his governorship, what letter would you a sign to it? and the second question, as the first catholic presidential

candidate, did he help the country as they viewed region e as a factor? >> i would giver -- i would give governor smith a "a." he had a tough time dealing with the legislature, which was overwhelmingly republican. i never understood why they expelled the -- it did not matter when it came to the votes. >> i think i would give governor smith an "a." he created so many things, the executive budget, the short ballot, making that it would be to stop voting for six or seven statewide offices, and the public authority was one thing that he tried to undertake, and power authority and the like. and also the port authority in new york and new jersey was one of his ideas. a bi-state authority. so,