The Contenders Al Smith : CSPAN3 : October 12, 2020 8:01pm-10:05pm EDT : Free Borrow & Streaming : Internet Archive

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watch tonight beginning at eight eastern and enjoy american history every this weekend and every weekend night on c-span. contenders". >> i come here i come here tonight knowing that i'm the underdog in these final weeks. but if you know where to look, there are signs of hope. even in the most unexpected place. even in this room full of proud,

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man hadn't democrats. i can't shake the feeling that some people here are pulling for me. [applause] i'm delighted to see her tonight hillary. i feel right at home here because it is often said i share the politics of alfred e. smith and the ears of alfred newman. it is an honor to be here with al smith. i never knew your great-grandfather. everything senator mccain told me, the two of them had a great time before prohibition. [laughter] >> of course i'm delighted to testify -- on the 18th amendment. i felt all along that this matter was the rank and file about people they would readily see that it had no place in our

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constitution. it would be very difficult if not impossible -- to come to this country for the coming generations to make it their business to see that no such matter is this is ever again made the subject to federal constitutional law. >> and you've been listening to the 2008 presidential nominees talking at that years i'll smith dinner. followed by al smith himself talking about prohibition in 1933. hello, and welcome to c-span the contender series we come to you tonight from the senate chamber new york album-y or i'll smith sir for 12 years before becoming the democratic nominee for president. our guests for the next two hours and the life and career of al smith, john evers.

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, he is the former historian for the new york state assembly. and he is a ph.d. candidate and albany and he's doing his dissertation on all. smith were also joined by beverly gauge of yale university. she is also the history the author of the day the wall street excrete exploded. she's also a history professor if he can set the scene for us to begin in 1928 in the united states. what was going on in this country? what are some of the issues we will be discussing? >> the 1928 election is one of the most interesting and also what of the most vicious elections in american history. we have two candidates who i think really embodied two different americas that are coming into conflict in the election. we have all smith, who's the subject tonight. while smith is urban, he's from new york city. he's an irishman, he is

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catholic and he represents a kind of immigrants urban america that has come of age in the last 30 years. on the other side as a republican candidate in 1928, we have herbert hoover who in many ways could hardly be more difficult different than else. myth is from the midwest is from iowa, is very straight laced. he is distinctly non urban. he is pious, he wears starchy collars. these two men and 1928 as they go for the presidential election really encapsulates 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 in out to be a cultural election that hinges on which of these two americas is the america that will be voted into office. >> it was said that the three

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peace influenced this election, prohibition, prejudice and prosperity. >> right i think those three peas really do capture. it on probation we have all smith as one of the nation's most outspoken opponents a prohibition. it's been in effect for almost a decade at that point. it has been a real problem for most of that time and threw out i'll smith like many urban politicians has said it is a bad idea not only because it infringes on americans freedom, but because it's causing a law enforcement crisis. and there are many people who are quite concerned about this by 1928. so what is going to happen to prohibition is one of the great questions that confronts herbert hoover on the other side. in terms of prosperity, both of their are running and favor prosperity. problem for all smith is yet a rules of republican rule. and then followed by calvin

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coolidge. so the republicans have a leg up on the prosperity front. you had a 1920s. it is been a boom decade certainly for a walk deck wall street, for large segments of the economy, although less for farmers and agriculture at that point, so that's our second be. i think the darkest part of this election and the reason i said it's one of the most vicious elections in american history, is our third p the question of prejudice. i'll smith, i think most today 's are probably more familiar familiar with john kennedy as a catholic candidate. and even in the 19 sixties that caused a stir, a set of questions about the presidency but i'll smith raised all of those questions much earlier in 1928. it is already been a decade that had been seized with a lot of questions about immigration, immigration reform, the rise of the clucks klan. those all come in a. play >> neither's the role of

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convalescent play out in this campaign. >> it was a vicious campaign. smith was not new to him, this is not new to him. when he ran in new york state to be governor, he faced it them then. fact martin glen who would faced anti catholic prejudice. it showed up in the 1915 constitutional conflict convention as a little bit of a whispering campaign. smith went into this, in advance of the election knowing that this would be an issue. in fact, he address this issue in 1927 and it is replied to the atlantic monthly, discussing why a catholic could not be president, and it was a good statement, all that was intellectual. and when everybody's over everybody says and it didn't help his campaign. >> as we mentioned earlier, we are in the new york state assembly temporary chamber of albany, new york and the new york state capital building finished in 1894. we are also pleased to have

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joined us a studio audience of albany area residents. on some college students and historians and some people also interested in all small smith. they will have a chance to ask some questions about al smith in the 1928 election. well put some phone calls up in the screens he can start to dial into. this is the sixth in our 14-week series the contenders. focus 1928 election and i'll smith. joining me is what kind of candidate was all smith 1920? eight >> while he was a fighter. if you look at him and you see the short stature his tenacious in this is gravelly voice comes out across america. this is one of the first campaigns were radio played all

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role. he campaigns from the back of trains which was very common. but he goes after tries to engage americans an issues that are important to americans. and prosperity was there, so we couldn't talk about a candidate for prosperity. that was a republican issue. you want to talk about water power, we wanted to talk about prohibition which was just unheard of. but he came out is a fighter, on, paper he was a fantastic candidate. but he was swimming uphill all the time. >> beverley gauge, electoral vote count at the end of 1920. eight 444 four herbert hoover, 87 for all smith. which states did he win and why? >> well, it was definitely a blowout election. i think, that in some ways that maybe he should thank his lucky stars that he in fact did not win the 1920 election and that

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herbert hoover we might remember i'll's misname a little more but what would we remember him for? and was really one of these blowout elections, and i think it was really heartbreaking for smith and his supporters in part because it had been such a nasty campaign. -- one of the big questions of the election ultimately became was a prosperity, or was it simply the fact that republicans could take credit for the boom decade and therefore smith never really had a chance? or was it a rejection of all the things itself smith really felt deeply and what he stood for. thinks smith really took that to heart. he was very concerned about that and the real nastiness of that campaign so we had some support, but not a whole lot. >> there is a fourth piece that i would like to talk about, that's progresses it progressivism.

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he was known as a progressive during his time in the legislature that plane issued? all well when you think about it >> when you think about progressivism is a historical phenomenon. really begins around 1900s with satiety ridden roosevelt is our pioneer progressive. what it means by the 1920s is that it's very hard to define in many ways. there were people who call themselves progressives, and who were very impassioned about it. there were people who were called themselves progresses and were opposed to prohibition like al smith. but the basic idea of progressivism, is that al smith really dad did stand for knee could use government and proactive ways that some of the really pressing and industrial conditions that americans faced back in the early part of the 20th century. al smith as governor and running for president really tried to make that case. he changes his mind a little bit later when the new deal

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comes along. we will get to that. that was really the basic idea of progressivism with the idea that you could use federal power in some significant way to really change people's lives for the better. >> i think that is a key point. we talk about the new deal today. we talk about the programs a social security issue is never thing that fdr brought in. when smith ran for president, he had experimented with these things into york state. he was a champion of the labor issue. he was a champion of parks and recreation. he was a champion of hydroelectric power. he was wanting to spend money for the social programs of new york state. there were all four runners to the new deal. but when he ran in 1928, people did not want to hear that issue. it was overclouded by prosperity. it was whispering campaign about his religion. it was his unknown new york politician with a thick accent that came out a foreign

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country. even when smith when he campaigned he had a very funny story. he was driving on a train from wyoming and they were about an hour out and he sees a horse out in the field. he says the pham somebody says we must be getting close to civilization and somebody said no that's a wild horse we got about an hour to go. -- he showed how much smith was out of his element. he was used the new york. i think the country was used to somebody other than a new yorker. they were used to calvin coolidge. >> for consideration of 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 governor -- for president. 1920. i went one round and then they drop the votes. but in 1924 it was before that

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is cox from ohio. in 1928 he was the nomination. they had a compromise candidate was also a new yorker. but all through history, the new york governor and this is even in modern history, the new york governor is automatically considered presidential material. and if you look at people of run and one, as opposed to those who run lost, see new yorkers throughout history. -- >> i was just where to jump in there. i think new york was very incredibly important. new york was one and ohio was the other. when it just kept as producing president after president. i don't think we have anything like that anymore. maybe we could look at something like texas. but it's not just in the democratic party. when you look at the republican party, all of these figures coming out of republican candidates. when you look at the democratic party, you see franklin

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roosevelt. -- so new york as a state has two machines really going. -- as a pretty significant national effect. -- >> two machines? the most famous machine is the tammy machines that the republicans had -- >> what is tammy. machine >> so tammany hall is technically just the new york city's 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 the neighborhood power, word power, and that was as much about taking care of your neighborhood and the coming up through the neighborhood as much as it was anything really about national politics.

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tammany hall is the most powerful force in new york city politics at that moment. >> john fevers how did tammy hold fit into the 1928 election? >> that was the brush that painted smith into a corner. >> unidentified speaker we talk about the religion issue. this started at the convention in 1928. tammany hall would go to the conventions and they would always have -- the work was a key state. they would nominate the democratic candidates. in fact many candidates we had both a democrat and republican candidates from new york like teddy roosevelt ran against sultan brooks parker. one was a republican one was a democrat. but tammy hall was always seen outside of new york state and sometimes in new york state is a crop machine. people like william jennings brian would rant and rave about tammy. but he wanted their votes, but he did not want to tammy man there. eventually, smith is a tammy

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man and a candidate. and it shocked many people within the democrat democratic. -- party >> all 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 and seeing his hand-picked successor win. and as we've already discussed, fdr winds. it flips the dynamic of smith roosevelt dynamic forever and ultimately roosevelt ends up were smith wanted to be and sniff ends up in retirement. >> we will get into. that 1928 election, when you mentioned was the role of the media in 1928. >> i think particularly for ole smith, he had come to age as a media battler. they were after him and after him, one of the most powerful newspaper tycoon's in the country. smith had a certain amount of confidence by 1928 that he knew

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how to fend off these kinds of press attacks. ultimately in the election, one of the interesting things about the catholic issue is that we now understand it to have been absolutely crucial to this election. smith openly acknowledged it. but a lot of it was done and talked about through a in un though john mentioned it before earlier about a whispering campaign. -- it was not something that would be said in the press, but the press would feed into these images. i think smith, from my reading of it, he was behind from the press in part because there was so much coded language being used and in part because the press had this feisty personality that likes to write about it but were often quite contemptuous of it and really fed a public narrative that did not afford him the respect he

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deserves. >> i think one of the things that is interesting about smith in the press is that 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 of what was on and off the record. except for the battles with hearst and his newspapers in new york state. he really enjoyed that. when he left the safe confines of york state and the whispering campaign came out. there were papers that were not friendly to him. it would not cover the issues that were important, smith was hurt by that. he wasn't used to that. he was also not used to the media of the day. the pie plate. he used to call the microphone that you speak and to write. right in this very room he accepted the nomination for the president of the united states. -- he would speak to the microphone. he did not like to read prepared speeches. he would take out of this coat pocket and an envelope. he wrote everything and on envelopes. he would say these are the

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points are gonna make at all address the nation on. these things i will speak from the heart. with the campaign became more of a prepared speech, he was not used to that. he was used to the old tammany hall way. >> just to jump in, you mentioned the rise of radio. i think that made a huge difference in how americans were able to perceive smith. because he is this new york guy. i will not intent to do an el smith impersonation. the fact the people could not only read about him but i actually could hear him, he sounded foreign. he didn't sound like he came from in another country body sounded different from them not became another big issue. >> so this was the first time ever the people were able to hear mass media, their candidates correct? >> oh yes, as radio started to

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get bigger, and the media started to circulate, certainly tv came much later, people would hear the campaigns from their political machines, they read it in the paper. they didn't see the candidates, let alone hear candidates. and when you have a candidate that pronounces radio radio, people would say is this guy and american? and that added to that whispering campaign. >> again we are live from new york state assembly chamber in albany new york. the contenders, i'll smith. this is our sixth week looking at some of nelson, former governor of new york, presidential nominee for democrats. now throughout this two hours would talk about a, smith will

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be coming back to the election of 1928 often with our colors. but we want to learn a little bit about where and when i'll smith came from. here's a little bit of aisle smith talking about. >> i was born down and a 174th. 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 opening ceremony and when he's came home he said alfred, i just witnessed a great spectacle. but at the same time, it was a very bitter disappointment. what did he mean? here is the story as he told it to me. he said something, this bridge has kept thousands of men working for years. the steel cables, the concrete, the wiring, the machinery, it costs millions of dollars. today was the opening. bands were playing. flags were waving. they cut the tape and finally it happened.

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what happens? they found out that all you could do is go to brooklyn >> this was the neighborhood were all smith grew up. down by the fulton fish market. he raised his children here. he went to school right around the block. his father died, and he had to go off to work in support his mother and sister. this is the lower east side, this is where his accent came from. this is kind of where it all began for him. it was all irish and italian. they came over from ellis island and they settled in here. he got involved with tammy hall. and from that it just kind of grew from there. >> that second speaker was al smith the fourth, i'll smith great grandson.

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but john even, what is the lower east side and how is it important to al smith? >> first of all, i never knew vocal cords could be inherited. he did sound a little bit like his great-grandfather. the lower east side is the southern tip of manhattan. that is where smith was from. it was a port. not like it is today. there were ships smith said that that was his playground. he came from an irish family. it is interesting. it is not well-known, his father was actually from german and italian words. smith used to claim he did not know this. he grew up in this bustling area. the center of his neighborhood was the catholic church. he went to st. james he was an altar boy. used to work, sell papers but the sad part about his early life was if he lost his father very young. he was about 12.

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his father was a trucking man. he was a teamster. he would cart goods from the seaport up to the city. he died young. he never graduated, never got past the eighth grade. if you traces book and trees which is the official biographies, he always city graduated from eighth grade, and then he inherited his father's truck business which is also not true. but there might be a little bit of self consciousness awe sitting with lawyers, and men from wealthy backgrounds, but this real struggling die hard neighborhood made him tough. he enjoyed. it for the rest of his life, it was the catholic church his family and the democratic party. >> so he went through the seventh grade. >> he had to leave a month or two per graduating eighth grade. it was too tough. i'll smith >> all smith in 1873 was born, paint a picture what

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was alike in 1873. >> 1873 -- new york is growing increasingly different from the rest of the country in many ways. at that point we are eight years out from the end of the civil war. that remains for much of the country sort of the dominant political fact of recent history. -- in new york really, you are beginning to see the city change in all sorts of interesting ways. in the 1830's and 1840's and 1850's, you have the first massive wave of in a grayson. immigration, that was from places like ireland, germany, irish and german immigrants had settled the city. by the time you get into the 1890's, you are getting waves of emigration from new areas like italy, russia, eastern europe. new york is really becoming the way that we think about it.

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this is really the age at which that is beginning to congeal and become an important part of the city's politics. as part of this, all of the groups are beginning to organize. as we said this is through the heyday of tammany hall, the irish machine getting its bearings in the middle of the 19th century. what were conditions like on the lower east side is famous during these years, particularly as you get into the late 19 century as being the single most crowded place on planet earth. there are not much tenant regulations or sanitary regulations. it's kind of a free-for-all. you have enormously crowded conditions. often you have big problems with disease. sanitary contusions are poor. in many peoples memories, you have many tight-knit ethnic neighborhoods which had some powerful institutions. sometimes churches, later

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synagogues, labor unions, and starting to emerge during these years. so the lower east side at that moment as a tightly packed, very intense place in new york. for a lot of the country, for many people the urban ills a symbol of the urban else that are really beginning to press upon the country. overcrowding, industrial stuff disease, poor working conditions. and for many people this continues through the 1920s. immigration itself is a symbol of the way the country is changing. -- >> i think it's smith's day it was the same. he would talk about sailors from different countries he would meet people from all over the world. there were sections of his area where he lived. there were russians, jews, people from italy, people from chinatown up the road. he lived in a little enclave that was surrounded by all of this. he would go over a few blocks and there would be areas of the

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vice. this shaped his image. he thought he knew america by knowing all of these people. he knew what it meant to be tolerant and see different ethnicities. later on when he went out and america, i think part of the shock was -- it is not all like this. he thought he knew -- the york state was -- what he first went to the assembly, he realized that he had seen a lot more in his neighborhood then what these people had seen. he couldn't bring everybody down to new york and manhattan. this is how america really is, i melting pot. that cause a lot of problems. some of that came back to xenophobic and anti religion. it was almost a way for them to say you are foreign and i'd like us. >> he went to work in 1886 at 13 years old.

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where did he go to work? >> he had the toughest careers i ever heard of. he starts by leaving early. he goes and sells newspapers. after school, i will sell newspapers. he makes a few dollars that way. it's not enough. his mother had to go and get a job the day they. his father. she comes back from the funeral, goes back to the forelady in the umbrella factory where she worked prior to burying the al smith junior. it is not enough. eventually, he goes through a rapid series of jobs working in a small candy store that his mother was the proprietor of. pekoes and works in a company of -- truck bombing. he used to run a long the south and and pick up different trucks for his company. don't come back, go to this area. eventually, he gets the most

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famous job he is known for. it is at the fish market. he got up at 4:00 in the morning, rolled barrels, shoveling crushed ice, coming home smelling like fish. he would go there at 4:00 in the morning and get back to 4 in the afternoon. this led to him getting a job at tammany hall. the good thing about it, he wanted to -- he used to take all the fish he wanted. it will slide down the hill 50 feet deep. that was how poor he was. they gave him a lot of the free food. >> this is "the contenders" and we are talking about al smith. >> first off our two guests, used to green bush, new york, wayne, we are on c-span. when, are you with us? >> hello.

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the question is two full. i am interested in what al smith's role and commitment was to the new york state civil services and labor. how he championed that. what specific things did he do to help reform new york state politics, particularly the self-service and his commitment to labour. thank you. that is a really good point that separated out smith when it came to labor issues. in 1911, there was the famous factory fire got in manhattan. smith was on the court to study labor law. he became good friends becameperkins, all the

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reforming labor activists at this time. the labor laws that would regulate fire escapes, hours of service, health codes, workers'compensation. hand in hand with that was probably the advent of civil service. being a tammany man, there were rumors he wanted to pack everything with democrats. but this became more prevalent as it got to the end of his gubernatorial career, the most qualified person should have the job. smith was well-known to having people in his cabinet that were republicans, that were not enrolled. people who had nothing to do with government at all. his highway commissioner was a military engineer who had republican affiliations. he wanted the most qualified people and around it. some of that lead into the civil service. he also wanted to have a strong labor relations. he stood up for those with a cane to labor that were often shunted aside.

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he took that to campaign, he had the support afl cio. the afl j.p. it hit in the state but not nationally in the 1928 campaign. those issues that john evers was talking about, did it play out nationally? how strong or the forces behind the issues? >> i think al smith is a good example of somebody who was radicalized over the course of his time on a politician. starts out as an unexceptional tampa the guy who is not putting forth particularly creative ideas. both through the social turmoil

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that he had during the progressive era and then threw the triangle fire which doesn't seem to have been this kind of eye opening moment for him, 146 people died in this fire. they are mostly teenage girls, mostly teenage immigrant girls who are locked in on the eighth and ninth floor. they are forced to jump to their deaths. he adds up on the commission. he becomes a true progress of in those -- what i would say the radical and did 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. he becomes an advocate of paternalistic labor laws. he is never a super strong supporter of grass-roots organizing.

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one of the things left out of the triangle story is that there have been strikes under way at the factory and throughout the industry. that does not become something that he champions in quite the same way. he does champion legislation. that is his stance by the time he is running for president in the 1920's. the 1920's are not a good decade for american labor. it is not one of the big issues of the campaign. nonetheless, he holds on to the progressive tradition. when other thing worth noting as well, i actually first encountered else with when i was doing some research on a bombing that happened in the new york in 1920 which was an attack on wall street at the time. i encountered al smith because he had just become governor, and this was it during the bits of the red scare after the first world war. five assemblymen who had been voted in from districts of new

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york were thrown out. al smith turned out to be a champion of their right to stay in the assembly. it was a lot of concern that the bolshevik resolution -- revolution over radicalism. al smith stood up and said they had every right to be here. he was a great champion in a few points that was speaking out in favor of a broad vision of democracy at that point. >> knowing what you do about all smith, how do you think he would feel about the current occupy histwall street movement? would be interesting. he was an underdog. smith would out there and it took on popular states is. he got up there in 1920 and told the assembly next day, i will put out a press release championed the rights of these people to hold their seats.

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it was flabbergasted. nobody would do that. these people are anarchists. the same with labor. smith would go and settle labor strikes by sending state employees from the late labor department, and one case, francis perkins. he is not only sending government people, he is sending women now. he was unconventional. when it comes to something like that, i think he would look at it and say, what is it for the good of the people? he was not a big champion of big business. >> francis in cincinnati. you are on "the contenders" on c-span. >> good evening. have been privileged to have gone to school in albany. i would like to know if you could address the financial

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banking that elspeth had -- that al smith had and the contention that was because smith catholic and trying to be president. >> prices, where did you go to school here in albany? we have several colleges in our audience. >> i went to the academy of the sacred heart on south pearl street. unfortunately, it has he was a good friend of the dupont family. he was one of the key people in general motors. he was a multi millionaire. as i mentioned earlier, smith was not a huge champion of business. he voted as he was told to

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vote. later on, he drifted towards pro-business, that was after the roosevelt fallout. he wanted to be involved in politics. he became friends with all smith. much to the consternation of many people, they said this guy is not a politician. if what are you doing this? a lot of people thought it was because of the money. he also became friends with many people, bill kenny was one, these new york irishman who made a lot of money and became millionaires. they. smith jobs. at that time, smith wanted him as a friend. he brought it lot of money. think it is true. the question that came up about what he would think about occupy wall street, it really

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depends what al smith bartok in about. he is kind of a straightforward tammany politician. he voted as tammany told him to vote. if there are no glimmers of greatness during those years. then he becomes a progressive politicians both as governor of new york and when he is running for president in 1928. but after that, he takes a turn in which he becomes deeply hostile but only to the new deal but takes up some of the kind of red baiting tactics that he had fought so hard against. in terms of trying to judge how he will respond to the social movements of his day, some of which were deeply anti wall street, it depends when you run into him. if you got him at the right moment, he would be exactly as john said. he would be a gesture in in support of not being deeply in

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support. later in his life, he would have been calling them communists. >> before it got started, you pointed out where he sat in this chamber. started out somewhere in the back, you said. in the back. seat 143 i think it was. he used to get confused with the bystanders and the visitors. that was before they got microphones. before -- 40 dead years, he never spoke. then he sat in two seats that are right here where we have a two jet on that. the job with the beard raising his hand. when he served as majority leader. and this gentleman over here in the tie. that is what he was the minority leader. that was in 1911. smith became majority leader when the democrats took over. in 1912, they went into the

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minority. in 1913, he while it up -- he wound up being the speaker. maybe 20 steps from where we are sitting is the speaker's office that al smith used. the current speaker -- i am so sorry about that. there is a a portrait the came from the same district. they both are democrats. the bulk for speakers of the assembly. almost 100 years ago that smith was speaker, 100 years later we have a speaker from the same district and political party. the neighborhood is a diverse neighborhood. smith became speaker on a fluke. new york state was so heavily weighted in favor of the

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republicans that the democrats rarely held these chambers. his only became democratic once in the thirties and then had to go all the way to the sixties before the democrats took over. i think smith would be most proud to see that the democratic party got the equal demonstration it needed when they -- you could then allowed nyc to send its proper amount of legislators to do york and has resulted in another manhattan speaker. we talk with speaker sheldon and silver overall smith and here's what he had to say. >> i think was a man ahead of his time putting and i think it was a man ahead of his time. putting the legislation to deal with child labor, with labor in general.

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we today commemorate that triangle factory fire. we come up -- commemorate the 100 anniversary of it. , in the legislative section. but all of the legislative protecting workers of things that we need assembly do today. i'll smith when he was then the governor of the state. you know he talked about having the wealthier pay a little bit more. he had some great quotes about, i remember one it's is appropriate today because as it was a 19. 30 he said what do we say about our colleagues who reject an income tax amendment. they rejected why? they are unwilling to say that great wealth ought to bear its share of the burden of government. they are unwilling to subscribe to the indisputable principle that he who benefits the most

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should pay the most. that was al smith in 1930 and that debate is taking place again today. john even >> john avers the portrait of that photograph of kyle smith that is in the speaker's office, when does that take? and >> that was probably taken when he was the speaker. he was a very young. men 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 thirties or so. he may be close to 35 or 36 or so. that might have been one of his official portraits as an assemblyman and it might have been his portrait as a speaker. >> how powerful was the 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 is comparable. back then when smith was just

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starting out. and he sat way back in the back row. he did not even meet the speaker, fred nixon until three days before the session adjourned. the speaker back then was almost regal. today, the power is more diffused, there is more chairman is not as arbitrary as he is to be. but still the speaker has tremendous control over the bills that come to the floor, over the chairman who are made chairman, over who or what committees what the program will be. it still is a key job one of the three most people powerful people in the state. -- >> >> heavily gauge state politics in new york, the teens and today. >> well as i said, new york is this key state nationally but it has its own political culture. i think in many ways reflects many of the same things we see today. the difference between your

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orban core, your new york at that time largely dominated by a tammany machine. and upstate new york you have cultural differences, political differences there. . because you had all of these differences, it was always a question of, what kind of issues you were actually going to deal with that the state level. one of the things that i'll smith ends up doing as governor, he tries to make it possible for the governor to do more than he has been able to do. it is not a particularly strong post at that point. certainly 4 tammany hall, your power is concentrated in the york city. al smith is 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 progress of the impulse to actually make

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more things possible. to consolidate a little executive power up. here in albany and ways he had not seen before. >>. >> hi, niel. >> first of all, a commentary and then a question. your form is actually very stimulating. i don't have the credentials that you people do. i fancy myself and armchair historic. as far as mr. smith is concerned, the catholicism should not enter into the picture. he was clearly a proponent of the middle-class and pro labor. generally, i think he was a well intended individual. we will i am wondering that if today, if we had a candidate running for the president of the united states, what can what a candidate with mr. smith nine state set be able to pull

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it off? despite that, thank you so much. >> beverley gauge. >> i think that's an interesting question smith goes through a very weird political transition in the 1930's. after it lost the election, he flipped a lot of what he stood for up to that point. i know we will get to talking about that a little later in the show. he was a populist of sorts. he was not an absolute populist. he was certainly not a william and jennings bryant populist. if anything, he really did not like bryan week of the party around cultural issues. he was an urban populist. i think it is true that he is and advocate of the middle class. he himself as a figure who embodies and advertises he embodies the kind of, working your way up to the american system from childhood of poverty up to success. what a candidate today who had

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that kind of populist message or least pseudo-populist message would be successful? i think it's really hard to say. smith was not particularly successful in his day on the national stage. i think populism as kind of a mixed history noted. states >> is there a politician today you would compare to i'll smith? >> i don't know. i was thinking about this in today's risk race, he might be more of the technocrat. populism itself that smith embodied was almost like a compassionate technocrat. he wanted to do the new deal prior to the new deal. i don't know why all smith is complaining. i am just doing in washington, d.c. what fdr did in new york. with the way the economy is

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today and the debates over government and smart sizing, smith would probably lick his lips and say i would love to go to d.c. and work this all out. even discussions now with the bipartisan gridlock, smith had done in new york. he would probably sell himself very well today by saying, i have done this in the york. i have battled the legislature that is hostile. i know how to get government under control. i know how to get the economy moving again. i think he'd be seen almost as a technocrat not flashy but someone who would be almost a brain trust kind of guy. >> james in dayton, ohio. good evening. >>. .

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i was wondering if he had any party platform that might have contributed to anything -- any of the abuses by the moneyed class is in on the wall street that led to the collapse and ultimately the depression. if he had been elected in 1928, would he have done anything that might have possibly avoided or diminished the effects of the depression that followed? >> thank you james beverley gates. >> one would like to be able to say yes. feel if al smith had been elected, none of the depression would ever happen. i don't think that is true. i don't think on economic issues by 1928, the 1920s turned out to be a relatively conservative decade on things like labor policy. smith themself is not running an anti wall street campaign in

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1928 and the real sort of progressive candidates for years earlier, that was bob pollack actually running in 1924 on the progressive party platform as a progressive candidate. that had sort of more of a vocal, anti wall street sentiment, had a more strict set of regulations, and a lot more focus on economic issues. unfortunately, i don't think that smith would've actually done a whole lot significantly different lee. i'm not sure to be honest that any president was really in a position to foresee what was coming or really have the tools at that point to prevent it from happening. >> i think that's kind of what hoover at the end with his reconstruction finance and his ideas of experimenting with government intervention. i heard somebody say wants that if smith had it run and won in 1928, hoover would have, any

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obvious type of candidate in 1932. so that's what they said we need a businessman. we need somebody who is a model of getting the economy going. no matter who won, they would be not prepared to stop this avalanche of financial ruin. >> let's take a back to 1918. i'll smith is elected governor of new york for the first time. how? >> the accidental governor. it took all smith until 1925 1926 to get into the minds of the republican party that he was not going to lose. so he ran against charles whitman. charles whitman, the d.a. of manhattan and becomes governor of new york state. he runs twice in gets elected. he starts eyeing the white house in 1920. so we like to look back and say what. if maybe it would've not been

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hearting maybe it would've been smith. smith unseats this governor largely because there is a flu epidemic. he can daines around upstate new york and 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 gonna do any of these. things >> the republican legislature? >> the republican assembly and senate. but smith starts it off by saying the campaign by saying will have a reconstruction commission capitalizing on the transition from wartime county the private sector economy. -- >> improvements, we're not gonna do the pay issue, we're gonna bomb so we can have capital improvements spread out for many years instead of just having the infrastructure start to crumble. -- legislature said this guy will

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never won in 19. 20 that will be the presidential year. back then, governors ran at the same time the president. ran smith gets reelected in 1920. he has very little to show -- he loses in 1920. he has very little to show what he goes up in 1920. they run a very conservative, upstate republican who wins. , al smith goes away. and sure enough people thought he would never come back. he did run again in 1922, at the same time, all of his elections are pretty close. >> they are close until the last two. they have a very close election which is 15,000 votes in 1918. he loses a close election in 1920. national democratic ticket goes

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down in new york city by over 1 million votes. smith only lose by 75,000. that's where one famous person settlements like swimming up niagara falls and you came the closest anybody else did. comes back in 1922 and winds squeak are. and in 1924 he starts to add was tolls and he went against teddy roosevelt junior and was only in the 1920s with his third start to come to fruition. in 1919, 1920 -- >> 1920, when did get to vote. women get the vote. does that make a difference in else miss career? >> he is interesting because as john indicated before, he actually staffed a lot of his inner circle with women at a moment when not many speakers are doing. that francis perkins becomes the secretary of labor is a close was ally of smith.

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bill moskowitz is his make it happen woman in albany. he's actually got a fairly progressive outlook on women in government the advent of the women's vote does not immediately have a huge impact on national politics. it ultimately begins to build. does not have the impact many people are predicting. in terms of new york politicians, job would know this better than i, i don't have perspective it really transforms -- >> not at first. at first, he was not in favor of women's suffering. his mother said, i would never vote. there is no need for me to vote. she does. she cast her first ballot for her son for governor. smith's hook on women suffering is he gets a lot of these

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people involved. he starts to realize these are the voters. he says, how do i talk to these people? he says talk to the lucky would talk to a chamber of commerce or anyone else in the campaign. he starts to realize that women's suffrage is a good idea. i can enlighten these people. that is where he gets the braintrust for many of these people who were -- who will work for him who becomes 30 supporters of the democratic party. smith capitalizes on that. few blocks from here is the governor's mansion. what was life like for all smith at the governor's mansion? >> hectic. when i worked for an assemblyman in his eighties. he remembers a governor. he remembered him walking over from the governor's mansion in

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the capital. he said you go to school with my son? he was very much a neighborhood guy. the mansion at five children. its own zoo. he brought him all with them. a lot of things were given to, a bear, dear, elk. someone gave him an alligator. smith loved animals. when he was a kid, he used to collect dogs. in the seaport and everything, people would come in. sailors would have exotic animals, they would give him monkeys, goats, and you attack them home and put it in his attic. then he had them in his backyard. he never had less than two dogs. when you came here for his first term, he brought his

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great dane. it jumped on taro's witman, and he joked that it's the time any tiger coming to take over. the governor's mansion with five children all of these animals, it was a hectic place. he had the neighborhood kids dropping in. >> we all owe smith a dad for his love of animals. in the government of new york city robert moses was his ally, the famous commissioner of new york. he made new york in many ways. he and smith remained affectionate into the thirties after smith was out of political life. he is re-fashioning new york's park, one of the reasons he insists that there be a zoo in central park, is that al smith can come visit the animals he

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is living uptown by that point. there are some poignant stories about the end of smith life. he had a key to the zoo and he would sometimes go down there in the middle of the night and hang out at the central park zoo. in many ways it's a tribute to al smith and his love of animals. >> honorary night superintendent was al smith at the zoom. >> we've had a very, very patient audience here and in just a minute we're going to start taking questions from you as well. but we have a very patient tony from pleasantville, new york, who has been holding. you're on c-span on the contenders. >> thank you for this series and c-span. i've been watching for over 20 years and this -- i think if more people would watch c-span we would have better presidential candidates.

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you beat me to the punch. i wanted to ask you about belle mosskowitz. i wonder if they could expand on belle mosskowitz's role and the job she had for governor smith. and also earlier you mentioned al smith didn't speak for two years. eighth grade education. didn't begin the assembly, intimidated by all the lawyers there. can you tell us what al smith did at night while the others went down on state street to boos -- booze it up and carouse? how deeducate himself to become majority leader and speaker in >> we're going get john to answer those questions. i know you are a new yorker. is that the reason for your interest in al smith and your knowledge? >> i read a great book called empire statesman. 'i worked in albany for a while and i knew the al smith

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building was there, the tallest building in the state building, i believe. but i read the book called "empire statesman." >> all right. thanks for calling in shouldn't -- tonight the what about belle moss cowitz and what he did to educate himself? >> belle was the unofficial gate keeper. she would serve as his survivor and -- advisor and it was probably the best way to describe it as she was the person who would pass through all of these labor programs, all these reconstruction commissions. in fact the reconstruction of new york state which eventually led to the re-forming of the state constitution and the establishment of a strong chief executive, was done with the reconstruction commission. that was belle mosskowitz's brain child. she recruited bob moses into the commission. in fact, tam annie hall became

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very jealous of mosskowitz and moses and prockoush and they used to joke with it, and say prockour. >> unidentified speaker 'they joked that's the bravenstam an a hall. they weren't irish, they were jewish. the interesting thing about him not speaking in the assembly, smith sat so far back and he was so intimidated and so lost that he went back to new york after his second term and told tom foley, the tam annie boss of his district, "i think i might be in over my head." he told him, "i might be able to find you a job, maybe suvent buildings in new york city, if you really can't hack it." that appealed to smith's ability to fight. he said i'm not going to admit i can't handle something. so he went back with a mission. he took all the bills every night and read them, every bill introduced, so he could understand the legislature.

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he didn't have a high school or college degree. he wasn't a lawyer. the assembly at the time was prominently the legal field. smith made sure that he could do that. also since he didn't have any money, he lived on the $1,500 a year plus traveling expenses, he didn't have anything else to do. he didn't go out partying at night. he didn't do bad things. he missed his family. he would go back to his room at his hotel and read. and when he wasn't there he would be in the legislative library reading the bills and what they affected. >> yeah, they could have a -- save a lot of trees by having them done electronically the smith used to reat the appropriateations bill cover to cover and i -- he said not more than 10 people approximate could explain the appropriations by. thick, massive, he read that line by line. and it helped him as governor

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because he had an understanding of the budget system. >> i have a question from our suspense. he is an author. did not know he was going to be here tonight. he was a new book coming out about the 1948 election. he has a new book coming out which is called 1948 about the election. go ahead. >> thank you. and your guests are doing a great job tonight. there are is constance in al smith's career. there is tam annie hall, frankly roosevelt. and another fellow, william rand off hearst. specifically what can you say about that relationship, specifically the gubernatorial races and the 1922 presidential nomination process? >> let's start with beverly gauge. >> hearst is one of the towering figures of this moment and he turns into one of

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smith's great critics and he's sort of the man around which smith learns how to deal with the press in many ways. we were talking earlier and you said you have been writing about this in great detail, the milk issue and smith's attack on -- great question. glad dave brought this up because william randolph hearst was probably one of the most controversial government figures or quasi-government figures in new york history. he ways two-term congressman from new york. he basically bought the seat, went to tammy hall to get. nomination in 1904 for president of the united states. he lost that. he runs for governor in 1906 against charles evans hughes and loses. he runs for new york city mayor and loses. many by has control of the two newspapers, the evening journal and the new york american, and

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he churns out real are, the basest appeal to people and to try to tell them that i know better, i'm a reformer, i want municipal utilities that will lower your rates. i want transparent government, you can get that if you back me. in 1918 he wants the nomination for governor and they try to figure out who is going to get this. they settle on smith. smith goes and gets elected. in 1919, immediately william randolph hearst starts to poke at smith's programs. there's a milk strike in new york city. the upstate daries can't get milk into new york city. they then have a milk strike upstate where the producers won't ship it to new york city. well, none of this is within the purview of the governor's powers. the governor tries to get his departments of farms and markets to act. they won't because many they don't report to the governor. the governor has no power over his departments. hearst won't take this answer and he also says you are moving too slow on municipal

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ownership. you're the governor you should make the legislator do this. we want the utilities in new york to be owned. they won't. smith goes head-to-head with him. he takes the stage with -- at carnegie hall to debate hearst. hearst won't show up for the debate. he goes to san simeon and starts buying more art work. smith loses control, screams and yells, red in the face, about this man and unmasks hearst. hearst then ironically comes out and backs smith for re-election. smith want nothing to do with him. 1922, hearst wants the nomination. smith says i won't run on the ticket if he's going to be on it. he said i'll be gore. he said i won't run on a ticket with hearst at all. smith was one of those guys that was just, well, he's honest. are he said i'm not going to

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change my mind left and right and be as despicable as hearst and deal in character assassination smith wins. and an ally, one of hearst's allies, he replaces him with jimmy walker and takes over the party. but smith gets the last laugh because in 1932 hearst uses his power to throw on the fifth ballot the nomination from the fbi are, smith battle. he takes his votes under california under mcadoo and give them to roosevelt, knocks smith out and he loses the anaheimation because of hearst's behind the scenes. >> well, there were three he was active in. 1920, the 24 and the 32.

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here say news reel about the elections. >> then the great political battle of 1924 where with alfred e. 'smith and john davis, he stood out as a leader. there never was a political convention to match the democratic national gathering of 1924 in new york for drama and color. for a do against al smith. day after day, terrific storms of passion shaking the delegates. the high note of all, franklin d. roosevelt's presentation of alfred e. smith with the deathless phrase, "the happy warrior. " the democratic convention ab tendees from the lone star state and once more franklin roosevelt took the stage to praise as only he could do the man for whom he has always had

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such affection and respect, naming him again, his friend, al smith, the happy warrior in the governor of new york the al smith will always have his own place in the hearts of the american people, but events were moving fast. he wanted a good man to run for governor of new york. he persuaded franklin roosevelt to make the race. although smith lost by a narrow vote, roosevelt was elected to his first term as governor. already roosevelt was the leading favorite for the nomination. the leading opponent, none other than his old p friend al smith >> frank len d. roosevelt, having received more than 2/3 of allle delegates, i proclaim him the nominee of this convention for president of the united states. >> you have nominated me and i

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know it and i am here to thank you for the honor. pledge myself to a new deal for the american people. >> and back live in the new york constituent assembly chamber. beverly gauge, how did we get from 1928 al smith calling -- f.d.r. calling al smith the happy warrior and nominating him to the 1932 election? >> well, they had been allies before, both coming up through the same new york democratic party. a couple of things happened between 1928 and 1932, some of think -- which are very personal and some of which are on a grand scale. the most important thing that happened is of course that we entered the depression so

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herbert hoover begins in 1929 as president. he gets stock market crash that year and by 1932 you are really in the deepest, darkest moments of debtpression. that is bad news. but for the democratic nominee for president that's actually really good news. so in 1932 al smith wants to be the candidate again. in fact he's put forth as a possibility. but there's a lot of controversy about whether or not this is going to be a good idea. there are a lot of people who do not want to introduce into what looks like it's going to be a smashing democratic year all of the issues that you had seen in 1928, issues about catholicism, about prejudice, about prohibition. all these sorts of things. now franklin roosevelt has a little bit to say about these things, but when he's a candidate in 1932 he's kind of being as even keel about all this as you possibly can be. so smith is gunning for this

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and there is a lot of pushback about that and it's not clear either that smith is a huge fan of roosevelt's. they've had a very, very cooperative relationship, but it's always been smith through the elder statesman with roosevelt the supportive, younger man. and it seems at this moment and we should acknowledge like a lot of people in the united states in 1932 he views franklin roosevelt kind of as a dill hetante -- dill hetante, someone who is not willing to come out and take hard stands on things, he's come from a life of leisure. here's smith who worked his way up. so you have this personal drama playing out at the same time you have the political drama playing out and you know who wins that in 1932, and it doesn't take very long for smith to begin to attack roosevelt personally as well as politically. i think it's easier to understand his personal

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animosity toward roosevelt as it begins to develop. i've always found it a little bit more puzzling to understand how by 1936 he's actually endorsing the republican presidential candidate and is embracing a kind of politics he really hadn't embraced before. is it because hezz heart broken? because he doesn't like roosevelt? is it because he has actually changed his mind seas roosevelt and acted the new deal? these are all sort of open questions about their relationship. >> now back to your calls on the contenders. sheridan, arkansas arkansas yes, my grandfather al bert godwin was a county democrat chairman, a state senator and supporter of al smith. compare al smith's campaign for president and dewey's campaigns for president.

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>> well, let's ask the former new york constituent assembly the story and if he can do that in a minute or less. >> oh, sure! dewey will be the subject of a future contenders i think in two weeks. >> there vl no comparison. with dewey the personalities couldn't be really couldn't be. first of all if smith is a democrat, dewey is a republican. smith is a progressive, pre-new deal campaigner. dewey takes over the reins in new york state after he heats the hand-picked successor of f.d.r. and al smith and he runs new york state during the new deal, and he is by all accounts somebody that implements his programs. so he's not a rock-ribbed republican in the sense of a conservative. kind of like a nelson

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rockefeller republican. dewey wanted to be president. think there were rumors he was going to run for president when he was still i think new york district attorney. he had it in the cards that he wanted to do this for a long time. smith's campaign in 1928 had always been troubled from the start. he did get the nomination and did his whirlwind campaign from july onwards. dewey had more of the modern campaign. in fact f.d.r. did this in 1932. he knew he would run early on and traveled the country getting his delegates in order. i think the biggest difference is that dewey was out there with this campaign and preparation a lot more then al smith ever was. we have a question here in our audience. if you would, if you feel comfortable, tell us who you are and where you are from. >> thank you. amy standard from clifton park, new york the besides the zoo that al smith brought to the

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governor's mansion, what was his moat noteable achievement for new york and the country? as governor in candidate for president. >> if i were to rattle them off it would be impressive but we don't have three hours. probably smith's biggest achievements were to bring progressiveism into the modern age. smith was that pre-new deal type of person. smith had the modern labor code, he had parks and recreation, he had new york state vote on bonds, hundreds of millions of dollars in bonds to improve roads, brirgess railroad crossings, parks, hospitals, prisons. he was ahead of his time when it came to criminal justice. smith's whole movement a government was not to downsize government, but to use government as a tool to provide people with services.

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instead, it used to be a conservative war government was simply there. federal government would deliver the mail. it had the military. in new york state it really wasn't that much different. it did certain functions, but it didn't go out there and regulate industry. didn't go out there and regular late utilities. it didn't provide parks and recreation. didn't have the interaction with people that really needed it. so i think smith's overall accomplishment in new york state was to launch us on a social welfare state in the best possive sense of the word the we're here in the beautiful old state capitol building. finished in 1894. surrounded by state office buildings, many build -- built in the 1960's, 1970's, etc. would al smith -- what would he think about the growth of state government in new york? >> i think he would be ok with state government as it is. when smith was governor, it was 10, 10 about the 5 million

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people. he realized state government needed to be housed. he said you've got to get all these agencies not only coordinated but he used to joke that we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every you're renting little offices. can't we build state offices? can't we prellize the work force? smith really believed that using the government to organize the people and to deliver services, that's the proper role of government. he stood with that his whole life. he thought the new deal just went too far the >> beverly gauge? >> i just wanted to add i think on the national stage he plays a very different but equally important role in the sense that smith's candidacy in 1928 comes after a decade where as we said already, issues about immigration, and race. immigration reform paused in the early 1920's, in part

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targeting people from places like italy, russia. people considered ethnically different. the other great social phenomenon of that decade was the rise of the ku klux klan. the klan in the 1920's say mass organization. it's not kind of the southern targeted klan we see in the 1950's and 1960's. it's a mass organization with millions of members. it's stronghold is really in indiana, a lot of mid western state. a lot of urban is centers even in the east have large klans too which are targeting catholics and jews. these are the main issues driving the klan. and smith as a candidate, though he lowses, is a person who stands up on the national stage and says no to all of that. he says no, that's not what the united states is supposed to stand for. all those people you are talking about restricting, talking about pushing out, who you are describing as foreign, those are my people, we are all americans, and he stands for that very powerfully on the national stage, even though he's rejected as the president.

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>> in just a minute we're going to ask our guests what they think al smith's biggest failures were. but helen, in cape may, new jersey, you are on the contenders. >> i was so excited to hear that you are going have al smith on. grandfather was part of the irish catholic republican bear machine. they did split ranks in 1920 and vote for al smith. my question is after the election al smith had really harsh words to say both about president roosevelt and the new deal and the democratic party. do you think it's because he feared the democratic party was edging too close to socialism and away from true progressiveism? >> john? >> i think that his initial responses in 1928 were more of

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a emotional response, basically saying, and he admitted it, saying i'm done, i'm not going to run again. ironically he comes back in 1932 sand -- and says i changed my mind. but he wanted to set the record straight and say i think i could do a good job on this. he split with the roosevelt is hard to explain. a lot of historians have really struggled with this. he alternately says it's gone too far but in certain things he says that's ok. he supports preparation for the war in the 1930's but then won't support roosevelt on the war. kind of hard to pin him down at the end except that he thinks the federal government is growing too big the he blames alphabet agencies or how the government has gotten off track. he hides a little bit behind the states'rights issue. you can't through the constitution correct or are

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control people's vinl behavior and often he said it's a state's issue when it comes to the democratic party but he stretched it with the new deal saying states'rights when he realized a lot of these things were things he implemented in new york state as well. >> we've heard from the former new york state historian and from a history professor at yale university about the f.d.r.-al smith relationship. landon he supported in 1936 and wendell wilkie in 1940 over f.d.r. in fact here is al smith on the radio talking about his support for wendell wilkie. >> i'd just like to make a little observation. i'd like to wonder what could be going through the mind of the 16 million men that are in the draft. i wonder if they're not saying to themselves, if this becomes serious, if it upon the record,

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would you sooner be behind? the third-time candidate or a wilkie? in my opinion the only hope for the people is the election of wendell wilkie, who believes -- [applause] -- who believes in the constitution of the united states and the principles upon which it was founded. when he has -- is chosen to guide this nation, then and then only will the stars and stripes again wave over the land of the free and the home of the brave. [applause] >> >> beverly gauge, what's your >> reaction to

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

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he picks up the most vitriolic new deal language. he calls riflet tyrant, says he's abusing the constitution and becomes one of the standard-bearers of the liberty league, basically a business funded -- really funded by the dupont peam -- family, a group founded in the 1930's to attempt to push back the new deal. it really is a puzzling, puzzling moment. people who have tried to trace, well, he always had these platforms, he believed in state power, not federal power, or he had a more limited view of government, but i just don't think that those are answers. i think he went through something personally at that point and his circle in new york as he becomes head of the empire state building and begins to solidify these relationships with businessmen, that really becomes his world in the 1930's.

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and we're going to talk about that part of his life in just a minute. but we have another questioner in the new york state asemblilt >> good evening. i'm a professor at a community college and i teach administrative law. as my students are talking about government and how government is getting larger we discuss state agencies and we talk a lot about immigration reform as it's relates to department of homeland security. so as we're talking about al smith and his background, having come from new york city, south street seaport, being raised amongst a lot of ethnically diverse groups, i wonder what an immigration policy would look like for today for a governor al smith? what would he think in terms of, one the ethnicities of those coming in are vastly different than what he grew up with and as -- also we're looking for policies in today's immigration platform that would deal with

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labor issues, you know, whether or not people that have been here illegally should have the right to work after having been in the country for a number of years. so i wonder where would al smith stand on that type of issue, immigration as it relates to labor and also racism as you talked about. you know, we don't really see much in terms of the ku klux klan any more but we so -- do see a lot of internal racism in agencies as it relates to racism the >> i think al smith would be very understanding of loose immigration, probably because of where he grew up. smith was exposed to all kinds of ethnicities, all kinds of immigrants. -- his mother was the drawer of

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-- daughter of imgrand slam. his father was a son of imgrand slam. he worked in an area with people from all over the world. he joked one time that even representatives from china town came up for one of the marriages of his daughter. so i would say he would be more understanding of open immigration or more widely construed immigration just because that's what he grew up with. >> beverly gauge, you want to add significant one thing i remember as a student was compare and contrast, immigration then and immigration now. >> right, i think that's really at the core of who al smith presented himself to be to the world. this question of immigration and labor was one of the hot issues, so immigration law when was being, immigration restriction which is passed in the 1920's, you had decades of debate about the relationship between wages and labor and

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imgretion and in fact during al smith's day immigration policy was actually under the department of labor. and so these things were really interestmately -- intimately tied then. he ran in 1928 it was really in the wake of a wave of nativist sentiment. if he stood for anything it was a pushback against this reactive nativeism. now, if he had actually been elected president, woe have been able in his day to push back immigration restriction? it seems unlikely. this period in the 1920's is really very intense around imgrailingts it lasts for 40 years. during al smith's childhood there had been almost no restrictions on immigration. that wasn't reopened until the 1916 when as you said you begin to get very different groups of immigrants coming in. >> about 25 minutes levert in our program on alsmippingt

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howie, you're on the air. >> yes, good evening i wanted to shed some light on prohibition and how president hardy did not force prohibition on states that did not do the job themselves. was 1926, around may when al smith actually signed the repeal of the prohibition act. can you also shed had some light on kansas politics leading to the 1936 election where 58 smith blew the whistle on the new deal? >> i think prohibition is something heavily identified with al smith. he never favored prohibition. it was not an issue he championed. he didn't like how new york state ratified it anyway. they did it by simple resolution through the legislateure. he thought it should be a referendum. 29 -- i believe it was 1924 they had a referendum in new york state, what do you think about prohibition? should you change the

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percentage of alcohol? i think it was, they wanted beer and light wines to be allowed. it passed overwhelmingly but it didn't mean anything. smith himself was elected the president of the convention in new york state in 1933 to repeal the prohibition amendment officially in this chamber. the 150 delegates that gathered overwhelmingly voted, and they overwhelmingly voted for al smith to be president. so he got the last laugh on that. they brought out 88-year-old elihu root to come out and second the nomination and pat him on the back. but it shaped him in that it was almost ridiculous to say that you could use the constitution to control human behavior. it actually took a right away from people in the bill of rights giving rights to people.

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and he also thought it was hypothetical alt he used to say he saw more people who would come out there who said they were dries and more wets trying to repeal the prohibition so he thought it was ridiculous. >> and it was very intimately tied to all these questions about immigration and rural versus urban america. lot of the imagery to promote prohibition was about the german saloon and immigrants running wild in the city. they took issue with that and with the kind of institutions mobilized to get prohibition passed. >> beverly gauge, was who -- prohibition a christian right issue in the 1920's kind of like abortion or gay marriage today?

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>> i think it's certainly a cultural issue that mobilized certain sections of the population, but i wouldn't necessarily call it a right wing issue in its day. got a lot of its base of support from protestant groups, certainly from protestant fundamentalists during that day, this again being of the great issues of the 1920's, with the scopes trial and questions about fundamentalism really also at the forefront of american political debate but you also had a lot of progressive reformers, particularly women who had been sufficient rajettes, who had been progressive on any number of other issues who were also supporters of prohibition. partly the feminist issue, saving you from your drunken husband. it's a complicated issue and i think it doesn't line i've very neatly on this left-right spectrum.

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>> john ebers, in between his presidential runs, 192 and 29 -- 1930, what happens to al smith in 1930? >> al smith after he retires from the governorship here in new york actually as a little bit of a side note he believes and i lot of people attribute this to him that he's going to help f.d.r. out, f.d.r. is going to need help. he's going to draft the budget for him, to hold his hand. that turns out not to be the case. f.d.r. wants to stand son his own and doesn't want anything to do with smith the smith goes back to new york city and gets the job to run the empire state building. it's going to be built they were new york -- knocking down the waldorf astoria and were going to break ground for this right around the time the stock market crashes. but they continue through. the dupont family and all the moneyed interests that wanted

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this built, this huge building that goes up just as the depression happens, just as the rents are, everybody is leaving their leases and nobody wants to rent everything. it's dubbed the empty state building and smith who is making $50,000 a year as the president of the corporation -- >> a large amount? >> large amount but he's running like $1 million deficit as a year because nobody is renting the he goes to f.d.r. says could you put some people in there? he goes hat in hand, by the way, could you put someone in the empoir state building? he holds that job until he dies. the economy change than he does recover. but at first it was a very hard job to -- difficult job to have, trying to rent space in new york city. >> one of his failures is really bad timing. ends up as democratic candidate in 1928. if it had been 1932 he would have been a shoe-in.

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he takes over this building that breaks ground on this building in 1929. he had a timing problem in the early 1930's. >> we had another question from the audience. i'm jonathan -- i'm a junior political science major at suny albany. i just have a question. when andrew cuomo first came to office as governor he said he wanted to emulate some of the qualities of alfred smith. and earlier in the program we talked about how at one ponte 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 alfred e. smith, and when governor cuomo

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entered office he put smith's portrait behind the rostrum so that all the press conferences will see al smith and he replaced teddy roosevelt, who was there for the last three governors. >> unidentified speaker governor cuomo also instituted a sage commission which would investigate government and try to make it more efficient, which is also like smith's reconstruction commission. the point that smith is probably being emulated most for efficiency in government. smith took 187 massive rolling bureaus, boards, commissions, departments, and rolled them into the 20 department 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 f.d.r. reforming the executive office of the presidency in d.c. smith is wanted to make sure that if i appoint a

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commissioner i want him answerable to me. prior to smith's reforms, commissioners'terms overlapped much the health care commissioner had a six-year term. certainly commissioners could be appointed by the previous governor, like the insurance commissioner. so the governor cant remove him. certain departments others were appointed. the point about smith is he right-sized it. he made it responsive to the executive, who in turn is responsive to the people. that's his most lasting legacy. and had a little bit of the template taken to d.c.. >> albany, new york. >> well, my question is this. by the way i do work for state government.

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>> i'm an internal audit director for a public authority a state employees about the state budget process. one of the things i teach them and as i understand it, al smith also reformed how budgeting is done in new york state. prior to him, the budgeting wasn't done very well and the budget may have been put forth by the legislature and now we have a very strong executive budget put forth by the governor and that's another legacy that exists to this day for al smith. in my opinion that's one of his real strong contributions to the whole structure of government in upstate new york. i wonder if you would comment on that. >> yeah, prior to smith, budgeting was done by the legislature. they would get together all the

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estimates of what it would take to run government. very inefficient. you had executive agencies reporting to 9 legislature to say this is what i need, whereas they technically reported to the governor. smith used to joke about it and say, when the initial bill was presented it was then added to by the legislature so that the original budget bill could then be almost unrecognizable. they would laden it down with pork. in one constitutional convention they claimed that a clerk passing the bill from one house to the next actually added his own item in there. smith said let the governor submit the budget to the legislature based on estimates from his own executive departments that the legislature can then act on. that made budgeting much more responsive to one virges the governor of new york and that's how it is today. >> beverly, we began this program with a little video

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

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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 monsignor clark might come up here because either the president of the united states or i am without a seat and i have no intension of standing. >> i must say i have traveled the banquet circuit for many years and 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 in this campaign that you want to give america back to the little guy. mr. vice president, i am that man. [laughter] >> as i looked out at all the white ties and tails this evening, i realized i haven't seen so many people so well dressed since i went to a

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come as you are party in kennebunkport. >> we just had really good news out of yugoslavia. >> especially pleased that mr. milosevic has stepped down. that's one less polysyllabic name for me to remember. you know what this world really needs? it really needs more world leaders named al smith. [laughter] >> it is an honor to share the dais with the descendants of the great al smith. >> al, your great, great grand father was my favorite kind of govenor. the kind who ran for president and lost. [laughter] >> >> about 15 minutes left. glen in freeland, michigan, you are on the contenders.

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>> please go ahead. >> thank you very much. the question i have is with all the anti-roman catholic racism and his being the first major american presidential party 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, glen. beverly gauge, if you want to start? >> right, well, in terms of polls he didn't really have the -- you didn't really have the same kind of polling mechanisms you have today so these things air little bit harder to gauge

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in the >> 1920's. you know, which percentage cares about war and the electorate. it's tough for historians, actually not knowing that much about the it. on the international question it's really 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 fitzpatrick was the scopes trial in 1925, and the second, the trial had happened earlier but the second was the execution of sacco and venzetti, two italian immigrants, italian that happened in 1927. so these questions of what the united states'presentation to the world in terms of race, in terms of immigration policy, in terms of its attitudes towards radicalism and political tolerance, all these were really out there already by the

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time smith became the candidate. so his candidacy then on the world stage becomes another moment to ask those questions and call the questions. >> well, after the election and he loses he does eventually go to europe at one time. >> he does meet the pope and he recounts on a few occasions that on many of his travels around italy they though the was the president because they knew he had run. he goes to the house of commons. he had a very good relationship with winston churchill. it certainly did catapult him to the world stage. so in that sense he was a famous also-ran around the world as well. >> catholicism, 1928. >> 2008, serious woman contender, potential mormon 2012. >> is it a fair comparison? >> i think it is a fair comparison in certain ways. in that sense al smith was

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absolutely, he was a trail blazer on this front and i think in many ways it's hard for people today to understand the depth of anti-catholicism in the united states at that moment. when al smith was on the campaign trail particularly in places like oklahoma, places he had never been before and he didn't know much about, his train would pull into town and there would be crosses burning. he faced physical danger around these sorts of questions and he also faced all sorts of conspiracy theories about what his role was going to be, if he was going to be taking orders from the pope or were they building secret tunnels from the vatican. all these really intense conspiracy theories that are hard to remember although we've seen other conspiracy theories come up in recent years. but the intensity of the anti-catholic sentiment he faced it can be hard to remember. >> i'm kathy and i'm a junior american studies major at

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lauder dame college in seneca, new york, how has al smith's legacy been reflected >> -- so far so good. one of the things that's a great parallel between the two is working with a legislature that is seen as hostile, that is seen as the two-party, the partisanship. smith 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 a single vote. the other eight years it was eight years of republican dominance here in this chamber and in the other house he only had the one term. so i would think that the problem of dealing with the other party is something that smith had to battle with and undertake. that's something that the current president has a problem

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with as well. the other thing that he has is it's remarkable the sense of humor. president obama has a very good sense of humor and handled press very well. al smith was the same way. he knew he could be funny on occasions but not all the time because then people wouldn't take you seriously so he could really play a very good statesman with a sense of humor, which is another good parallel. >> beverly? >> the only thing i might add is i'm not sure barack obama has quite learned how al smith learned how to make it all happen. not sure he's learned his lessons for dealing with a hostile legislature. >> next call from houston, texas. >> joe. good evening to you. please go ahead. >> oh, thanks for taking my call. my first question, i know smith lost new york in 1928 to hoover. how well did he do in the five boroughs?

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i also wanted to know, >> was the anti-catholicism vote more prevalent in the southern states as compared to like the midwest, say kansas, nebraska, etc.? and i also wanted to know, he had a fallout with f.d.r., i was surprised to hear he endorsed wendell wilkie in 1940, but i'd like to know how did he feel about social security? >> all right. thank you. >> 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? >> well, did he win new york city? do you know off hand if he won in 1928? >> oh, i don't recall. i don't think he did. >> not even new york city? >> new york city also had outer boroughs that had republican dominance, which is still the

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case in staten island. >> but in pockets of queens as well. >> social security? >> 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 also tried to do all kinds of social security issues when it came to trying to support those that were downtrodden, make-work projects were something that he had experimented with and it might have been one of those programs he would have carried into the new deal had he won. >> i just wanted to address one other aspect that came up, which is about the south. one of the strange things that emerges, so wasn't anti-catholicism more powerfu in the south than in the midwest? that's a hard question to answer. but we've been talking about democrats versus republicans here. one of the things that were very difficult for smith were

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the divisions in the national party. >> the whole south at this point is still a democratic south with smith as their national candidate, so you had real tensions within the democratic party between this kind of urban core smith was coming to represent and the more southern wing as well as other wings of the democratic party as well so those inter party tensions were as important as these >> tensions between republicans hoover, 444 electoral votes. al smith 87 votes. herbert hoover won 40 states. smith won eight. louisiana, alabama, mississippi, south carolina, massachusetts, and rhode >> two questions, if you were to grade him what letter would you assigned to him. and the second question is, as

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the first catholic president did he help how the country viewed religion as a factor. >> i would give governor smith an a because he face -- 1920 when they expelled the socialists i never understood why because they had 110 republicans out of 150 seats so it didn't really matter when it came to the votes. but i would give smith an a. he created so many -- so many things, the budget, the short ballot, to stop voting for six or seven statewide offices and have some appointed. are and the port authority in new york and new jersey was one of his authorities, a bi-state

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authority. he had a lot of interesting things. >> john evers? biggest failure of smith? >> some of it might be that he overthought things. >> i think from a political science point of view public authorities were something he wanted to deal with. he created those and now there's debates over public authorities. and bonding. governor smith was a huge proponent of bonding. that has created a endency for dependence on bonding the could create state debt -- >> i think al smith called certain questions and faced them down. >> his candidacy raised questions that had been percolating in various ways throughout the 1920's. these questions that we've been talking about, immigration, nativeism, all these sorts of issues and he really calls the question. he takes a very sort of powerful stand about who is going to be an american, who ought to be included as an american, and becomes a great symbol for that. i think within the democratic

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party he's also a very powerful figure in sort of consolidating what we now talk about as the roosevelt coalition but it begins with al smith bringing this urban core into the party. >> >> beverly gage and john evers, thank you so much for being on the contenders. we also want to make sure to thank speaker sheldon silver and people here at the new york state assembly for allowing us to broadcast live. we want to thank our studio audience and our cable partner up here in albany, time-warner. we're going to leave you with a few of al smith's own words on his career and life. >> i was elected to my first public office in 1903. i remained in the assembly for 12 years. then i was elected sheriff of new york county. >> then i was elected president of the board of aldermen. in fact, i ran for office 22

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times. i was elected 20 times and defeated twice. i've worked for the county, i've worked for the city. i have worked for the state. and you will probably remember that i tried to get a job down in washington but something happened to me at that time.

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up next conversation with the author of the book the revolution of 28, i'll smith, american progressivism and the coming of the new deal. he argues that although i'll smith lost the election, his progressive coalition pave the way for the new deal policies of roosevelt. good evening everyone. i am really delighted to see all of you here tonight and welcome you here to our top

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CSPAN October 12, 2020 8:01pm-10:05pm EDT