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SMITH, ALFRED E. 1873-1944

NEW YORK GOVERNOR, 1919-1921, 1923-1929

DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE FOR PRESIDENT, 1928

Smith's Early Career

With only an eighth-grade education, Alfred E. Smith, an Irish Catholic New Yorker raised in the Fourth Ward of the city's Lower East Side, entered the rough-and-tumble world of New York City politics as a Tammany Hall loyalist. He began his political career in 1903 as a representative in New York's state assembly. During his legislative career Smith earned a reputation as a hardworking, progressive legislator. In 1918 New York elected the aggressive politician as its governor. In 1920 Smith lost his reelection bid when the rising conservative, xenophobic tide swept Republicans into office in New York, as well as across the nation. But Smith easily recaptured the governorship in 1922 and served three consecutive terms following that victory.

Progressive Governor

While governor, Smith developed a reputation as a progressive reformer, Consistent with national progressive reform efforts to increase governmental efficiency, Smith reorganized New York's state government, eliminating overlapping agencies and reducing costs. He worked for a forty-eight-hour work-week for labor and strengthened the State Labor Department's hand in enforcing safety requirements and administering workmen's compensation. Smith also developed low-cost housing projects and an extensive parks and recreation system in New York. Determined to defend civil liberties in an era of repression, the governor vetoed several antisedition bills, thwarting the legislature's attempts to curtail the civil liberties of Socialists. Throughout his governorship Smith opposed Prohibition and called for its repeal. His accomplishments made him a viable candidate for national office, but his sometimes controversial views on major issues made him a target of substantial criticism.

Presidential Hopeful

Always the ambitious politician, the successful New York governor soon set his sights on the presidency. At the 1920 Democratic convention Smith was included in the crowded field of favorite sons and dark-horse candidates, but he was hardly a serious contender that year. Four years later Smith made a serious bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, but his urban, wet forces clashed with the Democratic Party's rural, dry, Protestant wing. Thus, a bitterly divided convention in 1924 could not nominate either Al Smith or his chief opponent, William McAdoo. Smith's open opposition to the Ku Klux Klan, which included virulent anti-Catholicism among its prejudices, thwarted his opportunity to secure the necessary nvo-thirds majority. After an unprecedented 103 ballots, delegates settled for John Davis, a compromise candidate.

Campaign of 1928

Determined not to repeat the mistakes that divided the 1924 Democratic convention, Smith campaigned early and long, assuring himself the party's nomination in 1928. Although the rural opposition in the Democratic Party was without a national leader, it was determined to be a menacing force. Smith could not unite his party, and he continually reaped dissenters' criticism for his anti-Prohibition stance, his Tammany connections, and his Catholic beliefs. Smith's controversial candidacy diverted attention from the reality of a formidable opponent, Herbert Hoover, and a strong economy. Historian Richard Hofstadter observed, "There was not a Democrat alive, Protestant or Catholic, who could have beaten Hoover in 1928,"