Alfred E. Smith

Al Smith

Al Smith giving a speech

Alfred Emanuel Smith , usually just called Al Smith , (born December 30, 1873 in New York City , † October 4, 1944 ibid) was an American politician and multiple governor of the US state of New York . In 1928 he ran for the Democrats in the US presidential election , but was defeated by incumbent Republican Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover . He was the first Catholic candidate from a major party.

Life

origin

Born in the immigrant district of Manhattan's Lower East Side , Smith had German, Italian, English, and Irish ancestors. Baptized Catholic, he identified himself primarily as of Irish descent. Growing up with no secondary education, Smith first worked in New York markets to support his family.

Political career

Smith's official portrait as New York Governor

From 1895 politically active for the Democrats, Smith was elected a member of the State Assembly , the House of Representatives of New York State , in 1903 . Politically, he campaigned primarily for the rights of immigrants and workers, including as deputy chairman of the committee of inquiry into the fire in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory , in which 146 people were killed. Smith then initiated the first labor protection laws. In 1911 he became leader of the Democrats and from 1913 to 1914 speaker of the house. In 1915, the citizens of New York County elected him sheriff , chief of the Manhattan Police Department.

In 1918, Smith was elected governor of New York; he was the first Irish-American to hold this post in a US state. His first term in office spanned the years 1919 to 1920, in that year he lost the election to the Republican Nathan Lewis Miller . As a prominent representative of the Progressive Movement , he was re-elected for 1922. In the next two elections he was able to maintain his post and he remained governor until the end of 1928. He was succeeded by Franklin D. Roosevelt .

Presidential candidate

In 1928 Smith became the first Catholic to be nominated for a presidential nomination by one of the two major parties in the United States. Joseph Taylor Robinson , United States Senator for Arkansas , became his running mate for a vice presidential nomination. In the economic boom of the Roaring Twenties , Smith had no chance against Herbert Hoover , the Republican candidate and Secretary of Commerce for President Calvin Coolidge in 1928 . The election campaign revolved around economic policy, the prohibition law criticized by Smith and Smiths' proposals to improve the civil rights of African Americans. He lost 41% to 58% very clearly, although he had won the majority of votes in the twelve largest cities in the USA. Anti-Catholic polemics that he would listen more to the Pope in Rome than to the United States Constitution had contributed to this defeat.

Withdrawal from politics and final years

After his successor Roosevelt took over the office of governor, Smith moved into the private sector. He became president of the Empire State Corporation , which was founded to build the Empire State Building . In September 1930 he laid the foundation stone for what has long been the tallest building in the world.

In 1932 he tried again to become a presidential candidate for the Democrats, but failed at Roosevelt. Whose New Deal was vehemently opposed by Smith, including as leader of the co-founders of the American Liberty League . In the 1936 and 1940 presidential elections , he therefore supported the Republican rival candidates for Roosevelt, although both Alf Landon and Wendell Willkie did not generally speak out against the New Deal. To Eleanor Roosevelt , wife of the president, he still maintained a good relationship.

Smith died in Rockefeller Institute Hospital in New York in October 1944 , five months after the death of his wife Catherine, with whom he had been married since 1900 and had five children.

In art

• In Harry Turtledove's novel Southern Victory Series , in which the Confederate States won the Civil War , Smith was elected Socialist President of the Northern States in 1936 and resided in the capital, Philadelphia, where he was killed by Confederate forces in 1942.
• Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt were filmed by Lee DeForest at the 1924 Democratic Convention. The film is in the Library of Congress .
• In Frank Capra's film It's a Wonderful Life , a newspaper pops up with the headline “Smith Wins Nomination”.
• Smith was portrayed by Alan Bunce in the feature film Sunrise at Campobello .
• In the documentary Prohibition of Ken Burns , the election campaign in 1928 is discussed.

additional

The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner , named after Smith, is an annual fundraising event since 1945 held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York on the third Thursday in October. It has been a tradition since 1960 for the two main candidates to participate in the US presidential election.

Web links

Commons : Alfred E. Smith  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

• Alfred Smith in the National Governors Association (English)

• Al Smith in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• Al Smith in the nndb (English)
• Newspaper article about Alfred E. Smith in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Article in the Encyclopedia Britannica ( Memento from June 18, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) ( English )
2. ^ Robert A. Slayton: Empire statesman 2001, ISBN 978-0-684-86302-3 , p. 304.
3. ^ Arthur Schlesinger Jr .: O'Connor, Vaughan, Cuomo, Al Smith, JFK - The New York Times . February 2, 1990. Retrieved May 19, 2009. 
4. ^ Both McCain and Obama to Speak at Al Smith Dinner . In: The New York Times , October 14, 2008. 
5. ^ The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation. Retrieved April 25, 2020 .