Alfred Emanuel Smith (December 30, 1873 – October 4, 1944) was an American politician who served four terms as Governor of New York and was the Democratic Party’s candidate for president in 1928.
Alfred Emanuel Smith (December 30, 1873 – October 4, 1944) was an American politician who served four terms as Governor of New York and was the Democratic Party’s candidate for president in 1928.
The son of an Irish-American mommy and a Civil War veteran and Italian American father, Smith was raised in the Lower East Side of Manhattan close the Brooklyn Bridge. He resided in that neighborhood for his entire life. Although Smith remained personally untarnished by corruption, he–like many supplementary New York politicians–was amalgamated to the notorious Tammany Hall political machine that controlled New York City politics during his era. Smith served in the New York State Assembly from 1904 to 1915 and held the slant of Speaker of the Assembly in 1913. Smith moreover served as sheriff of New York County from 1916 to 1917. He was first elected proprietor of New York in 1918, lost his 1920 bid for re-election, and was elected superintendent again in 1922, 1924, and 1926. Smith was the foremost urban leader of the Efficiency Movement in the United States and was noted for achieving a broad range of reforms as New York executive in the 1920s.
Smith was the first Roman Catholic to be nominated for president of the United States by a major party. His 1928 presidential candidacy mobilized both Catholic and anti-Catholic voters. Many Protestants (including German Lutherans and Southern Baptists) feared his candidacy, believing that the Pope in Rome would dictate his policies. Smith was plus a committed “wet”, which was a term used for opponents of Prohibition; as New York governor, he had repealed the state’s prohibition law. As a “wet”, Smith attracted voters who wanted beer, wine and liquor and did not past dealing next criminal bootleggers, along subsequently voters who were infuriated that further criminal gangs had taken on zenith of the streets in most large and medium-sized cities. Incumbent Republican Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover was aided by national wealth and the non-attendance of American involvement in war, and he defeated Smith in a landslide in 1928.
Smith sought the 1932 Democratic presidential nomination but was defeated by Franklin D. Roosevelt, his former ally and successor as Governor of New York. Smith next entered situation in New York City, became functioning in the construction and marketing of the Empire State Building, and became an increasingly vocal opponent of Roosevelt’s New Deal.