Al Smith

Alfred Emanuel Smith (December 30, 1873 – October 4, 1944) was an American politician who served as the 42nd governor of New York from 1919 to 1920 and again from 1923 to 1928. He was the Democratic Party's presidential nominee in the 1928 presidential election, losing to Herbert Hoover of the Republican Party in a landslide.

The son of an Irish American mother and a Civil War–veteran Italian American father, Smith was raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, near the Brooklyn Bridge. He resided in that neighborhood for his entire life. Although Smith remained personally untarnished by corruption, he—like many other New York Democrats—was linked 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 was the speaker of the Assembly in 1913. He also served as the sheriff of New York County from 1916 to 1917. He was first elected governor in 1918, lost his 1920 bid for re-election, and was elected again in 1922, 1924, and 1926. Smith was the foremost urban leader of the efficiency movement in the U.S. and was noted for achieving a wide range of reforms as governor.

Smith was the first Catholic to be the nominee for the U.S. presidency of a major party. His 1928 presidential candidacy mobilized both Catholic and anti-Catholic voters. Many Protestants, particularly German Lutherans and Southern Baptists, feared his candidacy, believing that the pope in Rome would dictate his policies. Smith was also a committed "wet" (i.e., an opponent of Prohibition); as governor he had repealed New York State's prohibition law. Smith attracted voters who wanted beer, wine, and liquor and did not like dealing with criminal bootleggers, along with voters who were outraged that new criminal gangs had taken over the streets in most large and medium-sized cities. Hoover, who was the incumbent Republican secretary of commerce, was aided by national prosperity, the absence of American involvement in war, and anti-Catholicism, and he defeated Smith in a landslide in 1928.

Smith then entered business in New York City, and became involved in the construction and promotion of the Empire State Building. He sought the 1932 Democratic presidential nomination, but was defeated by Franklin D. Roosevelt, his former ally and successor as governor. During the Roosevelt presidency, Smith became an increasingly vocal opponent of Roosevelt's New Deal.

Smith was born at 174 South Street and raised in the Fourth Ward on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1873; he resided there for his entire life. His mother, Catherine (née Mulvihill), was the daughter of Maria Marsh and Thomas Mulvihill, who were immigrants from County Westmeath, Ireland. His father, baptised Joseph Alfred Smith in 1839, was the son of Emanuel Smith, an Italian marinaro (sailor).^{[citation needed]} The elder Alfred Smith (Anglicized name for Alfredo Emanuele Ferraro) was the son of Italian and German immigrants. He served with the 11th New York Fire Zouaves in the opening months of the Civil War.

Smith grew up with his family struggling financially in the Gilded Age; New York City matured and completed major infrastructure projects. The Brooklyn Bridge was being constructed nearby. "The Brooklyn Bridge and I grew up together", Smith would later recall. His four grandparents were of ethnic German, Irish as well as Italian ancestry, but Smith identified more with the Irish-American community and became its leading spokesman in the 1920s.

His father Alfred owned a small trucking firm, but died when Smith was 13. Aged 14, Smith had to drop out of St. James parochial school to help support the family, and worked at a fish market for seven years. Prior to dropping out of school, he served as an altar boy, and was strongly influenced by the Catholic priests he worked with. He never attended high school or college, and claimed he learned about people by studying them at the Fulton Fish Market, where he worked for $12 per week. His acting skills made him a success on the amateur theater circuit. He became widely known, and developed the smooth oratorical style that characterized his political career.

In his political career, Smith built on his working-class beginnings, identifying himself with immigrants and campaigning as a man of the people. Although indebted to the Tammany Hall political machine (and particularly to its boss, "Silent" Charlie Murphy), he remained untarnished by corruption and worked for the passage of progressive legislation. It was during his early unofficial jobs with Tammany Hall that he gained renown as an orator. Smith's first political job was in 1895, as an investigator in the office of the Commissioner of Jurors as appointed by Tammany Hall.