Al Smith, four times Governor of the State of New York, who rose from the sidewalks of New York, was the first Roman Catholic to represent a major political party for the presidency of the United States in 1928. Al Smith faced a vicious campaign of anti-Catholic innuendoes and slurs in the 1928 election. A widely distributed periodical called the Fellowship Forum declared, “The real issue in the campaign is Protestant Americanism versus Rum and Romanism.” Smith throughout his career demonstrated an ability work closely with progressives to pass reforms such as the eight-hour working day, low rent housing, decent working conditions, banning child labor and the minimum wage. He was scrupulously honest. Not a hint of scandal stained his long political career. Nevertheless, he could not overcome fundamental Protestant prejudice, and lost badly to Herbert Hoover not even carrying his home state of New York. In 1926, running for governor his victory was huge, comedian Will Rogers exclaimed, “ The man you ran against ain’t a candidate, he is a victim.”

 

This week we commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of John Kennedy. I remember presidential candidate Kennedy debating a group of Protestant ministers in my hometown, Houston, during the 1960 election campaign. Mr. Kennedy, a World War II hero, had to publicly declare that his full loyalty was to America, and that the Pope would not dictate his political decisions.

 

From a newsboy and fishmonger to four times Governor of the Empire State and the candidacy of the Democratic Party, the rise of Alfred E. Smith had no exact parallel in American history. There have been may country boys who have become president, such as Lincoln, Garfield, Johnson, who rose to the heights, but no other city urchin, earning a precarious living in the streets, ever rose to such a distinguished public career.

 

Mr. Smith was distinctly a product of New York City. He became a member of Tammany. However, while he was loyal to Tammany Hall, Smith worked extremely hard to become a knowledgeable member of the State legislature, learning after intensive study the intricacies of government. Over time he became the most influential member of the State legislature, combing knowledge and charm.

 

A turning point in his career came with his appointment as vice chairman of the New York State Factory Investigating Commission, which followed the fatal Triangle shirtwaist factory fire in the city where over a hundred girls needlessly died. Mr. Smith became familiar with industrial conditions, and he became a champion of welfare legislation. He brought about the recodification of the State’s labor laws.

 

In 1920, Mr. Smith was elected Governor. His opponents stated, “Mr. Smith is the best representative of the worst element of the New York Democratic Party. Ms. Smith championed many progressive causes such as woman suffrage, increased salaries for teachers, higher appropriations for caring for the insane and building more hospitals. He urged the extension of laws to protect women in industry and the passage of health-insurance legislation, including the provision for maternity insurance.

 

Mr. Smith soon became a national figure. At national conventions, the band played “The Sidewalks of New York,” the song always associated with Mr. Smith. In 1924 Franklin Roosevelt made a brilliant speech nominating Smith for President at the Convention. This led to a prolonged demonstration of more than an hour. However, Mr. Smith and Mr. William McAdoo were deadlocked, preventing either from getting the nomination. There was a bitter fight at the convention over a proposed plank denouncing the Ku Klux Klan. The bitter fight over the plank renewed attention to the fact that Governor Smith was a Roman Catholic. The convention took 103 ballots to nominate John W. Davis. The junior senator from Alabama delivered a vicious speech on the floor of the Senate blamed Roman Catholics for the defeat of Mr. Davis because Catholics wanted the Democrats to denounce the Ku Klux Klan. “Gentlemen, that question (Ku Klux Klan) has got no business trying to get a National Democratic Convention to denounce it. It is a Protestant order and Protestants generally think that you want it denounced because you are Catholics.”…Catholics replied, “To hell with the party if it will not denounce the Klan. So I tell you Senators again that the Roman Catholic government above everything, above the Democratic Party, above their country. That is plain talk, but it is the plan truth… Here they tell you in their book that they (Roman Catholics) will force the propaganda of Protestants to cease, they will lay the heavy hand of a Catholic state upon you and crust the life out of Protestantism in America. 

 

In 1928, Al Smith easily won the nomination, although women’s temperance groups and the local Baptist church of Houston held all-day and all-night prayer meetings near the convention hall and insisted that God would intervene to prevent the “catastrophe” of Smith’s nomination. Fortunately, most of the delegates recognized the strengths of Al Smith, and felt that he was their only hope to defeat Herbert Hoover in the fall. Unfortunately, Mr. Smith announced that he had an antiprohibition position; therefore, many fundamental Protestants both in the South and Midwest defected to the Republicans.

 

The opposition to Mr. Smith developed on three grounds: (1) he was a Roman Catholic (2) he was against prohibition and (3) he was a member of Tammany.  Mr. Smith tried in an open letter to Charles Marshall, a lawyer and Episcopalian, whether being a Catholic did not constitute a bar to his election to the Presidency. Govern Smith’s reply was regarded as a masterly statement that he was an American Catholic, with little interest in dogma but was loyal to both his country and his church. Mr. Smith carried only Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

 

Over the last few years of his life, Al Smith made a dramatic change in his political loyalty. Specifically, in 1936 he supported the Republican Alf Landon over Franklin Roosevelt. Smith said that the New Deal was hostile to fundamental American ways.

 

In 1960 John Kennedy was able to engineer successfully a coalition to barely defeat his rival Richard Nixon. Mr. Kennedy received strong support from four pillars of the Democratic Party: (1) the Solid South (2) First and Second Generation Americans located in the Big Cities of the East Coast and Midwest (3) Labor Unions and (4) Liberals.