To: Wharf Rat who wrote (1459301 ) 5/29/2024 3:11:16 PM From: koan Read Replies (1) | Respond to What the fuck was wrong with Al Smith? Like I said, we Democrats care about the people, poor, sick and old!He put welfare issues high on his political agenda, working to improve housing for lower income earners, for the reform of factory laws, children's care, care of the mentally ill among other goals." Afred Emanuel "Al" Smith (December 30, 1873 – October 4, 1944) was elected Governor of New York four times, and was the Democratic U.S. presidential candidate in 1928. He was the first Roman Catholic and Irish-American to run for President as a major party nominee. He lost the election to Herbert Hoover . He then became president of the Empire State, Inc. and was instrumental in getting the Empire State Building built during the Great Depression, thus creating one of America's most well-known landmarks. He put welfare issues high on his political agenda, working to improve housing for lower income earners, for the reform of factory laws, children's care, care of the mentally ill among other goals. He conducted his political business in such a way as to avoid polarization where possible, and presented legislation in such a way as to attract Republican support where possible. He tried to serve the many, not the few and to reduce the influence of small but powerful interests. <Wharf:" "That is our job, and we have had to fight the Republicans for 100 years to get the job done." You know what happened 100 years ago? The Democratic Convention of 1924 The two leading candidates symbolized a deep cultural divide. Al Smith, New York's governor, was a Catholic and an opponent of prohibition and was bitterly opposed by Democrats in the South and West. Former Treasury Secretary William Gibbs McAdoo, a Protestant, defended prohibition and refused to repudiate the Ku Klux Klan, making himself unacceptable to Catholics and Jews in the Northeast. Newspapers called the convention a "Klanbake," as pro-Klan and anti-Klan delegates wrangled bitterly over the party platform. The convention opened on a Monday and by Thursday night, after 61 ballots, the convention was deadlocked. The next day, July 4, some 20,000 Klan supporters wearing white hoods and robes held a picnic in New Jersey. One speaker denounced the "clownvention in Jew York." They threw baseballs at an effigy of Al Smith. A cross-burning culminated the event.
