The Brown Derby

(TIME, April 30, 1928) -- Last week was Smith Week among the Democrats. East coast, West coast, all around the land, the Smith candidacy seemed to have reached a new high-tide line. In Washington, a Southern Senator who would not permit his name to be quoted because he and his State have been thoroughly anti-Smith, said: "Smith already is nominated." Other Washington politicos were discussing, not the probability of the nomination but its manner. Perhaps, they said, it could be managed by acclamation, which would be a very good thing for the chances of the Democracy in November, the precise reverse of much-haggled, half-hearted 1924.

In Manhattan, having bided its time, the Democratic State Committee formally offered New York's "most distinguished son" to the nation. The chief speechmaker used the words "progress" and "progressive" nine times in ten paragraphs, and made the customary references to Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln. A woman, Mrs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, said that women "crave" a President with an understanding, a human heart. She quoted Kipling's Recessional and wound up: "The country needs a leader and we offer, with entire confidence and affection, Governor Alfred E. Smith, God bless him."

In other States, the progress of the Smith boom in Smith Week was as follows:

Georgia's two largest cities, Atlanta and Savannah, invited Candidate Smith to visit, through chamber of commerce and board of trade.

South Carolina's senior Senator, Coleman L. Blease, scouted the notion that his State, outstanding exemplar of secession, would bolt the Democratic ticket if Smith were nominated. This and other statements quieted the talk of Smith's "splitting" the South.

Illinois and Iowa verified their support, binding 58 and 26 votes, respectively, at state conventions.

Ohio, with a primary imminent, was conceded to Favorite Son Pomerene, an out-spoken admirer of Candidate Smith.

Pennsylvania, with a primary imminent, was heavily pro- Smith.

Massachusetts, with a primary imminent, was conceded to Candidate Smith.

California, with a primary imminent, was claimed for Candidate Smith ahead of Candidates Walsh and Reed. Here, really, was a crux of the Smith candidacy which its supporters were taking on a surprising amount of faith. The California primary, first direct contest between the leading candidates, is of great importance psychologically as well as numerically. California is farthest from New York. California contains a curious mixture of wet Protestant, dry Catholics and vice versas. Thousands of Republicans were registered to vote in the Democratic primary. To predict a decisive Smith victory in California the margin of 10,000 votes quoted last week by Smith men seemed inadequate, senseless. Behind Candidate Walsh is William Gibbs McAdoo. Behind Candidate Reed is William Randolph Hearst. Behind Candidate Smith is onetime (1915-21) Senator James Duval Phelan, locally no less potent than McAdoo or Hearst but not clearly the Democratic strong-man of California able to combat the other two and confound them by division. The California primary, set for May Day, loomed large and inscrutable.

"By Gosh." Candidate Smith participated personally in Smith Week almost not at all. Leaving his brown derby in his hotel room at Biltmore, N. C., he wore a floppy felt hat and continued his golf. He said he had not changed his June plans: "When I said that I would not go to Houston, I meant it." Upon his fellow New Yorkers' action in presenting him to the nation he made no comment. Observers were thoroughly satisfied that he will exert himself to obtain the nomination no more overtly than he did last week in one action and two characteristic utterances:

He went into a barnyard, milked a cow, had himself photographed between two cows.

He received a letter from Charles W. Tillett, a political commentator of Charlotte, who wrote: "I have said many good things concerning you and I wish to determine, after seeing you, whether I can, like the queen of Sheba, say the half has not been told, or whether I must repeat what Uncle Eph said to me the other day when I got after him about an extravagant statement he had made: 'Boss, I jest overspoke myself.' " Candidate Smith wired back: "Will be delighted to see you . . .in the matter of Queen of Sheba versus Uncle Eph."

He received one Leonard H. Huff, hardbitten hill-billy, aged 92, who said: "I have been waiting four years to get a chance to vote for you." Candidate Smith replied: "By gosh, I hope you get the chance."

Leaving Asheville, the Candidate and his party moved up to Absecon, N. J., for more golf, more rest, less public politics.

The increasing prospect of any man's nomination distorts his image in the public eye. In the case of Candidate Smith, his enemies see him more and more as a subtle knave of Rum and Romanism wearing the stripes of Tammany. His friends, in turn, are prone to exalt him as a Galahad of the masses, dight in spotless, and stripeless, armor. Actually, of course, he is simply a 54-year-old up-from-the-bottom man whose profession has been politics, whose acquired technique is state government, whose ambition is what he calls "the highest office in the world." In acquiring his technique he found that knowledge of his job was necessary to rise in his profession and that honesty was an unbeatable asset after rising. In contemplating his ambition he has perceived that a public man can no longer personally manipulate a great destiny. The nomination must be brought to a Destiny Man. He cannot go and get it.

Heredity, Environment. That Alfred Emanuel Smith rose from utter poverty and the shelter of a saloon is another current myth. His father, for whom he was named, was a New York trucker of whom little is known except that he worked hard and died young, when his son was 13. The mother, whose maiden name was Mulvehill and who also was born in New York, had seen to it that the boy went to a parochial school. At the father's death, he left school, having reached the eighth grade. Beside his mother he had a sister, two years his junior, to support. He earned $15 per week as a checker in the fulton Fish Market. His mother covered umbrellas to help out. He checked fish for seven years, then worked in a Brooklyn pumping station.

The house he came home to at night was no less respectable than any other on South Street in those days and he was a welcome, an extra welcome, guest at all the neighborhood parties and church sociables. "He talked all the time," his neighbors recall. He could dance jigs and recite and he thought he could sing. He wore fancy waistcoats, a red necktie, tight trousers and a trig brown derby. He grew tall and quite handsome. He was blond, eager, jocose. They always called him Alfred.

Education. Books, the conventional source of information and mental training, never attracted him. People were his educational instruments and he early learned to use them well. His college was the Society of St. Tammany and his freshman courses were in addressing postcards to voters, watching at the polls, etc., etc. He tried the real estate business on the side but Tammany promoted him to speechmaking in his district and his name began to get into the newspapers. The notorious Richard Croker was boss of Tammany at the time and Smith's immediate professor was Tom Foley, who kept the corner saloon.

Foley got him his first local appointment. For eight years he investigated jury panels, worked for other men's elections. His diversion were bicycling, amateur theatricals and courting a black-haired belle, Katherine Dunn, who had moved from his neighborhood to the distant Bronx. In 1900, still a jury investigator, he married her and they lived in a flat near his Tammany club, later moving to a since-famed house in Oliver Street. In 1903, aged 30, he was sent to the New York Assembly as a Tammany regular. He made it a post-graduate course, became the speaker and in 1915, when the State held a constitutional convention, his thorough-going knowledge of the state laws carried off high honors.

In 1915 he became New York's sheriff. He was elected president of New York's board of aldermen in 1917. His stupid ticket-mate of that year, Mayor John F. Hylan, was to flounder on through disrepute into obscurity but "Al" Smith went on, in 1918, to be Governor. He has continued so down to date, except for the term of 1920-1922, when he fortified his fortune as a private citizen in the trucking business.

Career. To have been Governor of New York longer than any other man and to have been re-elected invariably by the opposition's futile efforts to find flaws in one's record, is no mean achievement in itself. Not without an eye to the national electorate, Governor Smith reviewed his administrations specifically last winter. Certain things stood out:

The work of his Reconstruction Commission, straightening New York out after the War and reorganizing the sprawling state government.

Fiscal reform and the introduction of business methods in government control of ports, bridges, etc.

Road building, aid to education, conservation of water power.

Certain other things, which Governor Smith did not mention, will be noted in all Smith biographies as follows: (The ablest Smith biography so far published is ALFRED E. SMITH, A CRITICAL STUDY, by Henry F. Pringle (Macy-Masius, $3.50))

In his first two terms, he conferred regularly and flexibly with Tammany Boss Charles F. Murphy. He helped the stupid Hylan get re-elected in 1921.

In 1922 he was advised by Tammany that he was to lead a ticket upon which William Randolph Hearst would run for U. S. Senator. Ensuing events at the Onondaga Hotel in Syracuse, where the convention was held, wrought one of those changes which no man could have planned yet which might have been brought off by any man possessed of native intelligence, self-respect and courage. Alfred Emanuel Smith had learned to despise William Randolph Hearst. In 1919, after Smith had striven to better New York City's milk supply and been balked by a Republican legislature, Hearst's press had viciously accused Smith of being in league with the milk trust, of starving New York's babies. Smith had answered, defied, publicly tongue-lashed Hearst, with Irish violence. Now, Hearst had forgotten, but Smith had not forgotten. To Tammany's coalition proposal, Smith said: "The answer is, No!"

Boss Murphy and his henchmen were aghast. Without Hearst many a job might be lost. Perhaps Smith would have to go overboard. They tried to reason with him. He stayed in his room chewing his cigars, spitting, scowling, swearing. "No, no, NO!" he roared.

In the end it was Hearst who had to back down. From then on, Smith knew he was bigger than Tammany. In 1924, Boss Murphy died and his successor, George Olvany, has never pretended to be Smith's peer.

After the Syracuse episode, Smith could and did begin to think of himself as a free agent. In 1920 he had been put forward as a perfunctory Favorite Son for the Presidential nomination, to block McAdool In 1924, he was a real Favorite Son, a serious contender, though the convention's fear of the Klan made him once more only an obstructionist.

Now there is no Klan, except for extraordinary Senator Heflin, and no McAdoo, except as represented by polite Candidate Walsh. There are large obstacles between Alfred Emanuel Smith and election, but so far as the nomination goes, last week, in Smith Week, there was even talk of an acclamation.

Retinue. Persons who consider Candidate Smith unfit for the Presidency on the ground that his entourage would disgrace the White House are mostly persons unacquainted with what a White House entourage is like or with those whom Candidate Smith would take with him. Persons familiar with his presidential frame of mind predict that he would content himself with no small-calibre men, certainly no Tammany favorites, for Cabinet positions. Of his oldtime personal retainers, only three seem indispensable:

Belle Lindner Israels Moskowitz -- a calm, fine-minded Jewish woman, widowed and remarried, whose social work led her into politics in 1912 as a Roosevelt supporter. Smith enlisted her to organize the women's vote for his first gubernatorial campaign ten years ago. She became and has remained his publicist- extraordinary, editing his speeches smoothing his rough accents, advising his policy to a surprising extent. It was she, for example, who saw the significance of his guardian stand on water power. She kept him, and made the New York voters, increasingly conscious of water power. With Muscle Shoals and Boulder Dam now nationally headlined, the Smith position thereon is well- established and not campaign cant. If she went to Washington, as it seems she would have to, Mrs. Moskowitz, would not be Secretary of State but she might be something, short of secretary, in the Labor Department.

Robert Moses -- a young Jew of independent means and unusual abilities. Nominally a Republican he accepted the Secretary of State portfolio in the State Cabinet, chosen by Governor Smith last year. Should there be such a person as President Smith, it is more than likely he will keep his Moses by him in some capacity.

George Graves and James J. Mahoney -- smart executive assistants at Albany, eminently qualified for private secretary deals at the White House, both are used to wearing cutaways.

Robert ("Bobby") Fitzmaurice -- for years "Man Friday" to the Candidate. Smaller, balder, older than his patron, he still seems much younger. He arranges trips, receives pressmen and callers, personifies loyalty. He would doubtless perform the same functions at Washington.

Why He May. Above everything, the unique asset of Candidate Smith as a public figure is his famed "human touch" -- the wide smile, throaty laugh, instant humor, lowly origin, the tilt of the Brown Derby. Under his ease among the mob, moreover, responsibility has developed an innate dignity which is now perfectly at command as occasion requires. His ability and integrity in office have never successfully been questioned. The lack of another Democrat combining trusted power with a warm personality will be what causes the Dry Protestant south to swallow a Wet Catholic if he is nominated. The lack of an equivalent Republican will be that cause of his election, if any.

Why He May Not. Unless the U. S. is at heart intolerant, bigots of the Heflin type will have eliminated Roman Catholicism as a consideration in June and November. Then comes the Smith wetness. Candidate Smith is not a drunkard, he does not favor the saloon's return, all he does favor is a Prohibition referendum; but many will refuse to believe that this is the worst. The charge that the Smith administrations at Albany were financially extravagant may contrast effectively with Coolidge Economy, despite the Smith answer that Republican legislators invariably voted the appropriations of his time and that he frequently pared down "pork" with his veto.

Mrs. Katie Dunn Smith, honestly, defenselessly her Oliver Street self, will undoubtedly alienate many women's votes but unless the campaigning is even more uncivil than it promises to be, that issue will be tacitly lumped with the undeniable private properties of the Candidate himself -- spittoons, chewed cigars, damp shirtsleeves, profanity. These are properties of masses, perhaps, but not of the mass advertisements, so potent in the U. S.

Finally there is Tammany. Traditions live long and are easily magnified into a country of few traditions. Corruption is already on the fire and the public nose is perhaps dull enough to confuse an old stench with a new one. If the political fathers who sired him should come as ghosts to cause his ruin, that would be a great irony upon them and "Al" Smith. If they should stay buried and let ancestor-cursing go the way of ancestor-worship, that would be more interesting, whether Smith wins or loses.

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