Alfred Emanuel Smith

(December 30, 1873 – October 4, 1944)

Al Smith

Smith was born and grew up in the multi-ethnic Lower East Side of Manhattan becoming the leading spokesman of the Irish Catholic community of the 1920s. In his political career he emphasized his lowly beginnings, identified himself with immigrants, and campaigned as a man of the people. He crusaded against dangerous and unhealthy workplace conditions and fought for the passage of progressive legislation. Smith was elected governor of New York from 1918 to 1926 and became known nationally as a progressive who sought to make government more efficient and more effective in meeting social needs. In 1924 he was the first Catholic to win a major-party (Democratic) presidential nomination, advancing the cause of civil liberty by decrying lynching and racial violence. Roosevelt made the nominating speech in which he saluted Smith as "the Happy Warrior of the political battlefield."

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