USA > New York > A short history of New York State > Part 42
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The history of New York's government during the postwar decade is in all essentials the story of Alfred E. Smith and the programs that he initiated and completed as governor. Although there was no area of state activity that was not influenced by his policies, his major accomplishments were the establishment of a system of centralized and responsible govern- ment, the adoption of a body of welfare legislation that surpassed that of any other state, and the revitalization of the democratic spirit when demo- cratic thought and practices appeared to have reached their nadir. His conduct of the government made New York a model for every other state in the Union and served as an outstanding example of the continuing strength of progressivism in an age of conservatism.
Long before Smith became governor, many American politicians had
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been able to convert their humble origins into a major political asset. The folklore of politics, however, also required that a poor boy who wished to become president be born of Protestant parents on a farm or in a village, and Smith was a Catholic from the slums of the nation's largest city. His story, nevertheless, was in many respects the urban counterpart of the classic legend. As such, it was one more indication that the frontier had ended and that America's future would increasingly be determined by its cities rather than by its countryside. But not all Americans were prepared to concede these points, for when Smith ran for the presidency in 1928, he was overwhelmingly rejected by rural, Protestant America. The final chapter of the American success story had not yet been rewrit- ten for poor boys from the city, and it was perhaps appropriate that Smith was defeated for the presidency by a candidate who had been born in a cottage in Iowa. It was to New York's credit that in successive elections a majority of its voters had not permitted the prejudices of an earlier America to obscure Al Smith's thoroughly American attributes and achieve- ments.
Born in 1873 on Manhattan's Lower East Side, Smith grew up in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge. In what he in later years referred to as "the old neighborhood," first and second generation Irish outnumbered all other national groups, and everyone's life was either directly or in- directly affected by St. James Roman Catholic Church, poverty, and Tammany Hall. If this region-as outsiders insisted-had more than its share of criminals, prostitutes, and drunkards, it also had hard-working, law-abiding families like the Smiths. If some boys became ne'er-do-wells, others like Al Smith became altar boys. If life in the slums was often hard and frustrating, there were also interludes of swimming in the East River, Sunday excursions to Coney Island, parties at the church, political out- ings and chowders, amateur theatricals, and family visits to the beer garden. The old neighborhood may have hardened and embittered some of its inhabitants, but it helped to make Smith both a sentimentalist and a realist. As an adult, he looked back with nostalgia on a boyhood that was as American as that of any farmer's son. At the same time he sought to do all within his power to prevent other Americans from being subjected to the evils that he had endured as a child.
Like many other East Side boys of his generation, Smith began work when he was still a child and entered politics as soon as he came to man- hood. At twelve he was selling papers. Three years later he left school for a job with a trucking concern. Before he was twenty-five, he had worked as a shipping clerk in an oil factory, a salesman in the Fulton Fish Market, and a shipping clerk in a Brooklyn pumpworks. Meanwhile he had joined the local branch of the Tammany organization and had at-
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tracted the attention of the district leader. As a consequence, in 1895 he was appointed subpoena server in the office of commissioner of jurors, and in 1903 he was elected assemblyman. By 1915, his last year in the Assembly, he was recognized by both Democrats and Republicans as an outstanding legislator and reformer, while his work in the constitutional convention of the same year revealed that he knew as much about the operation of New York's government as did any politician in the state. He served as sheriff of New York County in 1916-1917 and as president of the New York City Board of Aldermen in 1918. Elected governor in 1918, he was defeated for the same office by Nathan Miller in the Harding landslide of 1920, but was re-elected in 1922, 1924, and 1926. His active political career ended in 1928 when he was defeated for the presidency by Herbert Hoover.
The turning point of Smith's life was his election to the Assembly. He once wrote that the "state legislature was a great university of learn- ing," and he might have added that he was one of the ablest and most diligent students ever to attend its classes. During his first three years in the Assembly he was by his own admission almost completely unaware of "what was going on." But he kept his mouth shut, studied every bill that was brought to a vote, and took care of his constituents in the old neighborhood. By 1907 he was participating in the debates; in 1911 he was made majority leader; and two years later he served as speaker. It was in the Assembly that he first met men from other parts of the state, learned his trade as a politician, and acquired his mastery of every phase of the state government. It was in the Assembly, moreover, that he had his first opportunity to impress politicians from both parties with his liberalism, industry, fair-mindedness, sense of humor, and ability as a speaker. Dur- ing his last year in the Assembly when he was running for sheriff, the New York Tribune, a Republican paper, wrote that "in the past ten years there has been no Republican, Progressive or Democrat in the State Legislature who has rendered as effective, useful, downright valuable service to this town as ex-Speaker Smith." His record, the Tribune continued, revealed that he was "a true leader, a genuine compeller of men, a man of wit and force with an instinctive grasp of legislative practice."
If Smith went to college in the Assembly, he did his postgraduate work at the constitutional convention of 1915. Serving with some of the most prominent men in the state, he again acquired new friends and new knowl- edge. He won the respect of such outstanding Republicans as Elihu Root, Henry L. Stimson, and George D. Wickersham, while the diversity of the subjects considered in the debates provided him with facts and ideas that he was to use throughout his four terms as governor. But the con- vention profited as much from Smith as he did from it. Despite the fact
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that he was a member of the minority party, the information that he sup- plied on more than one occasion determined the programs adopted by the majority.
Whether serving as an assemblyman, as a delegate to the constitu- tional convention, or as governor, Smith was at all times a pragmatist. Relatively uninterested in economic and political theories, he always preferred the specific to the general. He did not read widely and he was not well informed on subjects that had not been part of his personal ex- perience. But he had a systematic mind, a phenomenal memory, the ability to grasp the details and broader implications of public questions, and a desire to get things done. When confronted by a particular problem, he was not influenced by precedent or ideological considerations, but by his estimate of the possible results of a course of action. As a result, he was never a doctrinaire, and as he grew older he became less and less a partisan.
As a practical reformer Smith was always more than a match for his conservative opponents. For example, when he urged state intervention to relieve the postwar housing shortage, the Republicans accused him of being a socialist. To Smith this was not only untrue but irrelevant, for the heart of the matter was that people needed low-priced homes and pri- vate enterprise could not or would not build them. When he advocated that the governor be granted executive authority and responsibility, he was accused of a desire to become a dictator, and some Republican leaders went so far as to call him a king. But to Smith the only issue was that the existing system of administration was inefficient and the system that he proposed was not. This type of liberalism made him a disconcerting po- litical figure to almost everyone but the voters. When his opponents argued that his recommendations violated hallowed theories and traditional views, he replied with speeches that explained to the voters how and why they would benefit from his reforms. The people proved as practical- minded as Smith, and on successive election days they endorsed both him and his policies.
Despite Smith's effectiveness as a reformer, he remained a loyal mem- ber of Tammany Hall throughout his life. As a young assemblyman he took his orders from the organization, and as speaker in 1913 he led the Tammany movement in the Assembly to impeach Sulzer. But as he moved up the political ladder he demanded and received increasing free- dom from the machine. He was fond of Murphy, and the boss was proud of him. There is no evidence that they ever fought or that Smith ever resented Murphy's leadership. Smith considered the boss a "good adviser" and wrote that "if he placed his confidence in a man he allowed that man to make the decision." Murphy placed his confidence in Smith and made no apparent effort to determine state policy when his former protégé
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was serving as governor. When Murphy died in 1924, Smith assumed leadership of the party in the city and refused to let Tammany renominate John F. Hylan for a third term as mayor. Hylan was allied with Hearst, whom Smith despised, and in 1925 the governor succeeded in securing the nomination and election of James J. Walker as mayor of New York City. Smith's support of Walker proved to be a major political blunder. As likable as any man in New York politics, Jimmy Walker was altogether casual about moral obligations and had no apparent sense of civic duty. He usually did not get to work before three in the afternoon, and he spent many of his evenings in night clubs. Moreover, during his administration, Tammany revived practices that recalled the Tweed Ring. Favors were sold to members of the machine or to the highest bidders; criminals and politicians formed a mutually profitable alliance in which the former paid the latter for protection; and the city was forced to the brink of bankruptcy. While Smith was making the state govern- ment a model of efficiency, Walker was permitting-if not encouraging -every form of political thievery in the city. Walker's record revealed that Smith, instead of changing Tammany, had risen above it. The tiger was as voracious as ever.
Smith's refusal to play machine politics may not have been altogether altruistic on his part, for he realized from the outset that he needed more than Tammany votes to win elections. Instead of giving the largest po- litical plums to the Democratic regulars, he sought to make merit the principal basis for appointment. He advocated policies that were en- thusiastically supported by reform and civic groups in both parties. In an immediate sense, these tactics appeared to be poor politics, but from a long-term view they proved just the reverse. Over the years he attracted many independents who were more interested in good government than in the welfare of a particular political party. But it did not stop there, for, in the words of Warren Moscow, "The Smith hold on the voters be- came catching. ... They started voting for Al and his brown derby and found it easier and easier as the years went by to vote also for the party he headed." The votes of the independents, however, never alienated those of Tammany, and in successive campaigns he was endorsed by both reform and machine groups. His ability to keep such unlikely bed- fellows in the same bed was ascribed by William Allen White to the fact that he retained his old friends with his heart while winning new ones with his head.
One of Smith's most important political assets was his conviction that honest politics were the best politics. This involved more than money honesty, for in Smith's case it also meant an attempt to avoid equivoca- tion in the discussion of issues. Thus, he opposed prohibition when it might have been to his immediate advantage to temporize. He reversed
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his stand on woman suffrage and publicly stated why he had changed his mind. He never talked down to the voters; he used facts to prove his points; and he did not resort to political shibboleths. Many of his speeches were detailed expositions of the state's finances, and observers continually marveled at his ability to make statistics interesting. In seek- ing approval for a bond issue, a constitutional amendment, or a bill pend- ing in the legislature, he invariably took his case to the people in speaking tours and radio addresses. In this fashion he not only secured the adop- tion of almost all of his proposals, but he also helped to make New York- ers the most enlightened body of voters in the nation.
Smith's skill as a politician was repeatedly demonstrated by his ability to overcome the opposition of successive Republican legislatures. When- ever one of his proposals was rejected by the legislature, he would appeal to the people for their support. This technique was usually successful, for on many occasions public opinion forced the legislature to reverse its original stand. The legislature also proved of invaluable assistance to him in his campaigns for re-election. "Let's look at the record" was a constant refrain in his campaign speeches, and the record consisted of a list of Smith's proposals that had been defeated by Republican majori- ties in the Senate and Assembly. Legislative opposition always assured him of an adequate supply of issues, and on one occasion he said, "If the Republicans had not used partisan obstructive tactics against me, I should have been in private life long ago." Perhaps he overestimated the assist- ance he received from the Republicans, but the fact remains that by campaigning against the record of the legislature he won every guberna- torial election but that of 1920, defeating Whitman in 1918, Miller in 1922, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., in 1924, and Ogden Mills in 1926. Some conception of both his effectiveness as a campaigner and the popularity of his policies can be gained from the fact that in 1924, when the Re- publican presidential candidate ran more than 850,000 votes ahead of his Democratic opponent in New York, Smith carried the state by 108,561 votes.
During Smith's first term as governor the United States was in the midst of a campaign against radicalism that made it dangerous for anyone to express opinions that were not in accord with those of the most conserva- tive groups in the country. Although many Americans from all walks of life were stigmatized and persecuted for their views, the principal tar- gets of the antiradical campaign were Communists, members of the In- dustrial Workers of the World, and Socialists. New York, too, succumbed to the pressure of the professional flag wavers, and in 1920 the Republican majority in the Assembly refused to seat five Socialist assemblymen on the ground that the legislature had the right to pass on its own member- ship. Smith had no use for the theories espoused by Socialists, but he
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was deeply concerned with the rights of minorities and the preservation of the democratic process in America. He thought that both were threat- ened by the Assembly's action, and when he was unable to prevent the expulsion of the Socialists, he issued the following statement to the press:
Although I am unalterably opposed to the fundamental principles of the Socialist party, it is inconceivable that a minority party, duly constituted and legally organized, should be deprived of its right to expression so long as it has honestly, by lawful methods of education and propaganda, succeeded in securing representation, unless the chosen representatives are unfit as indi- viduals.
It is true that the assembly has arbitrary power to determine the qualifica- tions of its members, but where arbitrary power exists it should be exercised with care and discretion, because from it there is no appeal.
If the majority party at present in control of the assembly possesses informa- tion that leads them to believe that these men are hostile to our form of government and would overthrow it by processes subversive of law and order, these charges in due form should have been presented to the legislature and these men tried by orderly processes. Meanwhile, presumably innocent until proved guilty, they should have been allowed to retain their seats.
Our faith in American democracy is confirmed not only by its results but by its methods and organs of free expression. They are the safeguards against revolution. To discard the method of representative government leads to mis- deeds of the very extremists we denounce and serves to increase the number of enemies of free government.
The legislature's efforts to enforce conformity were not confined to the expulsion of the Socialists, for in 1919 the Senate and Assembly established a joint legislative committee, under the chairmanship of Senator Clayton R. Lusk, to investigate "enemies of the government." All such enemies proved to be radicals, and the committee's report to the legislature in 1920 recommended that public school teachers be required to take a loyalty oath and that no private school be granted a license by the state until its curriculum has been approved by the Board of Regents. The committee also recommended that the courts be empowered to remove from the ballot the name of any party whose ideals did not conform to those of the United States. The legislature passed bills embodying each of these proposals, and Smith vetoed each bill. In his three veto messages he took his stand as an unreconstructed Jeffersonian democrat. His state- ment explaining his veto of the licensing bill for private schools still stands as a model to which Americans can aspire:
The mere statement of the provisions of this bill is sufficient to demonstrate that in details it is wholly impossible of just enforcement. ... In effect, it strikes at the very foundation of one of the most cardinal institutions of our nation-the fundamental right of the people to enjoy full liberty in the
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domain of idea and speech. To this fundamental right there is and can be under our system of government but one limitation-namely, that the law of the land shall not be transgressed, and there is abundant statute law pro- hibiting the use of free speech. It is unthinkable that in a representative de- mocracy there should be delegated to any body of men the absolute power to prohibit the teaching of any subject of which it may disapprove. . . .
The clash of conflicting opinions, from which progress arises more than from any other source, would be abolished by law; tolerance and intellectual freedom destroyed, and an intellectual autocracy imposed upon the people. . .. The safety of this government and its institutions rests upon the reasoned and devoted loyalty of its people. It does not need for its defense a system of intellectual tyranny which, in the endeavor to choke error by force, must of necessity crush truth as well. The profound sanity of the American people has been demonstrated in many a crisis, and I, for one, do not believe that govern- mental dictation of what may and may not be taught is necessary to achieve a continuance of the patriotism of our citizenship, and its loyal support of the government and its institutions.
Because of Republican opposition in the legislature, Smith was able to accomplish relatively little in his first term as governor. The Republi- cans, having controlled the governor's office for nineteen of the preced- ing twenty-three years, viewed Smith's election in 1918 as more or less an accident. They were prepared, therefore, to wait him out until 1921, when they were confident that a member of their own party would again be governor. During this period of comparative inactivity Smith devoted his attention to the preparation of a blueprint for the reorganization of the state government. In January 1919 he appointed a Reconstruction Commission to study postwar problems and methods for eliminating gov- ernmental inefficiency. The commission was a nonpartisan body whose members represented major civic, professional, and economic groups in the state. When the legislature refused to appropriate funds for the com- mission's expenses, the members of the commission paid the money out of their own pockets.
The commission's report on governmental reorganization, which was submitted in October 1919, was similar in many respects to the amend- ments proposed by the constitutional convention of 1915. The report called for the consolidation of the state's numerous executive boards and agencies into a small number of departments whose heads were to be appointed by the governor with the consent of the Senate. The depart- ment heads were to be responsible to the governor and to serve as his cabinet. The governor, lieutenant governor, and comptroller were to be the only elective officials in the executive branch of the government, and each was to serve a four-year term. As an additional device for centraliz- ing authority and responsibility in the hands of the governor, the com- mission recommended the establishment of an executive budget. Under
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this arrangement the governor with the assistance of his cabinet would prepare a consolidated budget that would contain provisions covering the state's total expenditures and revenues in any given year. The over- all plan outlined by the commission made the executive branch of the state government a pyramid with the governor at its apex. Each depart- ment head would be responsible for his department, and the governor was responsible for the department heads.
By repeated appeals to the voters Smith was able to secure the adop- tion of constitutional amendments that carried out almost all of the Re- construction Commission's recommendations. In 1920 the Senate and Assembly approved proposals for the consolidation of 187 executive agen- cies into nineteen departments, the establishment of the cabinet system, and a reduction in the number of elective officials. Constitutional amend- ments, however, had to pass two legislatures not having the same Senate before they could be submitted to the voters, and in 1921 the Assembly failed to repass the reorganization amendments. But in 1922 Smith made reorganization the principal issue of the gubernatorial campaign, and his victory was in large part responsible for favorable legislative action on the amendments in 1923. The amendments were passed for the final time in 1925, and they were overwhelmingly approved by the voters in the fall of the same year. At this point, Republican legislative leaders threat- ened to sabotage the entire program by making an opponent of reorganiza- tion chairman of the commission that had been created to prepare bills to implement the new amendments. Smith immediately countered by sug- gesting that Charles Evans Hughes, who had advocated governmental reorganization as early as 1909, be made chairman of the commission. As Hughes was one of the most respected men in public life and a member of their own party, the Republicans had no alternative but to accept the governor's suggestion. The Hughes commission's report was adopted without change by the legislature in 1926, and in January of the following year the plan went into effect. When the long and tortuous struggle for reorganization was finally finished, it was Smith who deserved the major share of the credit. He had appointed the Reconstruction Commission; he had used every conceivable opportunity to explain the amendments to the voters; and he had pushed, cajoled, and outmaneuvered the legis- lature.
The executive budget, like the consolidation amendments, encountered considerable opposition in the Senate and Assembly. Despite countless speeches by the governor and the educational work of numerous reform groups, it was defeated by successive Republican legislatures from 1923 through 1925. But its passage was urged by the Hughes commission, and this proved sufficient to secure its adoption. Smith later wrote, "Unable to escape the logic and the pressure, both houses of the legislature passed
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it in 1926 for the first time." It was repassed in 1927, approved by the voters in the fall of the same year, and went into effect on January 1, 1929. The new system gave the governor both control over and respon- sibility for the state's financial policies. The legislature's power at the same time was drastically curtailed. It could reduce the budget presented by the governor, but it could not increase expenditures unless it also pro- vided the means for increasing the state's revenues.
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