USA > New York > A short history of New York State > Part 44
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chinery in the upstate counties. Of almost equal importance to Roosevelt was Edward J. Flynn, the Democratic boss of the Bronx and Roosevelt's secretary of state. A suave, well-educated politician who headed one of the most powerful and honest city machines in the state, he provided the governor with an invaluable counterweight against Tammany in New York City.
The new governor sought to fill the various divisions of the executive branch of the government with nonpartisan experts. Colonel Frederick Stuart Greene, who had become anathema to the politicians while serv- ing as head of the Department of Public Works under Smith, was reap- pointed by Roosevelt. Several other Smith appointees were retained, and still others were promoted. Many of those selected by Roosevelt to serve in the state government within a short time became figures of national importance. Dr. Thomas Parran, Jr., commissioner of health under Roose- velt, in 1936 became surgeon general of the United States, while Frances Perkins, Samuel I. Rosenman, Harry L. Hopkins, and Henry Morgen- thau, Jr., all held responsible state positions before becoming prominent New Dealers.
Roosevelt entered office pledged to complete the program initiated by his predecessor. Like Smith, he advocated state development, operation, and transmission of the hydroelectric resources of the St. Lawrence River, and like Smith he failed to obtain the legislature's approval of this pro- posal. In addition, he demanded the enactment of many labor laws, prison reform, more efficient use of the state's rural resources, and the reorganization of local government. Only a few of these and similar demands became law, while those that did seldom met the specifications set by the governor. He set up commissions to study and report on various parts of his legislative program. The results of this method were not always felicitous, for on many occasions a commission's recommenda- tions proved unsatisfactory to either the governor or legislature.
Among the first and most notable achievements of the new adminis- tration was the preservation of the executive budget, which had become a part of the state constitution in 1928 and went into effect the following year. The legislature had reluctantly approved the executive budget, but it was still not prepared to relinquish its former hold on the purse strings. Accordingly, in 1929 it adopted an amended budget containing certain specified sums that could not be segregated by the governor without the consent of the chairmen of the Senate and Assembly finance committees. Although the provision concerning the segregation of the lump sums was valid under a law antedating the executive budget, to Roosevelt it seemed an invasion of the executive authority granted by the constitu- tional amendment of 1928. He therefore vetoed the lump-sum provisions (which covered appropriations for $56,000,000). When the legislature
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repassed this part of the budget over his veto, Roosevelt took his case to the courts. In November 1929 his position was upheld by the Court of Appeals, and for the first time in its history the state government was able to manage its finances on a businesslike basis.
Although the judiciary could safeguard the executive budget, it could not assist the governor in the other phases of his conflict with the legis- lature. The governor proposed, but the legislature disposed, and in the process neither side scored a clear-cut victory. For example, in his efforts to reform the state's long-range welfare program, Roosevelt's achieve- ments fell far short of his goals. In 1929 the legislature adopted a public welfare law which shifted the emphasis from institutional to home relief, sought to remove the stigma from poverty, and made some provision for the medical care of the needy. Although this measure was hailed as an enlightened and forward-looking piece of legislation, it proved to be a statement of principles rather than a device for implementing them. In the following year, the legislature approved a social security bill that also represented more of an advance in theory than in practice. Those eligible for pensions under the new law had to have no means of support, to be seventy or over, and to have lived in a single welfare district for at least a year and in the state for a minimum of ten years. Qualified students of the subject condemned the bill on the grounds that the age level was too high and the residence requirements excessive. Roosevelt thought it at best a "stop-gap" measure. In similar fashion, while approving a bill raising construction and housing standards in New York City tenements and apartments, he agreed with critics of the law that it did not give adequate relief to those living in the old-law tenements.
Roosevelt also had to settle for considerably less than he wanted in the field of labor legislation. He did, however, secure the adoption of several bills that strengthened existing statutes or provided additional safeguards for the state's workers. Temporary injunctions in industrial disputes with- out a notice of a hearing were forbidden; provision was made for jury trials of alleged violations of injunctions; the workmen's compensation law was broadened to include disabilities not covered in earlier statutes; the eight-hour law for public work and the factory inspection law were both strengthened; and a law establishing a forty-eight-hour week with a weekly half holiday was enacted. Some of these laws were not all that Roosevelt desired (he referred to amendments to the Workmen's Com- pensation Act as "crumbs" thrown to him by the legislature ). Equally im- portant was the fact that despite repeated requests he was unable to induce the legislature to approve bills establishing "a fair-wage board on behalf of women and children," declaring that "the labor of a human being is not a commodity or an article of commerce," and creating a sys- tem of unemployment insurance.
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Roosevelt's legislative program was designed to appeal to farmers as well as workers. Because most of his proposals lightened the farmer's local tax burden, they encountered relatively little opposition in the predom- inantly farm-oriented Senate and Assembly. At his instigation, the state increased its contributions for highway construction and maintenance, rural schools, and grade crossing elimination. In addition, more state money was provided for safeguarding rural health, and funds were ap- propriated for a soil survey of the state. The governor also took an in- terest in attempts to stabilize the milk industry. When the Emergency Committee of the New York Milk Shed drew up plans to organize the dairy farmers in New York and adjoining states into a co-operative mar- keting association, Roosevelt announced that he approved of the project and would give it his support.
Roosevelt's record as a legislative leader did not match his own as president of the United States. Like Smith, he sought to capitalize on the Republican legislature's opposition to his policies; but unlike Smith, he could not point to a long list of basic reforms. On more than one occasion Roosevelt appeared willing to settle for half a loaf, and the legislature, recognizing this fact, was inclined to give him just that. Moreover, dur- ing his second term his candidacy for the presidency not only necessi- tated long absences from Albany, but it also increased the apparent need for a relatively cautious approach to controversial issues. Walter Lippmann thought that he was merely a pleasant man who wished to be president, and the Nation stated that "his weakness and readiness to compromise have been as evident as his personal charm and absolute integrity." Both statements may have been excessively harsh, but they were not without some justification.
Despite the opposition of the legislature, it was Tammany politicians rather than Republican lawmakers who provided Roosevelt with his most vexatious political problems. In 1929 James J. Walker, the jovial, irre- sponsible Tammany mayor of New York City, was re-elected by a record plurality of 500,000 votes. In the preceding year the first in a series of bizarre events that were to lead to Walker's and Tammany's downfall had occurred when Arnold Rothstein, a notorious gambler and racketeer, was murdered. When the authorities failed to find his murderer, the press hinted that a thorough investigation was being prevented by leading Tammany politicians who in the past had had illegal dealings with the dead gangster. Then Representative Fiorello La Guardia in his unsuc- cessful mayoralty campaign in 1929 produced evidence that a Demo- cratic magistrate in the Bronx had accepted a $20,000 loan from Rothstein. In 1930 the legislature took up the matter and passed a bill authorizing the governor to conduct an investigation of the city administration. Roose- velt, however, vetoed the bill on the ground that the constitution granted
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the right to make such an inquiry to the legislature rather than to the governor. The legislature did not accept the governor's invitation to pro- ceed on its own. Meanwhile, Charles H. Tuttle, a Republican serving as United States attorney for the southern district of New York, obtained indictments for fraud against a number of the city's judicial and civil officials.
Throughout the spring and early summer of 1930, Roosevelt met the re- peated demands of civic groups for an investigation of New York City either by repeating his earlier views on the limitations imposed on him by the constitution or by referring to the need for the "observance of the home rule principle." The Republicans, as well as many independents, thought it more likely that he did not wish to antagonize Tammany dur- ing an election year. In any event, he did not act until August, and he refused to take any steps that might have led to a full-scale inquiry. In- stead, he appointed Attorney General Ward, a Republican, to supplant Thomas C. T. Crain, the Tammany district attorney in New York County, as the prosecutor in a case involving the sale of a city office. In addition, at his request the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, covering Manhattan and the Bronx, began a general investigation of the magistrates' courts. To head this investigation, the court selected Samuel Seabury, Democratic candidate for governor in 1916, a former judge of the Court of Appeals, and a veteran fighter against Tammany rule.
The Republicans entered the gubernatorial campaign of 1930 deter- mined to make corruption in New York City the sole issue. They, accord- ingly, nominated Tuttle for governor, and he proceeded to devote almost all his speeches to the evils of machine rule in the city. Roosevelt had been renominated by the Democrats; and while Tuttle talked of thieving Democrats, Roosevelt discussed the difficulties he had encountered in trying to force a reform program through a Republican legislature. Roose- velt carried the state with an unprecedented plurality of 725,000 votes, and the rest of the state-wide ticket was also elected. His victory, however, should not be attributed entirely to either the merits of his legislative program or to the Republicans' failure to capitalize sufficiently on the situation in New York City, but in part to the severity of the Depression. The Republicans in Washington had done little to restore prosperity, and in 1930 many New Yorkers, in effect, voted against Herbert Hoover's policies as president.
Following the election, the public's interest in the city's affairs was sus- tained by newspaper reports of official corruption uncovered by Seabury and Hiram C. Todd, the special assistant attorney general selected by Ward to conduct the prosecution of the case involving office-selling. By January 1931 it was apparent to all but the most partisan Democrats that every part of New York City's government should be thoroughly investi-
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gated. In his opening message to the legislature Roosevelt said, "It is not alone your right but your duty to conduct ... an investigation if you determine that such course falls within your obligation to maintain the welfare of the state." In April, after examining Walker's replies to charges made against him by the City Affairs Committee, Roosevelt announced that he had not found "sufficient justification in these documents, as sub- mitted, to remove the Mayor of the City of New York."
In March 1931 the Senate and Assembly adopted a resolution creating a joint legislative committee to conduct a general investigation of the affairs of New York City. State Senator Samuel H. Hofstadter served as committee chairman, and Seabury was named chief counsel. The so-called "Seabury committee" soon revealed that corruption in the city's govern- ment was far more extensive than even the anti-Tammany reformers had suspected. Seabury proved to be an extraordinarily astute cross-examiner, and the testimony that he elicited from reluctant Tammany witnesses re- vealed that there was no part of the city's government free from graft. City officials had formed corrupt alliances not only with business firms but also with some of the most notorious criminals in the nation. While the police provided protection for those who could pay for it, prominent members of the government gave contracts, franchises, and judgeships to their friends and associates or sold them in private transactions to any- one whose conscience and bank account enabled him to resort to bribery. Many officeholders had little knowledge of their duties and devoted only a few hours a week to their jobs in the city government. Many officials, including the mayor, were unable to explain satisfactorily how they had obtained sums of money far in excess of their salaries.
During the Seabury investigations Roosevelt approved the appropria- tion of $50,000 for the committee's expenses and gave the committee a free hand, but he made no move to interfere in the city's affairs until he was requested by Seabury and others to remove, first, Thomas M. Farley, sheriff of New York County, and then Mayor Walker. In February 1932 Farley, who soon became known as "Tin-Box Tom" because he insisted that the money he had accumulated beyond his salary came from a tin box in his possession, was removed from office following a hearing. In taking this step, Roosevelt went beyond any of his predecessors, for he was the first governor to remove an elected local official on the ground that the official was unable "to give a reasonable or credible explanation of the sources of ... [his bank] deposits, or the source which enables him to maintain a scale of living beyond the amount of his salary." Walker was charged with-among other things-incompetence, accepting favors from corporations dealing with the city, owning convertible bonds in a corpora- tion doing business with the city, using his official position to obtain a city franchise for a company with which his friends were associated, and being
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unable to give a satisfactory explanation of his nonsalaried income. The Walker hearings, which began on August 11, 1932, ended abruptly on September 2, the day after Walker had resigned as mayor. Following Walker's resignation, John P. O'Brien served as interim mayor until the election in 1933 of La Guardia on a Fusion ticket sponsored by Seabury. For the next twelve years La Guardia provided the city with one of the most colorful and exemplary administrations in its history.
Roosevelt's reluctance to take the initiative before the creation of the Hofstadter committee convinced many New Yorkers in both parties that he had subordinated the need for reform to his desire to further his own political career. The New York Evening World, which had earlier sup- ported him, wrote that he had "lost a respect for which no victory can compensate." Charges of political plotting may have been true, but the fact remains that Roosevelt did alienate Tammany, for the city machine opposed his nomination for president. On the other hand, good politicians are lucky as well as wise, and Tammany opposition undoubtedly strength- ened his candidacy in the West and South.
Roosevelt's handling of Tammany was in contrast to the straightforward fashion in which he met the problems arising from the Depression. At his instigation and under his direction, New York became one of the first states to adopt a comprehensive plan to relieve the suffering caused by economic disaster. Although the effect of the stock market crash of 1929 on the state and national economies was not immediately apparent, it was evident by 1931 that the United States was in the worst depression in its history. Never before had so many of New York's citizens been in want, and never before had the state been forced to deal with an economic crisis of such magnitude and complexity. From 1929 to 1933 the number of factory wage earners in New York decreased from 1,105,963 to 733,457, and total wages declined from $1,650,389,000 to $754,367,000. There were, moreover, many men who, while employed, were not working full time. In 1932 23.4 per cent of the state's male workers were employed on a part-time basis, while 32.6 per cent were wholly unemployed.
At the outset of the Depression privately financed charitable organiza- tions assumed the major responsibility for the care of the needy. But these agencies now had neither the facilities nor funds for handling the huge number of destitute people demanding food and shelter. Despite the heroic efforts of the state's private relief agencies, charity could not keep pace with the onrushing tide of economic disaster. Even more ineffectual were the cheery-but not cheering-slogans issued by business and gov- ernment officials who wished to convince people that the hard times could be dispelled by a strong dose of optimism. The Depression, how- ever, was not a psychological phenomenon to the unemployed men selling apples on city street corners, the hungry people lined up at soup kitchens
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and milk stations, and the residents of crude huts in shanty towns on the edges of many cities.
When private agencies could no longer carry the relief burden, local governments took over the task. In the winter of 1930-1931, Rochester became one of the first cities in the state to put its unemployed to work. Organized by city officials and financed by city funds, the Rochester program provided the unemployed with jobs on public works at prevail- ing wages. A somewhat similar plan was adopted at approximately the same time by Buffalo, and many other cities and towns used public funds to supplement private charity. In New York City the problem of caring for the unemployed was complicated by a provision in the city's charter forbidding the use of public funds for outdoor relief. This obstacle was circumvented by relying on private charities to which the city contributed funds. Regardless of the method used, the question of where the money was to come from always remained. By the summer of 1931 most local governments faced bankruptcy because of their relief activities, and it was clear that the state would have to provide work and money for the needy.
Roosevelt was one of the first officials in the state and the nation to realize that the Depression had made private misfortune a public re- sponsibility. In March 1930 (or less than five months after the Wall Street crash), he proposed a five-point program that called for a census of the unemployed, the co-ordination of public and private relief activities, local campaigns for the creation of new jobs, establishment of free employment agencies in every community in the state, and local public works projects. The following month he appointed a Committee on Stabilization of In- dustry for the Prevention of Unemployment, and under his direction the state expanded its public works program. Then, in August 1931, when it was evident that the state would have to intervene to save many of its local governments from bankruptcy and a large number of its citizens from starvation, he called a special session of the legislature to devise ways of meeting the emergency. In asking for relief legislation, he em- phasized that old methods could not meet the new problems and that a bold course was essential:
In broad terms I assert that modern society, acting through its government, owes the definite obligation to prevent the starvation or the dire want of any of its fellow men and women who try to maintain themselves but cannot. . . . To these unfortunate citizens aid must be extended by government-not as a matter of charity but as a matter of social duty. .. . When ... a con- dition arises which calls for measures of relief over and beyond the ability of private and local assistance to meet,-even with the usual aid added by the State-it is time for the State itself to do its additional share.
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The legislature responded to the governor's requests with the adoption of the so-called Wicks Act. Although this measure bore the name of a prominent Republican member of the state Senate, it contained all the proposals made by Roosevelt in his message to the special session of the legislature. A Temporary Emergency Relief Administration, directed by three persons appointed by the governor, was established to supervise the distribution of state aid to local communities for work relief and home relief. The state was divided into welfare districts that consisted of cities, or of counties exclusive of any cities within their borders. Within each district, the local welfare commissioner served as the representative of the T.E.R.A. for the administration of the home relief program. Work relief was directed by an emergency work bureau whose members were appointed by the mayor or the county board of supervisors. Home relief was viewed in the broadest possible terms, for it included not only food and shelter but also clothing, light, medicine, and medical care. Those eligible for any form of relief were defined as "needy persons, who are unemployed or, if employed, whose compensation therefrom is inade- quate to provide the necessaries of life and who have been residents of the state for at least two years ... and ... dependents of such per- sons."
During the first ten months of its existence, T.E.R.A. administered the expenditure of $48,696,595 for either work relief or home relief to 379,070 families, representing approximately 1,500,000 individuals. Conceived as a temporary expedient, T.E.R.A. was prolonged by successive legislative acts until 1937. Although T.E.R.A. never had enough money to help all the state's needy, it did succeed in working out an integrated program for the care of those who in more normal times were capable of caring for themselves. Because New York was the first state to adopt a plan to aid its communities during the Depression, it had to make many of its own precedents. As a pioneering venture, T.E.R.A. set the pattern for both state and federal governments during the Depression. It helped to re- move the stigma of the dole from relief activities, put the unemployed to work on projects that added measurably to the state's physical assets, sought to use skilled workers in the trades that they had previously fol- lowed, standardized policy without destroying local administration, and made medical care an accepted part of the government's relief program. In short, it did for New York much of what the New Deal was soon to do for the nation.
When Roosevelt left Albany for Washington, he was far better prepared than most of his contemporaries realized to meet the greatest peacetime crisis in American history. Many New Deal programs did not seem so new to New Yorkers, for Smith had educated them as reformers and Roosevelt had shown them how to combat a depression. If, as is frequently
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said, the American federal system permits each state to act as a public affairs laboratory, it was New York which had conducted most of the experiments that prepared the way for Roosevelt's domestic policies as president. Some specific New Deal measures may have been unprece- dented, but its spirit had been known and shared by New Yorkers for a decade before Roosevelt entered the White House.
Chapter 32
The Little New Deal
I fought only for legislation I considered sound and enlight- ened: legislation which I believe is of benefit to all groups of our people .- HERBERT LEHMAN, January 1, 1937
WHEN Roosevelt became president of the United States, there was no break in the continuity of New York's executive leadership, for Herbert H. Lehman was a close friend and political associate of the retiring gov- ernor. On the surface the two men appeared to have little in common: Lehman's self-effacing personality and quiet seriousness stood in marked contrast to Roosevelt's buoyancy and exuberance. But both men came from well-to-do families, and both possessed a sense of noblesse oblige. Both men, moreover, were in substantial agreement on the issues be- fore the people and government of New York. Lehman, like Roosevelt, believed that the economic emergency required unprecedented action by the state and that only government intervention could save Amer- ican democracy and capitalism. Both men, in short, were New Dealers.
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