Frank and Al by Terry Golway

Author:Terry Golway
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

fourteen

THE CHALLENGE OF NEW AMERICA

NEWLY REELECTED, AL SMITH UNDERSTOOD that he might never again have the power and prestige that was his in the spring of 1925. He was serving a third term as governor, and none of the legendary governors in whose shadow he operated—Teddy Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland, Samuel Tilden (presidential candidates, each of them)—had served even two terms in Albany. He was now widely thought of as the leader of New York’s Democrats as the old bosses passed from the scene—Charlie Murphy was a year into his eternal rest as Smith began his third term, and Smith’s earliest mentor and friend, Tom Foley, died in January 1925. They left a power vacuum that Smith was ready and eager to fill.

He started in New York City, where the mayor, the ineffectual John Hylan, took his orders from Smith’s archenemy William Randolph Hearst. It was time to declare that arrangement null and void. Smith conferred with the new boss of Tammany Hall, an ally of his named George Olvaney, and the young boss of the Bronx, Ed Flynn—who broke into politics working for Smith during his first term—and they agreed on a candidate to unseat Hylan: state senator Jimmy Walker. He was smart—he could lead an argument on the senate floor even after a long night spent in violation of the Eighteenth Amendment—he had a progressive record, and he was, for better and worse, a perfect symbol of New York in the Roaring Twenties.

And so it was agreed, but there would be no deal before Smith had a long talk with his wayward protégé, the skinny, dashing man who called him “Algie.” The Smith apartment on Oliver Street had always been open to Walker and his wife, such was the relationship between the two very different men. But the invitations ceased when Walker began squiring his young, English-born mistress, Betty Compton, all around the town. Al Smith most certainly did not approve, nor would he sign off on, Walker’s candidacy until Walker promised to change his ways. They had what Smith believed to be a heart-to-heart talk one afternoon, with Walker passing up Smith’s offer of bootleg whiskey and asking with practiced sincerity for a glass of soda water. He was not the man he used to be, he said. “We all grow up sometime,” he said, his famously blue eyes wide and earnest. That was good enough for Smith. He endorsed Walker, and that was good enough for most of New York City’s voters. Walker defeated Hylan in a Democratic primary and then easily won the general election, prompting Franklin Roosevelt to invite him to a celebratory supper on East 65th Street. As for Hylan’s patron, Hearst, he once again found himself outmaneuvered by the man from the Fulton Fish Market. The New York Times proclaimed that “Alfred E. Smith today is the most powerful leader the Democratic Party has ever had in the greatest State of the Union.”1

As he sought to change the political dynamic in New York, Smith turned to the village of Hyde Park for assistance.

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