Alfred E. Smith: The Happy Warrior - Hardcover

Finan, Christopher M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0809030330 ISBN 13: 9780809030330

Publisher: Hill and Wang, 2002

Synopsis

A challenging biography of one of America's most controversial politicians

Alfred E. Smith lost the 1928 presidential election by a landslide. Herbert Hoover and the Republicans sailed into office on a wave of prosperity, the promise of a chicken in every pot, and the support of the Ku Klux Klan. The brash, Catholic anti-Prohibitionist from New York's Lower East Side seemed never to have stood a chance.

The meteoric rise and dramatic fall of the "Happy Warrior" are well known--from his job at the Fulton Fish Market through his years in the state legislature and as four-time governor of New York to his crushing defeat in 1928 and his final, puzzling defection from the Democratic party in 1936. Christopher M. Finan offers new insights into Smith's early years in New York politics and provides a fascinating interpretation of Smith's break with Roosevelt, which, he believes, was more FDR's doing than Smith's. Finan argues persuasively that Roosevelt captured the Democratic nomination in 1932 by seeking the support of Smith's enemies, including the southern, anti-Catholic Democrats who had rejected Smith four years earlier. In addition, Finan skillfully explores Smith's personal life, uncovering compelling information about Smith's financial dealings during his governorship. The result is a full, nuanced study, written with verve and zeal, of an intriguing--and misunderstood--politician.

About this title

About the Author:

Christopher M. Finan is President of the American Booksellers' Foundation for Free Expression and former executive director of the Media Coalition. This is his first book. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

From Publishers Weekly:

After his death in 1944, it took 57 years to get Al Smith the excellent biography he deserved. That book finally arrived in 2001, when Robert A. Slayton published Empire Statesman: The Rise and Redemption of Al Smith. Now, a year later, comes another worthy Smith biography, albeit a bit shorter and based somewhat less on primary sources than is Slayton's. Full of sympathy for the always sympathetic Smith, Finan (president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression) provides a readable, reliable and reasoned portrait of the Catholic Smith's 1870s childhood on New York City's Lower East Side, his early days with Tammany, his years as a pioneer Democratic reform governor in New York, and his political demise when he fell to anti-Catholic bigotry in the presidential election of 1928. Finan borrows his subtitle from FDR's famous phrase describing Smith, and he spends a great deal of time depicting the complex relationship these two men shared. At first FDR's mentor, Smith eventually came to feel betrayed and displaced by the Protestant Knickerbocker who moved into his post as governor in '28 and then, in '32, achieved the White House, succeeding where Smith had failed. Subsequently, FDR could never understand Smith's myriad criticisms of New Deal reforms that were to a large degree based on policies Smith himself had enacted previously in New York. Still, as Finan shows in his first book, FDR and Smith ended as friends. 24 b&w illus. not seen by PW.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hill and Wang
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0809030330
• ISBN 13: 9780809030330
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368