Al Smith (1873-1944) was the first Roman Catholic to be nominated for president of the United States by a major party, with his 1928 presidential candidacy. He was the Democrat’s nominee.
He was son of an Irish-American mother and a Civil War–veteran Italian-American father, Smith was raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan near the Brooklyn Bridge.
The switch thesis in American politics is that the Republican Party today is more like the Democrat Party of old, and visa versa. So, remember that in the following biographical details of Alfred Smith. Al Smith was the foremost urban leader of the Efficiency Movement in the United States. Smith served as sheriff of New York County from 1916 to 1917. He was first elected governor of New York in 1918, lost his 1920 bid for re-election, and was elected governor again in 1922, 1924, and 1926. During his time as the Governor of New York, Smith became known as a progressive, however, he was notoriously an active member of Tammany Hall political machine that controlled New York City politics during his era. Tammany Hall was semi-criminal, if not outright, an organisation of criminal behaviour. Many Protestants (including German Lutherans and Southern Baptists) feared his candidacy, believing that the Pope in Rome would dictate his policies. Like many Catholics of the day, Smith was a committed “wet” (i.e., an opponent of Prohibition). Smith attracted voters who wanted beer, wine, and liquor and did not like dealing with criminal bootleggers, along with voters who were outraged that new criminal gangs had taken over the streets in most large and medium-sized cities. Herbert Hoover, aided by national prosperity, the absence of American involvement in war, and anti-Catholic bigotry, defeated Smith in a landslide in 1928.
The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, commonly known as the Al Smith Dinner, is an annual white tie dinner in New York City to raise funds for Catholic charities supporting children of various needs in the Archdiocese of New York. This year, 2024, the dinner hosted in person, Donald Trump, with Karmala Harris providing the dinner with a humorous video.
Comedian Jim Gaffigan served as master of ceremonies at the Al Smith Dinner in New York City. Full video here: https://www.c-span.org/video/?539275-1/president-trump-2024-alfred-e-smith-memorial-dinner&live . It is very funny for the most, but at the end with Donald Trumps, the jokes fall flat.
Featured Image: Al Smith By Harris & Ewing – This image is available from the United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs divisionunder the digital ID hec.21487.This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71136727
