Four this evening. I am evan dolly, on behalf of the History Program here, welcome. I should say at the outset, we are able to hold this top thanks to the generous funding of the history fund which is supporting this event. And let me jump straight to introducing our speaker for the evening. Our speaker for this evening is doctor robert chiles. He studied music and found the true faith and began a ph. D. In history in 2012 at the university of maryland. The top he will be giving this evening is a result of that ph. D. Dissertation, i believe. Yes. He has, in the course of this particular research for this project received a couple of prestigious honors the new York State LibraryCunningham Research residency, and the new york state archives Ownership Trust hackman residency, to conduct research on governor alfred e. Smith, and as part of his next research project, on a Congress Woman from the state of new jersey and an advocate from the fair labors acts, he has received from the new Jersey Historical commission, a ground to carry out that research. He is familiar to most of you because he is a frequent lecturer on u. S. History here at goucher and he has also visited Loyola University maryland, and is the senior lecturer of history at the university of maryland, returning to the alma mater. He is talking tonight about his first book, published in early 2018 by Cornell University press. The title of the book and talk the revolution of28 al smith, american progressivism, and the coming of the new deal. Welcome, dr. Chiles. Thank you, everybody, for being here this evening, and especially doctor dolly for coordinating this. I dont think he knew he was going to get thrown into the middle of a media circus, but we appreciate you working with me and im grateful that cspan folks can be here today. I also look around the audience and i am grateful to see so many students past and present and family and friends, it means a lot to me to have such support. Thank you. I had the privilege to speak with you today about my first book, the revolution of28 al smith, american progressivism, and the coming of the new deal. My plan today is to start in some ways at the climax of this story with al smiths triumphal tour of new england in october of 1928. I would like to use that as a launching point to explore my major interventions in the book and then jump back to try and explain why american and new stock workingclass voters became so enthusiastic about al smith, and more importantly, became committed democrats for several generations. It was a crisp new england autumn morning as we steamed into massachusetts, on october 24th 1928, the temperature in boston had dropped from 75 degrees the previous afternoon to the mid50s. By 3 30 p. M. When the locamotive arrived, the city had settled into one of bostons cloudy fall days, considerably cooler than the day before. The anticipatory autumnal chill resulting from this atmospheric dynamism presaged with a sort of meteorological poetry, the wave of a people that would sweep from the birchers to the massachusetts bay. On board the train was the democratic nominee for president , the governor of new york. The noted progressive crusader. Champion of the urban working class, unashamed catholic and proponent of pluralist tolerance and the liberal economic reform, alfred e smith. The train slowed, greeted by 10,000 supporters, followed by about 30,000 in springfield, where it band hailed the visitor with his familiar theme, the sidewalks of new york. And there, massachusetts senator David Ignatius walsh an Irish Catholic democrat from pittsburgh and noted friend of labor, extended greetings on behalf of the new yorker who was saving his voice for the evening. Honored to wurster, where another crowd of 30,000 filled Washington Square before the city, and where he was less concerned of his own vocal insurance, yelled himself hoarse. Finally on boston commons, smith was greeted by one hundred 50,000 people. At boston arena, of the 15,000 were able to enter out of the nearly 50,000 who sought admittance. Enthralled by reports of events and proclaimed by an army of radios, all this as two other capacious auditoriums and halls remained packed to the brim with listeners after the nominees brief greetings to these delirious overflow of events. All told, police estimated that 750,000 people flooded the streets of boston to greet the governor of new york, a gathering 2000 souls greater than the citys population at the time of the previous census. Why had they come . What did they hear . And how did they respond . In microcosm, these are the essential questions of my book. Al Smiths National prominence as a gubernatorial champion of social welfare and of the laboring masses, and his mission to implement and expand that particular progressivism at the federal level. This blended with his biographical appeal to a growing cohort of newer voters as a representative of the urban ethnic working classes, who was a spokesman for a symbol of religious tolerance and of opposition to prohibition and harsh immigration restrictions. These things combined, the economic and cultural appeal, in order to inspire this boisterous reception in many of the nations heterogeneous industrial cities. In this case, these crowds not only obliterated local attendance records, but they also received detailed explications of smiths progressive visions for the united states, affirming his wellearned reputation for, to quote his later very controversial but at the time up and coming advisor, robert moses smith had a talent for popularizing very abstruse questions so that the average fellow could understand them. He was fulfilling his own pledge to maintain in his words direct contact with the American People throughout the campaign. Meanwhile, there was a response, which produced the revolutionary early stages of a National Political reshuffling that would help spur the onset of modern american liberalism. So the candidates utterances mattered profoundly. American politics, like american life, moved briskly by the 1920s. Three decades of maturation by increasingly organized and wellfunded National Parties begat a dynamic continental politics, wellestablished press agencies and Wire Services allowed Campaign Updates and allowed propaganda to proliferate swiftly. It allowed Major Campaign personalities into the living rooms of millions of prospective voters every night. Within the frenzied milieu of the rolling 20s monitored by an unrestrained press, there were polemics that demanded candor before it skeptical public and the perpetual cultivation of your enthusiastic base. The stakes for the boston address were especially high. For you see, no serious contender for the presidency could allow the toxic charge of socialism to be associated with their national ambitions. Such was al smiths challenge beginning two days after his arrival in boston, when his opponent, former now, commerce secretary Herbert Hoover alerted a crowd at new Yorks Madison Square garden that their governor had abandoned the tenets of his own party in favor of state socialism. Herbert hoover, the much heralded commerce secretary and the republican standardbearer was seeking the white house based on his very strong credentials as the engineer of the political economy of the 1920s. Of coolidge prosperity. It was really hoover prosperity, and hoover promised to go forth with the policies of the last eight years. So he and his supporters saw smiths Progressive Agenda as a threat to their new era. 48 hours later, smith responded to Herbert Hoovers indictment. The socialism charge was an attack with which he had been grappling his entire career. So these charges invited the governor to review his progressive credentials. So he did. Take the workmens compensation act, he implored his boston listeners what was the argument against that . Because it set up an Insurance Company under state ownership and state operation, it was referred to as socialism. Take the factory code, take the nightwork law for women, the law prohibiting manufacturing in the tournament, or inhibiting the working of children in the tanneries, that great factory code of new york designed to protect the health and welfare of the men, women and children in the last 25 years has been referred to as paternalistic and socialistic. Well, al smith vigorously agreed with at least one of Herbert Hoovers assertions that each candidates proposals should be taken seriously, and that are to commission of such controversies, in hoovers words submitted to the American People a question of fundamental principle. So smith not only cataloged the past, he also applied that record to current conditions. Dissenting from popular accolades for the coolidge economy, smith outlined the ongoing depression of new englands textile industry and contrasted that widespread and profound original suffering with Herbert Hoovers sanguine remarks about workers living standards, to postulate that there was a broader republican neglect of the working classes of america. Smiths alternative approach was revealed in his record of Progressive Social welfare reforms back in new york state. So republican cries of socialism or per trade by smith as a renewed attempt by in his words selfish groups to derail forwardlooking and constructive suggestions for the betterment of the human element. In his words. Al smith was running for the coolidgehoover status quo, and his admirers were quite receptive. Understanding al smiths president ial aspirations within thet contexthe of his progressive tenure as governor, an irishman from the new yorks Lower East Side, said he would Cross Party Lines and support the democrats, which he eventually did. The new yorker boasted the new york wonder man had lambasted the reactionaries here until their lives were hardly worth living. An Italian American voter from new jersey composed a scathing denunciation of employment conditions, if publication in his local newspaper citing the statistics in argument that had been propagated by the Smith Campaign. If factory worker from hartford writing under the pseudonym worker assailed of the insulting notion of republican prosperity which had never shown up in his community. A polish American Worker from western massachusetts excoriated the Republican Party for having protected and foster the special interests of a certain few augusta, interest of the many. An italian worker from rhode island talked about powerful interests in justifying a town in support for the democrats smith. It is well known that al smith was a favorite of the recent immigrant working classes, who were attracted to his candidacy because he opposed prohibition and because he was a catholic, and because he spoke with a bowery brogue and defended the americanism of the immigrants. But it was also the story of his politics and the political aspirations of many of his supporters. His admirers, it turns out, embraced both the cultural symbolism of his candidacy, and the progressive initiatives the candidate expounded. Expounded. Smiths catholicism, his workingclass roots, his disdain for prohibition under the ku klux klan, these attributes had a clear influence on voters in 1928, and they benefited smith greatly among urban workers just as they would prove unpalatable among voters in other parts of the nation. But leaving the story of that is superficial and perhaps even condescending. I have proceeded from the hypothesis that like any other human actors, the real people who became smith democrats in the 1928, the ones who did the working, the praying, the serving, the voting that historians have so long tried to decipher, or complex human beings with come together motivations and competition lives. The idea of culture or economics, it is not an either or proposition. It turns out that most smith voters were indeed sophisticated enough to understand the democratic candidate as representing both cultural pluralism and social and economic reform. This combination of cultural and empowerment and cultural appeal was a platform from which he sought the presidency of 1928. Indeed, in 1928, he nationalized the particular brand of progressivism, and even though he went down in bitter defeat, the ideas were not so easily extinguished. His supporters would go on, first hoping that he would make a comeback this print is from 1932, hoping he would maybe try again, but they would also go on, after that proved to not be the case, they went on to become the heart of the new Deal Coalition and the roosevelt coalition. Their priorities would shape the democratic parties agenda for at least the next generation, really the next two generations at least. My story then is both a local and a national tale. It starts as an new york story, the story of a young man, the product of the polyglot forth ward on manhattans Lower East Side. A grandson of irish immigrants from a family that self identified as irish and catholic and workingclass. We know later on that his father was not irish at all, he was italian and german. But they self identified as irish. You can look into the footnotes if you want to dig into that. He lost his father in the eighth grade and was compelled to leave school and go to work fulltime to support his family. For several years, this kid worked 12 hour days, starting at 4 a. M. As a checker at the fulton fish market. Later on he would joke that his only Academic Degree was an ffm, standing for the fulton fish market. The other universal element on al smiths Lower East Side was at the tammany hall political machine. As a young man, he became acquainted with saloon keeper and wheeler dealer tom foley. Under fullys tutelage, smith rose through the ranks of the infamous machine and by 1903, thanks to his faithfulness, foley said smith as a legislator. He voted the party line, he didnt give a single speech. He was ignored, he was overwhelmed, but he grew into the job. So much so that by 1911 when his party took control of the new york state legislature, the New York Legislature was dominated by republicans doing this period, partly because of old political alliances but partly because of gerrymandering, in scandal in 1910, the democrats took over the legislature. In a 1911, murphy sponsored young al smith for majority leader. His best friend, smiths best friend, german immigrant, robert f wagner, for majority leader of the state senate. The tragedy that happened next is well known. In the midst of these two young legislator legislatorssession, came the triangle shirtwaist factory fire. A terrible inferno that engulfed a sweatshop on the Lower East Side and killed 146 workers, most of them young jewish immigrant girls and young women from the Lower East Side, many of whom had protested against unfair Labor Conditions just a couple of years earlier. Smith and wagner, pictured here in a photograph taken years later formed an Investigative Commission and brought in nonpartisan reformers to be expert witnesses. We have to make this right. There was a particular process for groups who had taken these issues seriously in the past, largely women reformers from progressive organizations, people from the womens trade union league, people like henry street settlement founder and Public Health champion, luanne wold, pictured here, who would be a great supporter and advisor of governor smith and eventually a great champion when he ran for president , and especially involved, there are a lot of notables, but especially, was frances perkins. She took smith and others on tours to see the horrible conditions of factories around the empire state. She would later on become a great advisor to smith on industrial issues as governor, and eventually, would become the first female cabinet secretary when she became fdrs labor secretary. This interaction between largely female progressive reformers, it is sort of counterintuitive, and male politicals produced reforms that ventured into a broad range of social and welfare crises facing the empire state. These issues would come to dominate the agendas of smith and wagner so that by 1918 when smith was running for governor of new york, he was proposing a broad array of social welfare and labor reforms. You can see him here being sworn in after his First Successful run for governor. Once he was elected in 1918, after a very close election that republicans blamed on voting being depressed because of fears of a flu pandemic that year, in any event, his agenda would reflect the agenda of the social welfare progressives with whom he had interacted. As governor, he pursued labor reforms, including something that was a major transformation at the time a 48 hour maximum workweek for women in factories. Or pushing against child labor, pushing against an improved workmens compensation program, he also pursued what i would call a sort of broadly defined social welfare issue in the new york state, help for local housing improvements. Public health was a great priority. Charitable hospitals. Maternal and infant clinics and Educational Programs for maternal health. People forget that much of new york was incredibly rural and isolated. There were whole counties with no access to health care at the beginning of this administration. So that is a major investment