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frances perkins who becomes fdr's secretary of labor is a close ally of smith. he's actually got a fairly sort of progressive outlook on women in government. i mean, the advent of the women's vote doesn't immediately have a huge impact certainly on national politics. it ultimately begins to build. but it doesn't have the impact that many people are predicting. and in terms of new york state politics, i mean, john would know this better than i. but i don't have the perception that it really transforms his candidacy. >> not at first. in fact, smith was not in favor of women suffrage. h...

and he lived in a enclave surrounded by this. he could go just a block down the street and there would be ships from all over the word. and this shaped his image. he thought he knew america by knowing all these people. he knew what it meant to be tolerantdifferent ethnicities. and the shock was it's not like this. when he went to the assembly and started traveling the state, he realized i have seen more in my neighborhood than what these people have seen. he brought many members of the assembly to see this is how merrily is, this is a melting pot. and that caused a lot of problems. s...

who believes in the constitution of the united states and the principles upon which it was founded. when he is chosen to guide this nation, then and then only will the stars and stripes again wave over the land of the free and the home of the brave. >> beverly gage, what's your reaction to hearing that? >> well, it's really remarkable how quickly and how viciously al smith ends up going after the people who had once been his greatest supporters. i was trying to think if there has ever been another major party presidential candidate who, in less than a decade after he had run on his...

>> he had probably one of the toughest careers that i've ever heard of. he starts by leaving early and he goes and sells newspapers. after school, i'm going to sell newspapers. he makes a few dollars that way. it's not enough. his mother had to go and get a job the day that they buried his father. she comes back from the funeral, goes back to the lady of the umbrella factory where she worked prior to meeting al smith sr. to get her job back. it's not enough. smith selling papers, it's not enough. eventually he goes through a rapid series of jobs working in a small candy store that hi...

like. and also the port authority in new york and new jersey was one of his ideas. a bistate authority. he had a lot of interesting things. >> john evers, biggest failure of al smith. >> some of it might be that he overthought things. i think from a political science point of view, public authorities were something he wanted to deal with. and he created those. and now there's debates over public authorities and bonding. governor smith was a huge proponent of bonding. and that has also created propensity today for dependence on bonding and could create state debt. >> what difference i...