The Roosevelt Week

"The delegate from New York!" bawled a voice on the platform at last week's Democratic State convention in Albany. From the Tammany section on the floor arose Alfred Emanuel Smith, shouldered his way through the crowded aisle. His necktie hung outside his coat. His face was flushed. He clumped up the steps to the stage. Norman Mack's friendly hand reached out to squeeze his. Before him loomed the big-chinned face of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Out went the Smith hand. Out went the Roosevelt hand. They met, pumped warmly up & down. Both men were grinning.

Mr. Smith: "How do you do, Mr. Governor?"

Governor Roosevelt (swallowing): "Al, this is from the heart.''

Mr. Smith: "Frank, that goes for me too."

Electrified by the unexpected reconciliation of these bitter rivals for the presidential nomination, the convention roared approval. Mr. Smith pushed on to the rostrum to start his speech but news photographers yammered insistently: "Do it again! Do it again!" Obligingly he turned back to Governor Roosevelt. For several minutes they pumped hands in the Kleiglight while Jim Farley. Roosevelt manager, linked them with his big arms and the delegates nearly blew off the convention hall roof with a din of delight.

Behind that handshake lay a political effort which brought the two most eminent Democrats of the hour shoulder to shoulder in a common purpose. Governor Roosevelt wanted Herbert Henry Lehman,-- New York's stocky little Lieutenant Governor, to have the gubernatorial nomination. So did Mr. Smith who in 1928 coaxed Mr. Lehman out of his Wall Street banking office and put him on the State ticket. Chief opponent of the Lehman nomination was Tammany Boss John Francis Curry who was unable to strike a deal with the Roosevelt-Smith candidate on State patronage in New York City. For a day and a night and a day at Albany, Boss Curry had dickered, threatened, wheedled, fumed, sulked, argued--all in vain. Nominated by Al Smith himself, Mr. Lehman was finally whooped through by acclamation and Boss Curry went down in the sharpest defeat any Tammany boss has had to endure in years. Next month Nominee Lehman will oppose William Joseph ("Wild Bill") Donovan whom the Republicans simultaneously nominated at Buffalo. New Yorkers thus have a curious choice for Governor, between a Jew and a Catholic, a banker and an American Legionary, a non-Tammany Democrat and a Buffalo Republican.

Though Mr. Smith left Albany without seeing Governor Roosevelt again, their handshake boded ill for the G. O. P.

Fortuitously or not it occurred just when President Hoover was breaking his candidacial silence at Des Moines and stole its share of the headlines next morning (see col. i). Democratic headquarters had repeatedly been told that a good word from the Brown Derby would swing a million votes to the party. Republican headquarters have counted on Al Smith's sulk to turn New England to Hoover. After the Albany convention it became known that Air. Smith would campaign for his party's ticket in Massachusetts, Rhode Island. Connecticut, New York, New Jersey.

Two days after President Hoover's speech at Des Moines (see p. n). Governor Roosevelt rapped back at him by radio: "I'm glad the President finally has come to agree with me when he says 'every thinking citizen knows that the farmer, the worker and the business man are in the same boat and must all come ashore together.' I'm glad also that he thereby admits that the farmer, the worker and the business man are now all of them very much at sea!"

A $100 check signed Ogden L. Mills reached Democratic headquarters to help elect the man whom the Secretary of the Treasury is energetically stumping the country to defeat. A year ago Secretary Mills bet an unnamed Maryland woman that Governor Roosevelt would not be nominated. Lately he paid the bet and the woman contributed it to the Roosevelt campaign fund.

Most Republicans have politely endured the analytical thrusts of the New York Herald Tribune's Walter Lippmann at Herbert Hoover only because Pundit Lippmann has been equally severe upon Governor Roosevelt. He has called the Democratic nominee "hollow, synthetic, a pleasant man who. without any important qualifications, would very much like to be President." Last week Pundit Lippmann swallowed his words and in the Hoover-rooting Herald Tribune plumped for the Democratic nominee. Excerpts from his reasons:

For some weeks Governor Roosevelt's nomination seemed to me at best a very sour one. . . . The events of the past two months have done much to force me to revise some of my earlier opinions. Those elements in the Democratic party with which Governor Roosevelt did business to obtain delegates have no mortgage on him. He has not talked like Huey Long and Mr. Hearst. . . . On the score of his own abilities my own judgment has been greatly modified by the manner in which he conducted the Walker hearings. . . . What impresses me most about [his] western speeches is the quality of judgment they display. He has talked as concretely as any candidate I know of and yet he has driven very few pegs into (lie ground that he will have to pull out later with his teeth. ... I shall vote cheerfully for Governor Roosevelt. That this means voting also for Mr. Garner does not add to my pleasure, but I can endure it when I think of Mr. Curtis. . . . Should Mr. Hoover be elected there is no chance now in sight that he will command a working majority in either branch of Congress. . . . The country will obtain a more coherent government from a Demo-cratic Congress led by Mr. Roosevelt than from a Democratic Congress in perpetual deadlock with Mr. Hoover."

*Some press versions quoted Mr. Smith as saying: "How are you, you old potato?" When the phrase swept the country, sprouting forth in countless jokes and cartoons, Mr. Smith told friends he had not thus greeted Governor Roosevelt. Mr. Smith addresses as "potatoes" such old intimates as William Kenny, Daniel Mooiiey, George Van Namee, has done so for years. A friendly phrase, he uses it as an Englishman does "old bean." Possible derivation: In Manhattan's lower East Side resides many a Murphy; white potatoes are sometimes referred to as "mur-phys." Al Smith first called Murphys and then other Irish friends "potatoes." ' Pronounced Lee-man.

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