Posted on 12/30/2021 5:59:55 PM PST by Rummyfan
On this day in 1873, Al Smith was born in a tenement on New York’s Lower East Side. His father was Italian American and his mother Irish American. The name “Smith” was an English translation of his immigrant grandfather’s surname “Ferraro.”
Smith’s father—a truck driver—died when Smith was about six years old. His widowed and impoverished mother did what widowed and impoverished mothers often did in those days: She opened a candy store. Out of that, she managed to eke out a living for herself and her children.
Smith was a proud graduate of Groton and of Harvard. No, wait … I just wanted to make sure you were paying attention. Smith attended local parochial schools until he was about 13. After that, it was the School of Hard Knocks. The story is told that while Smith was serving in the New York Legislature, a member rose to announce that his alma mater, Cornell, has just won some sporting event. That started other members to rise to announce and praise their alma mater. When it got to Smith, he declared:
“I am a graduate of F.F.M.”
“What college is that?”
“Fulton Fish Market.”
And it was true. At the age that wealthy young men were attending college, Smith had been working 12-hour shifts at the fish market, starting at 4:00 a.m. each morning.
Smith’s strong work ethic, attention to detail, sense of humor and (perhaps most important) his reputation for candor, all helped propel him into the New York Governor’s mansion.
His father was a truck driver? In the 1870s? Horse drawn, perhaps.
“His father was a truck driver? In the 1870s? Horse drawn, perhaps.”
I guess that’s why they call them Teamsters!
FDR stabbed Smith in the back and got rid of him as a rival.
This Catholic is sorry we have given the nation JFK and Brandon as Catholic presidents though Kennedy seems like he’d be a Republican today: Tax cuts, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
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