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Al Smith was one of the ones who thought that Roosevelt was an awful fool to get into this - an awful fool. “He can't get ahead in politics. He doesn't have any idea of how you get on in politics.” I remember Smith saying, “There's nothing the matter with Sheehan. He's all right.” I think he said to me, “He's all right, except he's an Irishman. That's all they've got against him.”

I did not know anything intimate about the Sheehan thing. Al Smith assured me that Sheehan was all right. I may have known, at the time, how Roosevelt got into that thing, but if I did it went in one ear and out the other. I'm sure Binkerd knows how it happened and he probably told me at the time. I wasn't listening very acutely to those things because it didn't concern me and it never crossed my mind that they ever would. What I resented was the amount of time that went into what some of my friends assured me was of no consequence.

Although they thought it was the death knell of Roosevelt, because it appeared to be anti-Tammany it attracted the eye of Woodrow Wilson. I'm sure of that. It probably made Roosevelt. I won't say that he wouldn't have been made in some other way, but it was the vehicle by which the significance of this young man was brought to Woodrow Wilson. It has a very important effect on his life. But