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ALFRED E. SMITH; DEMOCRATIC PARTY; 1920 DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION; MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION

In the autumn of 1919, or in the spring of the following year, when Al Smith was Governor, politics was, as always, an absorbing topic and everybody was talking about it. I had often said in conferences that I wasn't a Democrat. I was an Independent. I wasn't a member of any party. I had never enrolled. As a matter of fact, I hadn't. I don't know whether word of the fact that I hadn't enrolled reached Al Smith through the district leader of the area in which I lived and where they would look for it. When he appointed me, I was just a person to their way of thinking. He assumed that I was a Democrat. At least, he said he did later. He presumed I was. Or perhaps he got it from some of my casual remarks that I wasn't a Democrat, but an Independent voter. I voted for whom I thought was the right man and for the right program. I certainly didn't call myself a thorough-going bona fide Democrat. I would always vote for the right person. I thought Al Smith was the right person and I was very enthusiastic about him. I wasn't voting for him as a Democrat.

He was in New York in either the fall of '19 or the





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