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FIORELLO H. LA GUARDIA; JAMES J. WALKER; THE SEABURY INVESTIGATION

The campaign for Walker in the autumn of '29 is not too clear in my mind. Roosevelt had been Governor for not quite a year. I had been Industrial Commissioner, therefore, for not quite a year. My mind was more focused on state affairs than on city affairs.

Fiorello LaGuardia ran against Walker that year. I don't have a very clear idea of where I first met LaGuardia. He had been a Congressman and was the author of the Norris-LaGuardia Act. He had taken a very advanced position on a number of labor matters. How he got to be Congressman is more than I know. He was a Republican and the Republicans had nominated him for one of the upper East Side districts. I'm not sure it wasn't the district in which I voted, but I certainly didn't vote for him, because I voted Democratic. I think it was at that time that I first ran into him effectively, so that I remembered him.

Lillian Wald knew him and I must have seen him at the Henry Street Settlement. He also was a great friend of Mrs. Simkhovitch at the Greenwich House. When I say “great friend” I don't mean that he was a great personal friend, but he took a great interest in the house. Mrs. Simkhovitch and





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