Governorship of Franklin D. Roosevelt

{{See also|1928 New York state election}}

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Governor Alfred E. Smith had unsuccessfully contended for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1924.{{cite book |last=Grondahl |first=Paul |date=2007 |title=Mayor Erastus Corning: Albany Icon, Albany Enigma |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PfdU14bq2LUC&pg=PA64 |location=Albany, NY |publisher=State University of New York Press |pages=64–65 |isbn=978-0-7914-7294-1 |ref={{sfnRef|Mayor Erastus Corning: Albany Icon, Albany Enigma}}}} With Smith appearing likely win to reelection in 1926, and to obtain the presidential nomination in 1928, New York state's Democratic leaders began consideration in early 1926 of potential candidates to succeed Smith.{{sfn|Mayor Erastus Corning: Albany Icon, Albany Enigma|pages=64–65}} The first choice was William Stormont Hackett, the Mayor of Albany, who informed supporters that he planned to make the 1928 race.{{sfn|Mayor Erastus Corning: Albany Icon, Albany Enigma|pages=64–65}} After Hackett died in a March 1926 accident, party leaders next considered Edwin Corning, the state Democratic Party chairman, who ran successfully for lieutenant governor in 1926.{{sfn|Mayor Erastus Corning: Albany Icon, Albany Enigma|pages=64–65}} Corning declined the 1928 race because he was in increasingly poor health, and retired from business and political life after leaving the lieutenant governor's office in December 1928.{{sfn|Mayor Erastus Corning: Albany Icon, Albany Enigma|pages=64–65}} In mid-1928, Peter G. Ten Eyck, Townsend Scudder, and George R. Lunn were also considered, but did not attract wide support.{{cite news |last=Suydam |first=Henry |date=October 1, 1928 |title=Governor Holds to a Faint Hope for Roosevelt |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/57551670/ |work=Brooklyn Daily Eagle |location=Brooklyn, NY |url-access=subscription |via=Newspapers.com |page=2}}

With one month before the November 1928 election, Democrats had not yet chosen anyone to replace Smith, who needed a strong gubernatorial candidate to help him win the state's 47 electoral votes, and Smith decided to support Roosevelt. Although Roosevelt was the ideal complement to Smith as a prominent rural, upstate Protestant without strong views on Prohibition who had supported Woodrow Wilson, he was very reluctant to run. Roosevelt was not sure he would win, and wished to continue his physical therapy at Warm Springs. Close aide Louis Howe urged him to wait; as Herbert Hoover would surely defeat Smith and likely serve two terms as president, being elected governor in 1932 would be better timing for the 1936 presidential election. After failing to persuade Roosevelt through many phone calls and telegrams from late September, on October 2, Smith finally got him to agree to run if nominated; the state convention did so the next day.{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/rooseveltinretro00gunt | title=Roosevelt in Retrospect | publisher=Harper & Brothers | author=Gunther, John | year=1950 | pages=251–253}} Roosevelt had to make his peace with Tammany Hall to obtain its support, which he did with some reluctance.

In the November election, Smith was heavily defeated nationwide by Republican candidate Herbert Hoover, and narrowly lost New York, but Roosevelt was elected governor by a margin of 25,608 votes out of more than 4 million votes cast,Jean Edward Smith, FDR (2007), p. 228. defeating the Republican gubernatorial nominee, New York Attorney General Albert Ottinger.Jean Edward Smith, FDR (2007), pp. 223–25.

Roosevelt came to office in 1929 as a reform Democrat, but with no overall plan. He tackled official corruption by dismissing Smith's cronies{{cite web |title=Franklin D. Roosevelt |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Franklin-D-Roosevelt/Paralysis-to-presidency |website=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=4 August 2024}} and renamed the New York Public Service Commission. He addressed New York's growing need for power through the development of hydroelectricity on the St. Lawrence River.{{cite book |last1=Coker |first1=Jeffrey W. |title=Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Biography |date=2005 |page=100}}Smith 2007, pp. 237–38. He reformed the state's prison administration and built a new state prison at Attica.{{cite book |last1=Selfridge |first1=John W. |title=Franklin D. Roosevelt: The People's President |date=2011 |page=68}} He had a long feud with Robert Moses, the state's most powerful public servant, whom he removed as Secretary of State but kept on as Parks Commissioner and head of urban planning.Smith 2007, pp. 230–33. Moses was replaced with the Bronx's Democratic Boss Edward J. Flynn.{{cite book |last1=Schlesinger Jr. |first1=Arthur M. |title=The Age of Roosevelt: The crisis of the old order, 1919-1933 |date=1957 |page=388}} When the Wall Street crash in October 1929 ushered in the Great Depression, Roosevelt started a relief system that later became the model for the New Deal's Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). Roosevelt followed President Herbert Hoover's advice and asked the state legislature for $20 million in relief funds, which he spent mainly on public works in the hope of stimulating demand and providing employment.Smith 2007, pp. 250–52. Aid to the unemployed, he said, "must be extended by Government, not as a matter of charity, but as a matter of social duty."{{cite book |last1=Kennedy |first1=David M. |title=American People in the Great Depression |date=2004 |page=90}} In his first term, Roosevelt famously said, "The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written."{{cite book |last1=Shesol |first1=Jeff |title=Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt Vs. the Supreme Court |date=2011 |publisher=W. W. Norton |pages=46–47}} He was referring to the belief he had that the federal government would need to use more power in order to bring the country out of the Depression.

{{See also|1930 New York state election}}

File:Governor Roosevelt and Al Smith.jpg]]

The main weakness of the Roosevelt administration was the blatant corruption of the Tammany Hall machine in New York City, where the mayor, Jimmy Walker, was the puppet of Tammany boss John F. Curry, and where corruption of all kinds was rife.{{cite book |last=Pietrusza |first=David |date=2016 |title=1932: The Rise of Hitler and FDR |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2st_CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA212 |location=Guilford, CT |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |page=212 |isbn=978-1-4930-1805-5 }} Roosevelt had made his name as an opponent of Tammany, but he needed the machine's goodwill to be re-elected in 1930 and for a possible future presidential bid. In response to various allegations of public corruption among the judiciary, police force, the city government, and organized crime, Roosevelt began the Seabury Commission investigations in 1930. The state probe uncovered extensive fiscal improprieties,{{cite web |title=Franklin D. Roosevelt |url=https://empirestateplaza.ny.gov/hall-governors/franklin-d-roosevelt |website=The Official Website of New York State |access-date=4 August 2024}} and many public officials were removed from office.{{cite book|last=Allen|first=Oliver E.|title=The Tiger: The Rise and Fall of Tammany Hall|date=1993|publisher=Addison-Wesley Publishing Company|pages=[https://archive.org/details/tigerrisefalloft00alle/page/233 233-250]|isbn=0-201-62463-X|url=https://archive.org/details/tigerrisefalloft00alle/page/233|url-access=registration}}

On September 28, 1930, the Republican state convention nominated former U.S. Attorney Charles H. Tuttle for the governorship and State Senator Caleb H. Baumes for lieutenant governor. With Tuttle losing Republican support because he was regarded as insufficiently "dry" on the Prohibition question (he favored prohibiting the sale and transportation of alcohol but thought it was a state issue, not federal), and the electoral tide turning towards Democrats as voters largely blamed Republicans for the Great Depression, Roosevelt and Lieutenant Governor Herbert H. Lehman won landslide reelections in November, leaving Roosevelt well-positioned to run for president in 1932.

Roosevelt's second term in Albany was focused on measures to counter the effects of the Depression, such as the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration which eventually provided unemployment assistance to 10 percent of New York's families.{{cite web |title=Franklin D. Roosevelt |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Franklin-D-Roosevelt/Paralysis-to-presidency |website=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=4 August 2024}} In 1930, Roosevelt passed through the legislature a bill creating old-age insurance for New Yorkers over 70 years of age.{{cite web |title=Franklin D. Roosevelt |url=https://empirestateplaza.ny.gov/hall-governors/franklin-d-roosevelt |website=The Official Website of New York State |access-date=4 August 2024}} Governor Roosevelt also supported reforestation with the Hewitt Amendment in 1931, which gave birth to New York's State Forest system.{{Cite web|title=History of State Forest Program|publisher=New York State Department of Environmental Conservation|url=https://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/4982.html|access-date=June 28, 2021}} In August 1932, Roosevelt forced Tammany's hand on the corruption issue by convening a public hearing on the question of removing Walker as mayor. Walker resigned on September 1, following a State Supreme Court ruling upholding the governor's authority to remove him for cause.

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{{Franklin D. Roosevelt}}

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Governor

Category:Governorships of U.S. states

Category:Governor of New York (state)

Category:Early lives of the presidents of the United States