Amendment XVIII Repealed 1933/11/13

Al Smith Speaking
"New York, NY: The Happy Warrior expresses his pleasure at the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment as huge shipments of gin are made with the approval of the Federal Government for the first time in thirteen years." sound of Al Smith speaking. (partial newsreel).

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• 18th
• Amendment
• XVIII
• Prohibition
• Al
• Smith

[Seanopolis9]

thanks for the clip of a great American, Democrat, public servant, and New Yorker. Al Smith was the real thing. A good man who would have been a great president.

[DCUPtoejuice]

We would have been so much better off with him instead of FDR

[margotdarby]

@llar87 FDR made it into the White House pretty quickly; didn't have much time to be the reformer Al Smith was.

[margotdarby]

Al stands up for Western Civilization, a "foreign" concept to many people.

[llar87]

@ptevlin "Al Smith was probably the greatest governor New York ever had" what about FDR?

[nofacesniper]

@Seanopolis9 filthy democrat.

[Ironskillet]

Yeah, he was part Italian, but he identified himself w/ the Irish American community and became a spokesman for the Irish, but being from New York he spoke to many different communities.

[sgrroiii]

Part Italian ?

[ShmorgelBorgel]

There were other presidents and presidential candidates of Irish descent before him, but Al Smith was the first Irish Catholic to be a serious contender. (Although he was also of Italian and English descent.)

[Seanopolis9]

Yes, Gov. Smith was an optimist and a people person who believed that the entire U.S. would be like the NYC Lower East Side ward he grew up in: where neighbors looked out for each other and cared for each other. Unfortunately, it was not like that nationwide. Gov. Smith and even his wife, Katie, were savagely attacked in least in part because of their religion. Smith was astounded, crushed electorally and personally, and, according to some of his friends and allies, was never the same.