Watauga Democrat. [volume] (Boone, Watauga County, N.C.) 1888-current, 1928-07-12
AAUGH SECRET OF
: SMITHS SUCCESS
Has Fought From Cradle for Title
of Happy WARRIOR" Never Loses
Human Qualities That Make Him
Just CAP to Thousands

Albany, N. Y, July 10.-Alfred
E. Smith, the "happy warrior whom
the Democratic party nominated the
other day for the presidency, won
that title by struggle against i'm
posing odds that began almost in his
cradle, but which was never able to
break his genial spirit.
In his steep climb from the OBJ
scurity Of a fatherless boy on New
York's lower East Side-without ed
ucation, money, influence, and with
widowed mother to support-to
the candidacy for the highest posi-
ton in the United States, Smith
never lost the human qualities
that have made him CAP to the hun
dreds of thousands.
Some of his friends believe that
one of the secrets of his success has
been that he always retained the
ability to laugh at himself, to joke
about his struggles once they were
safely won.
His conversation and his addresses
| of the present day TEEN with humOr-
Gus references to the hard days
when he was a newsboy, a fish mar
ket clerk, factory office boy. With
long cigar firmly clasped in his
teeth and with one of the brown der
bies that have been called his cam
paign war bonnet, perched jauntily
on his head. he delights to recall the
battles against obscurity and poverty
that he fought and won.
At such times his speech is again
the talk of the man in the street,
spiced with tang, and racy with
the details of fights in a good cause
well fought.
1t is Smiths philosophy of life
| that anything worth while must be
| fought for and the fact that it is
only won by a struggle makes it
more desirable. He likes to think
of himself as the fighter and never
misses an opportunity to preach the
gospel of fighting for TIE ends one
believes are justified.
81 am no cooling dove,'' he once
said, land l never will be. Every
thing l ever got in the world l had
to fight for; l don't have it handed
to me on a gold platter"
But although Smith has fought
all his life for his principles and
positions, he is not in any way the
pugnacious type. The number of
his close friends testified to that, as
does the fact that his family life has
Looo bor
He has always been family
man" and the members of his family
know him as kind and indulgent
husband and father. He married
Katherine Dunn of New York when
he was earning but S75 month and
they have been inseperable ever
since. Their five children have
grown to maturity but have never
grown away from the parental home.
His. friends say that the man who
has suffered defeat but once in q
political career of 25 years is tae
group of men. They say that he is
at the same time the political war
rior, the gentle husband and father,
the flaming campaigner, the devout
member of the church, the gsnial ra-
contour. and half a dozen other per-
sonalities.
He is noted for his ability to adopt
himself to his surroundings and
"talk the language" OF the persons
with whom he happens to be thrown
into contact at the moment. He can
discuss government with noted
statesmen, or baseball with street
urchin with equal facility and, for
each encounter, he uses the language
fitted to the occasion.
Some observers during the week
of the convention were inclined to
feel that he did not do complete
Justice to the seriousness of the
situation, because he joked while his
political fate was hanging in the
balance, because he danced with
>burlesque joy when his name was
placed in nomination, because he
"wise-cracked" even during the
tense moments Of the balloting that
selected him as the standard bearer
OF Democracy.
But persons who have known him
throughout his career, pointed out
that all these manifestations did not
! mean that he was not aware of the
import of affairs, or that he con-
sidered them lightly.
1t was explained, they said, by the
fact that once again he was in
fight for something that he wanted
and was exuberantly jubilant at be-
ing in the thick of battle, that he
was, in short, only demonstrating
once more the aptness of the appel
lation of 'the happy warrior"