UP TO Now—Alfred Emanuel Smith—Viking ($5).
Marketable commodities are the private opinions, the private reminiscences of public men. Alfred Emanuel Smith, office holder for more than 30 years, never forgets the voting, book-buying public's predilection for personal revelations. In his newly-published autobiography he garnishes the heavy fare of his legislative and executive doings with inviting sprigs of intimacy.
Boyhood in Manhattan. "I remember as a small boy going with my father to the Atlantic Garden and listening to the lady musicians. . . . My sister and I were given chocolate to drink, and huge slices of cake, while the elders drank their beer. . . . When I was ten years old, I became an altar boy. ... I practically lived in the fire engine house, . . . rode on the hose cart. . . . Gifted with a good loud voice, I was paid to read off the ticker tape on the night of the Sullivan-Corbett fight. . . . We used the bowsprit and rigging of ships as a gymnasium . . . learned to swim in the fish cars. . . . For a time I had a West Indian goat, four dogs, a parrot and a monkey, all living in peace and harmony in the garret. ... I went to the Dime Museum so often that I could have taken the place of the announcer as he described the India-rubber man; Jojo. the dog-faced boy; Professor Coffey, the skeleton dude. . . ."
Katie. "No one could have been more unselfish, more devoted. ... In the early years she took care of the children herself and did all her own washing, ironing and cooking. . . . She has always been head of the household and was christened by one of the children Chairman of the House Committee. . . . When I rose to speak, after I had her located, I felt I was all right. . . . She has openly proclaimed that she thinks I am the greatest man in the world."
At Albany. "I was unable to escape the fear of fire in the hotel on my first night away from home in five years. I persuaded Tom Caughlan to stay up playing pinochle with me until five o'clock in the morning, when we took turns at sleep for an hour or so up to breakfast time. ... In my first three terms in the assembly I knew nothing about lobbying, or anything els? that was going on, for that matter. . . . The newspapers often referred to Al Smith's Gang during my years in the legislature. That meant all my children, my wife, some of my sister's children, and, on some occasions, my mother."
Actor Smith. "As late as 1916, when I was sheriff of New York, the parish needed funds, so we produced Boucicault's The Shaughraun in the basement of the church. I played Corry Kinchela. the villain. . . . The hero was played by James J. Walker, now Mayor of the City of New York. ... I have often said that my prominence in them [amateur theatricals] played no small part in bringing me to the attention of the people of my neighborhood, which, unquestionably, in time to come, had something to do with my elections."
Menagerie. "Throughout my four terms in Albany one of the attractions of the Executive Mansion was animals. In my first term I confined the menagerie to ponies, dogs, birds . . . later I had at various times raccoons, bears, elk. deer, monkeys, rabbits, pheasants, a red fox, barn owls, and for awhile a goat named Heliotrope. . . ."