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than a political meeting without a big audience. It must be big and there must be people prepared to cheer. Otherwise it gives a bad impression. Sometimes the audiences didn't have anything in them but Democrats, but they usually had a good mixture.
Then, of course, you had to get good press coverage. The local people could usually do that much better than any of us could, because in those days, although they did send out releases of the speeches from headquarters, with the idea of getting them into the small town papers, where Smith could never go, you actually depended on the local papers for direct coverage and they actually wrote their own stories. You wouldn't believe it possible, but they did. They had a press release of his speech, but they came in person and wrote their stories. Any little picturesque stories they took in.
I don't remember any startling thing about that campaign. We were doing some awfully good things in New York. At that time were making great headway in reform legislation. This was the day of the development of the great park system, the great state hospital system, the great welfare system. He appointed a woman to the Board of Regents and so forth.
Beginning with Smith's very first term as Governor
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