Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt announced here last night that he would request Leiutenant-Governor Herbert H. Lehman to make the annual tour of inspection of state institutions this summer and the announcement is being interpreted as Governor Roosevelt’s manner of announcing his support of Lieutenant-Governor Lehman as candidate for the governorship of New York State.
Governor Roosevelt has in the past made the annual inspection tours which he inaugurated, and it is believed that by transferring the duty to Lieutenant-Governor Lehman he is giving him a running start on the campaign in the fall.
Lieutenant-Governor Herbert H. Lehman, widely known in Jewish philanthropic circles, first came into the political limelight in 1926 when he served as campaign manager for Alfred E. Smith.
In 1930, when running for his second term of office, his popularity was attested to by the fact that in New York City his plurality was 607,000, while Governor Roosevelt received a plurality of 557,000.
It is understood that upstate leaders and John H. McCooey of Brooklyn are opposed to the candidacy of Colonel Lehman.
“Some of the Democratic leaders upstate,” says the “Herald Tribune,” “are known to have sent word to Governor Roosevelt that the prejudice in their communities is so strong on racial and religious questions that they do not want Colonel Lehman as a gubernatorial candidate.
“Governor Roosevelt is known to feel on the contrary,” states the paper, “that the ticket of Roosevelt and Lehman will be no less successful upstate when the head of it is seeking the presidency than when he was running for Governor and that, at the same time, Colonel Lehman will add real strength to the presidential ticket in New York. In fact many of the Governor’s advisors believe that the Democratic party in New York City might as well deliberately announce that it does not want the Jewish vote as to attempt to take the gubernatorial nomination away from a man so conspicuously prepared for the place as Colonel Lehman is.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
