I do. The ebullient Roosevelt, with his long cigarette holder and smile built for the editorial cartoon. The professorial Mozeliak, careful with his words and precise with seemingly every movement, as if with every press conference he were teaching a college course on building a baseball team. Bear with me. The Democratic Party of 1924 was a combination of old and new thinking, of factions north and south, wet and dry (on the question of Prohibition), progressive and conservative. Accordingly, Al Smith, the governor of New York, drew plenty, but not sufficient, support to be nominated by the Democratic Party to run for president. The same was true of former secretary of the treasury William Gibbs McAdoo, and Oscar Underwood, senator from Alabama. Ultimately, the Democrats settled on John W. Davis, but he was placeholder, not party leader, and he got slaughtered that fall by Calvin Coolidge. There were real doubts about the future existence of the Democratic Party. Despite all the fighting, everybody seemed excited about one man: Franklin Roosevelt, who gave the nominating speech for Smith, then succeeded him as governor of New York.
