Word: curleyism
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...Curley's name because nationally known when he shrewdly backed Franklin D. Roosevelt in the national Democratic convention and then campaigned vigorously for him in the election race. However farsighted, the action was politically dishonorable; Alfred E. Smith, Roosevelt's opponent for the nomination was an enormous favorite in Boston. So popular was Smith that for months after Curley's break with him, the Boston people wouldn't turn out to hear Curley speak. In that year, the State democratic convention sent Governor Ely as head of the delegation to Chicago to vote for Smith's nomination...
...Curley had met Roosevelt at a luncheon at the home of Colonel Edward M. House ("the president-maker") in Magnolia, Mass. After the luncheon, when the group faced the press, Curley told the newsmen point-blank that it was going to nominate Roosevelt for President, But, so strong was Massachusetts feeling for Smith, that Curley was not even elected to the delegation to the convention. Instead, he went to Chicago alone and there executed one of the shrewdest tricks in recent political history. He approached the delegation from Puerto Rico, talked them into giving him their standard...
...days in the Roosevelt campaign, Curley led a pace that that would have buried two men; he covered 23 states and made 141 speeches. For all this, Roosevelt promised him a cabinet position--probably Secretary of the Navy. However, when the tome came for the appointments Roosevelt changed his mind, offering Curley the ambassadorship to Rome in place of the cabinet job. Once more, Curley accepted but Roosevelt backed down; finally, the President asked Curley if he would accept the position of ambassador to Poland. Apparently,, Roosevelt was not going to make the mistake Curley had made as governor...
...Curley also gained national prominence for going to jail twice in his political career. The first jail sentence was, in a sense, his springboard to fame. In 1904, when he was in the State Legislature, Curley, and an unrelated Tom Curley took civil service exams for two constituents. It was common practice in those days for a ward boss to take such an exam in lieu of one of his following who couldn't read of write. But a clerk recognized the two Curleys and forthwith, the two were judged guilty in a spectacular trial and sent to serve...
...stay at jail did Curley anything but harm, politically. Not only did he vastly improve himself by reading every book in the jail library but he conducted a campaign from behind bars, too. In all his forthcoming politics, he used the slogan, "Curley would go to jail for a man." In another instance he set up a platform outside the jail facing Beacon Hill. Pointing first to the Hill and then to the jail, he addressed his North End crowd, "They (the Hill) put me in there (the jail...