Belle Moskowitz | Jewish Women's Archive (original) (raw)

After she lost her job with the dress manufacturers, Moskowitz became a private industrial consultant. In 1918, she and Henry made a fateful political decision: They decided to support Alfred E. Smith for governor, despite his links to Tammany Hall, New York’s Democratic Party machine. As a member of an “Independent Citizens’ Committee,” a group of non-Tammany Democrats and former Progressives, Belle Moskowitz organized the woman’s vote for Smith (New York women won the vote in 1917). Her work brought her to Smith’s attention.

Smith’s victory, which came as World War I ended, prompted Moskowitz to suggest that he appoint a “Reconstruction Commission” to plan the course of the state’s future. He accepted her idea and appointed her the commission’s executive secretary. Its reports, issued between April 1919 and March 1920, covered five areas: labor and industry, the rising cost of living, public health, education, and government reorganization and retrenchment. The reports reflected the fundamental progressive creed of the era, that government should spur business interests to cooperate voluntarily in reform, but when voluntarism failed, the state should step in. Smith followed this creed in developing his Reconstruction Labor Board, a State Highways Transport Committee, expanded powers for the Department of Farms and Markets, and a State Housing Board.

During his first two-year term, Smith relied increasingly on Moskowitz’s political judgment and foresight. When he lost the 1920 election, he took her with him to the planning group developing a bistate “authority” for the Port of New York–New Jersey. Moskowitz devised the group’s public relations program, which included a pioneering nonfiction motion picture called “Mr. Potato” that explained how a port authority would reduce food costs.

Smith won reelection in 1922, thanks in strong measure to Moskowitz’s publicity work. He then offered her a government post, but she refused, choosing instead to create the post of publicity director for the State Democratic Committee. This post allowed her to perform many services for Smith—editing his public papers, writing his speeches, preparing and monitoring legislation, ferreting out information, and finding the right person for a vacant post. Her duties included distributing copies of Smith’s speeches and messages, sending out weekly news releases, and planting favorable editorial comment in newspapers. The job made her a central figure in the governor’s circle.

Moskowitz’s publicity work for Smith had three goals: to win support for Smith’s policies, reelect him, and after 1924 make him president. Developing citizens’ committees to promote his campaigns, in 1924 she churned out all the publicity and correspondence related to his presidential ambitions. When, in 1926, his fourth gubernatorial victory swelled his out-of-state support, Moskowitz coordinated the response, maintaining a vast correspondence and a card file on every Smith booster. It was this network that, in 1928, won the primaries and, ultimately, Smith’s presidential nomination.