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Show FIGURES DISPEL i A SM MYTH Returns Indicate the Governor Makes Poot Showing InJ fUSsP" . Rural New York. I ftlAS BEEN LOSING GROUND , J ' - lt!SPSL-il1"T.HP'"l J Agricultural Districts Vote Agslnst ( Him Strength Diminishes Rap-k Rap-k Idly From 1922 Peak. I Election statistics mark the fact jthat the great political popularity of . Governor Smith In his own State Is a Democratic- fiction. t He has gained public support as the State executive only la New York City, and be has Invariably failed to rain it outside of that city. As candl- date for Governor he would have been defeated, outside of New York City, at each of the four elections where that city gave him the office, and usually usu-ally hn would have been snowed under. un-der. He would have failed by net losses ranging from 93,000 to 410,000 ' votes. , Election statistics show that h.a has I been a local leader only. He has never become a State leader because be-cause he has never gained the confidence confi-dence ot the State at large. Without the Indispensable support of the Tammany Tam-many organization In New York he Would have remained a small factor in the politics ot his State a mere local politician. f The same statistics manifest that the last two of Smith's elections are far from proving that be has made any gain In the confidence of the State at Urge. On the contrary, these last itwo elections prove that be has lost a considerable share of the support he had previously received In the districts outside of Tammany control. . la 1922 he lost rural New York State, but he carried thirteen of the fifty-seven up-State Counties. In the presidential election year of 1924 be captured but one up-State county Albany, the official home coun ot the, party in power. i . Two years later, In 1926, he recovered recov-ered no more than three ot the twelve op-State counties lost In 1924; and he lost the State, outside of his usual Tammany controlled local field In, New .York City, by upwards ot three times as many votes as he lost In the one year (1922) when be sought to bo-1 bo-1 come a real State loader. That is, at his last election, two years ago, be lost up-State by 236,350 votes, as against bis corresponding loss of only 3.27S votes In 1922. The Indisputable figures of the election elec-tion returns thus record that, despite Smith's national ambitions, be has, during his last two terms as Governor, retired a long distance backward from his desired, but unattalned, post as a true State leader, to bis old, original rank as a successful city politician. |