Following his failed candidacy for U.S. Senate in 1914, Franklin D. Roosevelt reconciled with
Tammany Hall. He delivered the keynote address at the society's 1917 Fourth of July celebration, and Tammany stalwarts John M. Riehle, William Kelley,
Thomas J. McManus, and up-and-comer
Jimmy Walker endorsed him as a potential candidate for governor in 1918. President
Woodrow Wilson also privately urged Roosevelt to consider a campaign. However, he refused, believing that the ongoing
Great War would continue through the election and that 1918 would be a Republican year.[2]
Roosevelt instead endorsed
William Church Osborn,[3] though he would later claim to have engineered Smith's nomination himself.[4]
Results
New York gubernatorial Democratic primary, 1918[5]