Hymie Shorenstein

The character of Jewish machine leaders can be suggested by brief portraits of a few party politicians. One, Hymie Shorenstein, a Brooklyn ward leader, deserves mention as the author of a classic, perhaps apocryphal political tale, recounted by Theodore White. As the legend has it, a local candidate in 1940 worried that his candidacy, and contributions, had yielded no election posters or other campaign efforts, and that Shorenstein seemed to focus all of his attention on the head of the ticket, President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Shorenstein explained the simple electoral logic of machine politics:

Ah, you're worried? Listen. Did you ever go down to the wharf to see the Staten Island Ferry come in? You ever watch it, and look down in the water at all those chewing-gum wrappers, and the banana peels and the garbage? When the ferryboat comes into the wharf, automatically it pulls all the garbage in too. The name of your ferryboat is Franklin D. Roosevelt - stop worrying!

Of course, Shorenstein was right. Roosevelt and the local "garbage" - surely including some Jews - were both elected as their co-religionists overwhelmingly voted for Roosevelt and the Democratic party during the high tide of the New Deal. 

Other Jewish party politicians surpassed Shorenstein, and not only in the elegance of their language. As they rose to higher positions, many demonstrated a broader understanding of politics, and selected candidates for public office more seriously.

Taken from http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~gpomper/JewishPartyPoliticians.htm