Lawrence entered the insurance business in 1916 . In 1918 he enlisted in the United States Army to aid the United States effort in World War I , serving as an officer in the adjutant general 's office in Washington , D.C . When he returned home from his army service in 1919 , Lawrence was elected as chairman of the Allegheny County Democratic Party . At the time , Pittsburgh was a Republican bastion , with Democrats holding wide support only in the lower class and among recent immigrants , who were concentrated in industrial jobs . With the help of Joe Guffey , a future Pennsylvania Senator , Lawrence led the rising Pennsylvania Democratic party that would soon dominate local and statewide politics . In the 1928 presidential election , Lawrence worked hard for Alfred E. Smith from New York , another Irish Roman Catholic politician who had also risen from the slums without the benefit of a formal education . The vicious anti-Catholic campaign that defeated Al Smith that year had a profound effect on Lawrence . He believed that Roman Catholicism was an insurmountable handicap in United States presidential politics . Consequently , at the 1932 Democratic National Convention , Lawrence deserted Al Smith 's presidential campaign and delivered the Pennsylvania delegation to Franklin D. Roosevelt , solely because of his fear of the religious issue
1932 Democratic National Convention
1932 Democratic National Convention
David L. Lawrence