Rival vote-seeking forced Roosevelt to appoint the first Jewish Cabinet member

Evidence

On the eve of the election, as reports poured into the White House that Hearst was about to sweep New York City’s Lower East Side, Roosevelt acted. He appointed Oscar Straus as Secretary of Commerce and Labor, thereby elevating a Jew to the Cabinet for the first time and giving him control over the department which supervised immigration. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 741

Categorization

• CANDY: Roosevelt had to outbid Hearst for immigrant votes, so he made Oscar Straus the first Jewish cabinet secretary — vote competition rewarded inclusion.
• XREF: connects to: Smith’s circle missed deliberate planning in Roosevelt’s every move as Governor and future rival — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 1282