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True to tradition, the 69th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner was a glittering affair that mixed humor, politics and generous support for New York’s needy—raising $2.9 million for programs in the archdiocese that help vulnerable children and families.
Welcoming the 850 guests to the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, master-of-ceremonies Alfred E. Smith IV used his trademark one-liners to zing the political, business and religious leaders attending.
“Tonight looks just like 20 years ago,” he joked. “There’s a Cuomo in Albany, a Bratton at One Police Plaza, and there’s a [new grandfather] Bill Clinton being photographed with a much younger woman.”
Smith, chairman of the Memorial Foundation, is the great-grandson of the legendary New York governor and first Catholic presidential candidate Al Smith, known as the “Happy Warrior,” whose legacy as a champion of the poor is honored by the dinner.
Charlie Rose, the TV news anchor and correspondent, was the keynote speaker.
Cardinal Dolan, who presided at the dinner, presented the Foundation’s Happy Warrior Award to Kenneth G. Langone, co-founder of Home Depot, in recognition of his support for the Church and the city. Langone heads the fund-raising effort for the restoration of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and also has been a major benefactor of the NYU Langone Medical Center in Manhattan.
In remarks later at the dinner’s closing, Cardinal Dolan directly addressed Langone, saying, “In the past five-and-a-half years, I’ve gone from admiring you to loving you. You’re a happy warrior.”
Langone, in his speech accepting the award, said, “I don’t think for a minute that I got here tonight on my own.” He said that even if he filled up Yankee Stadium, “it wouldn’t be big enough to hold all the people who helped me along the way.”
He also said the archdiocese has been blessed with its recent archbishops, mentioning Cardinals Cooke, O’Connor, Egan and Dolan.
“There’s a very strong army behind your happy warrior,” he said.
Cardinal Egan, Archbishop Emeritus of the archdiocese, described Al Smith in an invocation as “one of New York’s most beloved and distinguished citizens, Alfred Emanuel Smith, a man of deep faith and…genuine concern for those most in need.”
He also asked guests to remember “in a very special way” Msgr. Lawrence M. Connaughton, a longtime board member of the Smith Foundation who served as a pastor and in other leadership roles in the archdiocese before his death Sept. 29.
“Please keep this wonderful priest in your prayers,” Cardinal Egan said.
Charlie Rose, in his address, said he has great respect for Langone and the many other guests at the dinner who take on leadership roles in society, “especially in such complex and challenging times.”
He said it is his belief that “dialogue matters, and we learn from each other,” saying that he admires Pope Francis for reaching out to people he might not agree with, including people of other faiths and no faith, and that Al Smith, the dinner’s namesake, remains an inspirational figure who “stands as a testament to the power of dialogue.”
Rose, a co-anchor of “CBS This Morning,” also poked fun at his own low-key interview style on his nightly PBS program “Charlie Rose.”
“Of all the things that happened to me, nothing beats ‘Breaking Bad’,” he said, referring to the penultimate episode of the mega-hit TV drama series.
“Walter White (the protagonist) is watching me doing an interview on television and he decides he must kill himself, which many of you may be thinking right now,” Rose said, to laughter from the crowd.
