Eliezer Weschel (Napoleon's World)

Eliezer Weschel (1 August 1860 - 14 January 1955) was a prominent New York politician and a leading member of the Democratic Party in the early and mid-20th century, notable for being a six-term Senator (1917-1953) and three-term Governor of New York (1911-1917). Weschel dominated the Democratic Party in the 1920's and 1930's, easily its most vocal member and one of its most outspoken liberals.

A proponent of the labor movement, he nevertheless opposed protective tariffs and typically aligned himself with the Bourbon Democrats and the New York machine as opposed to the Bryan (Silvercrat) faction.

As the first Jewish Governor of New York and the second Jewish Senator in American history, Weschel devoted himself to involving New York's booming Jewish immigrant population in the political process and helped purge the Democratic Party's northern wing of anti-Semitic sentiments in the 1920's and early 1930's. While one of the most nationally well-known and popular liberal Democrats of his era, Weschel was ineligible to run for President, having been born in Lemberg, in the French Empire. An effort to amend the United States Constitution to allow foreign-born immigrants to run for President gained steam in the late 1920's largely out of an effort to allow Weschel to run for President. Regarded as an icon within the liberal and labor movements, Weschel was cited as "the 20th century's greatest politician" by the New York Times upon his death and he is often regarded as an inspiration for succeeding liberals such as Al Smith, Thomas Sullivan, Betty Davis, Dennis Hayward, Adam Eisler and Charlie Platt.