Time called Smith a “conscientious objector to the 20th Century.” One observer claimed he “taxed neither his brain nor the voters with a new issue.” He had at first welcomed US President Franklin Roosevelt but soon emerged as an opponent to the New Deal, which he dubbed as “the Jackass Age” when he noticed that Roosevelt's programs were leading the Southern economy in a new direction. Although he voted for part of the draft of the Revenue Act of 1935 he voted against the final bill, due to the highly progressive rates. In 1935, a group of reformist officials in the Agriculture Department proposed a directive that would ensure that Southern landlords actually paid their sharecroppers for their labor, which most of them did not.Kennedy, David Freedom From Fear, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005 p.212 Smith stormed into the office of the author of the directive, Alger Hiss, and shouted: "Young fella, you can't do this to my niggers, paying checks to them. They don't know what to do with the money. The money should come to me. I'll take care of them".
