Al Smith Replies to Attacks on His Catholicism
New York Governor Al Smith, regarded as the likely Democratic Party candidate for president in 1928, replied to attacks on his being a Catholic on this day.
In a letter that was made public, a critic had demanded that Smith make it clear that his allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church would not interfere with his oath of office as president. Smith denied that there was any conflict between his religion and his obligations as a public servant.
Many of the attacks were led by the Ku Klux Klan, which was was a powerful anti-Catholic force in the 1920s. On November 7, 1922, it sponsored an Oregon compulsory education law that would have closed down Catholic parochial schools in the state. The Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional on June 1, 1925.
See the efforts to fight anti-Catholic prejudice by Charles Evans Hughes, Secretary of State (and both former and future Supreme Court Justice), on April 23, 1922; the formation of the National Conference of Christians and Jews on December 8, 1927; and the national tour of the “Tolerance Trio,” a Priest, a Rabbi, and a Minister, August 29, 1933.
Smith’s defeat in the 1928 presidential election created the myth that a Catholic could never be elected president in the U.S. (1928 was a Republican year, and it is unlikely that any Democrat could have won.) John F. Kennedy demolished the myth when he was elected President in 1960. Particularly important was Kennedy’s forthright speech about religion to an audience of Protestant ministers on September 12, 1960.
Read: Robert A. Slayton, Empire Statesman: The Rise and Redemption of Al Smith (20o7)
Learn more: Shaun Casey, The Making of a Catholic President: Kennedy vs. Nixon, 1960 (2009)
Watch newsreel footage on Al Smith’s 1928 nomination for president: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcopBKsclhY
Read: Christopher Finan, Al Smith: The Happy Warrior (2003)
And more: Alan J. Lichtman, Prejudice and the Old Politics: The Presidential Election of 1928 (1979)
Take your kids to the Alfred E. Smith Playground, a park in New York City