3857 — Roosevelt and a Catholic President
The question was asked, "Did Roosevelt say he would be glad to see the time when we would have a Catholic President?" and the answer was that he had so expressed himself. I am sending you a clipping from the Burlington "Hawk-Eye" of 1908, showing that the President has fully expressed himself. This letter from Mr. Roosevelt, dated November 6, 1908, is in reply to another letter to Mr. Roosevelt, saying that the people would not support a man for President who was a Catholic. Mr. Roosevelt states that he had received many such letters during the campaign which he did not answer at that time because he regarded it as an outrage even to "agitate such a question as a man's religious convictions, with the purpose of influencing a political election;" that Mr. Taft's religious belief is "purely his own private concern, and it is a matter between him and his Maker, a matter for his own conscience." Mr. Roosevelt declares that if Mr. Taft's wife and brother were Roman Catholics, as charged, "or if he were a Roman Catholic himself, it ought not to affect in the slightest degree any one's voting for him for the position of President." He declares also that "I should reprobate in the severest terms the Catholics who . . . refused to vote for the most fit man because he happened to be a Protestant; and my condemnation would be exactly as severe for Protestants who, under reversed circumstances, refused to vote for a Catholic." Again: "I believe that this republic will endure for many centuries. If so, there will doubtless be among its Presidents Protestants and Catholics, and very probably, at some times, Jews." Regarding this letter the same paper prints the comments of Cardinal Gibbons spoken in Baltimore, November 9, as follows: "I would like to say two things about the letter: (1) It is well worth reading and pondering; and (2) I knew it was coming out."