Presidential Prejudices

James A. Farley was the best campaign manager of the 20th century, guiding the election of Franklin Roosevelt twice as New York governor and twice as president, and he now receives visitors at the Gates of Heaven Cemetery in Westchester County, Section 25, Plot 39, Grave 15, on the same tended slope as two other winners, Babe Ruth and Billy Martin.After the John Edwards campaign ran into trouble recently with regard to two of its youthful, official bloggers who posted anti-Catholic bunkum, I stopped by James Farley’s place to discuss presidential runs and the Catholic vote.“It’s early yet,” Farley observed about the contest. “What’d the kids do?”Bloggers Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McKewen write passionately of their experiences as feminists, Democrats, and wits. William Donohue of the Catholic League, not easily amused, directed John Edwards to fire the duo when some of their old posts revealed impolite thoughts about Christianity in general and Catholic teaching in particular.The roughest of it was smuttiness about Mary and contraception. Gentle John Edwards, a Baptist, responded hesitantly: He issued a statement upbraiding the ops, adding they deserved a “fair shake.” The young women, proffering ambiguous contrition, were not terminated.What is arresting about the flap, I told Farley, is that not one of the Edwards camp appears educated as to why it is blockheaded to engage in, or even to entertain, disrespect of Catholicism when campaigning for the White House.“Nobody remembers Blaine and Burchard?” Farley asked.Days before the dead-heat presidential election of 1884, the Republican nominee, James Blaine of Maine, attended some supporters in the Fifth Avenue Hotel. The Protestant pastor Samuel Burchard made an introduction, decrying the Democratic Party as “rum, Romanism and rebellion” — an alliterative sneer at the Irish Catholic laborers who made up the bulk of the city’s Democrats.A journalist at the event informed the Democratic campaign in town that Blaine had not rebuked Burchard. The Democrats plastered the words on walls to rouse the vote. The day before the election, the good-government New York Times — baldly anti-Blaine — featured the headline, “A Priest Denounces Blaine” with the subhead “‘Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion’ has a good effect in Connecticut.”This was a report on the Hartford sermon the day before by the Very Reverend James Hughes, 27 years the pastor of St. Patrick’s Church in New York, who advised the congregation to choose the “honest” Grover Cleveland over the “corrupt” Blaine — who, the father lamented, had renounced his own Catholicism. Cleveland won New York City by 10,000 votes, and that plurality carried New York State, and New York’s electoral votes carried the election.“The angels loved it,” Farley mused.I submitted to Farley that the angels would have loved it more if he’d become the first Roman Catholic president of the United States, and that Farley would have, had it not been for the soft bigotry of the man he put in the White House.“You know about that,” Farley whispered.In March 1940, President Roosevelt’s biographer, E. K. Lindley, published a report asserting that, pondering an unprecedented third term, not only did the president favor Secretary of State Hull as a successor if he decided not to run again, but that the president also had told congressional confidants that the postmaster general and Democratic Party chairman, James Farley, was unacceptable as a vice-presidential choice because he was Catholic.The public flinched. Rep. Martin Kennedy of New York called upon Governor Lehman to name Farley as New York’s favorite son candidate for the convention. Lehman, defending the president as “free of all racial and religious prejudices,” refused.Later, when Roosevelt decided upon a third term, Farley opposed it and declared his own candidacy. At the convention, Farley received 72 votes and then broke with Roosevelt, quit the Cabinet, and left his party post. One of the convention votes Farley received was from Joseph Kennedy Jr., whose heroic death in Europe brought forth John Kennedy on the trail to become the first Catholic president.“The angels loved all of it,” Farley measured.I told Farley that the New Deal that rescued America and defeated the Axis powers was built by his sweat, and that he, the “rum, Romanism and rebellion” bricklayer’s son from Grassy Point, deserved the vice presidency in 1940 and maybe the presidency afterward.I told Farley that he was valorous for standing up against an insult to his Catholicism, no matter that the Protestant culprit was the mightiest man in the land. I told Farley that Catholic voters today, one-quarter of the electorate in national contests, derive a measure of authority from the fact that no campaign will prosper if it abuses the Roman Catholic faith.Farley had the last word, “Give the ladies a chance to learn. It’s early yet.”Mr. Batchelor is host of “The John Batchelor Show,” now on hiatus.

Presidential Prejudices

Presidential Prejudices

More from the New York Sun

The Best Place To Get Away From Detroit Is Detroit

New California Law Aims To Prevent Trump Allies From Deploying Guardsmen Into State

Angelina Jolie’s ‘Without Blood’ Fights On, Largely Unseen

Trump Arch To Act as Drone Warehouse, Military Installation

The Human Brain Is Actually Two Separate Organs, Stanford Study Finds

What’s Weird and Wonderful?

Moral Panic Over AI Surges Ahead of Decisive Midterm Elections

‘Fauda’ Is Back — and October 7 Changed Everything

More from the New York Sun

The Best Place To Get Away From Detroit Is Detroit

New California Law Aims To Prevent Trump Allies From Deploying Guardsmen Into State

Angelina Jolie’s ‘Without Blood’ Fights On, Largely Unseen

Trump Arch To Act as Drone Warehouse, Military Installation

The Human Brain Is Actually Two Separate Organs, Stanford Study Finds

What’s Weird and Wonderful?

Moral Panic Over AI Surges Ahead of Decisive Midterm Elections

‘Fauda’ Is Back — and October 7 Changed Everything