Report of the County Chairman Read Online Free PDF Page B

me.
    That night I drove home and in my small room reviewed the situation: “I’ve fought to defend every civil right that has come under attack in my lifetime. I testified on behalf of each of my friends hauled before the McCarthy Committee. I’ve tried to write as if all men were my brothers. In Hawaii I’ve stood for absolute equality, and it would be ridiculous for a man like me to be against a Catholic for President.”
    I then took out a sheet of paper and wrote down every reason I could think of for not nominating John Kennedy for the Presidency. He was young. There were ugly rumors afloat about his father. I had been told that Jews wouldn’t vote for him. He had no administrative experience. He had been pathetically weak on McCarthy. And one of the television shows had claimed he hadn’t writtenthe book for which they gave him the Pulitzer Prize. I listed a few other disqualifications that I can’t remember now, but which I was sure the Republicans would dig up during an election. Then I added the crusher: “He’s a Catholic.”
    But at this point I thought of the first time I had met the handsome young man from Massachusetts. It had been in the South Pacific, and when the memory of that meeting came back to me I wrote in the other column, “But he’s also a hell of a man, and he’d make a good President.”
    That night I decided to work to the fullest extent of my ability to see that John Kennedy was nominated for the Presidency and elected to it. The first thing I did was to write a brief note to Clifton Fadiman thanking him for his patient reasoning at the Random House party. Next I wrote to Senator Kennedy, volunteering whatever help I might muster. This was well before he had engaged in any primaries.
    My reasons for settling upon Kennedy as my choice for the nomination were clear, and once reached were never reconsidered. True, in the twelve months that were to elapse before his election to the Presidency there would be times when I thought he might lose. But there was never a time when I did not want him to win. These were my reasons. First, I considered him a very able man with a brilliant mind, substantial courage, an enormous sense of history, and an attractive personality, cold perhaps but reassuring. Second, I was convinced he would make a much better than average President. Third, I was equally convinced that he would be a great politician,and according to my definition of the Presidency, a politician is needed to hold his party, his legislative program, and his country together. I am very fond of good politicians, for they accomplish more than most of us. Fourth, I was convinced that Kennedy would make a strong attempt to win back the labor, Negro, suburban and Jewish votes that had left the Democratic party to support General Eisenhower. Fifth, I was sure that Kennedy, from having written two good books, knew what the intellectual life was, and I suspected that he would support America’s efforts in the arts. Sixth, I knew that violent anti-Catholics would vote against him, but I also supposed that many violent Catholics would vote for him, and that the fringe bigots would thus offset each other. In letters that I wrote at the time I tried to convince my doubting friends that it was safe for the Democratic party to nominate a Catholic “because I am reasonably certain that the bigot votes we lose in the rabid country we will pick right back up in the crackpot city. We will lose Mississippi with its 8 votes, and win New York with its 45, and I call that a good exchange.” What I failed to anticipate was the violence of the anti-Catholic resentment not in the rabid southern areas but in the solid central body of our nation. Had I foreseen the anti-Catholic campaign that was to be launched by otherwise reasonable people and to be supported by others even more sensible, I might have wavered in my decision. As it was, I went through the primaries, the nominating convention and up to the campaign