DEMOCRATS: Boston's Kennedy Night

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Boston Democrats never had a more successful fund-raising dinner than last week's testimonial for John E. Powers, candidate for mayor. The faithful turned out 2,190 strong for filet mignon at $100 a plate, and by evening's end, Powers' nomination was put down as a political certainty. Nobody minded much that the state's top Democrat, Presidential Hopeful Jack Kennedy, was off on Senate business, for he was represented in the two seats of honor by brother Ted and by Powers himself, a leading Kennedy lieutenant. Perhaps it was better, thought some, that Jack was not on hand for the evening's main event: a formal speech on "Religion and Politics" by Boston's outspoken Richard Cardinal Gushing.

The cardinal's purpose was clear: to soothe lingering Protestant fears about nominating a Roman Catholic for President and to quiet a lingering Catholic feeling that Friend Jack protested too much a month ago in trying to clear himself of the religious issue.

"In the political climate in which we live, no church should tell its members whom to vote for, or interfere in political campaigns, or suggest reasons of a purely personal kind for preferring one candidate over another," said Cardinal Gushing, who made his Kennedy preference clear last month. "I cannot see, for example, how anyone would vote for a candidate for public office merely because of his religion, even if the candidate was noted for his personal piety."