The Press: The Touchy Issue

Even before the Los Angeles roar acclaiming Massachusetts' Senator John F. Kennedy, the Houston Post got a hint of the kind of journalistic problem it might have to face. Getting word that an itinerant preacher had hit town with a warning against electing a Catholic to anything from President on down to dogcatcher, the Post reported one of his meetings. Recalls Post Managing Editor William P. Hobby Jr.: "We soon got all sorts of hell from ministers of his denomination." A delegation of Church of Christ preachers, complaining of the deprecatory tone of the Post's story, demanded that Hobby print a statement supporting the evangelist's position. In their argument to Hobby was an implicit threat: "We take a lot of advertising in your paper." Bill Hobby* refused to print the statement.

The problem that confronted Houston's Hobby has since perplexed many another U.S. editor, most of all in the South, where the religion issue seems to have aroused the most passion. The often-criticized Southern press generally scores high marks in its wrestling with this delicate issue. How should an editor treat the touchy subject of religion in politics—by avoiding it, denying it, minimizing it or going after it?

Editorial Viewpoints. The editorial pages of Southern newspapers reflect near unanimity on at least one point: the religion issue exists and will continue to bulk large in the 1960 campaign. A few papers, such as the Charleston, S.C. News & Courier, argue that Kennedy's Catholicism is a vital and valid political issue. More typical is the Columbus, Miss. Commercial Dispatch: "It is regrettable that what ought to be at most a relatively minor concern is overshadowing such major issues as foreign aid, economic growth and civil rights."

Some papers simply thought that Jack Kennedy was getting a bum religious rap. Wrote the Richmond Times-Dispatch: "Senator Kennedy seems to us to have demonstrated admirable independence on this issue, since he has voted at least twice contrary to what we believe to be the position of his church. He voted against the use of public funds for parochial schools and against sending an ambassador from the U.S. to the Vatican." Some papers seemed to think that the whole religion issue was a Republican plot. Said the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: "Regardless of how it has been raised, religion has definitely become a major issue . . . Some foes of Mr. Kennedy's candidacy are masquerading behind it, though they evidence no religious convictions of their own."