Al Smith Quotes
I do not want any Catholic in the United States of America to vote for me on the 6th of November because I am a Catholic.
Smith was the first Catholic to run for the Presidency. There were many who opposed him who were anti-Catholic bigots. Were it not for this religious discrimination Smith would almost certainly have been President.
Alfred E. Smith, 1873-1944, New York Governor & Democratic Presidential Candidate, Campaign Speech, Oklahoma City, September 20, 1928
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
It was not until 1780 that Catholics were allowed to even be members of Town Corporations.
A videotape of this response was used by Kennedy as a campaign TV ad. American history had been full of anti-Catholic prejudice and it was responsible for the Presidential loss of Al Smith. Kennedy hit the issue directly betting that America had become more tolerant. He was right but he still lost several states because of religious bigotry.
Kennedy was a Roman Catholic and there was a great deal of anti-Catholic prejudice in the country then. Al Smith, the only Catholic who had run for the Presidency, was defeated with almost all his opposition coming from anti-Catholic forces appealing to the then popular prejudice that if a Catholic became President, the Pope and the Vatican would be running America. Richard Nixon, a master politician with few scruples, cleverly kept raising the religious question in the voters minds by saying that he would not make Kennedy’s religion and issue of the campaign. Kennedy barely won.
This was a very important historical quotation. In 1928 Al Smith, the Governor of New York, was the Democratic Candidate for President. He was the first Roman Catholic to run for the Presidency for a major party. He narrowly lost and the anti-Catholic sentiment of much of the country was one of the major reasons, Jones was one of the many Protestant religious leaders who were virulently opposed to a Roman Catholic in the White House. The analogy of a saloon on every corner was very important at the time as the United States had Prohibition, and alcohol had been Jones’ major issue beore then. The result was the election of Herbert Hoover and the subsequent Great Depression.
The origins of the extreme religious intolerance of Spain occurred centuries before the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition. Before the Conference the Visigoths and their king had been converted to Christianity but not all cared for the new religion.
This sura has unfortunately been used by some Serbians and other Christians to justify ethnic cleansing against Muslims.
Louisiana was then a possession of France
Lopez and Elizer were Jews who had escaped the persecution in Portugal to come to America. They and other non-Christians could live and work in Rhode Island but could not vote or hold public office by a previous decision of the Rhode Island Assembly. See {619707}.The Jews had petitioned for their civil rights.
Alfred Emanuel Smith was an American politician who served four terms as Governor of New York and was the Democratic Party's candidate for president in 1928.
