LETTER TO MR. J. C. MARTIN CONCERNING RELIGION AND POLITICS 

November 6, 1908. 

MY DEAR SIR : 

I have received your letter running in part as 
follows : 

"While it is claimed universally that religion 
should not enter into politics, yet there is no denying 
that it does, and the mass of voters that are not 
Catholics will not support a man for any office, 
especially for President of the United States, who is 
a Roman Catholic. 

"Since Taft has been nominated for President by 
the Republican party, it is being circulated and is 
constantly urged as a reason for not voting for 
Taft that he is an infidel (Unitarian) and his wife 
and brother Roman Catholics. ... If his feelings 
are in sympathy with the Roman Catholic Church 
on account of his wife and brother being Catholics, 
that would be objectionable to a sufficient number 
of voters to defeat him. On the other hand if he 
is an infidel, that would be sure to mean defeat. . . . 
I am writing this letter for the sole purpose of 
giving Mr. Taft an opportunity to let the world 
know what his religious belief is." 

I received many such letters as yours during the 
campaign, expressing dissatisfaction with Mr. Taft 
on religious grounds; some of them on the ground 
that he was a Unitarian, and others on the ground 
that he was suspected to be in sympathy with Catho 
lics. I did not answer any of these letters during 
the campaign because I regarded it as an outrage 
even to agitate such a question as a man s religious 
conviction, with the purpose of influencing a politi 
cal election. But now that the campaign is over, 
when there is opportunity for men calmly to con 
sider whither such propositions as those you make 
in your letter would lead, I wish to invite them to 
consider them, and I have selected your letter to 
answer because you advance both the objections 
commonly urged against Mr. Taft, namely : that he 
is a Unitarian, and also that he is suspected of sym 
pathy with the Catholics. 

You ask that Mr. Taft shall "let the world know 
what his religious belief is." This is purely his 
own private concern; it is a matter between him 
and his Maker, a matter for his own conscience ; and 
to require it to be made public under penalty of 
political discrimination is to negative the first prin 
ciples of our Government, which guarantee complete 
religious liberty, and the right to each to act in 
religious affairs as his own conscience dictates. Mr. 
Taft never asked my advice in the matter, but if 
he had asked it, I should have emphatically advised 
him against thus stating publicly his religious belief. 
The demand for a statement of a candidate s re 
ligious belief can have no meaning except that there 
may be discrimination for or against him because 
of that belief. Discrimination against the holder 
of one faith means retaliatory discrimination against 
men of other faiths. The inevitable result of enter 
ing upon such a practice would be an abandonment 
of our real freedom of conscience and a reversion 
to the dreadful conditions of religious dissension 
which in so many lands have proved fatal to true 
liberty, to true religion, and to all advance in civili 
zation. 

To discriminate against a thoroughly upright citi 
zen because he belongs to some particular church, 
or because, like Abraham Lincoln, he has not 
avowed his allegiance to any church, is an outrage 
against that liberty of conscience which is one of the 
foundations of American life. You are entitled to 
know whether a man seeking your suffrages is a 
man of clean and upright life, honorable in all of 
his dealings with his fellows, and fit by qualification 
and purpose to do well in the great office for which 
he is a candidate ; but you are not entitled to know 
matters which lie purely between himself and his 
Maker. If it is proper or legitimate to oppose a 
man for being a Unitarian, as was John Quincy 
Adams, for instance, as is the Rev. Edward Everett 
Hale, at the present moment Chaplain of the Senate, 
and an American of whose life all good Americans 
are proud then it would be equally proper to sup 
port or oppose a man because of his views on justi 
fication by faith, or the method of administering 
the sacrament, or the gospel of salvation by works. 
If you once enter on such a career there is absolutely 
no limit at which you can legitimately stop. 

So much for your objections to Mr. Taft because 
he is a Unitarian. Now, for your objections to him 
because you think his wife and brother to be Roman 
Catholics. As it happens, they are not; but if they 
were, or if he were a Roman Catholic himself, it 
ought not to affect in the slightest degree any man s 
supporting him for the position of President. You 
say that "the mass of the voters that are not Catho 
lics will not support a man for any office, especially 
for President of the United States, who is" a Roman 
Catholic." I believe that when you say this yon 
foully slander your fellow countrymen. I do not 
for one moment believe that the mass of our fellow 
citizens, or that any considerable number of our 
fellow citizens, can be influenced by such narrow 
bigotry as to refuse to vote for any thoroughly up- 
right and fit man because he happens to have a par 
ticular religious creed. Such a consideration should 
never be treated as a reason for either supporting 
or opposing a candidate for a political office. Are 
you aware that there are several States in this 
Union where the majority of the people are now 
Catholics ? I should reprobate in the severest terms 
the Catholics who in those States (or in any other 
States) refused to vote for the most fit man because 
he happened to be a Protestant ; and my condemna 
tion would be exactly as severe for Protestants who, 
under reversed circumstances, refused to vote for 
a Catholic. In public life I am happy to say that 
I have known many men ,who were elected, and 
constantly re-elected, to office in districts where the 
great majority of their constituents were of a dif 
ferent religious belief. I know Catholics who have 
for many years represented constituencies mainly 
Protestant, and Protestants who have for many 
years represented constituencies mainly Catholic; 
and among the Congressmen whom I knew par 
ticularly well was one man of Jewish faith who 
represented a district in which there were hardly 
any Jews at all. All of these men by their very 
existence in political life refute the slander you have 
uttered against your fellow Americans. 

I believe that this Republic will endure for many 
centuries. If so there will doubtless be among its 
Presidents Protestants and Catholics, and, very 
probably at some time, Jews. I have consistently 
tried while President to act in relation to my fellow 
Americans of Catholic faith as I hope that any 
future President who happens to be a Catholic will 
act towards his fellow Americans of Protestant faith. 
Had I followed any other course I should have felt 
that I was unfit to represent the American people. 
In my Cabinet at the present moment there sit 
side by side Catholic and Protestant, Christian and 
Jew, each man chosen because in my belief he is 
peculiarly fit to exercise on behalf of all our people 
the duties of the office to which I have appointed 
him. In no case does the man s religious belief in 
any way influence his discharge of his duties, save 
as it makes him more eager to act justly and up 
rightly in his relations to all men. The same prin 
ciples that have obtained in appointing the members 
of my Cabinet, the highest officials under me, the 
officials to whom is entrusted the work of carrying 
out all the important policies of my administration, 
are the principles upon which all good Americans 
should act in choosing, whether by election or ap 
pointment, the men to fill any office from the highest 
to the lowest in the land. 

Yours truly, 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 
Mr. J. C. MARTIN, 

Corner Fourth and Jefferson Streets, 
Dayton, Ohio.