"The Contest for a Key State" as broadcast over the CBS Television Network, Friday, October 28, 1960, 10:30-11 p.m., e.d.t. With Bernard Eismann, CBS news correspondent, Chicago; Charles Kuralt, CBS news correspondent, New York; Ernest Leiser, CBS news correspondent, New York. Produced by special program unit, CBS News, Studio 41, New York.

     MAN. On this election up until approximately 2 months ago, until all this religion situation come out, I was definitely for the Democratic Party. But I believe that if I am to have my children enjoy the religious freedom that I have enjoyed for the last 55 years, that we certainly have to keep this a Protestant Nation.
     SPEAKER. I have been a Republican most of my life - in fact a Republican precinct captain. However, the religious issues in this campaign, the religious bigotry, has made me so sick to my stomach that I am working for Kennedy for President.
     KURALT. Religion, the issue that was supposed to be buried in the presidential campaign. It has risen to the surface again in one of the key States.
     ANNOUNCER. * * *¹ presents "Eyewitness to History." The event "The Contest for a Key State." From Chicago, Charles Kuralt reporting.
     KURALT. Those are more than blocks of buildings and moving cars that you are looking at. Those are wards and precincts and citizens and votes in a key city of a key State, Chicago, Ill. Of the six or seven big States which will very likely decide the election of the next President, States with more than a third of the Nation's votes - the race is perhaps closest of all here in Illinois, and in Illinois the contest has been made all the more uncertain by a submerged issue, which although repudiated by both candidates has now risen to the surface. That issue is religion.
     In this next to last week before the election both candidates have stumped in this pivotal State, each for the fifth time here, on the issues they feel should decide the Presidency. Today it was Vice President Nixon, in an effort to tap the fountainhead of Republican strength, the central part of Illinois.
     NIXON. My answer is this. The Federal Government must spend more in several areas. We've got to have more for defense. We're going to have to have more in the field of education. We're going to have to have a better program in the field of medical care. But my friends, the reason why my programs are better for America than those of my opponent is this, that his would turn all of these problems over to the Federal Government, they would cost an amount equal - get this - each year to almost the entire gold reserve of America that's in Fort Knox. And you know what that means to you? It means higher prices, higher taxes for the American people. And I say, my friends, you've got something to fight for. In the next 9 days between now and election if you want to keep your savings, if you want to keep your pensions, if you want to fight against having those prices go up so you can't meet the family budget with your paycheck, then go out and fight for our ticket, because that's what we stand for, and fight against those who will do that very thing that I've been talking about. [Cheering.]
     Now, one other point I want to make. People say to me, "Now just a minute, Mr. Nixon. We read in the paper yesterday that your opponent says we're going to have a recession." Now, let's talk about that just a minute. Are we? The answer's "No." We're not going to have one, and he knows it. Senator Kennedy is betting on a recession, but the American people are betting on prosperity, and the American people are right, and Senator Kennedy's wrong and that's why they're, going to be beaten on election day. [Cheering .]
     Senator Kennedy's campaign in Illinois this week took him through normally Republican areas and everywhere he went he attacked the Republicans for not aspiring high enough for America. When he reached Peoria where the religious case against him has found expression in Protestant pulpits, he was still campaigning on the broader issues.
     KENNEDY. You have to make, as citizens of this country, all we can do is try to present the issues and the different positions we take on the great matters that disturb our country. But you as citizens on November 8 must make your judgment of what you want this community to be, what you want this State to be, what you believe we must do as a Nation, what responsibilities and obligations we must meet as citizens. And I believe the choice is between those who feel that what we're now doing is good enough, who feel that there is no urgency to the great matters which face us at home and abroad, who are not concerned to be second in outer space, who are not concerned about our deteriorating position around the world, who are not concerned that we are moving into a period when we may be second best to the Soviet Union even in military power. Well, I am concerned, and I believe that you are concerned and that this country of ours, which deserves the best from us, cannot possibly in the early revolutionary years of the sixties, be led by people who are indifferent to the great problems which sweep across the horizon of the United States. [Applause and cheers.]
     KURALT. Those are the things that the two candidates have felt it necessary to say in their campaign for Illinois - the issues as they see them. But, there is the other issue - the one they did not discuss, the one that both candidates and indeed both parties agree should not be a part of this campaign at all. In Illinois, the religious factor has become important in the contest for a key State. That part of our report in just a moment, after this word from * * *.

     KURALT. We did not come to Illinois to report on the religious issue. We came here to report on the trend of the campaign, and found religion a major factor in it. Our concern has been simply to find some measure of the impact of the religious issue on the way people are going to vote.
     First we went to the men who have to judge its importance in the coolest most businesslike way, however passionately they may feel on one side or the other: the political chiefs of Chicago and Illinois. Among them - the man whom all agree is running strongest on the Republican ticket here, a politician of over 20 years' experience, and a Catholic himself as it happens - State's Attorney Benjamin Adamowski. We've heard a lot about anti-Kennedy campaigns in some Protestant churches downstate, and most politicians seem to expect a big Catholic vote for Kennedy in Chicago. What effect do you think religion is going to have on this campaign?
     ADAMOWSKI. Well, I imagine that basically some people will use that as their norm for voting on November 8 and while there are certain groups that are probably using it in various parts of the State, the answer to that is that I think it's going to boomerang in the Chicago sector, because while their national candidate says it's to be kept out of the campaign, one of the things the local people are depending upon entirely is the idea that that will be the deciding factor, and they are using it to a fare-thee-well, and it's my honest conviction that that's going to boomerang here in Chicago to their detriment because when the fact is known, and when it becomes known that they are using that as their entire approach I think it's going to have a resentment in the minds of people who belong to that faith, as I belong to it. And I don't like to see that they - through the back door - do what they're telling everyone else not to do through the front door.
     KURALT. Yes.
     ADAMOWSKI. So that while I'm satisfied that some people are going to use it as the basis, I don't think the vast majority of Americans like it, and I don't think the vast majority of Chicagoans will like it, regardless of whether they're Protestant or Catholic.
     KURALT. We also talked to Jacob Arvey, Democratic national committeeman from Illinois, one of the most knowledgeable political figures in America.
     Do you think that religion will have any important effect on the outcome of the election in Illinois?
     ARVEY. It will affect it, will influence it, but I don't think it will be the decisive force because, to the extent the bigots apply their technique of hate and discrimination and prejudice, Catholics in my opinion will resent it. It's an instinctive thing. I don't know why anybody should be surprised that a Catholic who doesn't have any convictions about either of the parties would rally to Kennedy's support if he thought we were being made the victim of religious bigotry.
     KURALT. Are you at all concerned about the anti-Kennedy campaign that's going on in some Protestant churches downstate?
     ARVEY. Yes; I am concerned about it, and I don't want to resort to Nixonism, but I'd like to say that I'm going to be 65 years old in 2 weeks, and I have been in politics since I have been 18, before I could vote, and I had hoped that by this time we could have a President at an election for the Presidency of the United States where religious or racial prejudices would be entirely eliminated and would not form the basis for decision.
     KURALT. The anti-Catholic whispering campaign already going on in Illinois takes written form in tracts and pamphlets like these which we have collected here. One is called "Wake Up Americans," another, "If America Elects a Catholic President," "A Roman Catholic President - How Free From Church Control?" and "The Big Question: A Vatican Victory in the U.S.A." One little handbill is called "The Pope for President," and suggests that electing Senator Kennedy would be like electing the Pope, and there's an open letter to Senator Kennedy which says his allegiance to the Constitution would be qualified by his sacred allegiance to another state, meaning the Vatican.
     The circulation of such pamphlets here has increased sharply this week. Who pays for them, who puts them out, is frequently well hidden. But by no means all of those who oppose Senator Kennedy as President on the grounds of religion stay hidden or associate themselves with hate literature. Some of them are respectable and respected members of the Protestant clergy who consider themselves reasonable men, compelled to use their right of free expression. Prominent in this group are members of the National Association of Evangelicals who are seeking to turn Reformation Sunday - day after tomorrow - into a huge rally over the State and the Nation, a rally with a single declared aim: to keep a Catholic out of the White House. Last Sunday, on what was called Conviction Sunday, the campaign warmed up.
     EISMANN. This is Bernard Eismann at Peoria, Ill., where parishioners at Grace Presbyterian Church are being asked to stand up and be counted - be counted against the idea of John F. Kennedy as President of the United States.

     In dozens of churches throughout central and southern Illinois, the same thing is happening. The campaign is being conducted by the National Association of Evangelicals which counts 30 denominations, 28,000 churches, and 10 million worshipers in the community.

     Here in Peoria, to his congregation of industrial workers and middleclass families, mainly Republicans by history and tradition, Grace Presbyterian's Pastor Dr. Bruce Dunne is preaching that Protestants must stand up and be counted.
     DUNNE. The issue is not religious. Whoever said it was? It is not religion. The issue of this campaign that is so vital and of such interest just now, it's not religion. We don't care where any candidate was baptized. We're not interested in any way regarding the election as to where he goes to church, or as to his personal faith. We're not making an issue of the abilities of any particular person. The real issue, falsely misnamed the religious issue, is the political action of a church which chooses also to be a political state. That's the real issue.
     We're not concerned about a man's age or his ability or his baptism or his spirituality or his personal faith - or even we do not question the sincerity of any candidate in affirming loyalty to these United States of America. Our concern is that a candidate becomes a part of a church and a state of which he has professed to be a loyal son and a faithful member. And an organization, which by its own declarations, verified even in recent history, will not, we believe, and cannot let him be free in all of his actions.
     It is not bigotry to honestly examine facts. The facts are what we need to get acquainted with. And I would remind you that the outlook is not altogether a bright one as we move on toward November 8. Over 63 percent of those affiliated with this ecclesiastical political organization - 63 percent of them - live in 11 States which have almost enough electoral votes to give a man the Presidency. Sixty-three percent of them live in States controlling 237 electoral votes. It's time that Protestant Christians stood up as Protestants and forgot about party labels or such things as these and stood up for basic, individual, American freedoms that are based and have their roots in a Protestant heritage which we stand in danger of losing in the light of current events.

     EISMANN. Gentlemen, what was your general impression of the sermon this morning? Do you think it was a political talk coming from the pulpit?
     MAN. No; I don't think it was a political talk. I think it brings out one of the probably most important issues in this election, the religious issue, so-called, although that is a misnomer, I think it's the political position of the Roman Catholic Church, and I think we Protestants need to have this brought out, and I think our pastor does a wonderful job of doing just that.
     EISMANN. Do you think there are any people in the congregation who might object to this? Do any of you object to what was said this morning?
     MAN. I wouldn't.
     SECOND MAN. No.
     EISMANN. No objection?
     SECOND MAN. No; I do not.
     EISMANN. From you, sir?
     MAN. I wouldn't either.
     SECOND MAN. I wouldn't either.
     EISMANN. Are there any of you who heard the sermon this morning who voted Democratic in 1952 or 1956 or 1948, who are going to vote Republican this year? You did, sir?
     MAN. I'm a Democrat. But I'm not going to vote Democrat this time because I don't believe in the Republicans - I mean John Kennedy's principles and the Catholic principles.
     EISMANN. Are you a Democrat?
     WOMAN. Yes, sir.
     EISMANN. And you are not going to vote for Senator Kennedy because he is a Catholic?
     WOMAN. Yes, Sir. I'm not going to vote for him. I'm going to vote for Richard Nixon.
     EISMANN. Does - does this compromise any other principles you might have politically; do you think?
     WOMAN. Well, my husband is a laboring man and we feel that the Democratic Party has always done more for labor, but in this issue we feel that we have to give up our labor convictions at this time and vote for a Protestant President.
     KURALT. The fight against Senator Kennedy on religious grounds bas Democrats in Illinois concerned. To combat it, one of their old campaigners, Senator Paul Douglas, tells the crowds about an incident in World War II when the P-T boat of which Kennedy was the skipper was sunk by a Japanese destroyer, and Kennedy and his crew were flung into the water.
     DOUGLAS. And military discipline is apt to disintegrate in the water under those conditions. But Jack kept this crowd together, kept their morale up, and he went up to the man who was paralyzed and could not swim, and put a belt around his waist, put the buckle of the belt between his teeth, and in some incredible fashion swam for 5 hours through a choppy sea and brought the man to shore and safety, and rescued, indeed, all of his crew. And when Jack Kennedy swam up to that man, risking his life to save the life of his comrade, he did not stop to ask him what his religion was. [Applause.] I want to tell you that Jack is qualified in every respect to be President of the United States. He believes in the Constitution of the United States. He defended that Constitution as a sailor in combat. He has defended it on the floor of the U.S. Senate. He believes in the separation of church and state, and he can be trusted as President of this country in every respect whatsoever.
     KURALT. Another way the Democrats answer anti-Catholic critics here is to show people the film of Kennedy himself in his speech before Houston ministers - the speech the Democrats thought had buried the religious issue.
     KENNEDY. I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic power would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.
     Whatever issue may come before me as President, if I should be elected, on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject, I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be in the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates.
     KURALT. In spite of the repeated declaration of Vice President Nixon and his supporters that religion should play no part in this campaign, it is a political fact that many Protestants in Illinois will vote against John F. Kennedy primarily because he is a Catholic. It is also a political fact that among some voters Senator Kennedy's religion works to his advantage, as we found out in one corner of Chicago.
     LEISER. Ernest Leiser reporting from the 41st ward in the northwest corner of Chicago, an area that, as you can see, is very pleasant, very prosperous, and normally very Republican. In this comfortable near suburban area, however, this is not a normal election year, for in the 41st ward there is a considerable concentration of Catholics, perhaps a third of the total registered vote of some 70,000. Many Catholics, previously Republican, say positively here that they are switching their vote to fellow Catholic Kennedy. This is certainly not true of all of them, but it is a substantial factor here, and one which will reflect in the statewide Democratic vote in Illinois.
     In the two main political headquarters the candidates concede that it now has become a real factor.
     Roman Pucinski, Democrat, incumbent in the congressional district of which the 41st is the biggest ward, squeaked in in an off-year upset in 1958, but he was trounced in the ward itself. He thinks that the Democrats will run much stronger now in the 41st.
     It is a fact, isn't it, Congressman, that a good many Catholics in this district, normally Republican, are going to vote for Kennedy because he shares their religious affiliations?
     PUCINSKI. I don't say that they would vote for Jack Kennedy because he's a Catholic any more than they would for any other man if he were not qualified. However, I do think that there is some element, some people who perhaps find something compatible with him in his religious beliefs, that they will be tempted, or will have a tendency to support him more so than they might have supported Mr. Stevenson in 1956, 1952.
     LEISER. Well, then the religious issue does cut both ways?
     PUCINSKI. Oh, there's no question that the religious issue cuts both ways. I think that as the religious issue is intensified, people who normally might have voted, people of the Catholic faith, who normally would have supported Republican candidates, may very well want to register their protest against a religious test, on a President of the United States, by voting for Mr. Kennedy. And I've noticed that we find this in many other religions.
     LEISER. Pucinski's Republican opponent, Tim Sheehan, former Congressman, lives in the 41st. Also a Catholic, Sheehan also concedes that the Republicans won't run as well as usual in the ward.
     SHEEHAN. None of us in the practical political field expect that Illinois, for instance, which carried Mr. Eisenhower by 850,000 votes, will go that high for our Republican candidate.
     LEISER. And how much of a factor in this would you say that religion is?
     SHEEHAN. Religion is a factor because, whether it's a racial group or a religious group, blood is always thicker than water. I would say that a Pole - Polish voter might vote for a Polish candidate in preference to anyone else. The same way with an Irish candidate. But the same thing holds true of religion. A Catholic might want to vote for a Catholic candidate; a Protestant might want to vote for a Protestant candidate. So it's going to cut both ways.
     LEISER. Here in this area you think, then, the number of the Protestants will - who might normally have been Democratic - will then vote for Mr. Nixon?
     SHEEHAN. Well, according to the polls, if everyone assumes there's going to be a certain drift away from Mr. Nixon because of the Catholic shifting to Kennedy, we must be logical and assume a certain amount of the Protestant Democrat vote might shift away from Kennedy because he's a Catholic too.
     KURALT. This week a leading political writer for a Chicago newspaper concluded, after a statewide canvass that the religious issue here has reached a new phase of intensity. And a national columnist, Joseph Alsop, reported that "more votes are probably being influenced by the so-called religious issue than by any of the real issues."
     We'll venture a conclusion of our own in just a moment after this word from * * *.

     KURALT. Political victory, in Illinois as in some other key States, conventionally hangs in the balance between the cities where the Democrats draw their strength and the rural and suburban areas which are Republican strongholds. But this year, the factor of religion has complicated this reckoning.
     In Illinois, we have discovered that no matter how often and how fervently the candidates have disavowed religion as an issue, each of them is going to lose votes, a lot of votes, because of it. Those votes may be enough to swing this key State, and perhaps some of the rest, to one man or the other.
     This is the political fact: That many voters have not read, or have not heeded the plain injunctions of article 6, section 3 of the Constitution: "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
     This is Charles Kuralt. Good evening.

     ANNOUNCER. Next Friday night and every Friday night at this same time, for the drama of big events, keep an eye on "Eyewitness to History," brought to you by * * *.
     Tonight you've seen and heard reports from Chicago, Peoria, and Mattoon, Ill., by CBS News correspondents Bernard Eismann, Ernest Leiser, and Charles Kuralt.
     This program, film and video tape, was produced under the supervision and control of CBS News. The editorial judgments were solely those of CBS News.

¹Commercials are omitted.