The White House
Washington, November 4, 1908

My dear Sir:

I have received your letter running in part as follows:

"While it is claimed almost universally that religion should not enter into politics, yet there is no denying that it does, and the mass of the 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 Catholics. 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 convictions, with the purpose of influencing a political election. But now that the campaign is over, when there is opportunity for men calmly to consider 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 improper sympathy 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 principles of our Government, which guarantee complete religious liberty, and the right to each man 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 religious 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 entering upon such a practice would be an abandonment of our real freedom of conscience and a reversion to the dreadful conditions of religious dissensions which in so many lands have proved fatal to true liberty, to true religion, and to all advance in civilization.

To discriminate against a thoroly upright citizen 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 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 support or oppose a man because of his views on justification 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 Catholics 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 you 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 thoroly upright and fit man because he happens to have a particular religious creed. Such a consideration should never be treated as a reason for either supporting or opposing a candidate for 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 condemnation 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 reëlected, to office in districts where the great majority of their constituents were of a different 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 particularly 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 wich [sic] 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 uprightly in his relations to all men. The same principles 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 appointment, the man to fill any office from the highest to the lowest in the land.

Yours truly

Theodore Roosevelt

It is amusing sometimes to contemplate the matters that occupy the attention of certain zealously inclined religious persons or groups. I recall the flurry caused the year previous by the appearance of the new five, ten, and twenty-dollar gold pieces without the legend, "In God We Trust," which by Roosevelt's direction had been omitted. As a matter of fact that legend was not used on our coins prior to 1866, when a law was passed permitting it subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury. The issuance of these coins, artistically designed by Saint-Gaudens, without the legend was merely a return to the precedents of the fathers of the Republic. I had a small collection of early coins at the time, none of which bore the legend. However, when these new coins appeared several religious bodies passed resolutions disapproving of the President's action. Roosevelt gave out a statement to the effect that he had always regarded that legend as connecting God and mammon, and therefore not as religious, but as sacrilegious. But the opinion against the omission was so strong that in subsequent coinage it was restored. The agitation had been somewhat anticipated by the President, and he was not the least perturbed by it. At a dinner one evening he remarked to me, concerning it, that it was sometimes a good thing to give people some unimportant subject to discuss, for it helped put through more important things.

After a Cabinet meeting toward the end of November, 1908, I was talking with the President regarding various phases of the administration of my Department, and I mentioned one or two matters that I hoped my successor would carry to completion. Roosevelt said to me: "Well, I can tell you one thing that Taft told me; you will be head of the Department under the next Administration, if you will accept, and I want you to accept." He had indicated this once or twice before, but had never stated it so definitely. I had been perfectly content to finish my term of office with the close of the Administration, but I felt if it was the wish of both Roosevelt and Taft that I continue I should be happy to remain.

Taft had evidently intended retaining several of the Cabinet officials, but subsequently changed his mind, which was one of the things that caused the break between Roosevelt and him. Mr. Lawrence F. Abbott has embodied in his excellent book, "Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt," an article he contributed in January, 1912, to the Cornwall, New York, local press, covering the Roosevelt-Taft relations. Before publication this article was sent to Roosevelt, and by him annotated and returned to Mr. Abbott. The part regarding the retention of Cabinet members reads as follows:

Mr. Taft on his election no doubt wished to carry on the work of his predecessor, and, if not publicly, often privately said that it was his desire and intention to retain those Cabinet colleagues of Mr. Roosevelt who had contributed so much to the re-creation of the Republican Party. [Note by Mr. Roosevelt: "He told me so, and authorized me to tell the Cabinet, specifically Garfield, Straus and Luke Wright.">[ But this intention became gradually modified during the winter of 1908-09.

On December 16th I attended the dinner of the Ohio Society in New York, at which President-elect Taft made his first public address. There was a notable gathering of the leaders of finance and commerce and of the Republican Party, and great expectancy was evident as to what Mr. Taft would say. Ex-Senator Spooner, a brilliant speaker, also made an address, which contained some pointed criticisms of Roosevelt policies. He extolled the Constitution and in a veiled way indicated a deviation from it on the part of Roosevelt. Spooner had made other speeches along these lines, and I confess to some exasperation that this occasion should have been used to attack Roosevelt and his policies.

Taft was the last speaker, and I hoped that when he arose he would resent these attacks, or at any rate uphold the policies of the Administration of which he had been an important member. But I was disappointed. He took no notice of what Spooner or one or two of the other speakers had said. To some of us this was the first evidence that there was a rift in the relationship between Roosevelt and Taft.

Mr. Taft invited me to return to Washington on the train with him next morning. En route I spoke of Spooner's speech, and said it appeared to me as an attempt to drive a wedge between him (Taft) and the Roosevelt policies, and that the attack was received by the great financiers who were present, Harriman, Ryan, and others, with great favor. Taft said he had observed it and did not like it. He thought first that he might say something in reply, but on second consideration he decided to let it pass. I told him that usually I enjoyed such an occasion more when I did not have to speak, but on that evening I very much regretted not having the opportunity to answer that attack.

We talked of a number of things, but he said nothing about desiring to have me continue in the Cabinet, though Roosevelt had mentioned the subject to me several times. I then concluded that while in New York a change of mind had come to him in this matter, and what occurred at the dinner seemed to emphasize this conclusion. He was going down to Augusta, Georgia, for a short vacation and asked me to come and see him; but when I reached Washington there was much to be done in my Department, and, as he was besieged by politicians and I had nothing special to bring to his attention, I thought the more considerate thing was not to take up his time needlessly.