Are You a Yellow Dog Democrat? The term was likely originated in the presidential election of 1928.

RELIGION, POLITICS, AND SOUTHERN YELLOW DOGS

When religion became an issue in the 1928 presidential election, Alfred Smith, the Democratic candidate and a Catholic, felt compelled to answer spurious charges that his faith would dictate political decisions. Answering his critics, Smith wrote, “I recognize no power in the institutions of my Church to interfere with the operations of the Constitution of the United States or the enforcement of the law of the land.” A four-term governor of New York, nothing in Smith’s political record could contradict his statement. Yet many Americans rejected Smith’s disclaimer and, as historian Henry F. Pringle states, “The ideal Democratic nominee would be a Protestant…”

 

Religion as a Force in the American Political System

 

The election of John F. Kennedy to the presidency in 1960 was hailed as a great step in religious toleration and Americans’ ability to set aside a legacy of bigotry over Catholic candidates. With the Senate ratification of Elena Kagan to the United States Supreme Court in the summer of 2010, no Protestants remain on the high court and Catholic justices comprise the majority. Yet religion is still a factor in American politics.

 

During the 2008 presidential primary season, Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister, questioned aspects of Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith. (Reuters, December 12, 2007) More recently, twenty percent of Americans believed that President Barack Obama was a Muslim, questioning his Christian credentials.

 

In 1928, Catholicism was viewed with suspicion. Many believed a Smith presidency would be tied to Vatican policies and papal directives. Pringle quotes Methodist Bishop Adna Wright Leonard warning that, “No Governor who kisses the Papal ring can come within gunshot of the White House.” Historian Paul Boller observes that, “Smith was convinced that religion had done him in.”

 

Alfred Smith a Victim of Voter Close-Mindedness

 

Smith carried six states in the 1928 election, all of them in the Deep South. This alone was remarkable since anti-Catholicism was rampant in the South. But Southerners were also staunchly Democratic. It was during this election that the term “Yellow Dog Democrat” was popularized, signifying that a Democrat would vote for a yellow dog if he carried the party’s label and endorsement.

 

Even New York, Smith’s home state and strongly Catholic, went for his opponent, Herbert Hoover, a Protestant Quaker. It should be noted that the other important issue involved Prohibition: Smith was a “wet” who opposed the 18^th Amendment while Hoover declared Prohibition to be a great “noble experiment.”

 

Anti-Catholicism, however, had a deeply rooted history. Boller writes that old Know-Nothing literature from the 1850s was reintroduced in 1928. This mid-19^th Century nativist third party preyed upon the fears that the expanding Catholic presence in America due to immigration was dangerous to the Republic as they attempted to keep Catholics from holding political offices.

 

New Religious Issues in the Evangelical Republican Right Wing

 

Catholicism is no longer a voter issue in the 21^st Century, but religious angst in politics is being replaced with other considerations, equally as old as the fear of Catholicism in American history. Creationism versus evolution is reviving the old arguments sensationalized by the 1925 Scopes “Monkey” trial.

 

During the 2010 midterm election, for example, Christine O’Donnell, the unsuccessful GOP Senate candidate in Delaware, astounded even members of her own church (she is a Catholic) by advocating creationism.

 

Some religious issues involve social considerations like homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Internationally, evangelical Christian politicians, like Senator James Inhofe, support the state of Israel on Old Testament grounds.

 

Unsuccessful Tea Party candidates like Sharron Angle of Nevada stated that “separation of church and state” was not constitutional. If Mitt Romney attempts to secure the 2012 GOP nomination, there will be renewed questions about Mormon beliefs.

 

The Long Term Lessons of Al Smith’s Defeat in 1928

 

FDR’s “Happy Warrior” Alfred Smith underestimated the emotional response of American voters to his Catholicism. Writing in 1927, Pringle stated that Smith “must know that his religion may, in the end, cause his dream of the presidency to remain that and nothing more.” Inevitably, votes based on religion fed on erroneous conclusions, rumors, and pure fabrications.

 

As the nation became more pluralistic in the end of the 20^th Century, religion as a factor seemed to wane. But the recent phenomenon of Islamophobia and the evangelical right’s expanded involvement in politics continues to mesh politics with religion. Like Al Smith’s experience in 1928, when religion based on false and emotional conclusions dominate campaigns, the real issues are forgotten.

 

Sources:

 

Paul F. Boller, Jr., Presidential Campaigns From George Washington to George W. Bush (Oxford University Press, 2004)

Albert Fried, FDR And His Enemies (St. Martins Griffin, 1999)

Henry F. Pringle, Alfred E. Smith: A Critical Study (AMS Press, Inc., Reprinted 1970 from the 1927 edition)