An editor's notebook
Hoyt, Robert G.
AN EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK 'KENNEDY CALLING' CHURCH, STATE & SCHOOLS Without invitation, I want to butt into the argument going on in these precincts over the idea of granting vouchers or tax...
...we were pleased that neither the Catholic news service nor any of the wire services picked up the story...
...the "Catholic issue" generates not a roar but a rumble...
...proof positive, in my assessment, that my reply came from a Source higher than my head...
...As so often happens with scribblers of a certain age, it is memory that moves me to intrude...
...The bishop—it was John P. Cody, later himself a prince—asked the staff for an explanation...
...In response, I wrote a signed column for the diocesan paper of which I was then editor, taking issue with the senator on the aid question and other points...
...as a courtesy, a copy was sent by special delivery to his office in Washington at the same time (2:00 A.m...
...Members of his staff showed up at the offices of the National Catholic Welfare Conference (now the United States Catholic Conference) asking questions about me, my paper, and my bishop...
...We understood Kennedy's anxiety...
...So, in the next issue, we ran the column, the text of the telegram, and an explanatory story...
...The end of the conversation was not the end of the incident...
...See "Prochoice on Schools," by Quentin L. Quade, April 10, and the Correspondence section in this issue...
...He never answered...
...Didn't I know about the decisions of the Supreme Court on church-state separation, on aid to religious schools...
...And this coin has another side...
...What was I trying to do...
...We then composed and sent a telegram offering to kill the column altogether if Senator Kennedy would answer a set of questions aimed at clarifying the stands he took in the Look interview...
...But parents have a prior and overriding interest in determining, within standards set by the state, what kind of education their children receive...
...The contention that public schools would be improved by competition from strengthened religious schools appeals to an American dogma, but it's still open to debate...
...Hadn't I read the Constitution...
...AN EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK 'KENNEDY CALLING' CHURCH, STATE & SCHOOLS Without invitation, I want to butt into the argument going on in these precincts over the idea of granting vouchers or tax credits to help parents pay children's tuition in private schools, specifically including Catholic parochial schools...
...In our view, we had done our job...
...In some respects the timing is better than it was in 1960...
...Provided the schools of their choice adequately fulfill the public purpose, tax aid to them—whether through vouchers or tax credits or any other device—does not violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment but rather enables fulfillment of its parallel clause guaranteeing the free exercise of religion...
...At the office we told the printers to pull the column and insert something else in its place, but to keep the column in type...
...arguably, Catholic schools would be weakened by state support...
...that copy for the whole issue was mailed to our printers in a distant state...
...if the Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson still prevailed, racially segregated schooling would still be constitutionally protected...
...In his letter opposing vouchers, James Finn quotes from a famous speech by Senator John F. Kennedy in which he directly addressed the "Catholic issue" in his 1960 campaign for the presidency, in part by making it clear that if he became president he would oppose allotting any tax money to Catholic schools...
...therefore they have a right to choose schools for their children that impart religious values and doctrines while also educating their students in geometry, physics, languages, history, and how to shoot baskets...
...In politics, however, principles collide...
...Of course...
...Unfair...
...I thought the principle at stake in the aid-to-schools issue was important, but that the issue itself wasn't the most significant facing the country...
...as Kennedy said later, in another context, life isn't fair...
...besides which, it was obvious that no Catholic could win the White House if he campaigned for tax aid to "sectarian" schools...
...it was rather a question of justice...
...I said that the Constitution means, in practice, what the current Supreme 4: 5 June 1992 Commonweal Court says it means...
...I do recall that the telegram cost $45, an unheard-of expense at the time...
...I don't remember the questions...
...The state has a compelling interest in fostering an educated citizenry...
...Maybe yes, maybe no...
...Then, as now, I did not make a habit of conducting longdistance altercations with United States senators, especially before breakfast...
...That parental right is seriously abridged when parents who choose private schools, including religious schools, are denied any share in tax funds earmarked for education...
...Said bishop received an irate phone call from a prince of the church with an accent even more Bostonian than Kennedy's...
...therefore it can legitimately make schooling compulsory, levy taxes to pay for it, set reasonable standards for the performance of schools...
...But in many places the public schools are in a parlous state, so that the idea of "diverting" even a slice of public money to private schools would frighten many a voter, including even those who recognize that nothing in the Constitution sacralizes the public school system...
...Earlier, I had had a go-around with Senator Kennedy on this point which persuaded me that Kennedy didn't "say it all...
...The present situation is unfair...
...That's how it works in a number of Western nations that are at least as democratic and as secular as the U.S...
...I went groggily to the phone...
...So the real issue, I said, was not the current state of the law...
...ROBERT G. HOYT Commonweal 5 June 1992: 5...
...On principle, then, I'm in agreement, so far, with Professor Quade...
...the alleged compromise would be too unfair to live with...
...But we buried all this material well inside the paper and did nothing to call attention to it...
...Before he became a declared candidate for the Democratic nomination, Kennedy tested the waters through an interview with Look magazine—published, I think, in 1959—in which he sounded some of the themes of his later campaign, among them his stance opposing "federal aid to parochial schools...
...Later that morning, thanks to a speedy delivery by the United States Post Office, I was wakened with the news that Senator Kennedy was calling, and that he was angry...
...So what is the principle at stake...
...parents who sacrifice to support them are parents who care about education...
...he was certain to get clobbered by anti-Catholic forces in the campaign and hoped not to be sabotaged from his own corner...
...below I'll indicate how I see it now...
...having heard it, he said we should proceed as we thought best...
...Is it a good idea, for Catholics and the country, to make getting vouchers into law a Catholic crusade...
...I don't recall for sure how I argued the point at the time, or how Kennedy replied...
...The one "compromise" I think unacceptable is the notion of funding parental choices of private schools unless the schools of their choice are religious...
Vol. 119 • June 1992 • No. 11
