An 1928 Anti Catholic Rally in Long Island and Al Smith Run for President

McNamara's Blog has a interesting post and old flyer up. See Anti-Catholic Rally on Long Island, 1928

I think AL Smith is one of the more interesting figures in history we sadly don't here about. His Wilki entry shows what an amazing man he was.

We also see another in the above wilki entry of a Catholic falling out in some quarters of Catholic ELectorate with FDR and the New Deal.

For another example see McNamara's other entry “Catholic Journalism with its Sleeves Rolled Up” dealing with Patrick F. Scanlan (1894-1968), longtime editor of the Brooklyn Tablet

Returning to Al Smith, I noticed in the Wilki entry that despite what many people might think he did really well in the Seep South.

Smith was an articulate exponent of good government and efficiency, as was Hoover. Smith swept the entire Catholic vote, which had been split in 1920 and 1924, and brought millions of Catholics to the polls for the first time, especially women. He lost important Democratic constituencies in the rural north and in southern cities and suburbs. He did carry the Deep South, thanks in part to his running mate, Senator Joseph Robinson from Arkansas, and he carried the ten most populous cities in the United States

Now of course at that time white Southerners were not prone to vote for Republicans at that time so that might have balanced out some of the anti Catholic feeling. But Hoover was very popular in parts of the deep South because of his work after the great Mississippi flood. Here is an overview of the 1928 election.