Message to the National Co-Chairmen, Commission on Religious Organizations, National Conference of Christians and Jews.
Monsignor John A. O'Brien
Rabbi Maurice N. Eisendrath
Dr. John Sutherland Bonnell
National Co-Chairmen, The Commission on Religious
- Organizations
National Conference of Christians and Jews
New York, New York
I have received your telegram of today's date. I want you to know at once that I fully share the convictions you state. The issues here are clear. Generalized and irresponsible attacks that sweepingly condemn the whole of any group of citizens are alien to America. Such attacks betray contempt for the principles of freedom and decency. And when these attacks--whatever their professed purpose be--condemn such a vast portion of the churches or clergy as to create doubt in the loyalty of all, the damage to our nation is multiplied.
If there be found any American among us, whatever his calling, guilty of treasonous action against the state, let him legally and properly be convicted and punished. This applies to every person, lay or clergy.
The churches of America are citadels of our faith in individual freedom and human dignity. This faith is the living source of all our spiritual strength. And this strength is our matchless armor in our world-wide struggle against the forces of godless tyranny and oppression.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
Note: The message from the National Co-Chairmen stated that the sweeping attack on the loyalty of Protestant clergymen and the charge that they were the largest single group supporting the communist apparatus was unjustified and deplorable. It further stated that the President was to be congratulated on his recent warning against casting doubt on the loyalty of the churches and synagogues. The message concluded as follows: "We fully recognize the right of Congress to investigate the loyalty of any citizen regardless of the office he may occupy, ecclesiastical or otherwise. But destroying trust in the leaders of Protestantism, Catholicism or Judaism by wholesale condemnation is to weaken the greatest American bulwark against atheistic materialism and communism."
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Message to the National Co-Chairmen, Commission on Religious Organizations, National Conference of Christians and Jews. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/231740