Chief issue in Massachusetts on election eve was not, as it was in most States, the war or the New Deal, but birth control.
If it were not for a referendum on the ballot to decide whether physicians could lawfully disseminate birth-control information to protect human life and health, Governor Leverett Saltonstall would win re-election hands down over Democrat Roger Lowell Putnam, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. would ditto over Democrat Joseph E. Casey.
But Massachusetts is 40% Catholic, 75% to 80% of all the State's Catholics are Democrats. And with Catholic parishioners being ceaselessly urged to defeat the referendum, it was probable...