_PUCK, April 22nd, 1885._
The so-called “Freedom of Worship Bill Controversy” has been carried
on so many years, through so many varying phases and under such
exceptional and peculiar conditions, that it has become most difficult
of description and characterization. Its exciting cause is a bill
introduced into the New York legislature ostensibly in the interests of
what might be called sectarian fair play. On the face of it, it aims
to secure to the Catholic, confined by sickness or for other reasons
in a public institution, the right to enjoy the ministrations of his
religion at the hands of a priest of the Roman Church. Its opponents
have alleged that it is calculated to go much farther than this in
practical effect, and to afford a foothold for the regular and official
installment of Roman Catholic Priests in the public institutions of
the state. The bill has appeared and reappeared for many years. It
has assumed many forms, has provoked a vast amount of discussion, and
has engaged the interest of a very large, and in some respects a very
peculiar, collection of friends and enemies. Its good faith has always
been questioned, and we do not think it is expressing an _ex parte_
opinion to say that it has always been open to question--in view of the
breadth and comprehensiveness of our American common law as applied to
the civil rights of the citizen and the equal status of all religious
organizations in the commonwealth. At the time (April 22, 1885,) when
this cartoon was printed, the bill had appeared in a form which gave
good reason for the belief, in which the whole press of New York
shared, that it was a covert attack upon non-sectarian institutions.
It is to be hoped that this cause of so much contention will some day
be forgotten in the natural growth of a spirit of religious tolerance.
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