One of the most important things to secure for him is the right to
hold and to express the religious views that best meet his own soul
needs. Any political movement directed against any body of our fellow
citizens because of their religious creed is a grave offense against
American principles and American institutions. It is a wicked thing
either to support or to oppose a man because of the creed he professes.
This applies to Jew and Gentile, to Catholic and Protestant, and to
the man who would be regarded as unorthodox by all of them alike.
Political movements directed against men because of their religious
belief, and intended to prevent men of that creed from holding office,
have never accomplished anything but harm. This was true in the days
of the “Know-Nothing” and Native-American parties in the middle of the
last century; and it is just as true today. Such a movement directly
contravenes the spirit of the Constitution itself. Washington and his
associates believed that it was essential to the existence of this
Republic that there should never be any union of Church and State; and
such union is partially accomplished wherever a given creed is aided
by the State or when any public servant is elected or defeated because
of his creed. The Constitution explicitly forbids the requiring of
any religious test as a qualification for holding office. To impose
such a test by popular vote is as bad as to impose it by law. To vote
either for or against a man because of his creed is to impose upon
him a religious test and is a clear violation of the spirit of the
Constitution.
Moreover, it is well to remember that these movements never achieve the
end they nominally have in view. They do nothing whatsoever except to
increase among the men of the various churches the spirit of sectarian
intolerance which is base and unlovely in any civilization but which
is utterly revolting among a free people that profess the principles
we profess. No such movement can ever permanently succeed here. All
that it does is for a decade or so to greatly increase the spirit of
theological animosity, both among the people to whom it appeals and
among the people whom it assails. Furthermore, it has in the past
invariably resulted, in so far as it was successful at all, in putting
unworthy men into office; for there is nothing that a man of loose
principles and of evil practices in public life so desires as the
chance to distract attention from his own shortcomings and misdeeds by
exciting and inflaming theological and sectarian prejudice.
We must recognize that it is a cardinal sin against democracy to
support a man for public office because he belongs to a given creed or
to oppose him because he belongs to a given creed. It is just as evil
as to draw the line between class and class, between occupation and
occupation in political life. No man who tries to draw either line is a
good American. True Americanism demands that we judge each man on his
conduct, that we so judge him in private life and that we so judge him
in public life. The line of cleavage drawn on principle and conduct in
public affairs is never in any healthy community identical with the
line of cleavage between creed and creed or between class and class.
On the contrary, where the community life is healthy, these lines of
cleavage almost always run nearly at right angles to one another. It is
eminently necessary to all of us that we should have able and honest
public officials in the nation, in the city, in the state. If we make
a serious and resolute effort to get such officials of the right kind,
men who shall not only be honest but shall be able and shall take the
right view of public questions, we will find as a matter of fact that
the men we thus choose will be drawn from the professors of every creed
and from among men who do not adhere to any creed.
For thirty-five years I have been more or less actively engaged in
public life, in the performance of my political duties, now in a public
position, now in a private position. I have fought with all the
fervor I possessed for the various causes in which with all my heart I
believed; and in every fight I thus made I have had with me and against
me Catholics, Protestants and Jews. There have been times when I have
had to make the fight for or against some man of each creed on grounds
of plain public morality, unconnected with questions of public policy.
There were other times when I have made such a fight for or against
a given man, not on grounds of public morality, for he may have been
morally a good man, but on account of his attitude on questions of
public policy, of governmental principle. In both cases, I have always
found myself fighting beside, and fighting against men of every creed.
The one sure way to have secured the defeat of every good principle
worth fighting for would have been to have permitted the fight to be
changed into one along sectarian lines and inspired by the spirit of
sectarian bitterness, either for the purpose of putting into public
life or of keeping out of public life the believers in any given creed.
Such conduct represents an assault upon Americanism. The man guilty of
it is not a good American.
I hold that in this country there must be complete severance of Church
and State; that public moneys shall not be used for the purpose of
advancing any particular creed; and therefore that the public schools
shall be non-sectarian. As a necessary corollary to this, not only the
pupils but the members of the teaching force and the school officials
of all kinds must be treated exactly on a par, no matter what their
creed; and there must be no more discrimination against Jew or Catholic
or Protestant than discrimination in favor of Jew, Catholic or
Protestant. Whoever makes such discrimination is an enemy of the public
schools.