The defenders of church graft never fail in the end to reveal their real
position. At no public hearing has it ever happened that the shrewder
representatives of the church were able to restrain their less subtle
colleagues from avowing their disbelief in the separation of church
and state, and their conviction that the government should consider the
support of religion as part of its business. The important hearing
so often quoted had several such confessions of treason to American
principles. The Rev. Charles T. Terry of the Brick Presbyterian church
of New York city, when asked whether he would think it proper for the
state to appropriate money directly for the support of the churches,
since exemption was but an indirect way of accomplishing the same
result, completely missed the object of the question, and instead of
attempting to distinguish the two methods in principle calmly assumed
that there could be no question of impropriety in either, and explained
that he preferred the exemption method as _more dignified_. If he had
been entirely frank, he might have confessed his doubt whether a direct
theft from the taxpayers would be tolerated in this enlightened period.
The American churches would be only too glad to adopt the English method
of open and unabashed robbery of dissenting citizens for the support of
the churches in whose doctrines they do not believe. This, however, has
become an impossibility.
In our colonial period we passed through the mental condition in which
church and state were considered as one, and neglect of religious "duty"
was punished as an offense against the community. In default of a
return to those days, so blessed in the view of the enemies of religious
liberty, the churches are willing to accept the indirect contribution
of the state to their private expenses incurred in the interest of
sectarian proselytism. True Americanism, however, finds no logical
distinction between the one method and the other. A difference of degree
may exist, but not one of kind.
The Rev. Dr. D. C. Potter* of Brooklyn, who attended the hearing,
scorned to argue with unbelievers in any way except by ejaculations. He
fairly screeched his horror of the idea that anybody should propose to
"tax the house of God." The finely-spun fallacies of his colleagues,
who talked of the "social services" of the churches and their alleged
protection to the community from a flood of vice and crime, went down
in the wind before his anguished yells at the thought that religious
liberty and the separation of church and state were in danger of
becoming complete realities in a democracy nominally pledged to the
unwavering support of these great principles. In the same spirit, Herman
Metz, a politician and former officeholder, irrelevantly remarked that
the plea that non-churchgoers should not be forced to meet the expenses
of an institution which is of no value to them is like the objection to
paying taxes for schools if we happen to have no children, or for the
fire department if our house has never been on fire! The utter lack of
distinction between the ministering to private wants and the performance
of a public function would do discredit to an imbecile. Still worse,
because less excusable, was the assertion of Nicholas Murray Butler,
president of Columbia University, a man of education and formal culture,
that a person who did not believe in religion should be taxed to
support the churches just as an Anarchist should be taxed to support
the government! With greater suavity and shrewdness, but no less
indifference to historic fact and democratic principle, William D.
Guthrie, appearing as attorney for the Roman Catholic interests,
rejected the easy way out of pretending that the churches subserved some
civic function, and defended their claims on the ground that "immemorial
practice" sanctioned the exemption graft. In other words, a wrong
becomes right, an abuse a virtue, if it is only continued long enough!
Mr. Guthrie went so far as to assert that Christianity is part of
the common law of the land. If this be true, our case even yet is
not hopeless, for the "common law" of England, from which American
jurisprudence is derived, did not drop down from heaven as a sacred
deposit, forever perfect and unchangeable. As a matter of fact, most
of it has long since been superseded by the constitutional law of the
nation and the states, and by innumerable statutes. From the moment
of the adoption of our Federal Constitution, expressly forbidding an
"establishment of religion," Christianity, whatever its status under
the common law, ceased to form an integral part of the law of the United
States, and became simply one of many forms of private belief, the
relative number of its adherents being totally immaterial. In the treaty
with Tripoli, secured during the administration of George Washington,
our first great President placed his signature to the specific statement
that the government of this land is in no sense founded on the Christian
religion. The forenamed gentlemen, one and all, far from lending
strength to their cause by invoking the outworn traditions of the past
and by appealing to the brute force of religious bigotry against the
equal civic rights of all citizens, have turned state's evidence against
their accomplices by the unthinking confession that the case for church
exemption rests in the last analysis on treason to the Constitution and
to the principle of separation of church and state. When the enemies
of religious liberty and the rights of man thus come out in their true
colors we know how to meet them. It is the insidious method of seeking
to shelter church graft under pretensions of the common weal that is
able to deceive the public for a time.
* See "Crimes of Preachers."