The amount of the indirect subsidy annually paid to the churches by our
government which pretends to separation of church and state cannot
be exactly determined. Statistics of the value of church property are
inaccurately gathered, with a tendency to underestimate; and tax rates,
of course, vary within very wide limits. Taking the figures as we find
them, however, and assuming an average tax rate of $1.50 per $100, we
shall still arrive at striking results.
As we have seen, President Grant, in his presidential message for 1875,
quotes the amount of church property exempt from taxation in 1850 as
approximately $87,000,000. This had doubled, he states, in 1860; and
the official figures for 1870 were $354,483,587. This terrific rate of
growth, far in excess of the growth of any other form of wealth, could
not, of course, be maintained in full; but the actual increase has, none
the less, been enormous and alarming. In 1890, the admitted value of
church property, as compiled by H. K. Carroll, LL.D., the well-known
authority on religious statistics, had risen to $679,694,439. The latest
available figures of the present time are those of 1906, in which year
the church property of the country was valued at $1,257,575,867. Keeping
well within bounds in estimating the value of this favored class of
property in the present year (1915), we shall be more than safely
conservative in calling it at least $1,500,000,000; and it is still
rapidly increasing. Thus, from 1850 to 1915, the value of church
property was multiplied not less than fourteenfold. In the same space of
time, the population had increased less than fourfold; and church
membership has just about kept pace with the population; showing a
growing tendency to fall behind. In other words, the churches are making
money from three to four times as fast as they are gaining members
(winning "souls" in their own phrase), and the same number of times as
rapidly as the population is growing. They are "laying up treasures on
earth" faster than any other class in the community and at the expense
of the whole community; and it is no wonder that their clutch on the
"things of this world" and their opposition to any check on their graft
prove them amenable to the saying: "Where thy treasure is, there will
thy heart be also." When an organization so rapidly absorbs the wealth
of the nation it cannot resent the imputation that acquiring wealth is
its chief concern.
At the assumed rate of taxation ($1.50 per $100), the money actually
filched from the public treasury by the churches is at least $22,500,000
a year; and this minimum calculation, far below the actual amount, is
increasing swiftly from year to year. In all the talk of economy
in taxation, and of seeking new sources of revenue, when will our
"statesmen" have the intelligence to stop this frightful leak? The
churches owe the money, they can afford to pay, and they should be made
to pay. Did they not set the satisfaction of selfish greed above moral
and civic considerations, they would do their duty without compulsion.
Since, however, they will do nothing for the community, except when
they are forced to obey the people's will, the problem is only that
of enlightening the public as to the manner and degree in which it is
robbed. If legislatures cannot be found with moral courage to withstand
the threats of the church lobby, and with sense to penetrate the
sophistries of the hired lawyers arguing in behalf of the church's
demands, a counter force must be provided in an enlightened public
sentiment so strong that the politician will find his political future
dependent on his deafness to the ecclesiastical sirens and his support
of full justice to the taxpaying citizens as against the pious harpies
now permitted to prey upon them.
To enter upon the figures for each of the different states and for the
principal cities would savor of iteration. In no case will analysis
of the figures for any state or city negative the foregoing facts or
conclusions. Those interested in pursuing the question of statistical
detail may find food for study and reflection in the work of H. K.
Carroll, LL.D., "Religious Forces in the United States," edition of
1912, pages 378-381 and 418-421. Dr. Carroll was in official charge of
the department of churches in the census of 1890 and is a recognized
authority on church statistics. Active in Methodist circles all his
life, he may be trusted to resolve all doubts in favor of the church,
and his testimony cannot be put aside by church apologists.