Illustration of the looting of the public treasury by church exemption
may be drawn from New York. In this state church property in 1890 was
valued at $140,123,008. In 1906, a period of fourteen years, it had
risen to $255,166,284. Here, as elsewhere in the country, Dr. Carroll
points out ("Religious Forces" Introduction, p. 59) that the increase
in church buildings comes nowhere near keeping pace with the increase
in values. In the country as a whole the increase in values from 1890 to
1906 was 85.1 per cent., while the increase in church edifices was only
35.3 per cent. In New York, the increase in the number of buildings
within the period given was only from 7,942 to 9,193, or less than 16
per cent., as compared to the increase in value of more than 82 per
cent. Even with this small increase of churches, it is notorious that
more buildings exist than are needed or used. But taking the figures as
they are, it is self-evident that for this huge increment of value the
community gets nothing. Even the friendly Dr. Carroll is forced to
admit this, and to draw the inevitable conclusion (Int., p. 60) that the
increase results from more costly edifices and the "natural" increase in
values, which can mean nothing but speculative land values. This removes
the last faint pretext for exemption. Even supposing that the services
rendered by the churches were indispensable to the community, it is
palpable that the performance of such service draws upon only a fraction
of the wealth possessed by these bodies. Out of the immense margin they
could well afford to bear their honest share of civic burdens, and would
not be compelled to curtail their beneficent activities in order to
do so. Honest church taxation would merely prevent the storing up of
superfluous wealth at the expense of the whole people.
Since the most valuable church property is concentrated in the cities,
a glance at their statistics should not be omitted. Figures for 1890 are
given by Dr. Carroll in the volume cited, pages 400-415. From these, it
appears that in that year $313,537,247 of the total previously given
was situated in the 124 cities of the first, second and third class. The
population of these cities amounted to 13,988,938 in 1890; that of the
whole country to 62,622,250. Thus were the enormous profits from the
exemption graft poured mainly into the swollen coffers of the city
churches. While serving considerably less than one-fourth of the
population, they had amassed nearly one-half of the property owned by
all the churches of the country. The churches of New York city alone
owned in the year stated property to the value of $73,352,437, more that
a tenth of all the church property in the country, although then, as
now, containing only about one-twentieth of the population. While
no exact figures are at present available as to the value of church
property in the metropolis to-day the amount cannot be much short of
a quarter of a million dollars. In a printed brief presented to the
Committee on Taxation on the New York Constitutional Convention,
William D. Guthrie, retained as attorney for the Roman Catholic
interests, estimates, according to figures as of May, 1914, the amount
at $170,445,725.* As his whole aim was to minimize the amount of
exemptions this is certainly none too high a figure, and is probably
much too low. Allowing it to stand, however, a comparison with the
foregoing data will show that either New York churches are at a fearful
rate growing richer and richer at the expense of the other churches of
the country, or that the total of church property in the land has risen
to the appalling figure of at least $1,700,000,000.
* In 1913 an analysis of the official figures given in the
City Record to show the amount of exempt property in New
York City was made for The Truth Seeker. The exempted church
property listed was appraised at $244,-445,955.