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.