Part 5

But from a social point of view the case is even more serious. It is not the most intellectual and refined classes which even the wildest zealot will claim to stand in special need of religion to restrain them from crime and from all forms of conduct calculated to injure their neighbors in the community, but the most ignorant and crude; and it is precisely these latter types which remain totally impervious to highly developed forms of religious expression, and throng to the Catholic cathedrals and the revival meetings of the Billy Sundays and Gipsy Smiths, where belief is emphasized above integrity of character. Just those persons who may be assumed to need whatever ethical element is to be found in religion are those who receive the least of it. If, in spreading its gospel of faith and obedience to ecclesiastical superiors, the churches incidentally lead an occasional individual to a more honest and upright social life, this result is simply a by-product of the religious operation, and creates no claim on the state. In reclaiming the down-fallen, the church wins another supporter for itself, and adds a soul to the "kingdom." In seeking a subsidy from the state, it foregoes its higher pretensions, and seeks to be paid double for a work which it undertook on its own account. If it is part of the function of the church to teach morality, so is it part of the function of the home; and in the average decent home there is much more specific, concrete and effective teaching of good morals, brought closely home to the individual, than there is in the best of churches. Yet the home does not claim exemption from taxation because of its moral influence. As has been suggested elsewhere, the argument as to moral influence speedily leads to a _reductio ad absurdum_, implying, as it does, that all taxes should be raised from the vicious and immoral elements in the community--that criminals should be the only taxpayers, or that taxes should be levied on citizens and institutions in inverse ratio to the moral character and ethical influence of each! Every legitimate enterprise of any description exercises a wholesome moral influence in the community, and directly benefits society in one way or another; and the church, even taking it at its own valuation, is but one of many institutions which, while existing primarily for ends of their own, are incidentally of benefit to society as a whole. Why should it be the only one to demand a favoritism incompatible with self-respect or with justice to its fellows? The question as to the exemption of educational, charitable and certain other institutions need not here be raised to confuse the issue. Each of these must be settled on its own merits. It is enough to suggest that where their primary function, like that of the church, is something with which the state is not directly concerned, they fall in the same category, and have no right to any subsidy. Where, however, their entire work is directed toward meeting a recognizedly collective need, which the state finds it less practical or satisfactory to discharge in a more direct manner, exemption from taxation is properly invoked as an indirect means of accomplishing the social end. The impropriety of exempting any sectarian or partisan institution results from the entire argument herein contained. As to non-partisan and non-sectarian institutions, the question of propriety is one of fact, to be determined by the best public judgment in accordance with the foregoing principle.

BELIEF AND CRIMINALITY.

While the argument has thus far proceeded on the assumption that the church, in spite of certain questionable teachings, is to be taken at its own valuation as a moral agency, fidelity to truth demands the plain statement of the fact that such definite particulars as are available fail to bear out the claims so positively put forward. This is especially true of our criminal statistics. Even on the most generous calculations, the church membership of the country embraces considerably less than half of the population. If the church were so powerful a moral factor as its supporters declare it to be, we should expect to find the average criminal a wholly irreligious being, with no contact or sympathy with the doctrines of Christianity. What we actually observe is that of all the criminals in penitentiaries in this country, not less than 75 per cent, are of Christian antecedents and profess a belief in religious dogmas; while the number of Christian preachers convicted of crime is so large as to be almost incredible, in spite of the fact that most cases of minor clerical offenses and some of the more serious ones are systematically hushed up, to avoid public scandal for the church.*

* See "Religion and Roguery," by Franklin Steiner. Price 10 cents. For sale by The Truth Seeker Co. Also "Crimes of Preachers," for sale by the same. Price, 35 cents,

Benefit of clergy, though theoretically as obsolete as it is inexcusable in a secular democracy, is known to all who are on the inside to be a tangible fact in our land today. It is one of the forms of indecent favoritism of which the church and its agents are always eager to avail themselves. In any one of the annual reports of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, the reader may observe that the late Anthony Comstock, though an excessively pious Christian and hater of all forms of unbelief, bears reluctant testimony in tabular form to the overwhelming preponderance of religious offenders among those whose convictions he has secured. For example, the total number of arrests for crimes against the obscenity and lottery laws from March, 1872, to January, 1915, was 3,641. Of these (annual report for 1914) 1078 were Jews, 964 Catholics, 954 Protestants, and 564 of no known religion, leaving only 80 to be distributed among the several classes of Freethinkers, Spiritualists and "heathen." The figures speak for themselves. Turning from statistics to scientific criminology, we find abundant confirmation of the close relation between religion and crime. So far from being a restraint, religious faith of a very intense sort is commonly found closely associated with criminal tendencies, and is one of the most marked characteristics of the typical criminal. This conclusion, unpalatable though it is to the defenders of the churches, is irrefutably proven valid by the most competent observers. (See "The Criminal," by Havelock Ellis, fourth edition, pages 185-190, with facts and citations from Ferri, Garofalo, Casanova, et al.) Let it not be thought that the writer is here attempting to prove that religion is a frequent cause of crime. It is enough to show that it is practically inoperative as an inhibition. The many good men and women who are also pious put the cart before the horse in crediting their religion with their moral character. Whatever ethical elements the higher forms of religion contain in theory, it is not these on which the incidence is laid in religious teaching or in the performance of religious ceremonies. Consequently, no matter how much is said in the churches of righteousness, as an observed sociological fact religion has little to do with it, one way or the other. The good man or woman, on becoming religious, remains good; the bad man or woman does not cease to be bad because of possessing a strong religious faith and participating in religious exercises. Those who have been both virtuous and religious all their lives would have been no less virtuous if they had never heard of religion. Even the tyro in the study of the evolution of religious belief knows that primitive forms of religion are entirely void of ethical content. The moral imperative is a gradual development of the social instinct; while the religious "instinct" is the reaction of the individual to external influences which inspire him, in his ignorance of their real nature and of their subjection to iron laws of cause and effect, with fear and wonder. (Admiration, gratitude for imagined favors, hope for protection and support, and other forms of mental or emotional reaction, come somewhat later, and are efficient in reshaping the primitive phases of religion into more specific conceptions of anthropomorphic deities.) In the course of time, it becomes natural that the worshiper of beings above himself, to whom his supreme reverence is due, should come to endow those beings with the highest qualities he is capable of conceiving, and hence should represent them as authors of the moral law which has become an ingrained part of his personal and social existence. Yet it remains a fact with both the savage and the civilized man that his moral conceptions change from age to age, and that his attribution of any particular ethical mandate to his deity is always an afterthought. In other words, both in general and in detail, morality caused and determined by social needs and the growth of the social spirit precedes morality under a religious sanction, and would persist, even if all forms of religion should be annihilated. The church does not create moral standards for the community, but is at most a register of them. Without the church, it is probable that few individuals would be either more or less moral than with it; they would simply use other terms in which to interpret their moral sentiments to themselves and others. There need then be no fear of the consequences of recalling the churches to the exercise of common honesty. As recipients of graft, they can certainly not claim to exemplify the morality which they profess to teach. Such of them as cannot live without theft from the taxpayers are better dead, since their dependence on dishonesty for existence must more than nullify any conceivable good which they can do the community by the hollow mockery of teaching a morality which they do not practice. On the other hand, such churches as find it possible to live on an honorable basis, without claiming a subsidy, will stand some chance of being listened to when they seek to preach morality to others.

INSTITUTIONAL WORK NOT MENACED.

It is further claimed that the church is directly engaged in social and philanthropic activities, which would become sorely crippled by a forced diminution of revenue. Advocates of this view have declared that the church is specially fitted for many branches of social service, being able to command invaluable volunteer assistance, which the state could not hire at any price. Hence they conclude that the elimination of the churches would throw on the state a burden far in excess of the amount now conceded to these institutions in exemption from taxation.

It will be seen that the foregoing claim of the church rests entirely on assumptions of the most gratuitous nature. In the first place, only a minority of the churches are of the "institutional" order, and practically engaged in social welfare work; and in the exemption laws no distinction is made between this minority and the large majority of churches which render no such public service. In fact, the law works entirely in favor of the parasitic churches, the mere accumulators of wealth. The institutional churches attract to themselves the support of individuals who wish to see the work done, and who will stand by them to any extent needed; while the other class of ecclesiastical bodies, which exist mainly for the promulgation of effete dogmas, lean on the state for a much larger proportion of their total revenue. With state help, they fatten and become rich; while the few socialized churches spend their revenues as fast as they come in. The repeal of exemption laws would not kill any churches which are doing a work felt in the community to be one of public necessity; it is the socially useless churches which would be forced to perish, if they could not win sufficient voluntary support by showing some indication of deserving it. The fallacy that the repeal of exemption laws means the killing of the institutional churches or the crippling of their work is a most glaring one.

It is further not true that the supporters of the social work now done through the higher type of churches would lose all interest in it if the church were to disappear from the scene. Such a claim is an insult to human nature and a fatal confession with reference to the quality of the religion which is thus assumed to teach its followers to labor only for the sake of the church and not for the love of mankind. The desire to minister to social needs, found among the nobler men and women of all forms of faith and of unbelief, would persist in undiminished degree. If the church were gone, it would simply use other channels through which to work. They would likewise be joined by others, who cannot conscientiously assist in the promulgation of dogmas they consider false and pernicious, even though the doctrinal teaching is subtly interblended with philanthropic work; and by still others, whose earnestly proffered services are rejected by the religious bodies, because, although eager to help in social service, they cannot pronounce the doctrinal shibboleths of ecclesiasticism. The spontaneous response of men and women to proven human need has been demonstrated again and again, and never more than during the great world war, in the immense sums of money and quantities of needful articles eagerly proffered and the vast amount of personal service freely rendered, sometimes at the risk or cost of life itself, to alleviate the sufferings of military and civil victims resident in alien lands and totally unknown to the millions of volunteer helpers. No church activity was needed to stir all this active and uncalculating benevolence into life; and none is required to arouse the higher sentiment in the community to co-operate in combating its poverty, illness and degradation.

THE CHURCH SHOWS ULTERIOR MOTIVES.

Moreover, the church is far from being the best agent for the carrying on of social service. The trouble is that it has its own axe to grind. Its eye is not single to the relief of human suffering, but it has also to think of converting the sufferers to its creed. It is constantly tempted to play upon the gratitude of those whom it helps, to induce their attendance at its services, if not to dragoon these helpless dependents into an outward expression of belief. Even where it does not discriminate against non-believers in its creed, or seek in any way to abuse its position in order to proselyte them directly, it too often does its alms to be seen of men, and turns its social work into a huge advertising scheme, after the fashion of an ostentatiously philanthropic Rockefeller, who gives with one hand and with the utmost publicity about one-hundredth part of what he extorts from the masses with the other hand. At best, its activities are such as to generate a reasonable suspicion that its aims are not wholly pure, nor its work of unmixed quality; and the net result is not a wholesome one.

For the best good of the community, social service needs to be entirely divorced from dogma, whether performed by the state as part of its duty towards its members, or by private individuals or groups as a voluntary effort to lessen the sorrows and evils of humanity. If the church insists on doing a part of this community work, let it, like others engaged in such work, do so at its own cost. If it is sincere in its wish to help mankind, it will not balk at this condition; if not, it betrays the selfishness of its aims. The argument in favor of exempting from taxation organizations doing nothing but philanthropic work, and organized for no other purpose, cannot be honorably stretched to embrace bodies formed to propagate particular creeds, which simply take on philanthropic activities as a side line. If this were otherwise, every factory which introduces a "welfare department" should by a parity of argument immediately have all its property exempted from contribution to the public revenues.

CHURCHES AS ENHANCERS OF REAL ESTATE VALUES.

The curious argument has sometimes been urged that churches raise the value of adjacent property, and should therefore escape taxation. If this be indeed a fact, it proves either nothing to the purpose or a great deal too much for the comfort of those who put it forward. It is difficult to see why the taxpayers of an entire city should reward the church for enriching the few property-owners canny enough to secure land adjoining clerically owned property. By merely increasing the value of certain pieces of property at the expense of land less fortunately located, the community as a whole is not made a substantial gainer. Even taking the most favorable view, it is certain that the "unearned increment" of the property adjoining the church will never rise so high as to overbalance the total value of the church property withdrawn from taxation; and hence the encouraging of church-building by tax exemption must represent a net financial loss to the community. Moreover, every improvement on land increases the value of neighboring property; hence the argument, if valid at all, warrants the exemption of all improvements from taxation, and the equal taxation of all land values, whether the land is built on by churches or otherwise utilized, or left wholly unimproved.

The fact should also be recognized that to many the existence of churches adjacent to their property is anything but a benefit. So far from regarding the value of their property as increased by the coming of a church, many an owner will resent the intrusion, and sell out at a loss, rather than be exposed to some of the features of church activity in his immediate vicinity. To many, the ringing of church bells is an intolerable nuisance and a positive grievance. The collection of crowds, even of the most decorous nature, is most objectionable to others. In New York and other cities, property in certain sections is highly restricted by deeds which provide against the erection of churches, no less than of livery stables and other structures considered undesirable in a residential neighborhood. Real estate men do not bear out the claim that the inevitable or even the usual result of the erection of churches is to increase the value of property in the vicinity.

SOPHISTRY AT THE NEW YORK HEARING.

The weakness of the case for the exemption of church property is apparent from the fact that the foregoing easily refuted claims represent substantially the entire case in its favor. At the New York hearing of 1915, and at all other hearings before the various legislative bodies of our land, they have been the only points on which stress was sought to be laid. Incidentally, of course, minor assertions have been made, such as the alleged fact that the church is a public utility, in the maintenance of which the community has a direct interest. This plea, on which small reliance is usually placed, has been fully disposed of by the analysis on a preceding page of the function of the church. Sometimes attention is called to the apparent preponderance of interest in favor of exemption, as witnessed by the number of speakers who appear in its favor at committee hearings and by the number and size of the organizations which they represent. This is obviously the most transparent sophistry. Principles are not to be gauged by numbers. A country in which the mob may dispose at its lightest whim of the rights and liberties of the individual or of the minority is a land of tyranny, and cannot prosper in the end. Moreover, the alleged preponderance does not even prove that the majority of the citizens are in favor of the special privilege dishonestly demanded by the churches. It merely furnishes fresh evidence of the well-known fact that parties with special interests to be subserved by class legislation will organize more efficiently than those appearing for the general interest of the citizens, but not backed by powerful existing organizations well supplied with funds and having much to gain or lose in a financial way by the passage or defeat of the proposed legislation. It is hard to stir up popular interest to the point of action in matters that involve the civic conscience. Nevertheless, the people are slowly awakening to a realization of the iniquity of the manner in which the churches, for their own profit, have played upon the religious emotions of those under their influence; and a day of reckoning is imminent. The sentiment in behalf of the repeal of the dishonest exemption laws is growing continually stronger, and must finally become irresistible.

It has sometimes been asserted that precedent is against the taxing of churches. At the New York hearing, this was gravely put forth by a Presbyterian preacher as a serious argument; and he sought to dismiss the proposition by cavalierly remarking that it was part of the present craze for new taxes of all sorts. His deliverance was echoed by a lawyer hired to represent Grace Episcopal church, the church which showed its moral standards by cheating its architect out of his fee on a contemptible legal technicality. "I am old-fashioned enough," remarked the lawyer, metaphorically patting himself on the back for his astute appeal to religious prejudice, "to believe that the house of God should not be taxed." In other words, whatever is, is right. No old abuse must ever be abolished, and every new idea must be wrong. Could there be a finer admission that the bent of the churchly trained mind is against all progress, and prone to resist change merely because it is new?

CONFESSED TREASON TO AMERICAN PRINCIPLES.

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.