Part 6

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 As a matter of fact, most of it has long since been superseded by the constitutional law of the nation and the states, and by innumerable statutes.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."

CHURCH AND STATE IN AMERICAN HISTORY.

Our fight against church graft is not new, for through the ages of human history men slow in learning the lesson of equal liberty have made this warfare inevitable. Even those honestly desirous to be fair have found it easy to cheat themselves with convenient sophistry, and to frame fantastic reasons for deeming the public weal inseparably bound up with their particular group of dogmas, so that the good of mankind must require the submission of dissenters to the popular creed. That the whole community should be forced to support the church appeared axiomatic to the New England of Governor Bradford, Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards. The settlement of Rhode Island by Roger Williams and his associates, on the basis of complete religious liberty, was the first event to startle Puritanism into a realization that the right of the church to control the state was not as self-evident as had been thought. Later were heard bold voices to demand that the church take its proper position in the community as a voluntary body of believers, free to worship in its own fashion, and leaving all others free to do likewise or not to worship at all. And finally the foremost and boldest thinkers began to see that there could be no equal justice while unbelievers were mulcted in taxation to support the churches. One of the first protests against the wrong which still prevails, although now disguised under the form of exemption, took the shape of a memorial to the general court (legislature) of Massachusetts in 1775. The core of the argument is contained in the following paragraph:

"For a civil legislature to impose religious tax is, we conceive, a power which their constituents never had to give, and therefore going entirely out of their jurisdiction. We are persuaded that an entire freedom from being taxed by civil rulers to religious worship is not a mere favor from any man or men in the world, but a right and property granted us by God, who commands us to stand fast to it. We should wrong our consciences by allowing that power to men which we believe belongs only to God."

In the same spirit, the pious and learned Rev. Dr. Wayland, in his "Political Economy," wrote:

"All that religious societies have a right to ask of the civil government is the same privileges for transacting their own affairs which societies of every other sort possess. This they have a right to demand, not because they are religious societies, but because the exercise of religion is an innocent mode of pursuing happiness. If it happens accidentally that others are benefited, it does not follow that they are obliged to pay for this benefit. It cannot be proved that the Christian religion needs the support of the civil government, since it has existed and flourished when entirely deprived of this support."

AN OPINION BY FRANKLIN.

After the theologian, the philosopher. These are the words of the truth-loving friend of justice, Benjamin Franklin:

"When a religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and when it cannot support itself, and God does not take care to support it, so its professors are obliged to call for help from the civil power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."

The soundness of Franklin's test cannot be successfully disputed. If the churches must look to the state, instead of to their God, for continued life and prosperity, it is "a sign," indisputable as a voice from heaven, that they are not divinely commissioned, but are impostors. The demand for exemption from taxation is a confession of lost spiritual values.

WHAT GRANT AND GARFIELD SAID.

Two presidents of the United States, braving ecclesiastical censure, have had the moral courage to speak out on the present question. One of them, the heroic Grant, was heretical in his religious views; the other, the martyred Garfield, was an orthodox Christian, and had been a clergyman and president of a religious college. In Grant's presidential message in 1875, he said:

"In connection with this important question, I would also call your attention to the importance of correcting an evil that, if permitted to continue, will probably lead to great trouble in our land before the close of the nineteenth century. It is the acquisition of vast amounts of untaxed church property. In 1850, I believe, the church property of the United States, which paid no tax, municipal or state, amounted to $87,000,000. In 1860 the amount had doubled. In 1870 it was $354,483,587. By 1900, without a check, it is safe to say, this property will reach a sum exceeding $3,000,000,000. So vast a sum, receiving all the protection and benefits of government, without bearing its proportion of the burdens and expenses of the same, will not be looked upon acquiescently by those who have to pay the taxes. In a growing country, where real estate enhances so rapidly with time as in the United States, there is scarcely a limit to the wealth that may be acquired by corporations, religious or otherwise, if allowed to retain real estate without taxation. The contemplation of so vast a property as here alluded to, without taxation, may lead to sequestration without constitutional authority, and through blood. I would suggest the taxation of all property equally."

With no less emphasis President Garfield put himself on record in the following words:

"The divorce between church and state ought to be absolute. It ought to be so absolute that no church property anywhere, in any state, or in the nation, should be exempt from equal taxation; for if you exempt the property of any church organization, to that extent you impose a tax upon the whole community."

WEIGHTY PRESS UTTERANCES.

The New York _Evening Post_ in its greatest days, when edited by William Cullen Bryant, spoke boldly on the subject of church exemption. Hear it:

"The _Evening Post_ has long been of the opinion that the American theory of a self-supporting church ought to be carried out to its full and legitimate conclusion, and that the separation of church and state ought to be complete. It should include the total discontinuance of contributions of public money, direct or indirect, to the support of any religious establishment. We have never been able to see the slightest difference in principle between the appropriation of a certain sum of money raised by tax to a particular church, and a release of that church from a tax on its property to the same amount. The cost of the act in either case falls upon the taxpayers generally."

An admirable summary of the vital principles involved is contained in the following editorial from the San Antonio _Express_:

"The _Express_ is not antagonistic to the churches. It believes that many of them are doing a great and noble work; but it does not believe in exempting sectarian property from taxation in a land of alleged religious liberty at the expense of men who regard the church as a brake on the wheels of progress, an incubus on civilization, the preservator of antique ignorance, the storehouse of foolish superstition. It does not approve of the church posing as an almoner while the thin purse of labor is annually mulct to make it a present of several millions. Let it be just before it attempts to be generous. Let it assume its due proportion of the public burdens, and perchance there will not be so much need of its dole. The church should not profit at the expense of the poor; it certainly should not fatten at the cost of those who despise it."

Even the New York _Independent_, when it was a distinctly clerical magazine, allowed the following clear statement of principle to appear:

"The time has come when all religious denominations must affirm that no public moneys shall be used for sectarian instruction; the time-honored principle of the separation of church and state must be again emphasized. If a church is not willing to support its own schools, it cannot come to the state for aid. I would go so far in the application of this principle as to be willing to see all our churches taxed as is other property. We have no right to tax unbelievers that churches may be maintained; no more right than they would have to tax churches for the support of Infidel clubs."

EXPRESSIONS BY INGERSOLL.

The efficacy of the arguments contained in the foregoing expressions, chosen from among many others, is independent of the weight attachable to those who uttered them. One and all, they express the attitude of all who view the subject without bias, and who refuse to allow self-interest to swerve them from a frank recognition of what is due to the principle of civic justice. No better summary of the main issue could be found than the vigorous answer of Robert G. Ingersoll to an interviewer. That the great Agnostic orator should show strong feeling on the subject, is not surprising, nor does it in any sense weaken the logical force of his protest. It is only natural that the victim of a burglary should be more energetic in his complaint than a third person who has slight interest in the matter. The churches have had many a fling at the peerless champion of freedom of thought; but they will find it easier to slur his memory than to refute his arguments. He says:

"I have seen a memorial asking that church property be taxed like other property.... Such memorials ought to be addressed to the legislatures of all the states. The money of the public should only be used for the benefit of the public. Public money should not be used for what a few gentlemen think is for the benefit of the public. Personally, I think it would be for the benefit of the public to have Infidel or scientific--which is the same thing--lectures delivered in every town, in every state, on every Sunday; but, knowing that a great many men disagree with me on this point, I do not claim that such lectures ought to be paid for with public money. The Methodist church ought not to be sustained by taxation, nor the Catholic, nor any other church. To relieve their property from taxation is to appropriate money, to the extent of that tax, for the support of that church. Whenever a burden is lifted from one piece of property, it is distributed over the rest of the property of the state; and to release one kind of property is to increase the tax on all other kinds.... To exempt the church from taxation is to pay a part of the priest's salary. The Catholic now objects to being taxed to support a school in which his religion is not taught. He is not satisfied with the school that says nothing on the subject of religion. He insists that it is an outrage to tax him to support a school where the teacher simply teaches what he knows. And yet this same Catholic wants his church exempted from taxation, and the tax of an Atheist or of a Jew increased, when he teaches in his untaxed church that the Atheist and the Jew will both be eternally damned! Is it possible for impudence to go further?... In my judgment the church should be taxed precisely the same as other property. The church may claim that it is one of the instruments of civilization and therefore should be exempt. If you exempt that which is useful, you exempt every trade and every profession....

"There was a time when ministers were supposed to be in the employ of God, and it was thought that God selected them with great care--that their profession had something sacred about it. These ideas are no longer entertained by sensible people. Ministers should be paid like other professional men, and those who like their preaching should pay the preacher. They should depend, as actors do, upon their popularity, upon the amount of sense, or nonsense, that they have for sale. They should depend upon the market like other people; and if people do not want to hear sermons badly enough to build churches and pay for them, and pay the taxes on them, and hire the preacher, let the money be diverted to some other use. The pulpit should no longer be a pauper. I do not believe in carrying on any business with the contribution box. All the sectarian institutions ought to support themselves."

THE MAGNITUDE OF THE WRONG.

The foregoing chapters having demonstrated the iniquity and indefensibility of the exemption of church property from taxation, the sole remaining point of interest concerns the amount of the wrong inflicted on the community by legalized church graft. That it is very considerable, a bare inspection of the wealth of the more favored churches makes abundantly plain. The enormous holdings, for example, of Trinity Church corporation in New York city prove the immense possibilities in this direction. Incidentally, it is an interesting fact, pointed out in detail some years ago by John E. Remsburg, that exemption is not only unfair to the general public, but a means of favoring the city churches, already rich and well-supported, as contrasted with the relatively poor and weak country churches. The latter have certainly good ground to complain that they do not get their fair share of the swag. In the country, land is cheap and abundant, and under normal conditions does not change much in value over a long period of years, while general taxes are comparatively low. It is the cities that pay the mass of the taxes; and it is in the cities that the rapidly growing population causes frightful congestion, and allows the most unscrupulous land speculation to return the largest profits. In the general scramble for "unearned increments," property holders who are exempt from the payment of taxes are given an overwhelming advantage. They take no risk, can wait as long as they please for the expected rise, and pocket the entire amount of the increase in land values, to which they have made no important contribution. The state actually encourages and urges the churches to become land gamblers, and to enrich themselves at the expense of the people. As the city grows, the churches gradually find excuses to move away from their earlier locations, selling out their sites at huge profits, not one dollar of which is restored to the community as conscience money, and to buy less costly land with part of the proceeds, investing the balance where it will bring substantial returns. No wonder they grow rich while the poverty of the tenement dwellers proportionately increases! And no wonder the city churches, luxuriating in their bloated prosperity, are able to lord it over their country associates, and to rule the affairs of their sect with an iron hand, despite their gross numerical inferiority. No wonder that the general assemblies, synods and the like of the various denominations are so frequently characterized by peanut politics which would disgrace a ward caucus, and by bitter wrangling and exhibitions of ill-will which contrast strikingly with the professions of Christian love.

URBAN MONOPOLY AND UNFAIRNESS.

As Mr. Remsburg's article (Truth Seeker, Jan. 14, 1911, p. 22,) is not now available except to those possessing files of the paper, no apology is required for reproducing the following paragraph from it:

"Ecclesiastical property is confined chiefly to cities. One city in Massachusetts owns nearly one-third of the church property of Massachusetts; one city of Pennsylvania owns nearly one-third of the church property of Pennsylvania; one city in Missouri owns nearly one-third of the church property of that state; one city in Nebraska owns nearly one-third of the church property of that state. One city in Illinois, Chicago, owns more than three-eighths of the church property of Illinois. St. Paul and Minneapolis, practically one city, own one-half of the church property of Minnesota. One city in Louisiana owns more than one-half of the church property of Louisiana. One state, New York, owns nearly one-fourth of the ecclesiastical property of the United States; while one city in New York owns more than one-half of the church property in that state. One city in Rhode Island owns nearly three-fifths of the church property of Rhode Island; one city in Delaware owns nearly three-fifths of the church property of Delaware; one city in Colorado owns nearly three-fifths of the church property of Colorado; while one city in Maryland owns nearly two-thirds of the church property of Maryland. Thus, a dozen cities own one-half of the church property of their respective states. This property includes only church buildings. The proportion of ecclesiastical property other than church buildings owned by the churches of these cities is much greater. Two-thirds of the ecclesiastical property of these states is confined to these cities. And yet, nine-tenths of the churches in these states are outside of these cities. One-tenth of the churches in these states, therefore, own two-thirds of the church property of these states. Adding the other cities and large towns of these states, it is safe to say that one-fifth of the churches own four-fifths of the church property. The property owned by four-fifths of the church organizations consists principally of modest, inexpensive church buildings. If church property was taxed, the amount of taxes levied on these churches would not be great. The greater portion of taxes would come from the costly churches and from the real estate owned by wealthy church corporations in the cities; and even the advocates of church exemption cannot deny the justice of taxing this property. Municipal taxes are enormously high; and the exemption of so large a property imposes an unjust burden on those who have to pay these taxes. In every city is to be found property that taxes have devoured--families who have been rendered homeless by excessive taxation."

A CHURCH MASKS A SALOON.

Of the many queer things that can be done by virtue of tax exemption laws, a recent episode in New York city furnishes an apt illustration. A saloon keeper had for some time a monopoly of trade in one of the less settled but growing districts. With the opening of a new boulevard, houses began to go up; and a rival was not slow in taking advantage of the opportunity to set up in opposition to the first comer. The newcomer was an energetic business man, and knew how to draw custom, so that he at once made considerable inroads on the patronage of his older competitor. The latter, however, was a man of resources. Among the few lots of land not yet occupied for building purposes was one in the neighborhood of the second saloon. This was quietly purchased by the older saloonist, and the other awaited results, expecting to see a third saloon established with a view to stealing some of his trade. His wily rival, however, knew a trick worth two of that. Almost over night, a rude shack was erected, with a slight steeple which pointed heavenward, though not with what usually pass for heavenly aims. This was turned over free of charge to a handful of persons, to hold meetings of a nominally religious nature. Having no taxes to pay on property thus dedicated to holy uses, and being thus able to hold it indefinitely at practically no expense, the original saloon keeper straightway appealed to the police department to enforce the law forbidding the existence of a saloon within a certain distance of a church, and thus, at the latest report, was on the eve of triumphantly driving his rival from the field. The next move would naturally be to purchase the abandoned saloon at a low figure, allow the "church," having served its purpose, to give up the ghost in an unobtrusive manner, and to resume business with the second saloon, where the discomfited competitor had been compelled to leave it off. Whether the ingenious scheme worked out to the finish or not, the writer is not informed. At least, it went far enough to demonstrate the remarkable possibilities under legislation encouraging the juggling with religious things for purposes of private advantage.

ANOTHER VULNERABLE DEFENSE.