Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 17, 1912

The Religious Garb Question

WHATEVER motive prompted President Taft in his final decision regarding the wearing of a religious garb in Indian schools, it must be conceded by all that his decision is clearly a compromise of the principle involved. The order provides that the Catholic sisters at present employed in government schools may continue to wear their religious garb, but that from this time forward the representatives of no denomination shall be permitted to wear a peculiar costume while engaged in school duties. Speaking of this decision, the Northwestern Christian Advocate of Sept. 25, 1912, says:—

Without entering into a lengthy discussion of the case, we regret that President Taft has not seen his way to uphold Commissioner Valentine in this decision; but we could not expect too much of Mr. Taft. Any one who has followed him in his relation to the Roman Catholic Church can easily see that even to rule that henceforth no new teachers shall wear ecclesiastical garb must have pained him. We must accept the ruling of the President as final. He has yielded as much as he feels he can, and those who for conscientious reasons have objected to these Roman Catholic teachers appearing before their wards in their garb must be content to abide the passage of years before this wrong can be rectified.

While the Advocate feels that the ruling is in a way a victory for Protestants, it recognizes the fact “that the presence of these sisters wearing their robes, their crucifixes, and their rosaries before these susceptible Indians is practically winning them to the Roman Catholic Church.” Although depriving these sisters of this insignia may in the end help to break the influence of the Catholic Church in these schools, it will be some years before this can be brought about. In the meantime, the Catholic Church is given liberties above every other denomination, and it will not be slow to make the most of this advantage. There are about two thousand teachers employed in Indian schools, and of these fifty-one wear religious garb.

It is interesting to note in this connection that before this decision was rendered, the resignation of the Indian Commissioner, who in the beginning by his order prohibited the wearing of religious garbs, was sent in to President Taft and accepted by him. The Advance of Sept. 26, 1912, offers “by Sentinel” the following comment, under the heading “The Cardinal Gets the Commissioner’s Scalp:”—

A few days since, the Sentinel, reprinting an extract from the Catholic World of August 31, in which we were told that the resignation of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs “was expected,” prophesied that the cardinal, who was after the commissioner’s scalp, would get it. In fact, the commissioner handed in his resignation before the Sentinel’s words were in type. The commissioner made a serious mistake, and paid the inevitable penalty. He supposed that since the Bible had been declared “sectarian,” the rosary might be so considered; and that where the Bible was prohibited, the crucifix would not be allowed. He knows better now. The governor of the Old Bay State thought he was “a bigger man” than the Irish-American cardinal of Boston, and he declined to take the seat below the said cardinal at a banquet in that city. He, too, found that we are not ruled by our elected representatives, but by “the long arm of Rome.” Personally, the Sentinel is glad of all these incidents. He feels as Captain Parker did at Lexington that April morning in 1775: “If there is to be a conflict, it may as well begin here.”