The Voice of the People by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 19, 1907

The Voice of the People

By C. M. S.

The Motto on the Coin

WE have waited to hear the nation express itself on the question of the motto on the new coin, desiring to collect representative utterances and present them to our readers connectedly, that they might see what is the attitude of the people upon the subject. There is a fundamental principle involved in the matter which goes much deeper than most of those who have spoken are able to realize.

The President’s order that the legend, “In God We Trust,” should be left off the new ten-dollar gold piece, has provoked no end of comment throughout the country. By some his act is vigorously denounced. These are they who are laboring so zealously to put the name of God in the Constitution, and to place all Christian laws, rules, and usages of this government on an undeniable legal basis in our fundamental law—they who are seeking to prove to the world by the placard process that “this is a Christian nation.” On the other hand many of the public prints are supporting the President’s position. In the year 1865 Congress authorized the placing the words, “In God We Trust,” upon our coins as has been without legal warrant, though it has not been forbidden. The President, therefore, had two valid reasons for his course: first, that he had no authority in law for ordering those words placed upon the coins; and second, that he considered their use inimical to the interests of religion. He says:—

My own feeling in the matter is due to my very firm conviction that to put such a motto on coins, or to use it in any kindred manner, not only does no good, but does positive harm, and is in effect irreverence, which comes dangerously near to sacrilege. A beautiful and solemn sentence, such as the one in question, should be treated and uttered only with that fine reverence which necessarily implies a certain exaltation of spirit. Any use which tends to cheapen it, and above all, any use which tends to secure its being treated in a spirit of levity, is, from every standpoint, profoundly to be regretted.

The President signifies his willingness to have the motto replaced, provided Congress shall direct him so to do, but he closes his statement to the public thus:—

I very earnestly trust that the religious sentiment of the country, the spirit of reverence in the country, will prevent any such action’s being taken.

Concerning this matter the New York Evening Post says:—

That a good thing may be perverted is no good reason for giving up a good thing. The removal of the motto from the coins is not, in our judgment, a matter to get excited about; but it betrays again the President’s habit of acting hastily without due foresight of the consequences.

But the President’s reasons for his act, as set forth in his published statement, indicate that he has not acted hastily, but after deliberation and from conviction.

Some of the religious journals that have spoken editorially upon the subject feel that the omission of the motto indicates a decline of religion in the nation, a decline which will be instantly remedied by having the offensive coins called in, and recoined with the motto on them. We might remark, in passing, that a religion which goes up or down with the coining of our money is not worth much, even for a national religion. The following from the Home Herald, of Chicago, is characteristic of these editorial utterances:—

The fact that the national motto, “In God We Trust,” has been omitted from the designs of the new ten- and twenty-dollar gold pieces recently adopted by the federal authorities, has justly and properly raised a storm of protest, both secular and religious, all over the country. People who never thought much about the words on the coins, now that they are to be removed, feel that they are losing something tangible, something which is of value to them. “Consulting art is well,” says the Philadelphia Ledger, “consulting fitness is better;” consulting the deeply founded convictions of a nation is best.”

The symbol was not an empty, superfluous lettering on a piece of metal. It was notice that the United States of America believed in a Supreme Being and desired to give the widest expression to the national faith.

The omission in the new designs is a sign of the decline of religious feeling which seems to be the accepted thing in the present administration, and is a mistake, to speak mildly, that may be called wanton. It is irreverence, for it is irreverent to flout the reverential attitude of the republic.

And yet, one of the President’s reasons for omitting the motto was because its presence on the coins had proved to be an incentive to irreverence. The people “feel that they are losing something tangible,” declares the above editorial. So feels the inhabitant of Tibet when his prayer-wheel has been blown down by the wind which he expected to turn the wheel and make it say prayers for him. He puts it up again, and when he sees the wind turning it with his printed prayer attached to it, he feels better again. What better does a government do when it compels saint and sinner alike to pass along its religious declarations whenever they transact business?

In the Philadelphia Public Ledger, of November 19, a correspondent, terror-stricken over the omission of the motto from the coin, says:—

I was astounded to learn that Mr. Roosevelt had ordered the motto, “In God We Trust,” to be left off of our government coins. Let us beware lest the nation depart from God. There is a people among us who refuse to vote at our elections because the living God is not mentioned in our Constitution. How shall they grieve if the clear acknowledgment of him is swept out of all the things that represent the nation.

This writer is evidently of the National Reform belief, and feels that unless the Constitution acknowledges God by name, and proclaims his name with every coin minted, it is dishonoring him, and his wrath is hanging over it. Because of this separation of church and state, because the nation does not declare its allegiance to Jesus Christ, such men refuse to vote. And all this in the very face of the declaration of Jesus Christ that his kingdom is not of this world! It is far from being an evidence of departure from God that the church and state are kept separate. It is in harmony with his own teaching upon that question.

Rev. Z. H. Copp, of Washington, D. C., in a sermon on November 11, declared it to be “a libel on the work of God and the history of our country to omit the words, ‘In God We Trust,’ from the coin of the realm.” The United Presbyterian, of November 21, condemns the President severely for “his act of desecration of our coinage,” and adds that his reasoning would justify the removal

of the Sabbath laws from the statute-books of every State in the Union. This is true; and yet it argues nothing against the soundness of the President’s position. The “Sabbath laws” on our State statute-books and the religious mottoes on our coins are equally out of place. The Episcopal Convention recently passed a resolution declaring that “the highest interests of our country demand the preservation of all those customs that have stood for the recognition of God in the life of the people.” The inference from such a resolution is that taking that motto off our coins takes God out of the life of the people. It can not be true; for true religion is not a farce. Any religion that can be put off or put on as easily as mottoes can be put on or off a coin is not worthy of serious consideration.

In opposition to such arguments as those quoted or referred to above we quote the following from the New York Independent of November 21:—

The name of God in its Constitution does not make a nation Christian. The name of God on a coin does not in the least sanctify the pocket that holds it or the mint or state that stamps it. It is the people, nothing else than the numbers and the controlling spirit of the people, that makes a nation Christian.

The teaching of religion is no business of the state. . . . We further knew that it was the business of the church to foster Christianity, not of the nation, which must comprise many who are not Christians, but who have equal rights with those who are. . . . Most of our people believe in God, and a great many of them “trust” in him. But we will trust him no less if we omit the golden inscription. The omission may make it a little clearer to our minds that words and forms and visible show are no part of religion.

In a succeeding issue of the same journal the editor, reverting to the same topic, says:—

It is not the business of the nation to proselyte; that is the business of the church. We resent the idea of the secular power trying to control the religious opinions or acts of the citizens. In the nation all citizens have equal rights, and we are not afraid to let Christianity have its fair show and no more, and then let the best win. As to the children, if the failure of the state to make Christians of them leaves them to grow up without belief, then the blame is on the church which fails to do its duty.

The Christian Register, speaking editorially upon the same topic, says:—

For many years individuals and societies have been earnestly working to get a recognition of God and Christianity into the Constitution of the United States. When they succeeded in getting “In God We Trust” stamped upon our coins, they believed a great victory had been achieved for religion. We have never agreed with these good people, because no one can be made religious by compulsion, and the effort to force God into the thoughts of men has, so far as our own experience goes, never succeeded. We remember no case in which the man of the street has ever referred to this inscription without some jocular expression of contempt. It does not increase reverence or make men believe more mightily in God to see his name stamped upon coins which, in the case of the silver dollar, were notoriously not worth their face value. “In God we trust for the other fifty cents” was an expression heard on all sides when the scheme went into effect. Men can not be made religious by act of Congress.

A correspondent of the Washington (D. C.) Herald, after citing a few facts which indicate anything but national trust in God, says:—

It seems to one who looks dispassionately at the matter, that if we must have a motto on our newly minted eagle, we should replace the old one by one more expressive of the fact that hypocrisy and greed shine as chief among American virtues, and stamp the coin, “In Gold We Trust.”

If all men would realize that it is individual trust in God, and that alone, that counts, we would not see the prevailing hysteria over the removal of the motto from our coinage. God looks upon the heart, not upon the coin. He saves individuals; he destroys nations when he comes to save individuals. We might put that motto on every coin we mint, upon all the postage-stamps and greenbacks we print, upon all stocks and bonds, checks, notes, deeds, mortgages, and liquor licenses, hang it over the door of every dwelling, school, store, factory, railway station, saloon, and brothel, set it up at every cross-road, and paint it on every ship and railway train, stamp it on every sales slip and print it on the front page of every newspaper and magazine in the land, and it would count not a feather’s weight in the scales of the great Judge. Clean hearts, character, life—these only count.

C. M. S.