p. 308 | Untitled article by C. P. B.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · October 2, 1890

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 5, No. 39

The “Loyal American” against Facts.

By C. P. B.

As an illustration of careless reading, and an utter disregard of facts, an article in the Loyal American, of September 17, surpasses anything that we have seen recently. The first paragraph of the article runs thus:—

A. J. J. in THE AMERICAN SENTINEL says it is all wrong for the State to dictate what language shall be taught in the schools, public or private. He bases his dictum upon the private rights of parents, and like the religious bigots, forgets that the State and child have rights.

In the first place, no such person as “A. J. J.” writes for THE AMERICAN SENTINEL. The initials are “A. T. J.” in plain Roman type. In the second place, neither “A. T. J.” nor any other writer for THE AMERICAN SENTINEL, has ever denied the right of the State to dictate what language shall be taught in the public schools. The very article from which the Loyal American quotes, in making its criticism, has in the first and second paragraphs these plain words:—

We have not yet seen it denied that the public has the right to teach English solely, in the public schools. That which is denied is that the public has a right to say what shall be taught in the private schools; and this is not a denial of the right of the State to say that English shall be taught in the public schools. It is not opposition to the teaching of English; but this opposition is to the assumption that if the State can say that English shall be taught in the public schools, that concedes the right of the State to say that whatever it pleases shall be taught in the private schools, and that consequently there is no such thing as a private school; that the State arbitrarily turns the private school into a public school at private expense.

How anybody can say, as the Loyal American does say, that this is a denial of the right of the State to say what language shall be taught in the public schools, is more than we can understand. The State has clearly the right to say that English and English only shall be taught in the schools supported by the State; but we deny the right of the State to say what shall be taught in the private schools. If the Loyal American wishes to do us justice let it quote all we said about the right of the State to require the teaching of English, and not make garbled quotations, merely.

But again, the Loyal American says:—

It is evident that A. J. J. is under a misapprehension as to what the State really is, he forgets that the American State is a majority of the citizens; that when it undertakes to protect all citizens in certain rights, it cannot be hampered in doing so by cranks, bigots, self-elected censors, or men who fancy that God should resign and call on them to run the universe. The State must first protect itself, this done, it can turn its protecting arms toward men, women, and children. And while the American State is permitting the oppressed of all climes to come here for refuge from tyranny, and to enjoy greater freedom and opportunities, it must take care that the oppressed do not become our oppressors, as is the fact here in Chicago.

“A. J. J.” is under no such misapprehension. The editors of THE SENTINEL are all native-born Americans, as were also their fathers before them, and know as much about what constitutes the American State as does the editor of the Loyal American, or any other naturalized foreigner. They know, too, that the whole people, and not merely a majority of the people, constitute the State. But this fact does not make justice out of injustice, nor warrant the majority in meddling with the private affairs of the minority. John Stuart Mill never wrote a truer thing than when he said that such “power itself is illegitimate. The best government has no more title to it than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when in opposition to it.” The idea that whatever the majority decrees is right is no more true now than it was when the majority demanded the crucifixion of Christ, or when the majority demanded the hanging of witches in Massachusetts, or when, as in our own day, the commune of a Russian village decrees the exiling of innocent men and women to Siberia. It is possible for majority rule to be just as tyrannical and just as wicked as the rule of a single man.

The vaporings of the Loyal American about private schools that “teach children to beg, to steal, to burglarize houses, to perpetrate highway robbery,” are unworthy of an answer. There may be “schools” of that kind in Chicago, but they are not under the management of German Lutherans, nor even of German Catholics. We know Chicago did once have an Anarchist Sunday-school, but anarchy can be taught quite as well in English as in German, and we believe as a matter of fact English was the language employed in that “school.” We fear that the real animus of the Loyal American is religious intolerance. It wants to force its language and its religion, and probably its own cut of collar, and style of cravat, upon everybody else; and it wants the power of the State to enable it to do it. We regard the Lutherans and the Romanists as in error upon many very important points; and not only so, but we deplore the Roman Catholic influence in politics in this country; but it is no more dangerous to our liberties than are the paternal tendencies, and theory advocated by the Loyal American.

C. P. B.