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The Religious Garb Question

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Apr 18, 1912

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 89, No. 16.

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The Religious Garb Question

MR. SECRETARY: It is of the utmost importance that the real question at issue in this hearing should be clearly defined, and that all irrelevant questions should be eliminated. The desirability of maintaining schools for the benefit of the Indians, and the importance of imparting religious instruction to them, are matters of vital interest, and may be indirectly related to this discussion; but that should not be permitted to influence our minds in attempting to arrive at a just conclusion concerning the real point to be decided, which is indicated by what follows.
Under date of Jan. 27, 1912, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs issued Circular No. 601, relating to religious insignia, from which we take this paragraph:—
In accordance with that essential principle in our national life—the separation of church and state—as applied by me to the Indian Service, which as to ceremonies and exercises is now being enforced under the existing religious regulations, I find it necessary to issue this order supplementary to those regulations, to cover the use at those exercises and at other times, of insignia and garb as used by various denominations. At exercises of any particular denomination there is, of course, no restriction in this respect, but at the general assembly exercises and in the public schoolrooms, or on the grounds when on duty, insignia or garb has no justification.
It would appear from the statement made in this circular by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs that in his opinion the wearing of a religious garb or the display of religious insignia in the government schools was a violation of “that essential principle in our national life—the separation of church and state.” In a letter issued one or two days later, the President of the United States revoked the order of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and suggested that a hearing be given to all persons interested, stating at the same time: “I believe fully in the principle of the separation of church and state on which our government is based, but the questions presented by this order are of great importance and delicacy.”
It seems clear, therefore, that the real question is whether the wearing of a religious garb and the display of religious insignia in government schools by the representatives of a religious denomination constitute a violation of the principle of the separation of church and state. It is our contention that the Commissioner of Indian Affairs was justified in the interpretation which he placed upon this matter, and that his order was in the interest both of good government and of pure religion.
An examination of the recent acts of Congress relating to appropriations for the Indian Service shows clearly that in the opinion of that body it was desirable that the United States government should cease all connection with the teaching of religion in the schools for Indians. This is evident from the statement made in the act making appropriations for the Indian Service for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1900, which authorized the Secretary of the Interior to make contracts with contract schools to an amount not exceeding fifteen per cent of the amount used for the fiscal year 1895, adding this significant statement: “This being the final appropriation for sectarian schools.” We are not now raising the question whether it was justifiable to use for this same purpose trust and treaty funds, but refer to this action merely to show the intent of Congress that, so far as it was concerned, the government should have nothing further to do with religious schools.
This is by no means a new issue. In a letter dated March 19, 1823, written to Edward Everett, James Madison put himself on record as opposing any provision for teaching religion in an institution under the control of the government. From this letter we quote:—
The difficulty of reconciling the Christian mind to the absence of a religious tuition from a university established by law, and at the common expense, is probably less with us than with you. The settled opinion here is that religion is essentially distinct from civil government, and exempt from its cognizance; that a connection between them is injurious to both.
In discussing the suggestion that such a policy might incur “the imputation of irreligious tendencies, if not designs,” Mr. Madison declared that this difficulty could be met more easily than those which would arise from any connection between government and religion.
Our claim is that the wearing of a religious garb and the display of religious insignia constitute a teaching of religion, and this view of the case is maintained by a judicial decision in the State of New York in the case of Nora O’Conner, appellant, v. Patrick Hendrick, as trustee of school district No. 9, town of Lima, Livingston Co., N. Y., et al. Found in 184 N. Y., 421. The court stated:—We are thus brought to the question whether in this State a regulation is to be deemed unreasonable which prohibits teachers in common schools from wearing a distinctively religious garb while engaged in the work of teaching. In my opinion it can not justly be so regarded. . . . There can be little doubt that the effect of the costume worn by these Sisters of St. Joseph at all times in the presence of their pupils would be to inspire respect, if not sympathy, for the religious denomination to which they so manifestly belong. To this extent the influence was sectarian, even if it did not amount to the teaching of denominational doctrine.
To the same effect is the argument of Mr. Justice Williams in the case of Hysong v. School District (164 Pa. St., 629, 654), who held:—
The teachers come into the schools not as common-school teachers or as civilians, but as the representatives of a particular church whose lives have been dedicated to religious work under the direction of that church. Now the point of the objection is not that their religion disqualifies them. It does not. Nor is it thought that church-membership disqualifies them. It does not. It is not that holding an ecclesiastical office or position disqualifies them, for it does not. It is the introduction into the schools as teachers of persons who are by their striking and distinctive ecclesiastical robes necessarily and constantly asserting their membership in a particular church, and in a religious order within that church, and the subjection of their lives to the direction and control of its officers.
That the wearing of a distinctive religious garb is considered by the Roman Catholic Church as equivalent to a public profession of the religion of a particular order is shown by the following extract from the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XII, page 753:—
The church insists on the use of a habit, by which the religious are distinguished from secular persons. A distinctive habit is always required for nuns; the clerical habit is sufficient for men. Those approved institutes whose members may be taken for seculars out-of-doors, lack that public profession which characterizes the religious state, in the sight of the church, according to the decree of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, 11 August, 1889.
There can be no question that the wearing of the religious garb does emphasize the religious idea, and that when it is the distinctive garb of any religious denomination, it suggests more or less directly the doctrines of that denomination. The wearing of such a garb in the government schools makes the government a party to the teaching of denominational religion, and is a long step toward a union of church and state. This is the view advocated in an editorial in the New York Independent of Feb. 15, 1912, from which we make this quotation:—
Certainly, Commissioner Valentine was right in declaring that the essential principle of the separation of church and state forbids the teachers in these schools to impress their faith on the children by a peculiar sectarian dress and other insignia. Take the case of the Standing Rock Reservation. There are two Catholic government boarding-schools, and all are required to attend school. In the agency there are as many as four Protestant Indian churches. Their larger children must go to these schools, and crucifixes are at the heads of their beds, and pictures of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and other signs of Roman Catholic devotion are in constant evidence. They can not escape being taught Catholicism. To be sure, they may at specified times be allowed instruction from their own minister or chaplain, as the Catholic children are allowed, but this obtruding of one kind of religious faith is unjust in a country which knows no discrimination of faith.
We are in favor of maintaining the order issued by Commissioner Valentine, not because we are opposed to religion, or the teaching of religion at the proper time and place, but because we regard it of utmost importance to preserve inviolate the American and Christian principle of the entire separation of the church from the state and of religion from the government.
So jealous were some of the fathers of this country of any action which might in the least degree contravene this principle, that they strenuously opposed any governmental action that appeared to be in the interest even of the Christian religion. From Madison’s famous memorial, written in 1785, we take this paragraph, which is significant:—
It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens, and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much soon to forget it. Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish, with the same ease, any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects?
The wearing of a religious garb in government schools for the Indians may be regarded by some as a very slight matter over which to make an issue, but the history of all religious establishments shows that they have begun by a very slight departure from the principles of religious liberty, and that when once the ground has been yielded that government may have the least thing to do with religion, the path is made much easier toward a complete establishment of religion. We hold that in the whole matter of the education of the Indians there is no more important question than the maintenance of a complete separation between the church and the state, and that it would be even better that the government should make no provision whatever for the education of the Indians, leaving this work to be done wholly by voluntary agencies, rather than that one iota of the principle which lies at the foundation of this free government should be sacrificed. We agree heartily with the statements made in an editorial in the Outlook of March 30, 1912:—
We can see nothing on the face of Commissioner Valentine’s order which is not wholly in harmony with the essential principle of complete separation of church and state in education. . . .
If it is impossible for the government of the United States to conduct Indian schools in which the principle of the separation of church and state is absolutely maintained,—not merely nominally but actually, not merely in letter but in spirit,—then we believe that the whole system of Indian government schools should be abandoned. For it will be better for the country, Catholic and Protestant, to abandon its Indian schools and to turn them over to denominational missions or to private philanthropy than to jeopardize in the least degree the principle of the separation of church and state, upon which rests, in the last analysis, the religious liberty of every denomination and of every individual.
The welfare of the Indian is important, but far more important is the right of every American citizen to form his own theological beliefs without the aid, the advice, the influence, or the compulsion of government.