p. 8 | CATHOLICS AND TAXES

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 15, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 15.

CATHOLICS AND TAXES.

The following is from the Springfield Republican; and the answer to the argument from the Pilot is well spoken:—

“Why should not Catholics have some of the taxes they pay to educate their children? The fathers of our republic gained the freedom of the land by fighting for the principle of no taxation without representation.” This is the forcible way the case is put by the Hon. James Smith, Jr., United States senator from New Jersey, at the recent celebration of the silver jubilee of the Rt. Rev. John J. O’Connor, D.D., Bishop of Newark, N.J.—Boston Pilot.

The Roman Catholics do have their share of the taxes for education. The State assumes the duty of teaching its children, and the advantages of the public schools are open to all of every faith. The church demands that it shall have a proportion of the school taxes to carry on religious teaching also. This can not be allowed, simply because it applies the public money to the advantage of a special religious cult. The orator and the editor know this, and all the reasons for it. Any set of people, of any religion or no religion, have an equal right to maintain their own schools, if the public schools do not suit them, but to demand from the State the payment of teachers of any religion or no religion is altogether foreign to the idea of the republic.