HIT SCHOOL AID EDITORIAL
Bliss, Matthew F.
Hit School Aid Editorial Dear Editor: The AVic Leader welcomes comment from its readers, regardless of point of view. This is your department — let's hear from 7011. For space reasons, however,...
...to expose and to dramatize . . . the insidious sniping campaign which has been waged with increasing ferocity against tb/e Catholic church...
...Its proponents may feel that children should be permitted to learn of God—but not at the cost of dividing tomorrow's citizens from kindergarten through college by separate systems of education...
...We Catholcs believe we know as much of the world as our "omniscient" ciitics...
...Otherwise, you are doing a bang-up job...
...How has it happened that this Barden bill has become identified with education-free-from-church control...
...Because we are a minority, we may lose this fight to obtain a Jittle elementary justice for our children Although parochial schools are legal, some educators still look upon them with a jaundiced eye because they are nonconformist . . . [However...
...They then dig down and pay for the construction and maintenance of their own parochial system...
...William E. Bohn...
...Mass...
...From PATRICK F. SCANLAN Brooklyn Tablet On occasions in the past we have disagreed with your viewpoint or conclusions, but we do not recall an instance in which you appeared unwilling to face facts objectively and with an unbiased mind...
...and we do not mean to lay aside our religious and intellectual convictions for the sake of a phoney "united front," for which they will call the tune and we shall pay the fiddler...
...Editor, you owe your Catholic readers an apology...
...Kven now all we ask out of general taxation is a modest amount for transportation and for health services for those of our children who attend parochial schools...
...Where is the honesty in counting in parochial'school children when a state applies for federal monies, then Counting them out when that state distributes those monies...
...The child in a democracy is owned neither solely by the parents, nor the state, nor the church: he belongs to himself in his right (God-given, if you like) to evaluate, affirm, deny or ignore at maturity that which he can hardly do other than accept, when acceptance is coerced throughout his infancy and youth...
...I think, Mr...
...It is easily demonstrable that Catholics pay their share for the general public education for .ill children...
...New York...
...Editor, tell the lady libertarian to stick to her flowers, for her comments, like your editorial, stink...
...is not in conflict with the Constitution...
...From E. G. GALLAGHER Should not your editorial on the Barden bill have touched on some of these questions: If Federal monies, taken from everyone's taxes, are to be spent to buy warm lunches or milk or health services for school children, why should one out of every ten of those children be denied his milk, his lunch, his inoculation, simply because he was baptized Catholic...
...Lakewood, N. J. From THOMAS J. CONNOR Your article in the issue of Tlie Nexe Leader on Spellrnan, Roosevelt and Barden leads me to conclude that it was prepared during the recent heat wave...
...They certainly deserve one...
...For space reasons, however, please limit your letters to 2&0 words or less...
...From MATTHEW F. BLISS We Catholics know quite well that the foisting upon us of the Barden bill was only the last straw in a long list of "incidents," which finally led Cardinal Spellrnan to speak out in protest...
...Lancaster...
...For despite the fact that the [Catholic] church arrogates this province to itself, a democratic philosophy of education cannot be deterred from holding that the young can no more be coerced decently in this matter than in others...
...The view of education of those who feel that it would be desirable for all children to attend the public schools at least part of the time is not of necessity in conflict with the view that education should form children according to Christian tenets and to make them sturdy disciples and defenders of the church...
...These people are not simply anti Catholic (for their attitude must be shared to some extent by that half of the Catholic population who send then children to the public schools), nor are they motivated by an unreasoned fear of the Catholic church They are the people who regret that their children cannot attend with all children the released-time religious education classes of all denominations, because the Catholic church teaches, and other churches tacitly subscribe to the belief, that such a practice is wrong...
...Pittsfield...
...On page eleven, adjoining, will be found a reply from The /V>ic Leader's editor...
...N. Y...
...Unfortunately, a theological matter - man's relation to God—is also invoked in the conflict, and likely to embitter it...
...From REV...
...And please, Mr...
...N. Y.: Symposium at Camp Eden, Sunday, August 21, 11 a. m., "The New York Municipal Elections and the S.D.F...
...Is even Cardinal Spellrnan, in his loudest moments (and he can get pretty loud, can't he...
...Glenshaw...
...Brooklyn, N. Y. From FREDRIC MITCHELL Basically different appraisals of the influence of the Catholic schools (nearly ninety per cent of all our private schools...
...They are also the people who regret that their children cannot attend school equally with Negro children, as well as with Catholic children, everywhere in a democracy...
...It is now abundantly clear that the communists are striving with might and main to force the thinking of those they dominate politically into a very old and thoroughly discredited pattern...
...Can we expect honest debate on the question when even your own calm editorial was guilty of distortion...
...From REV...
...Catholic and non-Catholic alike...
...It required a person of his recognized prestige...
...lie at the root of the conflict between those who support them and those who further the growth and improvement of the public schools...
...The fundamental thesis of this pattern is that the State is God...
...asking that federal monies—which somehow have come to be called your monies, not "ours" be used to build, equip, maintain or stall the schools of his church...
...JOSEPH W. CONNORS Are you forgetting . . . that the Supreme Court has very clearly stated that the use of public money for such auxiliary services as free text books and bus transportation, etc...
...There is certainly no more reason for invoking tin- bogey of "Church and State Separation" than there would be in the case of military chaplains and the GI Hill of Bights...
...I had been in hopes that the editors of The New Leader would be less hasty in aligning themselves with those forces in our midst, which, in spite of some shallow pretense, so cordially dislike us...
...CARL P. HENSLER Why editorialize about the SpellmanRoosevelt controversy until you learn just what the Cardinal really said...
...He did apt demand federal aid for parochial schools...
...the rest oj us (sic) would be so victimized if compelled to support (sic) schools which are, in fact, private and denominational, and to which tee could not possibly send our children, although we would be paying for tlnur upkeep (sir and sic again...
...Otherwise, how explain the absurdity of your treatment of the controversy and more particularly youi analysis if one may call it that and conclusions regarding the Harden bill...
...From the Catholic side of this discussion, there never was even a remote reference to or request for general aid in behalf of Catholic schools...
...For this reason, we request you to read our position, and that of others, on the cause of the controversy, the Barden Bill...
...Has it escaped the attention of The New Leader that one of the most insidious and effective means for the accomplishment and con solidation of this design is by the manipulation and the regimentation of institutions of primary and secondary education...
...New York, N. Y. SDF News NATIONAL Cold Spring...
...Speakers: Nathan On this page we publisn, in some cases in abbreviated form due to space limitations, a few typical Catholic comments on our editorial of July 30 discussing the SpellrnanRoosevelt school aid controversy...
...although we may lose the fight, we shall con linue to insist in a loud voice thai separation of Church and State is not now and never has been a relevant issue in our rejection of legislation like the Harden bill...
Vol. 32 • August 1949 • No. 34
