Los Angeles herald., 1908-03-15

who are destitute of a religion, and that
tribe exists in the interior of Africa.
AS peoples emerge from savagery and
barbariSm they come into better and
higher views of the meaning of civil
and religious liberty. The savage con-
cept is below that of the barbarian, and
the barbarian concept is below that of
the civilized. ct tie latter may be
far below the absolutely true. 1t may
be that future ages will look back upon
our present civilization as this age
looks back upon the civilizations of the
past--in wonderment as to how so low
a civilization should have boasted itself
so high. We believe that we have
reached the acme of civil rights and
religious liberation, and it may be that
theoretically we have But in practice
there is yet much room for growth.
Civil rights, in practice, are yet much
abridged, and religious intolerance is
yet greatly the vogue. AS we look back
over the history of the world we are
shocked at the :ruelties and barbarities
perpetrated in the name of Liberty
Both Pagan and Christian nations have
defaced the page of history with blood
shed, rapine, pillage and devastation
in the name of religion and of freedom.
Intolerance Inherent
Religious intolerance seems to be in
herent in the human mind, especially
when religion is armed with secular
power The history of the old world
tells an appalling story. Nor is that
of the new world free from blemish.
Although our Puritan ancestors came
from the old world to escape religious
oppression. they had scarcely landed in
the new ere they, in turn, began to re-
strict those who differed with them re-
ligiously. They enacted and enforced
laws hardly less intolerant and op-
pressive than those from which they
had escaped. In the constitutions of
New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New
Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina, Ten
nessee and Mississippi there were in
corporated many religious restrictions.
In Massachusetts, in 1921, no persons
We're to be admitted to the freedom of
the commonwealth but such as were
members of some church within the
state. In Connecticut, or that part of
it which, until 1865, constituted the sep
arate New Haven colony, the early set
tiers established and enforced, a uni
formity Of religious doctrine and Wor-
ship and made it requisite that every
person holding a civil office should be
church member. 1t is easy also, in con-
nection with this early history, to recall
some of the prosecutions for con-
sciences saks-the whipping of Rev.
John Myles, a Baptist minister the
hanging of Quakers on Boston Com
mon, etc.
Justice Browns Views
Mr.. Justice Brewer of the United
States Supreme Court in his able
treatise on American Citizenship says:
"This is a Government of and by and
for the people. 1t rests upon the
thought that to each individual belong
the unalienable rights of life. liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. 1t af-
firms that the nation exists not for the
benefit of one man, or set of men, but
to secure to each and all the fullest
opportunity for personal development.
1t stands over against the governments
of the Old World in that there the
thought is that the individual lives for
the nation; here the nation exists for
the individual" I am pleased to quote
also the following timely and truth
full sentiments of Justice Brewer from
the same work:
"Still again, this is a Christian ma
tion Not that the people have made
it so by any legal enactment, or that