Belding banner. (Belding, Mich.) 1889-1918, 1916-12-27

TOEDAu ccSIoiidh Appropriations
Under the above heading the Twen-
tieth Century Quarterly says:
"As the separation OF church and
state is the most fundamental dis
tinction of our nation as compared
with other first-class nations except
France, there is no measure pending
in Congress whose passage is so es-
sential to the preservation Of Ameri-
canism as the Sisson Constitutional
Amendment, to prohibit all sectar-
ian appropriations by national, state,
or city governments. While true
Americans have slept a few Protest
ants and many Catholics have secured
public money for schools and hospi-
tails and other institutions that are
under the management Of one sect,
which gets the credit for work done
so to get sectarian adherents or other
sectarian advantages through the
teaching or philanthropy which is
thus aided. t.
"The New York City Charter
names one local Methodist school as
getting a share of the public school
fund, despite the fact that the Cen
eral Conference condemns all sectar-
ian appropriations. How do the tax
payers who are Catholics and Jews
infidels and Baptists like that? The
Methodists at large will condemn it
most of all, and insist that there shall
be no more violation of both Ameri-
how do Protestant and Hebrew and
other taxpayers relish the fact that
a big list of appropriations for Catho-
lio schools folloxuc fhaf nna Iona pro
testant school, which is thrust defen-
sively to the front? We do not be-
lieve Catholic laymen will stand for
such use of taxes to propagate any
sect. Indeed the Catholic laymen in
the u. S. senate recently concurred
unanimously to bring to an end the
appropriations for Catholic Indian
schools among the Sioux. This just
settlement was upset by lobby as
un-American as the "hyphenates" so
much belabored. Neither a foreign
sect nor a foreign race should be al
lowed to manipulate any part of the
American government in it's own in
terest.
The Echo, of Buffalo, Catholic pap
err, in an editorial following the adj
journment of Congress in the sum-
mer of 1916, exulted in the fact that
Congress, despite a decision of the
Comptroller of the Treasury, Mr..
VIM. F. Downey, to the effect that
public money could not be paid out
under existing law for Catholic
school among the Choctaws and
Chickasaws, appropriated the usual
$27 900 annual allowance, not only for
the current year, but also for the
wear mast for which the Comntroller
had refused it.. The editorial seeks
to justify the appropriation to Catho-
lie schools by charging that Har-
grove Methodist Institute, of Ard
more Oklahoma, received appropria-
tions down to July 1, 1913, and the
Lutherans, Christians, and Presby-
terians also received such appropria-
tions recently. Substantially this
same charge was made by Congress
man Carter of Oklahoma, in a Com
by the Educational Boards of all but
the first Of the denominations NAM
ed. But we know that a few local
Protestant institutions. eager to get
money however tainted" from any
source, and too shallow minded to
see the great patriotic principles in
very little compared to that appro-
priated to Catholic institutions, but
enough to afford them an excuse. 1t
together of the un-American folly by
asking every Congressman and Sen
ator to put this vexatious sectarian
issue out of politics forever, by sub
hitting the SESSION amendment"