The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1930-08-09
Who Is Guilty?

The action OF the administration in the Mac
Intosh and Bland cases is shameful The department.
Of Justice has announced that 1t will try TO get the
SUPREME court to overthrow the decision of the United
states circuit court of appeals granting citizenship
10 those two prosecuted individuals.
Who are these persons barred by the government
as "undesirables?"
One Is the Rev. DR.. Douglas Clyde Macintosh ior
twenty years professor of theology at Yale university
YIN C. A. worker and Canadian army chap
lain at the front during the World OF what
crime or moral urpitude is he glilty7 He is willing
10 swear In advance to bear only in wars which
his conscience accepts as righteous wars His crime
IS that he takes the Kellogg treaty and his religion
seriously.
The other undesirable is Miss Marie Averil Bland,
Canadian war nurse who cared for American soldiers
at the front. What is wrong with her? Her CON
science as Christian will not permit her to bear arms,
but she sWears she will go again to nurse wounded
soldiers.
Dr. Macintosh and Miss Bland are not good enough
to suit the naturalization bureau and the department
OF justice Foreign gunner slip through the immi-
grafton bars to swell crime wave but our officials
are determined that these two ministers of mercy shall
not slip through.
OF course we have Quaker President OF course
We have a Kellogg treaty. OF We have Con-
sttuton recognizing the freedom of conscience for
which this chaplain and nurse challenged.
But the fact that we have Quaker President,
kellogg treaty Constitution of civil liberties has no
effect whatever on the administrations policy in these
cases What the explanation is, we do not know.
But, whatever the explanation this policy is a be-
trayal of the liberties for which nation was founded
and without which our nation can not long endure
The issue has nothing to do with radicalsm or
with pacifism or with religion as such. The issue
Of
and those who would become citizens under the
Constitution The issue was stated by Justice Oliver
Wendell Holmes of the United States supreme court
in the Schwimmer citizenship case:
IF there is any principle Of the Constitution that
more mperatively calls for attachment than any
other it is the principle of free thought-not free
thought for those that agree with us, but freedom
for the thought that we hate"
The issue'was stated again by the United States
circuit rt of appeals in granting citizenship to
Dr. Macintosh on the ground that:
The rights Of conscience are inalienable rights
which the citizen need not surrender and which the
government or society not take away"
The issue was stated by the great story the recog
nized authority on the American Constitution:
THE rights of conscience are. indeed, beyond the
Just reach of any human power"
For any government to invade those inalienable
rights at any time is objectionable.
But it is especially cowardIy for government to
victimize these two persons for the same religious
beliefs legally held by millions of the finest American
citizens The administration knows, as stated by the
court of appeals in these cases. that under the law
mo more is demanded of an alien who becomes
citizen than of natural born citizen"
And the administration knows that the Macintosh
Bland attitude toward the supremacy of conscience
is typical of most Christians. of most Americans
When the administration first barred DR.. MacIn-
tosh the Scripps- Howard newspapers inquired OF
representative clergymen and laymen of his Baptist
denomination as to their attitude. Virtually all
replied in the tone of the Rev. DR.. Harry Emerson
Fosdck of New York. who said of the Macintosh
exclusion:
"On similar basis no Christian possibly could
be a citizen of the United States"
If the administration is sincere in its action against
this chaplain and this nurse, why does not the adj
ministration take action to revoke the rights of
citizenship OF that vast majority of American citizens
who also profess allegiance both in conscience and
to country? To every of those citizens the adj
minstration policy in the Macintosh Bland cases is
a personal insult.