The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-03-11
Transcript Answers
 Dr. George Strayer
Comments on University Professors Opposition to
 Granting Federal Aid to ParOchial Schools

cript should examine this educa- tors remarkable statement, re- alize it's implications, and ask himself whether it's author is the kind of man who should, however remotely, form the policy of the schools in his city.
 The Catholics of Hartford are not using any pressure to get public funds diverted to the sup port of their schools. However, they do recognize that they pay taxes at the same rate as other citizens and that, to main- tain Catholic schools, they must eXpend yet more money. They are glad to make any sacrifice to keep the Catholic schools open. Why? Because they are convinced that, without instruction in religion, children cannot grow up to the full stature of responsibility de- manded of a citizen in democ- racy. At the same time, they would not wave away any prof. fered Tightening of their consid- erable burden. But whether or not assistance be forthcoming, the Catholic schools will go on.
 The reason why Catholics take such offense at Doctor Strayer's mean attack is this: It is just one more evidence of a concerted drive against the Catholic schools. It really masks a determination that Catholic schools must be done away with in America. This is the whole burden of the writings of Doctor Strayer's associates at Columbia. All one has to do is casually to page through an issue of their monthly, ''The Social Frontier, to discover that this group is thoroughly anti-Catholic. In any matter touching Catholic schools, they take extreme posi- tions, for example, that eXemp- tion of Catholic school property from taxation constitutes an ob- jectionable subsidy (See Vol. ", No. 29, p. 43). In every disputed question, automatically these men go to the side of the foes of Cath olicism, however inept and mer- etriciouS the latter may be. Their writings bristle with misstate- ments which insult American Catholics. They have, in their omniscience, decided that the Catholic school is undemocratic. To them Democracy and Commu- nlsm are synonymous, as witness the signature of one of their num- Der appended to a letter in the March 8 New York Times, which letter identifies "the cause of democracy" with the Red cause in Spain and asserts that the defeat of the Reds ill Spain would im- peril "our own traditions of edu- cation" Since the Catholic schools will, as matter of course, fight the spread of Communism, there fore, these educators decree, the Catholic schools must go. Doctor Strayer's associates have taken 'Vlilo do tllCA WdCC1lWNQ.
 It is this gratuitous, vicious, and unceasing attack on their good faith as American citizens, which incenses Catholics. Catholics are not conspiring against the public school system in the United States They admire it and pray that it will continue as it has begun: a characteristicilly American institu- tion. But those who charge Cath olics with this crime are them selves conspiring against the Cath olic schools in the United States. And their unfair tactics will be fought to the last ditch.
 Hartford Catholics should ponder this well. They might ask their Board of Education whether a man of the caliber of these bigot is fit to advise them in the for nation of educational policy in their city.