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Page Number: 38.0

4 

ESPINOZA v. MONTANA DEPT. OF REVENUE 

ALITO, J., concurring 

ical  influence  of  immigrants  and  Catholics,”  gaining  hun-
dreds of seats in Federal and State Government.3 

Catholics were considered by such groups not as citizens 
of  the  United  States,  but  as  “soldiers  of  the  Church  of 
Rome,”4 who “would attempt to subvert representative gov-
ernment.”5  Catholic education was a particular concern.  As 
one series of newspaper articles argued, “ ‘Popery is the nat-
ural  enemy  of  general  education. . . .  If  it  is  establishing 
schools, it is to make them prisons of the youthful intellect
of the country.’ ”  C. Glenn, The Myth of the Common School 
69  (1988)  (Glenn)  (quoting  S.  Morse,  Foreign  Conspiracy 
Against the Liberties of the United States (1835)).  With a 
Catholic school breaking ground in New York City, the New 
York  Times  ran  an  article  titled  “Sectarian  Education. 
Anti-Public School Crusade.  Aggressive Attitude of the Ro-
man  Catholic  Clergy—The  Terrors  of  the  Church  Threat-
ened.”  N. Y. Times, Aug. 24, 1873, p. 8.  The project, the 
article concluded, would cause “intense anxiety by all who 
are interested in upholding the admirable system of public
school education.”  Ibid. 

The feelings of the day are perhaps best encapsulated by 
this famous cartoon, published in Harper’s Weekly in 1871, 
which depicts Catholic priests as crocodiles slithering hun-
grily toward American children as a public school crumbles
in the background: 

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3 Id., at 127–128, 135. 
4 Id., at 110 (emphasis deleted). 
5 P. Hamburger, Separation of Church and State 206 (2002).