Year: 1875

| schools, work-houses, public hospitals,
| and asylums) shall extend to all inmates
| equal facilities for receiving the minis


trations of ministers of their own relig


ious denomination, provided that such


ministration shall be given without any
cost to the State. The law is intended
to prevent the exclusion of Catholic


priests from these institutions, and, to


this extent, it is entirely in keeping with


the spirit of our government and with
the Constitution of the State of Ohio,


which provides that mo person shall be


compelled to attend, erect, or support


any place of worship, or maintain any


form of worship, against his consent,


and that mo preference shall be given


by law to any religious society" In
ITSELF therefore, the bill is not only harm


less but entirely right and proper But


its discussion, pending the passage, has


developed evidence of curious, and, we


think, improper and dangerous alliance


between the Democratic party and the


Catholic Church in the State of Ohio


which, if maintained, may lead to the


most disastrous results. After the bill


was proposed, Mr.. Geghan, its author


addressed an open letter to a Cincinnati


gentleman, in which he held that more


than half of the Democratic party in the


State of Ohio consisted of Irish and Ger


man Catholics, and the Catholics had


prior claim upon that party and in


which he also intimated that if this claim


was not distinctly recognized, the sup


port of the Catholics would be withdrawn


from the party. While this letter was
an unusual and improper assertion of re-


ligious claims upon political party, it
was only personal declaration. But it
was followed up by still more curious


~ 81 &IoT To4 Io1, Il
egraph of Cincinnati, the organ of the
Church in Ohio, from which the follow
ing is an extract


THE political party with which nine
tenths of the Catholic voters affiliate, on
account Of past services, that they will
never forget, now controls the State.
Withdraw the support which Catholics
have given to it, and it will fall in this
city, county, and State as speedily as it
has risen to its longlost position and
power. That party is now upon its trial;
Mr.. Geghan's bill will test the sincerity
of its profession"


This is something more than declara-
ton that the Democrats of Ohio must |
support the Geghan bill or lose the Cath |
olic vote, which gives it its power in that
State. 1t is also declaration in effect
that the Democratic party in Ohio must
support every measure suggested or pro-
posed by the Catholic Church, in the in |
terest of that Church. or else lose the |
Catholic vote. For if the threat is ef- |
fectively made in one case, it may be |
effectively made in every other Herein
lies the danger. While the claim.of the |
Catholics in the Geghan bill is just and |
fair. As a matter of fact, their clergy
are already demanding in New York and |
in various parts of the country that
either they shall be relieved from taxa
ton for the support of the public schools,
or that proportion of the school fund
shall be set aside for the support of their
parochial dogmatic schools This secta-
rian demand is so repugnant to American
ideas and the spirit of our institutions
that it can never be conceded. But when
it takes practical shape in Ohio, Mr..
Geghan, the Catholic Telegraph, the
priesthood, and Church, may WELD the
whip over the Democratic party in the
same way as with reference to religious
services in the penitentiaries. The ques-
ton is not a new one in Ohio. II was
agitated in the late Constitutional Con-
vention, where it was insisted that the
school fund should be divided.


1t is not possible to deprecate too earn
astly the formation of any religio-political
alliance in this country, whether it be
between the Democratic party and Cath
olic Church, or any other party and any
other church The only way in which
Church and State can be kept separate
and ndependent-and this separation is
to our form of government-is
to draw the line distinctly at the point of
departure. They cannot be merg ed in
,he slightest degree without endanger-
ng the whole principle of free govern
nent There must be no union of Church
md State or subserviency of the civil to s
he ecclesiastical power.