It is to observe the obvious that the people of the United States do not like the government of Russia, nor does Russia like the government of the United States. So, the government here spends a lot of the taxpayers’ money to say that to the people of Russia. A handful of discredited people in this country are saying that they do not like our form of government here. These are the communists. These are the so-called menace. Perhaps there are some 25,000 of them out of a population of over 160 million.
Moreover, some people in public life do not seem to have much confidence in the common sense and patriotism of the masses and these people are genuinely frightened. Others seek to win public office, sell periodicals, or gain publicity, by making the menace seem greater than it really is.
The result is that to protest the United States against the menace, many people in power nationally or otherwise adopt the same repressive measures that they condemn in Russia. It is a queer way to preserve American liberties by abolishing them. Not only our national government, but many states have enacted statutes that have reduced liberty in the name of liberty.
Perhaps in no other state has this gone so far as in California, mention of which was made here a week ago. For example, a special loyalty oath is required from all who receive compensation from the state. Teacher tenure is undermined. Any teacher who has ever belonged to an organization that the administration does no like can be summarily dismissed without administrative recourse. Public education is thus regulated by police power which has access to school rooms. Teachers are in some cases forbidden to teach current controversial problems or even to permit the writing of essays on them. (And, I might ask parenthetically, whether an issue is really an issue unless it is controversial?) A seven-man commission called Anti-Communist Civil Defense Commission makes legal “guilt by association” and sets up a list of organizations to which it is illegal to belong or to have ever belonged. In that state, communists must register and the Communist Party is outlawed. Wire-tapping on court order is made legal. Employers are given permission to fire anyone the employer thinks is disloyal, and there is no recourse. From all businesses, professions, or vocations requiring license from the state, a special loyalty oath is required. A separate bill requires lawyers to take a loyalty oath or be disbarred. If a lawyer defends a person declared to be a communist, the lawyer is liable for perjury.
Not only this, but the enemies of freedom found a way to bring churches to heel. Churches are to be taxed unless their officials take a loyalty oath for all their constituents. In this case, the official takes an oath, not only for himself but for others. Otherwise, the churches are liable to pay taxes to the state.
Here and there in the state are islands of sanity in this sea of hysteria. Members of some churches are protesting the disloyal activities of the legislators. Some churches have refused to stop all persons at the door and examine them for loyalty, or to censor peoples’ thoughts. These churches have appealed to American principles through the courts, but that costs money. One church, for example, is paying some $7,000 a year under protest rather than sign the odious oath.
All of this, of course, brings up the fundamental question of whether we can protect democracy against totalitarianism by using totalitarian methods. Of what value is a loyalty oath anyway? We Americans who are not best by such hysteria as that animating California legislators would insist that the only loyalty we know is to our Constitution and to laws validly enacted under it. In a democracy, the state can ask for no more; the people can refuse to give no less. Loyalty oaths mean nothing to communists who proceed upon the theory that any means justify the ends they seek, which is world revolution. It would appear to be about time that we returned, in California and elsewhere, to the basic tenets of Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers. Democracy rests basically upon the premise that the common man in the street can be relied upon to govern himself wisely if given access to the truth. And he needs no special safeguards or prompting from the state to make him do it. Also, another of our constitutional principles is separation of church and state, a principle which California legislators seem conveniently, but unfortunately to have forgotten. You may wonder why so much time is devoted to this topic is some a matter of direct and immediate concern largely to people some 3,000 miles away. Well, it was a little man from Independence, Missouri, who some few years ago stated a fundamental truth: that we are slowly coming to recognize that a threat to freedom of men anywhere is a threat to freedom of men everywhere. That little man was Harry S. Truman, a controversial figure, admittedly, but who, when he said that, was speaking in the best Jeffersonian tradition, for it was Jefferson who remarked that “I have sworn eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the minds of men.” If it can happen in California, it can happen in Tennessee; the thing we must be concerned about is to see to that it does not happen here. It was a Californian, Chief Justice Earl Warren, who recently said that this generation will pass on to the next “a better Bill of Rights or a worse one, tarnished by neglect or burnished by growing use.” Each of us has a part to play in seeing that it is burnished rather than tarnished.
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The Syracuse Federation of Teachers in New York has made a survey to find out from teachers what factors are important in promoting teacher morale. A random sample of 1,000 teachers was chosen in the geographic area, and from the replies some 44 factors were reported. Time will not permit enumeration of them all here, but I am going to take time to pass on to you those factors mentioned by 50 percent or more of the teachers. First, with 77 percent was the complaint that maximum salaries are not reached until about half of one’s teaching career is passed; 75 percent emphasized that salaries of experienced teachers have not increased in proportion to increases in beginning salaries for teachers; 68 percent said that there was no accumulation of days of fully paid sick leave; the same number listed loss of salary and medical expenses suffered by teachers injured on the job; 65 percent objected to the fact that teacher salaries are lower in general than those of other professions requiring similar training; 64 percent pointed out that Syracuse teachers were receiving salaries lower than those paid in many villages and districts in the state; 64 percent mentioned the lack of official action to inform the public of oversized and doubled classes, relatively low salaries of teachers, and the high ability of Syracuse to finance education; 60 percent said there was not sufficient recognition of long and satisfactory service in the determination of salaries; 59 percent were actually aware that teachers retire on allowances below minimum subsistence levels; and an equal percentage, 59 percent, felt keenly the lack of provision for absence due to personal emergencies other than personal of family illness.
Well, you non-teachers out there may or may not agree that these complaints of teachers are justified. Those of us who have spent all or most of our working lives in the school room are all too acutely aware of these and many other factors that keep our morale down. Teacher morale is important, not so much because of the teacher himself, but for the simple fact that a teacher who feels secure, both in the present and the foreseeable future, is worth far more to your children that is one who is worried by debts he cannot pay, retirement without adequate subsistence, and all the other factors that in this world of ours today make the difference between security and insecurity. America’s children have a right to instruction by teachers who feel a minimum of worry because of financial circumstances. Such instruction is likely to be far more thorough, meaningful, interesting, and enthusiastic. So, this matter of teacher morale is more important than simply the personal welfare of the teachers; it is important for the educational welfare of the students.
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From the reactions I get, it seems that every so often it is pertinent to state again something of the point of view of this program. It certainly is intended to be non-sectarian. It assumes that one can have a preference for his own religion without at the same time incurring a prejudice against a religion other that his own. It views religion not only from the narrow confines of ritual and dogma that make up the special perspective of a single creed or denomination; but also from the viewpoint that things often thought of as secular by many people have direct or indirect religious import. For example, it is no accident that crime rates go up as quality of housing goes down; that morality in public life, among public officials, is as much of concern to the man concerned with religion as is a particular form of baptism. It recognizes that religion is an area of life that cannot be delimited, that it is something pervading and permeating every area of the life of the individual and of the society of which he is a part. It refuses to look at religion as something locked up between the lids of a book to be brought out one day of the week and securely tucked away the other six days.
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First, a round up of the week’s religious news as reported by United and Associated Press Radio.
London: Queen Elizabeth has approved the appointment of the Right Rev. Arthur Michael Ramsey as archbishop of York and co-primate of the Church of England. He is the cleric who stood at the queen’s side during her coronation two years ago to help support her in her heavy robes. The 52-year-old bishop succeeds the late Dr. Cyril Garbett who died last Saturday at the age of 80. Dr. Ramsey is now second only to the archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Geoffrey Fisher, in ecclesiastical rank.
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Milan, Italy: Terrorists have bombed Milan’s Arch-Episcopal Palace in a apparent attempt to kill or intimidate Italy’s two leading anti-communist cardinals. Italian newspapers hint that the bombing was the work of the Reds.
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Again Milan: A Milan magazine says Pope Pius XII has been studying the Russian language. The magazine says the pontiff is making the study in order to understand the psychology of the Russian people. However, Vatican sources discount the report.
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Some Protestant church stewardship leaders meeting in Chicago agree it is both wrong and lazy to mail pledge cards to get church contributions. The Rev. Arthur O. Rinden, of New York City, adds personal contributions are preferable to the pledge card mailings. Mr. Rinden, who presided over the final session of the two-day conference this week, states churches should ask members to give not as they gave last year but that they should contribute as “God had blessed you.” The Chicago meeting of 61 representatives of 21 denominations had raising church budgets as its theme. The conference was sponsored by the National Council of Churches, U.S.A.
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Church youth and church education have been the subjects of three denominational meetings this week. The Rev. Ronald V. Wells of NYC has told the Baptist General Council the church should start a $5.75 million educational drive. That would be to support Baptist schools, colleges, and other educational activities.
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Also in Chicago, the young Methodists have begun Operation Fellowship. The Rev. Harold W. Ewing of Nashville says the plan is to lure the drug store, pool room, and country club crowd to church. He adds Operation Fellowship will use home parties, hot rod clubs, and community recreation to decentralize Methodist youth work outside of church buildings.
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In Cincinnati, the United Lutheran Church has announced a new long-range program for coordinating parish education. The Rev. Dr. S. White Rhune of Philadelphia tells of a complete, coordinated curriculum running through all of the church’s schools. He says little relation exists at the present time among the programs of Sunday schools, vacation, and weekday church schools and confirmation classes.
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At Merom, Indiana, key laymen of the Congregational Christian and Evangelical and Reformed churches from 11 Midwest states held a get-acquainted conference yesterday and today. The two Protestant denominations plan to unite next year. Lay leaders in six other regions will hold similar conferences during the next few months.
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Naples: A Roman Catholic priest has announced he will set up a home for gangsters deported from the United States who cannot find work in Italy. The gangsters have found it difficult to get honest work in Italy. The plan has the support of Charles Luciano, former New York vice overlord, who runs a prosperous medical equipment store in Naples.
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Pittsburgh: The nation’s two largest Presbyterian church groups may merge. A plan to unite the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. and the United Presbyterian Church of North America was formulated at a gathering of church leaders in Pittsburgh. The new church with some three million members, would be called the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. If the committees, general assemblies, and presbyteries of both present churches adopt the plan, the two churches will unite in a combined assembly in Pittsburgh in May, 1958.
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The Roman Catholic archbishop of New York has been received in private audience by Pope Pius XII. The prelate, Francis Cardinal Spellman, is en route home to the U.S. after his annual Christmas-time visit with U.S. troops in the Far East. Cardinal Spellman will visit U.S. servicemen and women in Italy and Germany on his way back.
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Another evidence has come of better ties between the Vatican and Argentina. The pope bestowed his good wishes on Argentinians in an audience with an Argentine embassy official this week. Now provisional President Aramburu has expressed his thanks to the pontiff for the blessing.