The School Question.

Another item in this papal entanglement is the school question in the Philippines. The Papacy claims the sole right of controlling and conducting education in the Philippines; and at the same time here the schools supported from the public treasury; in other words, to have the Papacy, a union of the Church and the State, supported by the United States. Governor Taft claims the right of the American principle of separation to prevail in the Philippines and not in the school matter there. The papal plea is represented in the following documents:—OMP 15.1

Cincinnati, July 10, 1902.OMP 16.1

Rev. Dear Father: Should you be willing to do so, kindly sign your name to the enclosed memorial and return it as soon as possible to the Chancery, stating at the same time the number of Catholics under your care. The document has already been signed by the Rt. Rev. Bishop of Hartford, and the 282 priests of his diocese, and probably by many others.OMP 16.2

Wm. Henry Elder,
Archbishop of Cincinnati.OMP 16.3

Cincinnati, July 10, 1904.
To His Excellency, Theodore Roosevelt,
President of the United States:—OMP 16.4

The undersigned, the clergy of the diocese of Cincinnati, in their own name, and in the name of 200,000 Catholics of the diocese, would respectfully beg to lay before your excellency the following memorial bearing upon the Philippine schools:—OMP 16.5

Your excellency is aware that the Filipino people, in so far as they are Christians at all, are members of our communion. For three hundred years they have committed the education of their children to the care of religious teachers. To the training thus imparted the natives owe their present status as a civilized and Christian people. We respectfully submit that, in our judgment, the abrupt and complete breaking away from this system of education, and the adopting of another entirely devoid of religious coloring, coupled with the violent disruption of venerable traditions which must necessarily ensue, would be a grave hindrance to their progress in civilization, and impede unnecessarily our peaceful and successful government of the archipelago.OMP 16.6

We respectfully submit that the clause of the Constitution which requires the absolute separation of Church and State was intended by the framers of the document to meet the conditions in the United States of America, and not those which obtain in the Orient and among a people unanimously of one form of religious belief.OMP 17.1

And the Catholic paper from which these documents are copied, the Church Progress, of St. Louis, enforces the plea of the documents with the following editorial endorsement:—OMP 17.2

While our government has been far from doing the right thing by way of recognizing American Catholics in the Philippines, we believe justice will eventually prevail. For that the demand of fifteen million American Catholics is somewhat of a guarantee. It is one which no administration dare ignore.OMP 17.3

Against Governor Taft’s holding to the American principle of separation of Church and State, the Papacy sets up the argument: “The Constitution of the United States does not apply in the Philippines.” And since that is exactly what the Supreme Court has decided, who can deny the legality of the papal contention? And since the Papacy has the highest possible legal basis for her claim that the Constitution does not apply in the Philippines, she holds distinct vantage ground in her claim that the system that has prevailed there for three hundred years shall continue; and that is the papal system, with the splendid addition that the authority of the United States Government is now included in the papal system. And that this shall be firmly secured, she proposes to swing, in the United States itself, the political power of “the demand of fifteen million American Catholics”—“a guarantee” “which no administration dare ignore.”OMP 17.4

In addition to “this demand of fifteen million of American Catholics,” “which no administration dare ignore;” and as a further strong security that her system and conniving will and shall prevail in the Philippine school matter; is the significant fact that that Hon. James F. Smith, who was half of that two-thirds papal commission of the United States to the Vatican, was, upon his return from that commission, appointed by the President of the United States a “member of the Philippine commission and Secretary of Public Instruction in the Government of the Philippine Islands.” And this simply puts into her hands the whole control of the school question in the Philippines. And what possible prospect can there be of Governor Taft alone stemming that papal tide in the Philippines, when that tide is so industriously fed, not only from Rome, but from Washington itself?OMP 18.1