No class in the community can grow steadily richer without causing other classes to grow relatively poorer. The two tendencies are halves of the same process. If a larger and larger percentage of the land falls into the possession of a given institution, it is mathematically demonstrable that a greater number of individuals must remain landless and homeless, and that the cost of access to the remaining land in the community must become greater and greater, making it harder and harder for the common citizen to live. Untaxed property in any community adds heavily to the common burden.
That this is not mere speculation may be seen by a glance at history, where it will be found in land after land, and in century after century, that favoritism to the church, wherever tolerated, has wrought incalculable evil to the people, largely through the heavy accumulation of wealth by the ecclesiastical body. So unendurable has the condition become that in country after country the only possible relief was found to be through wholesale confiscation, thus settling accounts at one stroke. Thus, Henry VIII of England became a reformer in spite of himself, and though personally a dishonest tyrant with few if any redeeming features, at least conferred a lasting blessing on the people of England by forcing the church parasites to disgorge enormous values which had become means of the most intolerable oppression. France and Portugal, though for centuries staunch Catholic countries, found the wealth of the church and the impoverishment of the people to go regularly hand in hand, and were finally forced, in decreeing the separation of church and state, to adopt stringent measures for breaking the monopolistic power of the hierarchy. The Philippine insurrection against Spain was largely an uprising of an outraged people against the priests and friars, who were coming to own everything, and to reduce the population to a state of vassalage. The part played by the priesthood of Mexico in the impoverishment of the people, while the church revenues waxed greater and greater, is familiar to all who are acquainted with the causes which have brought that unhappy land to a state of chaos and wholesale bloodshed.
SOME RESULTS OF THE SYSTEM.
Like tendencies are to be observed as a result of exemption of church property from taxation, wherever the false principle is in vogue, the only variance being one of degree. In Montreal, for instance, we have a striking example of the effect of wholesale exemptions. In 1913, when the evil had reached its height, and relief was imperatively demanded, the church had already come to own no less than one-fourth of the real estate in the community. This was simply the logical outcome of favoring this class of landholders at the expense of all others. The Montreal provisions were unusually lax, thus hastening the inevitable result; but they did not differ in principle from those of the American states which favor monopoly by leaving church property untaxed. The case of Trinity Church of New York city, already cited, with an accumulation of about $30,000,000 in property, is ominous of the fearful possibilities of an indefinite continuance of the policy of permitting one group of citizens to prey upon all the rest. The one missionary society named for St. Paul the Apostle, in the same city, owns not less than fifteen lots of land, appraised at various amounts from $2500 to $11,000 each, and is still adding to its accumulations. It would be hard to conceive of a more unwholesome state of affairs; and the process continues with unabated celerity. The peril against which England found it necessary to provide in the Statute of Mortmain is a very present one. If church property is to be permanently exempted from taxation, it is not difficult to see how an enormous percentage of all the property of the community may ultimately come to be tied up in the hands of these wealthy ecclesiastical corporations which have already made so substantial a beginning in this direction. We are jeopardizing the rights and liberties of future generations.
In this connection, it must be borne in mind that nothing is stationary. The minds of men change from age to age; and that which appears to one generation to be the most rootedly established truth, is in the course of a few decades completely rejected. Religion is no exception to the general rule. The Greek, the Roman, the ancient Norse gods have had their day; and not a worshiper remains on earth to bow before their altars. Christianity may likewise pass; already its active devotees form but a minority of the population. And if Christianity as a whole may ultimately relinquish the field altogether, it is still more unlikely that the tenets of any particular sect known today should hold permanent sway over the minds and consciences of sincere men and women. We are allowing hundreds of millions of dollars of property to be insidiously withdrawn from the community, and tied up in the hands of great corporations which in fifty or a hundred years will be the mere shells of soulless organizations. We are making it possible for them to become our economic masters, long after men and women shall have ceased to find spiritual nutriment in any part of their creeds. By what species of casuistry does any person think it possible to put this forward as sane public policy?
"O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason!"
TRUTH OF THE DOCTRINE IS NO TEST.
If the argument has thus far been conducted from the standpoint of the outsider, it is not intended to imply that the case against the exemption of church property from taxation rests in any fundamental way on the assumption that the teachings of Christianity or even the creeds of the churches are false. On the contrary, every most material ground for condemnation of the practice in question would continue to be valid, even if the truth of the Christian doctrine were assumed as a starting-point. "My kingdom is not of this world," is the express utterance put into the mouth of Jesus by his biographer. This obviously implies the principle of absolute religious liberty, so far as the secular state is concerned. The Christ of the New Testament disclaimed the intention of constraining the actions of unwilling followers. Even the man who had resolved to betray him was suffered to go forth in peace with the exhortation: "What thou doest, do quickly." In no part of his teaching is there warrant for religious domination of the state, or for control over the private actions of individuals. The only penalty for disobedience was withdrawal from the privilege of communion with him. Even the passage of dubious authenticity which smacks most of ecclesiastical judgment of the individual, goes no farther than to prescribe excommunication from the fellowship of the saints. "Let him be to thee as the Gentile and the publican," involves at most no more than an injunction to withdraw personal companionship from the unworthy. It is by man's own conscience and by the judgment of God in another world that Jesus expects evildoing to be punished. It never occurs to him to make religion a state affair.
Nay, it is possible to come closer home to the present subject. Unlike the church, which mutters "Lord, Lord," but departs from his teaching and example whenever its convenience is promoted by doing so, Jesus decided this very question on the side of honesty and justice. When this exact issue was placed before him, he not only paid his taxes, but plainly declared the duty of so doing, even though the existing government was one imposed by aliens. That, unlike the church which mocks truth by misusing his name to cover its utter antagonism to all that was vital in his teachings, he was so poor that he must needs work a miracle in order to obtain the tribute money, in no way touches the point at issue. The fact remains that he refused to take advantage of his exceptional position, but set the example of paying his tax to organized society. If the Lord of the church recognized the obligation of performing his civic duty, despite the fact that he was the exemplification of the religious principle, by what right does his church make itself more highly privileged than its master, and seek to set itself above the state?
HOW JESUS MET THE DEMAND FOR TAXES.