Since I’m a day late to the conversation, I wanted to post a separate message regarding the Jamie Gass column in yesterday’s Herald.
Gass’ argument is a combination of amusing, misleading, and ignorant about the history of the state’s law prohibiting the use of taxdollars in support of public education.
First, let’s consider the source of this column. Gass works for the Pioneer Institute which has a looooooong history of advocating for the privitization of state services, especially when it comes to education. Anything that re-routes public taxdollars into the pockets of a private entity (which ALL churches are), Gass is all for!
(Brief tangent: Wouldn’t it be ridiculous for me to insist that my share of money that is spent on police, or even national defense, be returned to me so I can purchase my own private protection? So why is it any less ridiculous for people like Gass to insist that parents be given thousands of tax dollars annually to give to a private institution?)
A brief look back at history shows that, yes, indeed, Boston was awash in a flood of nativism that ultimately resulted in the formation of the Know-Nothing political movement. And, yes, it was during this time, that the Mass. State Legislature, as well as several other state legislatures across the country, passed laws prohibiting the use of taxdollars to support parochial schools.
What was not included in Gass’ condensed history, was the bigotry and militism espoused by Catholic church leaders at the time against public schools.
In 1852, at the outbreak of the Know-Nothing movement, the lead council of Catholic bishops in America denounced the “Godlessness” of the nation’s public school system, and called it a cradle of “socialism, Red republicanism, Universalism, Infidelity, Deism, Atheism, and Pantheism.” This was about the same time that the Archbishop of New York spoke out against the abolitionist movement, derided the Protestant establishment as weak and effete, and said it was the church’s active mission to convert all of America.
Certainly, this ban smacked of reactionary bigotry, but given the backdrop, perhaps its a bit more understandable why Protestant-dominated legislatures in the 1850s weren’t big fans of giving taxdollars to parochial schools.
However, Gass’ column implies that continued bigotry against Catholics is the reason why this ban remains on the books. Yet Gass — and EB3 — seem to conveniently ignore the fact that Irish and Italian Catholics have been the dominating political force in this state for nearly half-a-century now. For a period, the House Speaker, Senate President and Governor were all Catholics. If this law is a remnant of a bigoted era, why couldn’t it have been repealed then?
Because the levers of power in Massachusetts continue to be pulled by the members of the Harvard Club? To quote our governor: Pulll-ease!
The reason it’s still on the books in 2010 is because giving public money away to private schools — Catholic or otherwise — has everything to do with being junk public policy, and nothing to do with lingering anti-Papist conspiracy theories.
