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Show RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY DENOUNCED Some things which Senator Robert A. latt oi Ohio said in a speech in Kentucky recently are so much to the point in a time when the wor d needs to bury prejudices based upon racial grounds, that we venture to quote Mr. Taft's remarks here: "In America many hostile people have learned learn-ed to respect each other's beliefs and to conduct a democratic government without oppressing those with different beliefs. But we do see a tendency, ten-dency, perhaps reflected in Europe, to build up prejudice against men because of their religion. "It is said that a man cannot be elected to ottice because he is not one of the majority; and there are those who deliberately try to spread that kind oi prejudice. pre-judice. It is contrary to every principle of the American Ameri-can Constitution. It can have no purpose except to destroy the inalienable rights guaranteed to every American citizen. It looks to the same kind of oppressions oppres-sions and persecutions of minorities which we see today in Germany and in Russia. Democracy itself cannot long exist if minority rights are destroyed. "Any man born in the United States can be elected to any office, whether he be Protestant, Catholic or Jew, provided only that his political views meet the approval of a majority of the electorate. The United States of America has always al-ways been, is, and must remain, the citadel of religious re-ligious freedom and religious toleration." It is hard to see how any American who sincerely believes in the principles of democracy can fail to endorse en-dorse Mr. Taft's utterances. Nothing can so certainly undermine the very foundations of the American system sys-tem than to deprive or attempt to deprive any citizen of his full and equal rights because he professes a different dif-ferent religion, descends from a different race or speaks the language of his country with an unfamiliar unfamil-iar accent. |