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Show Religion in Public Schools, -f OBJECT to religion in the pub-I pub-I lie schools," said J. B. Billard, la prominent merchant of Topeka, Kan., "and If- necessary I Mill bring an action in the courts to see if the board of education can force me to allow my son to submit to religious instructions in the public schools." Mr. Billard is only exercising his right as an American citizen and taxpayer tax-payer of Topeka should he bring action ac-tion on these grounds. He is paying for a Godless education for his child, and .the state guarantees none other shall be taught in the public schools. His 10-year-old boy was expelled for refusing to participate in the religious exercises of the .school. ' If Mr. Billard wishes to bring up his boy in the Mahommedan faith, he has just as much right to insist that the Koran shall be read to the pupils of that school as the Topeka board of education edu-cation has In establishing a compulsory compul-sory order that the pupils must listen to a chapter' from a Protestant Bible and repeat a Protestant prayer upon the opening of school. When freedom of conscience is stifled in a free school, It ceases to be a free school. It is only a Protestant; or "sectarian" school, with this difference, that Catholics, Jews and infidels are obliged to support sup-port it. |