Article February 10, 1912 Issue

In rescinding his order for the exclusion of the practice...

Pomona (Cal.) Times

In rescinding his order for the exclusion of the practice of the rite of healing by the Christian Scientists on the Isthmus of Panama, President Taft did a thing that all broad-minded people will feel impelled to denominate as just and timely. What led the President to give the restraining order is not known to the writer, but the lifting of the embargo by the chief executive is an acknowledgment of an afterthought that impressed the President that his former course was not free from criticism and perhaps not entirely in accord with the spirit of freedom and religious tolerance. Without the slightest attempt to defend the belief or practices of the Christian Scientists, we feel constrained to say that their rights to the practice of the teachings of their belief and their choice of the kind of treatment that shall be accorded them in tunes of illness, cannot be denied them. If the liberties of the people are to be preserved, it will be necessary to stand firmly for such principles as are involved in this case. No matter if we subscribe to our neighbor's belief or not, we must respect the rights guaranteed him by the same document that gives us our own, and unless we do we may awaken some day to the realization that in failing so to do we have lost our own.

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In rescinding his order for the exclusion of the practice...

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