Article July 13, 1912 Issue

We are not familiar with the details of the Owen bill and...

Adrian (Mich.) Times

We are not familiar with the details of the Owen bill and therefore cannot speak by the card as regards its salient and more important features. It has been reported, whether erroneously or not we do not know, that parts of the Owen bill are aimed against certain religious and medical cults, and that those who were instrumental in framing the bill had in mind more particularly the Christian Science healers and the osteopaths. If it is true that the Owen bill comprehends any such restraints as would interfere with the religious and medical freedom of the Christian Scientists, we predict that it will never become a law, or, if it should happen to pass both houses and receive the signature of the President of the United States, it will never have popular support and sympathy, two elements which are absolutely necessary to make any law effective and binding.

We make the above prediction for two reasons. First, it is repugnant to American principles of religious freedom and liberty as per the constitution. Anything that will interfere with man's freedom in the exercise of his religious or non-religious religious belief is un-American, intolerant, inquisitorial, and oppressive. No bill that embodies such features can become an effective law in the United States.

In the second place, Christian Scientists are not engaged in any profession, practise, or occupation that demands any restraining laws whatsoever. Their practitioners, at whom no doubt the restraints, if any, are aimed, are not practising medicine at all. Therefore the charge that they are operating without a license, contrary to law, is not only false but ridiculous. Any one at all familiar with Christian Science and its methods is either a charlatan or a fool, or both, who would make the charge that Christian Science practitioners are a menace to the community and should be restrained. We hold no brief from Mrs. Eddy's followers, nor do we belong to the Science church, but we know a great many Christian Scientists throughout the United States and have attended their church services very frequently, and are therefore prepared to say here and now that no religious people, if they may be called such, are more entitled to pursue the even tenor of their way, unmolested and unrestrained, than the Christian Scientists. We could write column upon column about the culture, refinement, intellectuality, patriotism, and high standing of the true Christian Scientists, and that such a class of citizens should need a special law for their restraint and suppression is absurd, and would seem humorous were it not so far-reaching and serious.

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