Report of the International Congress for Progressive Thought

Report of the International Congress for Progressive Thought; and of the 27th Annual Congress of the American Secular Union and Freethought Federation; Held in St. Louis, MO October 15 - 20, 1904. This book contains The Demands of Liberalism. 1. We demand that churches and other ecclesiastical property shall be no longer exempt from taxation. 2. We demand that the employment of chaplains in Congress, in state legislatures, in the navy and militia, and in prisons, asylums, and all other institutions supported by public money, shall be discontinued. 3. We demand that all public appropriations for educational and charitable institutions of a sectarian character shall cease. 4. We demand that all religious services sustained by the government shall be abolished; and especially that the use of the Bible in the public schools, whether ostensibly as a text-book or avowedly as a book of religious warship, shall be prohibited. 5. We demand that the appointment, by the president of the United States or by the governors of the various states, of all religious festivals and fasts shall wholly cease. 6. We demand that the judicial oath in the courts and in all other departments of the government shall be abolished, and that simple affirmation under the pains and penalties of perjury shall he established in its stead. 7 We demand that all laws directly or indirectly enforcing the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath shall be repealed. 5. We demand that all laws looking to the enforcement of “Christian ” morality shall be abrogated, and that all laws shall be conformed to the requirements of natural morality, equal rights, and impartial liberty. 9. We demand that not only in the Constitutions of the United States and of the several states, but also in the practical administration of the same, no privilege or advantage shall be conceded to Christianity or any other special religion; that our entire political system shall be founded and administered on a purely secular basis: and that whatever changes shall prove necessary to this end shall be consistently, unflinchingly, and promptly made. --- Well it was a good dream for a better America, but the cancer of society is too deeply entrenched to be overthrown by common sense or even the will of the people.
Emmett F. Fields