National Affairs: My Day in the Lion's Mouth

In an almost offhand way, Eleanor Roosevelt put her head in the lion's mouth. In her column "My Day," she noted that Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York, thought that Catholic schools should have a share in federal funds for education. Mrs. Roosevelt disagreed.

Schools supported by public taxes, she wrote, should be completely free of any private or religious control. She did not deny the contributions that "Catholic, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist or whatever" schools might make to the community. But if a U.S. citizen wanted his children to have special denominational training, then he should pay for it and not...

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