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One major plank in the platform of George Bush the Younger is more governmental support for certain charitable activities performed by religious groups, like feeding the hungry or sheltering the homeless.
The campaign calls this support faith based
initiatives,
and among these are Lift federal
regulations that hamper faith-based institutions from
involvement in the delivery of services to the needy,
Establish an 'Office of Faith-Based Action' in the
Executive Office of the President,
and Open certain
federal after-school programs to faith-based and community
groups.
At first glance, this makes sense. Religious charities
often do a fine job, and they might do a better job if they
had more resources. And in theory, at least, it should be
possible for the government to assist them without running
afoul of the First Amendment's provision that Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion.
Most analysis has focused on this angle, while ignoring what may be more relevant -- the federal government has tried something like this before, and it was a miserable failure.
It happened right after the bloodiest conflict in American history -- the Civil War. Almost from the moment that Lee surrendered, Americans began invading the West in record numbers, and this invasion was not exactly welcomed by the Sioux, Arapahoe, Cheyenne, Utes and other residents.
The result was more warfare in a nation that was sick of bloodshed. Settlers wanted the Indians' land, and the Army forced the Indians out of the way. The Indians, based on the 1862 experiences of the Santee Sioux in Minnesota, had no reason to believe that their lives would improve if they settled on a reservation. It seemed more likely that they would be issued rotten rations, if they got rations at all, while a corrupt agent got rich.
The reformers of the day got the ear of President Ulysses S. Grant shortly he took office in 1869. Those reformers, by and large, were humane and decent churchmen appalled by the violence and corruption of the previous Indian policies.
Indian agents had been patronage appointments, and Grant had begun by giving the jobs to unassigned Army officers. But in 1870, Congress made it illegal for military personnel to hold civil office, and Grant had to find new agents.
Rather than pick them from the rolls of campaign contributors and political supporters, Grant was persuaded to try a faith-based initiative. Various denominations had been sending missionaries to the tribes, and on that basis, the denominations got to name the agents.
Thus the Unitarians were put in charge of two Colorado agencies, Los Pinos and White River. Roman Catholics got seven agencies spread from Dakota Territory across Montana and Idaho to Washington Territory. Presbyterians got nine agencies in Arizona and New Mexico, Episcopalians eight in Wyoming and Montana, and so forth. The Mormons, who probably had the most experience in dealing with Indians in the West, were left out -- the Baptists got Utah.
And how did this work out?
Historian P. Richard Metcalf, writing in The Reader's
Encyclopedia of the American West,
observed that
Congress refused to appropriate sufficient funds for the
reservations, and so the agents were unable to keep the
few Indians they had from starvation, much less make the
reservation an attractive alternative to the nomadic life.
The meager funds that were granted were largely soaked up
by continuingly venal traders and contractors. More than a
few church-nominated agents, forced to live on an annual
salary of only $1,500, became corrupt.... Several
reservations were torn by interchurch quarrels over the
right of different denominations to establish
missions.
Metcalf concluded that during the eight years this
religious peace policy was in effect, more lives were
lost to Indian depredations, more money was spent on Indian
campaigns, and soldiers fought more engagements against
Indians than in any comparable period in American
history.
Is there a lesson in this? If I read history correctly, the main problem was not corruption or incompetence, which are always with us, but the lack of funding.
The faith-based initiative
of 1870 demonstrated
that good intentions and pious administrators are no
substitute for sufficient resources. But I haven't read
anything about that yet in the Bush campaign
literature.
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