The exemption of church property from taxation is a direct and unqualified violation of every one of the foregoing principles. It is a denial of the foundation truths of democratic government. It is a mean and underhanded attempt to do indirectly what cannot be done more directly. In its essence it is nothing more or less than the indirect support of the church by the state. It is the connivance of the state in the picking of the pockets of its citizens by the church. Every dollar of taxation which the church is allowed to dodge is one dollar more laid on the shoulders of the honest taxpayers. To exempt the church from taxation means to lighten its load at the expense of the people. It means that the state helps to proselytize in the interests of special cults. The smaller or incipient sects, which own no land or buildings, are placed at a relative disadvantage, regardless of their merits compared to the older and stronger religious bodies. The state rewards mere acquisition in such a way as to facilitate greater acquisition. It helps the strong as against the weak, the wealthy as against the poor. The trifle saved by the small country church, with its cheap structure located on land of a nominal value, is relatively of immeasurably less help to it than that given to the rich city church, with its magnificent edifice erected on a plot worth its tens of thousands of dollars and constantly appreciating in value. Even as among the churches themselves, the system of exemption works thus unfairly and in the direction of concentration of wealth. It affords temptation to the churches to procure and hold much more land than they really need, regardless of the growing wants of the community. Talk of the ethical and educational attributes claimed for the church is wholly beside the question. It is not the business of the state to raise its revenues only from the baser elements of the population. As its private citizens do not pay taxes in proportion to their lack of virtuous qualities, so neither should the institutions which enjoy state protection. Our great philanthropists, scientists, inventors and educators are not exempt from taxation on the ground of the great good they are doing. As citizens of the state and nation, they receive their share of social advantages, and do not whine over the fact that they are asked to pay their quota toward the maintenance of those advantages for the common good. Their good deeds in addition are voluntary, and not performed in the expectation of being permitted to shirk their social obligations by way of reward. CHURCHES DOCTRINAL, NOT MORAL.