270 ANDREW J. SHIPMAN MEMORIAL 



with three Sisters, were also taken over in 1910. The whole 

 number of employees in the Indian school service afifected 

 by the "religious garb order" is given by the Indian Bureau 

 as forty-six all told. 



While the schools of the Grey Nuns at Fort Totten and 

 those of the Benedictine Sisters at Fort Yates have been con- 

 ducted in buildings that have always belonged to the United 

 States government, yet during the thirty-eight years of service 

 of the former and the thirty-five years of the latter, no com- 

 plaint has ever been made as to the religious insignia or the 

 "religious garb" by the Indians directly affected, by the gov- 

 ernment officials in charge, or by any responsible person from 

 any quarter. It remained for the complaint (if there were 

 any complaint other than an ex-parte order) to originate in 

 Washington, and to consist of objections upon theoretical 

 "constitutional" grounds of separation of Church and State, 

 made by Chairman Stephens of the House Indian Committee, 

 the President of the Home Missions Council, and Commis- 

 sioner Valentine on their own volition, and not in consequence 

 of any complaints from the parties concerned. 



The Rev. Charles L. Thompson, a Presbyterian clergyman 

 of No. 150 Fifth Avenue, the President of the Home Mis- 

 sions Council, and also in charge of the Presbyterian Home 

 Missions, as soon as he saw Commissioner Valentine's order, 

 wrote to President Taft that "The action of the Hon. Com- 

 missioner of Indian Affairs issued January ^J relative to sec- 

 tarian insignia and garb in Federal Indian Schools is to our 

 minds so manifestly American in spirit, so judicial and right- 

 eous that we heartily approve and commend it. We did not 

 know such an order was in preparation, but we now express 

 our commendation and ask that nothing be permitted to 

 weaken its force." The President acknowledged the letter 

 through his secretary, but issued his order of revocation. 



As showing the latitude of Mr. Thompson's ideas of what 

 is "judicial and righteous," attention should be called to the 

 fact that he is objecting to Catholic Sisters teaching Catholic 

 children in Catholic schools in Catholic garb, whilst he him- 

 self is engaged at the same time in proselytizing Catholic 

 Ruthenian immigrants and children in the Hope Chapel Pres- 

 byterian Mission on the East Side in New York City by means 

 of Presbyterian mission workers garbed in Catholic Mass vest- 



