Freedom of Speech for Clergymen

was crowded with earnest, unsophisticated people of the urban and rural middle class, in whose lives apparently religion played a most important part. The minister, an officer of the Ku Klux Klan and a Fundamentalist, had not gone far in his discourse before he charged the instructors in high schools and college with teaching scientific materialism and undermining the faith and morals of the youth. Then followed the usual denunciation of Darwin and evolution. His congregation, composed of tax-paying supporters of the local schools and the state university, listened to this tirade with perfect equanimity, it being the usual attitude of the clergy in the small towns and countryside of this vast region. In a great democracy which depends for the effective functioning of its liberal institutions upon an informed and tolerant leadership, exercising the right of free speech with intelligence and restraint, this incident at once raises the question whether the ministry, who bear the breastplate of judgment on matters of vital concern, are measuring up to their responsibilities

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