One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America (35 page)

With such overwhelming popular and political support, the “prayer amendment” seemed sure to sail through Congress and be ratified by the states with equal speed. But the congressional hearings, which many assumed would simply be a formality, turned into a prolonged moment of national reflection. Unlike the snapshots of public opinion upon which historians often rely—the quick shutter of an overnight poll, the slower frame of the decennial census—these congressional hearings provide an in-depth picture of American attitudes about the role of religion in politics. Ostensibly about the narrow topic of prayer in public schools, the hearings took on much larger proportions in the political world and the public eye. They became, in effect, the center of a national debate about the proper relationships between piety and patriotism, religion and politics, church and state. For four years, from 1962 to 1966, Americans in Congress and countless local communities addressed the role of religion in their political life directly, some of them for the first time in their lives.

Though the two camps in this battle were far from homogeneous, each clustered around a set of convictions. To put it in broad strokes, proponents of the prayer amendment believed America was a Christian nation—or, in their more generous moments, a Judeo-Christian nation. They were deeply invested in promoting a prominent role for religion in public life, believing that formal recognition of God was not simply an affirmation of the nation's religious roots but an essential measure for preserving the country's character. In their eyes, liberty came directly from God. If Americans ever came to believe that their rights stemmed from the state instead, then those rights could just as easily be taken away by the state. Thus, the debate for the pro-amendment side was about much more than school prayer; it was about the survival of the nation.

For opponents of the amendment, the stakes were just as high. Legal and religious authorities who opposed the idea warned that a school prayer amendment would radically reshape the status quo, effectively weakening the First Amendment's guarantee of religious freedom. Under a new “tyranny of the majority,” they believed, local religious minorities would be persecuted. But more than that,
all
faiths would be endangered. If the state intruded on churches' and synagogues' roles as religious educators, it would usurp not just their activities but also their authority. In their place, the state would foster a broader but blander public religion,
one drained of the vital details that animated individual faiths. The prayer amendment, the heads of major denominations concluded, would ultimately hurt religion rather than help it.

As these two sides took shape in the struggle over the school prayer amendments, Americans slowly came to a sobering realization. The mingling of religion and politics, which had only recently promised to unite disparate groups in a shared heritage and a common destiny, now seemed more likely to drive them apart. Notably, this was not a case of religious conflict in which different denominations lined up against one another, but rather an unusual instance in which the leaders of various denominations largely lined up on one side of the debate and prominent numbers of their lay populations moved to the other. As they debated the prayer amendments, both sides came to agree on at least one basic fact: beyond the broad generalities of public religion, their country was not, in any meaningful sense, “one nation under God.”

F
OR
R
EPRESENTATIVE
F
RANK
B
ECKER
,
THE
fight for the prayer amendment represented the culmination of his life's work. Born in Brooklyn, Becker served overseas during the First World War before coming home to start a real estate and insurance company. After the Second World War, he launched a political career as a Republican, first winning a seat in the state assembly from suburban Nassau County. He then rode Eisenhower's coattails to Congress in 1952, where he represented eastern Long Island for more than a decade. An active member of the Knights of Columbus and the American Legion, Becker was well versed in their efforts to promote public religion during the decade. He saw
Engel
as a threat to all he held dear. Though a devout Catholic, Becker had attended public schools and sent his children there too, believing the schools did a fine job inculcating religious and patriotic sentiment. And because
Engel
had come from his own congressional district, he took the ruling personally. To him, it was “the most tragic [decision] in the history of the United States” and needed to be answered immediately. To that end, he offered one of the first proposals for a constitutional amendment to ensure that “prayers may be offered in the course of any program in any public school or other public place in the United States.”
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While other congressmen soon introduced amendments of their own, none ever matched Becker's commitment to the cause. He had already decided the 1963–1964 term would be his last and thus resolved to devote his final days in office to the prayer issue. He worked tirelessly to build public support for the idea, while he began to coordinate the drive to secure passage of a prayer amendment in Congress. In a shrewd tactical decision, Becker urged all the congressmen who had introduced amendments of their own to abandon them and instead unite around a single proposal, which he and five colleagues introduced in August 1963. Formally House Joint Resolution 693, it was commonly called the Becker Amendment. It had three main parts. The first stated that nothing in the Constitution could be construed to “prohibit the offering, reading from, or listening to prayers or Biblical scriptures, if participation therein is on a voluntary basis, in any governmental school, institution, or place.” In the same spirit, the second section asserted that neither could the Constitution be read to “prohibit making reference to, belief in, reliance upon, or invoking the aid of God or a Supreme Being” in any activity or document issued by the government, including currency. The third section flatly asserted that the amendment did not “constitute an establishment of religion.”
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As scores of congressmen rallied around the Becker Amendment, they saw Representative Emanuel Celler standing almost alone in opposition. In truth, he needed little help. Except for a brief window in which Republicans controlled the House, Celler had served as the powerful chairman of the House Judiciary Committee since 1949, a role that effectively made him the gatekeeper for all constitutional amendments proposed in that chamber. While his district in Brooklyn and Queens was physically near Becker's, politically the two men were miles apart. A staunch liberal and devout Jew, Celler devoted much of his career to defending the rights of racial and ethnic minorities. In the 1920s, he made an impression as a freshman legislator by strongly opposing popular new immigration restrictions. He worked tirelessly for decades to repeal these measures, ultimately succeeding with the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, landmark legislation commonly known as the Hart-Celler Act. Not surprisingly, he dismissed the idea of a constitutional prayer amendment out of hand. “No matter how narrow such a proposal may
be,” he told reporters, “it is, nevertheless, an opening wedge toward elimination of one of our basic tenets, the separation of church and state.” In districts with a majority of Protestants, Catholics, or Jews, he predicted, members of minority faiths would find their religious liberties curtailed. Celler confidently announced that the proposed amendments stood “no chance” of passage as long as he controlled the committee.
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To circumvent Celler, Becker and his allies placed their hopes in a rarely used procedure known as the discharge petition. If they could secure signatures from a majority of their colleagues—218 in all—then they could force the amendment out of Celler's committee and bring it to the floor for a vote. This was, as Becker himself admitted, an unusual maneuver. “For 19 years, as a member of the New York State Legislature and as a Member of Congress, I have pursued the policy of never voting for a motion to discharge,” he announced to the House. But he would do so for “the first time” to give the American people “the right to determine whether the Constitution shall be amended to permit prayer in public schools and all public places.” Though the odds were long, Becker could count on the other 113 congressmen who had offered their own amendments to sign his petition, meaning he was more than halfway there at the start. To get the remainder, he resolved to use every means available to him. He was now, in the words of one observer, “a zealot” on the issue.
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Though he had little reputation as a legislator, Becker began to demonstrate impressive powers of persuasion. He regularly took to the House floor to cajole colleagues into signing the discharge petition, finding inventive ways to apply pressure. In August 1963, he produced a report from the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism and read its ominous goals into the record. The seventh aim of the group—after banning “religious proclamations by chief executives” and removing “the superstitious inscription ‘In God We Trust' from our coins”—was, Becker noted pointedly, “exclusion of the Bible as a sacred book from the public schools.” This atheist agenda was “astounding,” Becker marveled, but there was a cure. “Each Member of this House can help to block this spiritual catastrophe,” he said. “Signing Discharge Petition No. 3 now on the desk of the clerk will bring this issue to the floor.” A few days later, Becker spoke about an Episcopal priest in Baltimore who bemoaned the rulings against religion in schools and wondered, “Where will this
journey end?” “My colleagues,” Becker proposed, “we can end this journey by bringing a constitutional amendment to the floor of the House.” A few weeks later, he shared a news report about students in Newport, Kentucky, who started a campaign to protest the ban on Bible reading and prayer because the “adults haven't put up a fight.” “Have we, Mr. Speaker, put up a fight?” Becker asked. “The means to do so is provided in Discharge Petition No. 3.” Over and over again, the congressman made his message clear: his colleagues could stand with children in need and men of the cloth, or they could aid the atheists. In case these statements weren't enough, Becker threatened to go to the district of every representative who failed to support his amendment during the coming election year and actively campaign against him or her.
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As he badgered his colleagues, Becker busied himself with meetings, addresses, and rallies to enlist the public in his fight. On September 22, 1963, for instance, he played a prominent role in a massive “School Prayer Amendment Rally” at a Long Island high school. Sponsored by a local chapter of the American Legion, the rally began with a rendition of the national anthem that, according to the program, included the stanza with the line “in God is our trust.” It was followed by the mass recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. Several speakers addressed the crowd, including Reverend George T. Cook, rector of St. George's Episcopal Church in nearby Oceanside. The “allegedly learned justices” of the Supreme Court had erred grievously, he said, even if the decisions had been “hailed by a small but loud-mouthed group of confused clergy” who “have supported the National Council of Churches in its head-long rush towards socialism.” Becker was so impressed with Cook's remarks that he inserted them into the
Congressional Record.
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As their involvement at the rally made clear, the American Legion emerged as a strong ally of the Becker campaign. After its convention endorsed a constitutional prayer amendment in September 1963, national commander James E. Powers explained why in an
American Legion Magazine
editorial titled “The Roots of Americanism Are Spiritual.” “Under other forms of government, whatever liberty the citizen may enjoy is believed to be granted by the State—and what the State gives, it can take back. But no government can take it from us,” he noted. “It is the gift of God.” Accordingly, the commander urged “every Legionnaire to profess
anew the faith of our fathers in ‘one nation, under God.”' In December, the organization announced it would throw its weight behind the Becker Amendment. “The American Legion has supported discharge petitions but once or twice in its history, and does so now, only because of the unusual circumstances surrounding the prayer and Bible-reading issue, and related possibilities,” its legislative commission noted. “There are those who now would remove the words ‘under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance, and do away with ‘In God We Trust' on our coinage.” The head of its National Americanism Commission likewise urged Legionnaires to write their representatives and demand they sign the discharge petition. The Legion didn't act alone, as other national associations and fraternal clubs, including the Lions, Kiwanis, Civitan International, Catholic War Veterans, and Junior Chamber of Commerce, all rallied behind the amendment as well.
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While these established organizations dedicated themselves to the amendment, new ones formed specifically for the fight. In Baltimore, for instance, city solicitor Francis Burch, whose office had defended the school system against Madalyn Murray's lawsuit, gathered staffers in his office the night the Court ruled against them in June 1963. “The implications seemed distressing,” he recalled. “We coldly examined the probable scope of this far-reaching decision,” believing the court would next strike down “other traditional practices in our public life whose roots are derived from our religious background.” To prevent that outcome, Burch and his allies created Constitutional Prayer Amendment, Inc. “We are dedicated to the building of loyalty to America, its ideals and its institutions,” the organization announced. “One of the cornerstones of America's heritage has been a deep abiding faith in a Supreme Being. To deprive the young and the old of this recognition in public events will not only weaken this cornerstone, but, indeed, may well destroy it.”
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