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ONE WOMAN'S FIGHT by Vashti Cromwell McCollum

ONE WOMAN'S FIGHT

By

Pub Date: March 22nd, 1951
Publisher: Doubleday

The heart of the issue in the nationally discussed McCollum case has been so misinterpreted and misstated that it is important to recognize the fact that the issue is specifically ""whether or not the non-sectarian public school will continue to exist"". This book, which recounts step by step the fight from a local appeal to an Illinois school board to the United States Supreme Court, is a plea for clarification of the issue, which all will acknowledge is one of the pillars of our democracy, and, in addition, a personal story of the ways in which the McCollums were affected, the reactions of neighbors, fellow citizens, fanatics the country over, misinformed but basically well-intentioned people who thought the issue was atheism vs Christianity, and violent partisans of the extension of specific beliefs. Inevitably, Mrs. McCollum's analysis of the encroachments of Catholicism will bring blasts down upon this book, but in the main, her presentation is more objective (on the educational lines) than the Blanchard study of this aspect of Catholic power, in that she clarifies the meaning of Catholic Public Schools. An important book in specific contribution to factual knowledge of what is, after all, a national issue which has not ended with the Supreme Court decision.