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The word "public" in its concept is
changing and evolving constantly. We do
not know, and we dare not attempt to pro-
vide for what these governmental responsi-
bilities may be in the years yet to come;
but there is one safeguard, and that safe-
guard is the court. And in every instance
where there has been any question, it is
the courts that have made the final determi-
nation of whether or not this is a public
purpose.
Let me give you one example. There is
not anybody in the central part of the
State of Maryland around Baltimore City
who is not aware of the tremendous need
for a hospital in the area where many of
the underprivileged live. We have at the
present Provident Hospital, a privately
run non-sectarian — when I say "privately
run," I mean it is not run by the State —
non-sectarian hospital, most of whose pa-
tients are Negroes, most of whose doctors
are Negroes.
The hospital is utterly and completely
incapable of taking care of the needs of
the area that it serves. Private philan-
thropy is either being dried up or is not
going; in the areas that it used to a few
years ago.
It is tough enough at the end of the year
to pass the hat to maintain our private
hospitals, but I tell you, it is next to im-
possible to obtain the funds with which
to provide for total construction of hos-
pitals.
Facing this problem with respect to
Provident Hospital, they needed the new
location, the new structure, the new every-
thing, and private philanthropy began its
march to try to raise money.
This federal government that we have
heard a lot about over in Washington has
provided a big chunk of money for this
construction through what we call the Hill-
Burton Act. But then there was presented
to Governor Tawes and his fiscal advisers
the problem and the need. The question
that required determination was: Is that a
public need? The answer was yes, this is
a public purpose, and a bond issue was
passed by the General Assembly with the
governor's approval, and that additional
money was provided.
But as you wait it is not enough, be-
cause construction costs go up, and so the
same problem was presented to Baltimore
City and Baltimore City, likewise, approved
a bond issue for this purpose, which is to
provide the funds for the construction of
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what you may call a private hospital. How-
ever, we do not. This is truly a public
enterprise.
You may multiply this again and again,
because not too long ago the State of
Maryland again, in this same administra-
tion — no; I think it was when Governor
Tawes was Comptroller — in any event, the
Johns Hopkins University needed funds
for dormitories and other portions of an
engineering building. This is a private in-
stitution, if you g'ive the word "private"
the most narrow meaning'. This institution
provides the State of Maryland with many
opportunities for the young available stu-
dents unable to provide their own funds to
go to a top-flight engineering school
through scholarship. But when this bond
issue was presented, it raised these same
questions, because what the State of Mary-
land was doing- was giving: cash to the
Johns Hopkins University, after the State
of Maryland had provided for this bond
issue. And the Court of Appeals held that
the word "gift" does not mean what you
say it means. This is not a gift in the
usual sense, but a g'ift serving' a public
purpose where it is a g'ift of cash received
from the bond issue.
Now, we can multiply this, but there is
one question I know running through your
minds, and I want to meet it head-on right
now :
What do you do when you have the
money made available to what may be
privately owned or privately run or pri-
vately manag-ed institutions having some
form of religious identification?
The State of Maryland has provided
year after year in the budget for aid to
colleges and universities, making a specific
grant to them. No question was ever raised
at that time about whether or not these
were public purposes. But there came to a
head at about the same time two cases. In
addition to these grants to colleges, the
State of Maryland had provided that it
would loan money to hospitals in aid of
construction, pay it off, but give the hos-
pitals an opportunity to pay it back over a
longer period of time and at a lower rate
of interest. Two questions arose: first, was
this a public purpose; and secondly, if it
was a public purpose, was it barred by the
First Amendment of the Constitution,
which, as you know, prohibits generally—
I hate to say it this way because it is al-
most too much an over-simplification — any
aid to religion, or organized religion. These
cases came up in this fashion: The Horace
Mann League decided that it would go to
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