Ask the right question these days in this little dream of a town, and dollar bills appear.
Hillsboro`s hands wave greenbacks. Then, Hillsboro`s fingers point to the message ”In God We Trust.” And Hillsboro asks its own question:
If ”God” appears on the almighty dollar, why not on the humble Montgomery County Courthouse?
”The World Needs God” is the message on a sign that has hung on the red brick courthouse in the heart of Hillsboro ever since Orrie Hancock, a local Sunday school teacher and teetotaler, demanded its placement more than 50 years ago to chase bootleggers and the general blues out of town.
Although its neon lighting long ago went dark, the courthouse sign still delivers its message by daylight, offering but one of many distinguishing features in this picturesque community unscathed by either ancient glaciers, modern malls or Wal-Marts.
Hillsboro, population 4,300, is one of those rare places that live up to romanticized visions of small-town Middle America. It offers grand old homes, a restored inn, neat taverns, thriving churches, a living and breathing downtown, two lakes, a community hospital, solid schools, two weekly newspapers, and a surprising complement of industries producing everything from zinc oxide to Jim Beam bottles to medium-security accommodations for convicted state felons.
Hillsboro lies nearly 250 miles southwest of Chicago and about 60 miles northeast of St. Louis and seems to need or want little from either metropolis. The town especially did not need or want a letter from Chicago that arrived at the courthouse late last month.
Written in a tone that rubbed an entire county the wrong way, the surprise attack came from the American Civil Liberties Union in Chicago. It commanded that ”The World Needs God” sign be taken down. Immediately. If not sooner.
”It is clear that this explicit religious expression by a unit of government violates the Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Illinois Constitution,” read the shot heard `round Montgomery County.
”We believe that there will be no question of the outcome in this case if we are required to resort to litigation,” the letter continued. ”A court would not only order the sign to be removed immediately but would also award us reasonable attorneys fees.”
Word of the haughty manifesto from Chicago spread like a barnyard odor in the front parlors of the county. Hillsboro`s hackles have been raised ever since.
”If I was suing someone for $15, I`d be more diplomatic than this,”
said Kathryn Dobrinic, the county state`s attorney.
”I don`t know if they are aware of any of the history of the sign, but to tell a community that they`ve got 30 days to remove something they`ve had for decades. . . . They must think the sign is dripping carcinogens or something.”
A vast majority of people in Hillsboro and environs have concluded that the ACLU in Chicago is knee deep in its own foul matter. Of more than 400 letters and telephone calls to The Montgomery County News, only three called for the sign to come down. The overriding response was that the ACLU in Chicago should mind its own business, said Nancy Slepicka, co-editor of the News.
”The people who could care less about the content of the sign`s message can`t stand to have someone from Chicago tell them what to do,” she reported. Most think the offending letter has three strikes against it, she said.
”It`s the ACLU telling us what to do. It`s someone from Chicago telling us what to do. And what they are telling us to do is take down a sign with a message about God.”
Last week, the 21 members of the Montgomery County Board considered the ACLU`s political correction and legal ultimatum. And, after a nearly five full minutes of careful thought, they voted unanimously to leave ”God” and his sign right where they sit, on high in Hillsboro.
”We`ll do whatever is in our power to keep it up there,” said board Chairman Paul Hamrock. In fact, Hamrock said, the board may just hang an addendum beneath the sign.
”A lady sent us $50 and told us to put up another sign saying, `Now More Than Ever,` ” he said. ”We`re thinking about doing it too.”
Pursuing `legal options`
ACLU attorney Jane M. Whicher, who drafted the letter on behalf of an ACLU member from Hillsboro whose name she does not plan to disclose, said that in light of the County Board`s decision to leave the sign up, she will advise her client ”to pursue legal options.”
”I certainly regret it if anyone has taken offense at the tone of my letter, but to us, this is a clear-cut violation of the 1st Amendment,” said Whicher, who disavows any prejudices against small towns, having been raised on an Iowa farm.
She said several courts have ruled that the motto on the nation`s currency, ”In God We Trust,” is an ”insignificant” violation of the 1st Amendment.
A sign atop the Montgomery County Courthouse advertising global need for a supreme being, apparently, is much more significant.
”To put such a sign on the seat of government where people must pass beneath it to participate in governmental or judicial matters is not a minimal violation,” Whicher said.
The sign`s history begins in summer 1936, according to most local memories, including the vast mental vault of Bob Bliss, 80-year-old senior editor of the News.
Bliss, whose grandfather founded the paper 100 years ago, said the sign and its divine message were ordered up by Orrie Hancock, a leading light in the Women`s Federated Bible Study Class and the Woman`s Christian Temperance Union.
”She was very zealous in her opposition to bootleggers,” Bliss said.
At least some of Hancock`s righteous inspiration might have come from the proximity of her home to that of a widow by the name of ”Black Rosie”
Fudoli, Bliss theorized.
”Black Rosie had a bootlegging operation, and whenever she got the word that the sheriff was coming to shut her down, she`d move everything out of her yard and hide it in Mrs. Hancock`s field,” Bliss recalled. ”After the sheriff left, she`d haul it all back.”
The presence of bootleggers in her back yard and the lingering doldrums of the Depression apparently inspired Hancock to march before the Montgomery County Board in the steamy summer of 1936 and demand that the sign with its divine declaration be posted for all to see.
Lacking neither nerve nor political savvy, the teacher asked two of her favorite students to accompany her to the board meeting. One of the girls was Carolyn Grotts, daughter of a one-time board chairman.
”I remember the drone of flies, and the feet of the supervisors propped on desks with spittoons close by. I knew a lot of the supervisors; most had eaten in my home,” said Carolyn Grotts McKenzie, 69, now of West Covina, Calif. The surprise appearance of Hancock and the two schoolgirls caused a sudden scramble to order in the room, McKenzie recalled.
”And there was an even greater scuffling when she stood up to her full height, which was only an inch or two more than mine at the time, and put her hands on my shoulder and asked for a word of prayer,” McKenzie said.
Defiant response
After getting the prayer and the board`s attention, the tiny teacher announced her plan for the sign and dictated its message.
”She was sopping wet with perspiration, but by the time she was done, the board members were so taken aback by her presence, they did not object. They just went ahead and did it,” she recalled.
McKenzie still returns to her hometown each summer and says she smiles when she sees the courthouse sign again.
”I kind of straighten my back a little and I think, `Yeah, the world still needs God,` and I`m glad I come from Montgomery County, where a feisty, 90-pound Sunday school teacher got the job done,” McKenzie said.
Strong community pride in the courthouse sign and its history insured a defiant response to the ACLU`s dictate, and it has sparked no little speculation as to just who might have complained about the sign to the civil libertarians in Chicago.
One guest columnist for the News, Japanese journalism student Masao Kezuka, who is serving an international internship with the newspaper, met with little acceptance when he suggested the town simply avoid a conflict with the ACLU by substituting the word ”God” for a more secular but still appropriate term.
He offered that the sign could be changed to read ”The World Needs Law.”
A certain County Board member seeking re-election received about the same meager response when he recommended that only the ”g” in ”God” be removed, thereby transforming the sign`s message into a none-too-subtle campaign slogan for none other than the board member himself, O.D. Jones.
But a courthouse sign announcing ”The World Needs Od” is not likely to be in Hillsboro`s future either, ruled the County Board chairman.
”We told O.D. he can`t have a sign that close to a polling place,”
Hamrock said. ”Besides, he already tried that when he ran for sheriff.”
