t efforts to widen the effective
scope of religious influence. The government must be neutral when it
comes to competition between sects. It may not thrust any sect on any
person. It may not make a religious observance compulsory. It may not
coerce anyone to attend church, to observe a religious holiday, or to
take religious instruction. But it can close its doors or suspend its
operations as to those who want to repair to their religious sanctuary
for worship or instruction. No more than that is undertaken here."[32]

A few weeks earlier, moreover, the Court had indicated an intention to
scrutinize more closely the basis of its jurisdiction in this class of
cases. This occurred in a case in which the question involved was the
validity of a New Jersey statute which requires the reading at the
opening of each public school day of five verses of the Old
Testament.[33] The Court held that appellant's interest as taxpayers was
insufficient to constitute a justiciable case or controversy, while as
to the alleged rights of the child involved the case had become moot
with her graduation from school.[34]

PERMISSIBLE MONETARY AIDS TO RELIGION

In 1899 the Court held that an agreement between the District of
Columbia and the directors of a hospital chartered by Congress for
erection of a building and treatment of poor patients at the expense of
the District was valid despite the fact that the members of the
Corporation belonged to a monastic order or sisterhood of a particular
church.[35] It has also sustained a contract made at the request of
Indians to whom money was due as a matter of right, under a treaty, for
the payment of such money by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the
support of Indian Catholic schools.[36] In 1930 the use of public funds
to furnish nonsectarian textbooks to pupils in parochial schools of
Louisiana was sustained,[37] and in 1947, as we have seen, the case of
public funds for the transportation of pupils attending such schools in
New Jersey.[38] In the former of these cases the Court cited the State's
interest in secular education even when conducted in religious schools;
in the latter its concern for the safety of school children on the
highways; and the National School Lunch Act,[39] which aids all school
children attending tax-exempt schools can be similarly justified. The
most notable financial concession to religion, however, is not to be
explained in this way, the universal practice of