The Ten Commandments Monuments: A Short History

In recent years, the presence of Ten Commandments monuments in public spaces has been the subject of tremendous public debate and controversy, found at the center of multiple Supreme Court cases, as well as numerous state and local debates. Few may realize that much of the controversy originated in Minnesota.

In 1946, Judge E.J. Ruegemer, a juvenile and probate court judge in St. Cloud, Minnesota, heard a case involving a troubled young teenager who had injured a man in an accident while driving a stolen car. Rather than sentencing him, he decided that the young man would be better served by learning the Ten Commandments than receiving a harsh punishment, and arranged for a pastor to teach them to him. In 1951, Judge Ruegemer, a member of the Fraternal Order of Eagles, continued to pursue this project on a larger scale as Chairman of the Minnesota Youth Guidance Committee, heading a program that distributed paper copies of the Ten Commandments to “juvenile, district, and municipal courts…churches, schools…civic and fraternal organizations,” and a number of high profile religious, government, and business leaders.1 Although the program began in Minnesota, its reach had spread across America by 1953. By 1955, aeries (Fraternal Order of Eagles groups) nationwide had gifted thousands of paper prints of the Ten Commandments to local individuals and organizations as part of this campaign to instill good moral conduct in American youth. 

“Placing the Ten Commandments so attractively within the easy reading view of all the children of America ... puts the imperishable first and helps to arm our beloved country against the Godlessness of communism.” 

Glowing statements of approval from W. F. Dickens-Lewis, D. D., the secretary of the St. Cloud Ministerial Association (“composed of every Protestant Pastor in [the] area”); Rabbi Albert G. Minda of Temple Israel in Minneapolis; and P. W. Bartholome, D. D., the Bishop of St. Cloud were all listed on the back of the print, confirming its broad acceptance, at least among the Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish communities. Also included on the back of the document were encouraging statements from several authors, J. Edgar Hoover, Cecil B. DeMille, and a Judge of the United States District Court in Washington, D.C.

Among the quoted supporters was Garey Cleveland Myers, the “Editor of Highlights for Children, Author of the Modern Parents and numerous other books, Writer of Daily Syndicated Newspaper column,” who affirmed his support of the program not simply as morally beneficial, but as a patriotic effort as well. As he writes, “By placing the Ten Commandments so attractively within the easy reading view of all the children of America, the Fraternal Order of Eagles puts the imperishable first and helps to arm our beloved country against the Godlessness of communism.”

  1. Sue A. Hoffman, "The real history of the Ten Commandments project of the Fraternal Order of Eagles," Religious Tolerance, Published March 6, 2005; last modified July 22, 2015, http://www.religioustolerance.org/hoffman01.htm↩

Meanwhile, director Cecil B. DeMille was in the process of filming his cinematic epic, The Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner. Inspired by what he had heard of the program, he called Judge Ruegemer and suggested making permanent monuments out of the Ten Commandments, more durable than the paper copies, that could stand “in courthouse squares, city halls, and public parks” as “permanent reminders to the youth of the day.” 

Together, they decided that granite monoliths would be the most appropriate representation of the Commandments and worked to have them distributed across America. Thus the Fraternal Order of Eagles helped the commercial success of the movie, “urg[ing] its members to support the Ten Commandments movie as it was released in cities across the country,” and DeMille and Paramount Pictures benefited from the good press. According to researcher Sue Hoffman:

DeMille was honored in 1956 by the [Fraternal Order of Eagles] for his valuable suggestions regarding the monoliths, the gift of a replica of one of the tablets of the Ten Commandments made from Mount Sinai granite in which DeMille allowed a facsimile to be used in the larger versions, and the continued support of allowing Paramount Pictures to have three of the actors from The Ten Commandments to be present at a few of the unveilings of the monoliths.

Additionally, in every city in which it was shown, Paramount Pictures asked the theaters:

to designate one night as Eagles Night, to turn over to the local aeries all tickets that were sold by Eagle members for that night, and out of the proceeds, a percentage would be set aside earmarked for the carrying out of the Ten Commandments’ program.

And so it was that St. Cloud, MN Judge Ruegemer’s ambitious juvenile morality campaign, with the help of Hollywood, prompted the spread of the iconic Ten Commandments landmarks that now stand on city property, nationwide.