Page images
PDF
EPUB

prelates left to vis. Car&taV O^bons, Archbishop Ryan and a Wat oi excellent Bishops endorse and commend the movement, \t \s simply disgraceful and contemptible for this barelaced and. movvtViing Archbishop of St. Paul to set himself up as the censor of tVie Catholic Church in the United States. Every rcian jack, oi vis Vias as much right to criticise the United States Government Sls Vie has to bi eathe.

It is not necessary to endure or approve of all the actions of the Philippine Friars through a series of three hundred years. Doubtless tViere were black sheep among them as in all folds, but tYieir total conduct as the chief civilizers, teachers and savers oi trie Islands through those centuries is beyond question and ior a would-be great and leading Churchman in these United States which boast of their liberty and fair play, for such a churchman in such a country to turn against them and to aio. the persecution in his arrogant and vaunted methods, is to ont-^udas Judas, and to crucify the Lord afresh and put him to an open shame. Judas was a saint beside Ireland.

The movement of the American Government against the Philippine Friars is precisely the same and a part of that infamous movement which, in France, under the merest technique of law, has been driving nuns and priestly orders from their homes and their sacred labors during the past two years, and for the Archbishop of Saint Paul to place himself in league with the persecutors and more than all to pretend that the Pope is with him, is simply to pursue such methods of corruption, duplicity and barefaced lying as have characterized all the rebels and traitors that have stormed the heights of heaven and led men and angels down to hell from the days of Lucifer to Judas to Luther and Roosevelt of our day.

Be more temperate in your language, Mr. Thome; certainly, gentlemen, when these persecutors of the Son of God are more temperate in their actions, but, God helping us, not till then.

I do not claim that the Philippine Friars were or are all saints or that Friars in general are all saints. I do claim, however, that in all Catholic Christendom said Friars or members of the various orders or brotherhoods of the Church are the only men who are even trying to live up to the teaching of Christ, and the example of the early Church, when the faithful had all things in common—the communion of saints—properly understood, and no man said that aught he had was his own.

I do not say that all the lands they legally hold to-day in the Philippines or elsewhere, were all acquired without a flaw of injustice or selfishness; good heavens! if such a test were applied to the northwestern lands recently acquired by the Archbishop of St. Paul—every upright angel in heaven would weep for very shame. I do not hold that the Philippine Friars have no enemy among the natives of the Philippines. Every ingenious teacher, civilizer and ruler on earth has always had bitter enemies among the people he has most benefitted. Some of them are good, some of them not so good. Some of them may be disliked or even hated under the blasting and infidel making regime of the American Government, but to say that they are all hated and hated as a class is an infamous lie, for the value of which we have mainly the testimony of interested liars —namely American soldiers and missionaries, contradicted time and time again by the testimony of the Friars themselves, by all the historic records of the Islands and by every instinct of human reason. And for the Archbishop of St. Paul to join his prayers, voice and countenance with and to the masses of American groundlings and liars who are crying crucify these excellent men, is to write himself down a recreant to Christ and His church while spiritually assuming to represent the same.

If the Archbishop of Saint Paul should happen to see this annihilation of his resurrected dust and ashes, I ask as a personal favor that he will not mouth about the country stating, as on a former occasion, that my work was not my work but done by some Jesuit at 17th street, New York City. Let him find such work. And if he is asking for more, I have stacks of facts at my disposal and may shoot them off at any time.

William Henry Thorne.

OUR CHRISTIAN DEMOCRACY.

The history of every nation and of all the civilizations that have existed in the world has been marked by one unvarying rule, which is, that their periods of greatest strength and prosperity have been when there was the greatest diffusion of wealth among the people and the greatest diffusion of population

"^^^s^is^s^cij^ S^CNSt. N^csvis.- \^x^w"1^'VQ!^ l« A4h, -wealth con"*s*=s&s^&as»k ^ -^^sj^^s^~>cc^^\s^;^s^& % "^o^aJoiassti usftra Va the. cities, ^^^^^okves^ <2>*v -^^aJcOsv TOk^pwsK^ "wswiX. NJtth t\\e decay of agri

"W Sx \ic \rae VYvat h'«Xarj w^sate itself, unless American instiNxsJCvsws arv<i cwV\\z.a\ion ate tested to Teverse the experience of >^ve. past., -wYio -will say there is no cause for alarm as to the ivvXwre oi this country? What evidence have we that the causes operating so fatally hitherto will not produce like results here?— That the very conditions already proved so destructive are rapidly augmenting- in our time, is susceptible of the clearest demonstration.

Even now the population of any community in this State, for example,and New Jersey is not different from other parts oi the countrymay be so classified that two men in each hundred will be shown to possess more wealth than the other ninety-eight. According- to the United States Census for i8go, 64 per cent, of the total pqpu/ation centered in cities of eight thousand and over, farm lands having depreciated in value forty per cent, during the fast thirtyyears and the proportion of the people engaged in agricu/ture fa/Jen to Jess than one-half. Where is the evidence that these rich men of our country are actuated by any higher motives, are less selfish and cruel, or in any way morally better than the rich of other ages? Is it not true that the same lust for power, the same abuses of wealth by idle display and gluttony and aping each other in folly, the same ambition to dominate, setting themselves apart as a distinctive class, are generally prevalent and imperious as ever?

Are the methods used to accumulate wealth more honest than in the past? The most we can say in their favor, as now practised, is that they are a little less brutal than formerly.

In the ages of military domination great fortunes were usually the results of conquest, slave labor or direct robbery. The possession of said fortunes was likewise maintained by force. These methods have been superseded in our day by the more refined methods of commercialism, which seem to consist in lying, cheating, cunning, hypocrisy, betrayals of trust, and unjust laws imposed upon the people by the perversion of government from its real ends, and maintained by false teachings of political and economic science.

Such are the characteristics of modern commercialism under the form of a democracy or government by the people, so-called, which in reality is a domination of greed and ignorance. In practice both our political and industrial forces are controlled just as effectually by a limited number of artful, self-appointed leaders as were the centuries agone by their military rulers. View it from any standpoint you choose, it will be found that every element of abuse that contributed to the decay and downfall of past civilizations has its counterpart in our own day and we should see to it that each is throttled before working its inevitable result. I believe, with Thomas Jefferson, that great cities are great sores in the body politic and that the causes that operate to increase their growth and power are largely fictitious. I never go to a great city and see the vast crowds of people, seemingly busy, or contemplate the vast aggregation of wealth and luxury within its precincts, without asking myself how all these people find the means of living? And what is the mysterious power that attracts population and wealth to this centre, at a ratio so far outdoing the rural districts? For twenty years I have been interested in these questions; and, during the whole of my connection with the bureau of Statistics of Labor, I hoped to be able to make investigation of them by statistical methods, but the sti|)id action of the legislature in reducing appropriations for the Labor department rendered this impossible.

I have frequently spoken to others of this matter and the answer usually is that people go to cities because of the greater opportunities and social attractions to be enjoyed there; but this does not answer the question as to their means of living.

All economists agree that the source of subsistance comes, originally, from the land. This, however, does not apply to land in cities, for, if a city were to become isolated or deprived of supplies from the country, one half of its people would starve in a month's time. It is not so in the country. As things now are, in fact, the rural regions in such case would have greater abundance than usual.

It fs not true that people in general are influenced by mere sentiment in choosing a place of residence. There is always some economic cause to control social movements. And the solution of our problem as to the centralization of wealth and numbers in the cities will be found by studying the effects of the economic conditions under which they exist.

"S^ -*£ss>^ -^v«civ -s^^^sa^^^^^^"2^ 'wvvm&n, to actually ^s£^ssc«>occ\st. "CXv^ \.^Oj^\sv<s$i^fc.^ai^- o^Vte; ^>cfi\twe they viould ^^rs^ *^kssx >icve. caX ^^^^V^^.'Ocv Vcv dtas Is 4vte to accumu"NaJc^ycv \js<3 ^-^<c\va.\\^e. ^tom uwestigatvon oi the various ele"wnrxixs. \yy ^m\vvc\\ Yvumasv ad\N\\A«s. ate determined in the production, ^L\stT\V>w\.\oTV and consumption oi wealth, we shall find that, as now organized, exchange is given an importance altogether disproportioned to its legitimate function; that more than one half of those who obtain a subsistence from the profits incident to our present methods of exchange might be dispensed with; and that three-fourths of the expense now imposed in rents, profits and the like is mere spoliation, due to the rivalry of merchants and their attempts to best each other. Exchange, instead of being effected for the mutual benefit oi producers, has become an organized power of extortion. Instead of being- a means for equitable distribution of the products of labor, it has become a system of barter and sale; the dictum is, buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market. The whole of our commercial mechanism may be summed up in a phrase, "Anarchicaf Competition," based on selfishness. The ancient phi/osophers fooked upon commerce as contemptible, because of the falsehood, extortion, speculation, usury, fraud, monopoly and adulteration, which have always been its chief characteristics. But since it has grown to such collossal dimensions, through the opportune discovery of the mariner's compass and the power of railway h'nes—the increased aggregate wealth of the world multiplying chances for speculation and monopoly—our modern scientists and statesmen have become its apologists. These now lend their aid to perpetuate and extend the whole array of mercantile duplicities.

The operations of those petty traffickers whom Christ drove from the Temple at Jerusalem, whom He Himself characterized as thieves, were hut insignificant compared with the operations of the same class in our day. Industrial production has increased at least eleven fold and mercantile profits thirty fold since the time of Christ; moreover, in addition to the regular profits of exchange, the merchant now takes the profits of usury, increased transportation, stock-jobbing and monopoly.

The commercialist of to-day is not the small rogue he once was, when merely depised, but a great capitalist with immense power

« PreviousContinue »