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What Catholics Have

Done For American

Gvilization.

By CHAS. W. MEYERS, B. D.

Author of

“A MINISTER’S SURRENDER”

“THROUGH MAN TO GOD”

Etc.

“Go little booke—God give thee good passage ”—Chaucer

OUR SUNDAY VISITOR PRESS, HUNTINGTON, INDIANA

H



CONTENTS

Introductory Note 1

CHAPTER I—Catholics In America Before Columbus 2
CHAPTER II—America Discovered by Columbus 10
CHAPTER III—Catholic Explorers and Missionaries 12
CHAPTER IV—Who Were the Founders of Civil and Religious Liberty

in America? 21

CHAPTER V—Catholics in the War for American Independence 34
CHAPTER VI—Catholics in the Formation of the American Republic 45
CHAPTER VII—Catholics in the Preservation of the Union 49
CHAPTER VIII—Catholics in the World War. 54

CHAPTER IX—How Catholic Patriotism Has Been Appreciated and
Rewarded in America—^A Chapter in American
Persecution 63

CHAPTER X—Does the Church Teach That Catholics Owe Civil Alle-
giance to Rome? 71

OtflcMBbtf



INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

The matter of this booklet was first published in OUR SUNDAY VISI-

TOR in serial form, at irregular intervals, during 1922-1923; and while the

articles were coming out, repeated calls were received from both clergy and

laity, requesting that the entire series be published in the form of a pamphlet.

This has been arranged for with the OUR SUNDAY VISITOR PRESS.

The special purpose for which these articles were written is to counter-

act the everlasting howl that Catholics cannot be loyal citizens of our civil

government, because they ‘‘owe civil allegiance to the Pope of Rome”! To

contradict this false charge effectively, the author has presented here, in

historic order, the incontrovertible evidence of Catholic patriotism, by giving

the actual record of the part they took in the foundation of our government,

and in the development of our American civilization.

These concrete facts are far more important in settling this question

than any amount of political theorizing about the relation of Church and

State.

The author has put his whole heart and strength into this work; and by

the most strenuous historic research he has gathered together in condensed

form the “cream” of all the best Catholic and Protestant authorities on this

subject. The same amount of information on this question cannot be found

anywhere else in the same space and in the same convenient form. Though

the author's health has been wrecked by this strenuous work, yet he feels

happy in the thought that this booklet may be the means of subduing the

bitter and relentless opposition of the Church's enemies, by bringing them

face to face with the incontrovertible facts of American history.

Ever since the author has had the happy privilege of being a Catholic,

his chief aspiration and aim has been to put Catholic truth into non-Catholic

minds
;
and though he may never be able, physically, to write another booklet

for the benefit of his non-Catholic friends, his most earnest desire is that

this, little book may go into every nook and comer of our beloved America,

and may continue to carry its unique message of civil and religious tolera-

tion into the heart and home of every American citizen.

The author has put his life-blood into this little work, and his most

ardent hope is, that it may continue its blessed mission of peace long after

the author's pen has dropped from his nerveless hand.

C. W. M.



a WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

CHAPTER I.

Catholics In America Before Columbus.

It is often said that Catholics are “foreigners,”
and have the

foreign spirit, and consequently cannot be good
American citizens.

It would be well for those who say this to remember that
Catholics

were the first white people that ever came to
America, and were

the first to introduce Christian civilization into
our country and to

develop a genuine American spirit ; and through all the
years cu

American history Catholics have been in the very
forefront,

among the propagators and protectors of oui American
civili^-

tion. In this pamphlet it is our purpose, first, to
examine briefly

the influence of Catholicity in the past history of
our country, in

general, and then to conclude with a more minute examination
ot

Catholic influence in the United States at the present
time.

The first thing Catholics did for this western Continent
was

to find it, and name it, and let the world know about it.
This was

no small achievement, and it required centuries to
accomplish it.

Now to begin in the beginning, we want to study first

CATHOLIC AMERICA IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

Although this sounds like an anachronism, yet it is true that

Catholic explorers visited this Western World, not only in
the

Middle Ages, but even in the early part of the Christian
Era. We

have about seventy-five authors, who have given accounts of the

pre-Columbus history of America and among these accounts we

have conclusive evidence that the very first discovery of this
con-

tinent by civilized people was made as early as the sixth century

by the famous Irish monk, St. Brendan. Prof. O’Curry, in
his

“Lectures on Manuscript Materials of Irish History,” tells us
that

“St. Brendan’s first voyage westward was made about the year

660,” and was followed by other voyages extending through seven

years. It is said that the point on the Emerald Isle from which

he sailed is still known as “Brendan’s Hill.”

Prom another account we learn als'^ that St. Brendan, with

seventy-five monks, landed on a “far away shore” west of Europe

and explored a “most beautiful land in which there was a great

river.” This land is supposed by some authors to be the country

around Chesapeake Bay. P poet has glorified this discovery by

singing

:

“O Brendan ! God unto thine eyes

Hath granted sight of Paradise.”

These long perilous voyages of St. Brendan have been called

the “Irish Odyssey,” and were known and accredited by European



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 3

geographers even in the time of Columbus. It is a remarkable

fact that on the map which the learned Paulo Toscannelli pre-

pared for Columbus, just before his voyage across the Atlantic,

there is a space marked far out in the Atlantic ocean, and named

“St. Brendan’s Land.” From the Life of Columbus, written by

his son, Ferdinand, we learn that Columbus had this very map in

his hands on his way to America.

This St. Brendan was not a mythical character, for we are

told by several writers of Irish history that after he returned to

Ireland from these distant voyages he founded the renowned

monastery of Clonfert, one of the great schools of ancient Erin.

The importance of this story is also proved by the fact that it is

treasured up in the principal languages of Europe in the Middle

Ages. The authorities cited in support of these statements are

“Usher’s Antiquities of the British Churches,” “McGee’s Irish

Settlers in America,” Humbolt’s “Cosmos,” and others. If these

authorities are trustworthy, then we are obliged to admit that

nearly fourteen hundred years ago this Continent was discovered

by an Irish Catholic monk, and the first name given to it was in

honor of a Catholic Saint.

Just here it may be remarked, in passing, that Ireland’s posi-
tion and influence in the Christian civilization of the world has

been unique and marvelous. According to Montalembert, in his

“Monks of the West,” it was from Ireland, in the early ages, that

the “light of faith flashed out and illumined the dark regions of

Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Norway and Iceland.” Ger-
many honors 156 Irish saints, three of whom were martyred on
German soil. France has an honor roll of forty-five Irish saints

;

Belgium honors thirty Irish saints, and Norway and Iceland claim
eight, all of whom were martyred. That the little Isle of Erin
should be the source of Christian civilization for so large a part of

the world is truly wonderful. No doubt it was Archbishop Lynch’s
appreciation of this fact that led him to say : “Ireland has a divine
mission.”

It was Catholic Ireland’s influence in Norway and Iceland
which opened the way, later on, for the early discoveries in

America by the Norsemen. It was through the Scandinavians
that Christian influence continued to come from Ireland to Amer-
ica. Iceland, especially, was the chief stepping stone between the
Old World and the New, and it was to this “Ultima Thule,” (as
the Greeks called it even before the time of Christ) that the de-

voted and heroic Irish monks came and planted the Cross of Christ
in A. D. 829. This “jumping-off-place,” as we Americans would
call it, was not too far away for these faithful Irish missionaries
to find it. Iceland was evangelized before Norway was, and it is
sad to relate that in 860 A. D. the pagan Norwegians visited the



4 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

island, drove out the Christians, and then a few years later, found-

ed a Norse colony there. Thus was the light of faith extinguished

in Iceland, and then, for more than one hundred years, Iceland,

Norway and Sweden continued to be wrapped in heathen dark-
ness.

In this period of pagan gloom, from 860 to 985, a very re-

markable event occurred, as related in the Icelandic sagas. Ac-

cording to this account, a wind-tossed vessel from Iceland was

thrown upon the shore of a far western land which was called

“Irland-it-Mikla”—Greater Ireland—and here the leader of the
voyagers was “baptized.” Even the voyager’s name is given in

the following sentence quoted from these Icelandic records : “In

983 Are Marson, of Iceland, was driven by storms to a far-off land

called Irland-it-Mikla—Greater Ireland—where he was baptized.”
If this be true, then the Christians in America who baptized this
pagan Icelander must have been the descendants of Christians

who reached this Continent long before the Christian Norsemen
came to our shores. Where could these Christians have come
from, who were found on this Continent in 983 A. D. ? The only
satisfactory answer would seem to be that they were the de-

scendants of the Christian colony established here in 560 A. D. by

St. Brendan. It is truly remarkable and significant that the same

country which ancient Irish records called “St. Brendan’s Land”

should be called in the Icelandic records “Irland-it-Mikla”

—

Greater Ireland.
,

In 985 A. D. Greenland was discovered by pagan navigators

from Iceland
;
and soon after this, the untiring Irish Catholic mis-

sionaries evangelized Norway, Sweden and Greenland, and re-

Christianized Iceland. Immediately after this Leif, Son of Erik,

discovered America; and then, for four hundred years there was

continuous inter-communication between Ireland, Norway,

Sweden, Iceland, Greenland and America.

It was chiefly through Leif Ericson’s influence that Greenland
was evangelized. Near the close of the tenth century Leif made a
visit back to Norway, and found that the King and people there

embraced Christianity under the preaching of the Irish mis-

sionaries, and he was so impressed by this fact he, too, promptly

became a Christian, and on nis return to Greenland he took with

him a Christian missionary under whose ministry all Greenland
soon became Christian.

So freely did the Norsemen now receive the gospel that by
the year 1000 both Iceland and Greenland were entirely Catholic

;

and a half century later, two espiscopal sees were established

—

one at Skalholt, Iceland, and the other at Garda, Greenland.

A Danish chronicle records the fact that in the “golden age”
of the Greenland colonies, there were 280 settlements, four monas-



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 5

teries, and 100 parishes in the diocese; and that the diocese was

ruled successively by seventeen bishops during the period between

1120 A. D. and 1408 A. D.

Soon after Leif Ericson introduced Christianity into Green-

land, he discovered America and brought the light of faith to our

eastern shores. The Icelandic records tell us that the first land

he reached was barren and rocky, and Leif called it Helluland

(Stone Land). This is thought to be New Foundland. A little
further south they discovered a level woodland, which they called

Markland (Woodland) . This is supposed to be Nova Scotia. After

two more days’ sailing, they landed and explored a country where

there was a river. Here they found the wild grapes which caused

them to name the country Vinland (Wineland) . This is now gen-
erally thought to be the country around Narragansett Bay.

Soon after this, three Norse Catholics—Thorwald, Thorstein
and Thorfinn—^visited Vinland and gradually formed a settlement.
In 1003 Thorwald was killed by the natives, and his kinsmen

buried him on a headland near where Boston now stands. A cross
was placed at his grave, and this point of land was long known as
the “Promontory of the Cross.” “Thus,” says Dr. John 0. Murry,

“was the Catholic sign of redemption erected on the coast of

Massachusetts nearly six hundred years before the Puritan set

foot on Plymouth Rock.” Thorfinn lived in Vinland until 1007,

when he returned to Greenland, but the colony continued to
flourish for a number of years.

In 1059 Vinland was visited by Bishop John, of Ireland, but

soon after he came he was killed by savages. Thus, over 800
years ago the soil of New England was sanctified by the martyr
blood of an Irish Catholic Bishop. About 1121 A. D. Erik Upsi,

Bishop of Garda, Greenland, came to Vinland, which was by that
time included in his episcopal see. He and his zealous missionaries
revived the Church there, and there, we are told, he continued to
live until his death. Dr. Vetromile, in his “Abnaki and Their His-

tory,” says: “The Catholic Church was properly established on
this Continent in 1121;” and Rev. W. F. Clarke, S. J., in nis
“Lives of the Deceased Bishops of the United States,” calls Bishop

Erik “the first American Bishop.”

The account we have given, so far, of the discovery and evan-
gelization of this Western Continent by the Irish and Norse Chris-
tians, is based chiefly on the ancient historic records known as the
Icelandic sagas. These have been carefully examined by eminent
scholars who have collected them into a great work under the
title, “Antiquitates Americanae,” which has been published under
the auspices of the Royal Society of Northern Antiquarians. It io
written in Icelandic and Danish, with a Latin translation, and is
regarded as being decidedly the highest authority on this subject



6 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

in existence. The distinguished Von Humboldt, in his “Cosmos,”
(Vol. II, pp. 269-72), gives his estimate of these ancient records

as follows: “We are here on historic ground.—The sagas and
other documents concerning the expeditions of the Norsemen to

Hellulahd, to Markland, and to Vinland in Massachusetts have

been published and satisfactorily commented upon—^the discovery
of North America by the Norsemen cannot be disputed.”

Professor Rafn, the noted Danish archaeologist, states, as

the result of many years’ research, that “America was repeatedly
visited by the Icelanders in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries;

and that everywhere they introduced Christian civilization among

the natives.”

The Icelandic sagas are also corroborated by two remarkable

documents known as the “Flatey Book” and the “Hauks Book,”
which are preserved in the Royal Library at Copenhagen. Both

of these contain matter gathered from the sagas relative to Amer-

ica, in which Vinland is distinctly mentioned. It has been my
privilege to examine copies of both of these books.

The saga documents are corroborated, further, by another

most valuable work, known as the “Vatican Manuscript.” This
was discovered in the Vatican Library at Rome in 1902. Photo-
graphic copies of this Manuscript are preserved in many libraries
in America, and I found by examination that it consists of a num-

ber of letters written by several Popes at different times to the

different Bishops and Archbishops who had control of the
Churches in Norway, Iceland, Greenland and Vinland. The earliest

of these letters is that of Pope Innocent III, written February 13,

1206, to the Archbishop of Nidros, Norway, whose jurisdiction ex-

tended to Iceland, Greenland and Vinland. We have already seen
that Vinland was included in the See of Greenland, by the fact

that Bishop Erik Upsi came from Greenland to look after the wel-
fare of the Church at Vinland. In harmony with all this. Rev. W.
F. Clarke, S. J., says: “Centuries before Christopher Columbus

opened the way through mid-ocean from Europe to America,
Catholic priests and bishops, by the authority of the Roman Pon-
tiffs, had landed on the shores of more than one of the thirteen
States, had preached the faith, administered the sacraments, and

died martyrs to their zeal for our religion.”

In addition to these literary documents, we have here in
America many remarkable ruins, bearing significant inscriptions,
among which are several which certainly throw some light on the
Norse discoveries in this country.

At Newport, R. I., there is an old “Stone Tower,” which, 200
years ago, was called the old “Stone Mill.” From the “Antiqui-
tates Americanae” we learn that “this ancient tholus in Newport,
which was erected about the time of Bishop Erik (1121), belonged



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. n

to an old Scandinavian church or monastery, where in alternation

with Latin Masses, the old Danish tongue was heard over seven

hundred years ago.” Many of our modern historians and anti-
quarians have been greatly puzzled as to the origin of this strange

old monument. The Danish scholar. Prof. Rafn, believed this

tower to have been built by the Norsemen, and that it was “erect-

ed certainly not later than the twelfth century.”

In 1912, while touring in New England, I visited this strange
old structure and photographed it. As I stood in the presence of

this mysterious monument I felt disappointed that it did not have
one informing word inscribed upon it. There it stood in solemn

silence, mocking us with its muteness. But though it has no

tongue to speak, its silent presence is eloquent. Our own beloved
Longfellow recognized its meaning, and in his “Skeleton in

Armor” he associates this Tower with the famous armored skele-
ton which was dug up in Fall River, Mass. Longfellow makes the
skeleton give the following account of himself

:

was a Viking old,

My deeds though manifold,
No skald in song has told.

No sage taught thee!

Take heed that in thy verse,

Thou dost the tale rehearse,

Else dread a dead man's curse;

For this I sought thee.

^‘Three weeks we westward bore.

And when the storm was o'er,

Cloud-like, we saw the shore.

Stretching to the leeward.

There for my ladys' bower,
Built I this lofty Tower,

Which to this very hour.

Stands looking seaward!"

Just a few years ago there was discovered near Kensington,
Minn., a stone covered with Scandinavian runic inscriptions which
were examined by Prof. H. R. Haland, a Swedish scholar of Chi-
cago, and which he translated as follows: “Eight Swedes and
twenty-two Norwegians on a journey of discovery from Vinland
westward. We had camp by two rocks, one day’s journey north
from this stone. We were out fishing one day. When we returned
(to camp) we found 10 men red with blood and dead. AVM. (Ave
Maria), save us from evil! We have 10 men by the sea to look
after our vessel, 41 day’s journey from this place, year 1362.”



8 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

Prof. Haland tells us that the peculiar form of the runic char-

acters on this stone is in perfect harmony with the date of this in-
scription, 1S62. These are just like the runes on other inscrip-

tions which are known to belong to the fourteenth century, and
which are now preserved in the Library at Stockholm. As this
form of runes is very rare, (only a very few inscriptions being

preserved), it is practically impossible for the inscription on this

stone to have been written by any modern Scandinavian scholar.

The circumstances of its discovery, also, favor this conclusion. It

was dug up in a swamp where it was found buried and entwined
in the roots of a full-grown tree, where it had evidently been lying

for several centuries. These considerations make it practically
certain that this inscription was written by a Scandinavian ex-

plorer in the fourteenth century.

Now, with these evidences of its genuineness, the next ques-

tion that interests us is, what do we learn from it? Briefly stated,
this inscription brings to us the message that 130 years before

Columbus discovered America, thirty Catholic Scandinavian ex-

plorers started out from Vinland and penetrated the country to

the sources of the Mississippi River. Here some of the party go

fishing, leaving 10 men to guard the camp. When they return
they discover that their 10 comrades have been cruelly killed and

scalped by savages. In their horror they cry out to the Virgin

Mary to save them from the same fate. And then, in anticipation
of such a possible fate, they write a brief account of their perilous

journey on this imperishable stone, to be found and read by future

generations. The two most significant facts we learn from this
“Kensington Rune Stone” are, that these explorers came from

Catholic Vinland, and that in their distress they prayed to the

Blessed Virgin Mary for help. I have among my papers an inter-
esting picture of this stone, showing the runic characters very

plainly
;
and on a separate sheet I have a fac simile of the inscrip-

tion, with Prof. Haland’s interlinear translation.

Thus we have traced briefly the historic evidences that show
that in the Middle Ages, not only before the Reformation, but

before Martin Luther was born. Catholic explorers repeatedly

visited America and founded Christian colonies on our shores.

So, without fear of being thought unhistorical, we may indulge
our poetic sentiment and sing with the poet

:

“O, who has not heard of the Northmen of yore.

Who flew, like the sea-birds, their sails from the shore;
How westward they strayed not till breasting the brine.
They hailed Narragansett, the land of the Vine.”

That the labors of these Christian explorers seem to have



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. d

come to naught is a sad reflection. But it might be well to remind

ourselves that while their material work may have fallen into
ruins, their spiritual influence is undying, and continues to this

day to be a helpful inspiration to every devout Catholic. Besides

this, we may also rest assured that God’s divine benediction is
ever upon the martyr spirit of the Christian missionary. Not

only is the divine blessing upon the missionary himself, but it also

rests upon his labors. We may be assured that God will never for-
sake the land whose soil has been hallowed by the blood of Chris-

tian martyrs. As it was in the days of the Holy Apostles and

Fathers, so also in these days, we venture to hope that “the blood
of the martyrs shall be the seed of the Church.”

We have the confldence that on these ruins there is being
buift today a glorious Christian civilization whose triumph will

most certainly be consummated in the days to come. For this, let

us never cease to pray and labor.

REFERENCES:

‘The Geog’raphical Knowledge of the Ancients in Relation to the Dis-

covery of America.’’—Tillinghast.

“America Not Discovered by Columbus,” 3rd edition 1883.—Anderson.

“Pre-Columbian Discovery of America by the Northmen.”—Decosta.

“Antiquates Americanae.”—Rafn.

“Lives of Deceased Bishops of the United States.”—W. J. Clarke, S. J.;
also “Centennial Discourse,” by same author.

.“Monks of the West.”—Montalembert.
“Cosmos.”—Humbolt. (Vol. II, pp. 269-72).

“The Vatican Manuscript” (Discovered in Vatican Library in 1902. Con-

tains letter of Pope Innocent III to Archbishop of Norway, February 13,

1206).

“The Flatey Book” and “The Hanks Book,” both prepared in the Royal

Library, Copenhagen.

The Skeleton in Armor.”—Longfellow.



10 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

CHAPTER II.

America Discovered by Columbus.

There is a remarkable passage written by Seneca in the first

century which would seem to be a clear prediction of the discovery

of this Western Continent. The passage is found in Seneca’s

Medea 376, and reads as follows, in the Latin;

“Venient annis saecula seris Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum

Laxet, et ingens pateat tellus Tethysque novos detegat orbes Nec

sit terris ultima Thule.”

Prof. John Fiske translates this as follows-:

“There will come a time (cycle) in later years, when Ocean

shall loosen the bands of things by which we have been confined,
and an immense land shall be revealed, and Tethys shall disclose

new worlds
;
neither shall Thule be the ultimate limit of the lands.”

A more popular translation reads thus:

“For, at a distant date, this ancient world

Will westward stretch its bounds, and then disclose

Beyond the Main a vast new continent
With realms of wealth and might.”

Prof. Fiske, in his “Discovery of America,” says of this re-

markable prediction: “This is certainly one of the most notable

instances of prophecy on record.”

So suggestive was this strange poetic prediction that Chris-

topher Columbus treasured it, and often repeated it as a favorite

stanza. While it was partially fulfilled in the discoveries made
by the Irish and Scandinavians in the Middle Ages, yet its com-

plete fulfillment was realized by Columbus in the fifteenth cen-

tury.

Besides this remarkable prediction, Columbus was also ac-

quainted with the work of ancient geographers, and with works

of Mandeville and Marco Tolo, and Toscanelli, all of which in-

spired him to undertake his colossal and nazardous enterprise.

When the Western Continent was discovered in 1492, Martin
Luther was only nine years old, still busy studying his Catholic
Catechism. Protestantism was not yet born, and practically all

Christiandom was still Catholic, hence the discovery of the New



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION, 11

World was pre-eminently a Catholic enterprise. It was conceiv-

ed in the mind of a Catholic mariner, encouraged by a Catholic

monk, advocated before the Spanish throne by a Catholic Cardinal,

fitted out with a fleet by a Catholic King, and aided by a Catholic

Queen who pledged her royal jewels in the interests of the mighty

enterprise.

It was undertaken, too, with a most devout trust in God, and

a most earnest appeal for divine guidance and protection. The

first words in the Admiral’s diary of this memorable voyage were

these: “In Nomine Domini Nostri Jesu Christi” On the eve of
his departure, Columbus made his confession to Padre Perez, and

at the head of his crew of 120 men attended Mass and received
Holy Communion.. When they had boarded their tiny vessels he
reverently committed the little fleet to the benign care of the

Blessed Virgin Mary. His own ship was named Santa Maria. Ev-
ery evening during the voyage he and his crew reverently prayed

“Salva Regina, Mater misericordiae, vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra,

salve !” and followed this prayer by singing the “Ave Maris Stel-

la.” The fitness of this Latin Hymn for such a sea voyage is seen
in the following translation

:

“Bright Mother of our Maker, Hail!

Thou Virgin ever blest.

The Ocean’s Star by which we sail
And gain the port of rest

!”

At the first sight of the new land the Admiral and his crew
fell upon their knees and chanted the Gloria in Excelsis. When
they had landed, he bowed down thrice to the earth and kissed the
soil of the newly found land. While kneeling he reverently pray-

ed : “Eternal and Almighty God ! who by Thy sacred word hast
created the heavens, the earth, and the seas, may Thy name be
blessed and glorified in all places. May Thy Majesty be exalted,
who hast deigned to permit that by Thy humble servant. Thy sac-
red name should be made known and preached in this new world.
Amen.” In his religious zeal he named the new country “San
Salvador,” and the first Christian service that graced the New
World was the sacrifice of the Mass, which for more than 100
years was the only form of Christian worship on the Western
Continent.

Thus was the mightiest human enterprise in all history in-
spired by the Holy Catholic Church

;
and if original discovery se-

cures the highest right to the occupation of a country, then Cath-
olics have the first right to live on American soil.

Perhaps no more appropriate language could be chosen with
which to close this brief account of “Columbus’ discovery of Amer-



12 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

ica,” than the following by Prof. Fiske: “The first voyage of

Columbus tojthis continent is a unique event in the history of

mankind. Nothing like this was ever done before, and nothing

like it will ever be done again. No more worlds are left for any
future Columbus to discover. The era of which this great Italian

mariner was the most illustrious representative, has closed for-

ever.”

(See Fiske’s “Discovery of America by Columbus” Vols. I and

II, page 446, and “Life of Columbus,” by his son, Fernando

Columbus).

The author will never forget the emotions which thrilled his

heart, as he stood once in the great Cathedral in Havana, Cuba,

and looked upon the spot where the reputed remains of this col-

ossal character had been sacredly kept for more than 100 years.

REFERENCES:
Seneca’s “Medea.”

CHAPTER III.

Catholic Explorers and Missionaries.

Now it must not be forgotten that these Catholic pioneer ex-
plorers were accompanied, through all their explorations, by the

Catholic missionaries, whose chief object and effort was to evan-

gelize and civilize the natives. Thus did civilization go hand in

hand with exploration, resulting in the conversion of millions of

American Indians. On his second voyage to America Columbus
brought with him the first band of Christian missionaries con-

sisting of twelve priests and a vicar-apostolic. Their first work

was to build and consecrate a chapel at Isabella, in Hayti. This

brought with him the first band of Christian missionaries con-

sidered as the historic beginning of the Catholic Religion in Amer-

ica. The work of evangelizing the Indians was especially encour-

aged by Queen Isabella. Washington Irving says:

“She ordered that great care should be taken in the religious

instruction of the Indians; that they should be treated with the

greatest kindness
;
and that signal punishment should be inflicted

on all Spaniards who should be guilty of outrage or injustice to-
wards them.” The Christian spirit and attitude of the Spanish

Government toward the Indians is still more clearly shown by the

special stipulations made in the grant given by the King of Spain
to a Spanish colonizer. In 1523 the King made a grant to Vas-



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 13

quez de Ayllon, one of the judges of San Domingo, in which we

find the following significant statement concerning the treatment

of the Indians : “Whereas our principal intent in the discovery of

new lands is that the inhabitants and natives, who are without the

knowledge of faith, may be brought to understand the truths of

our holy Catholic faith and become Christians; (and this is the

chief motive you are to bear and hold in this affair, and to this

end it is proper that religious persons should accompany you) ;

therefore, I empower you by these presents, to carry with you the

religious whom you may judge necessary for divine worship.”
This shows, notwithstanding the fact that some Spanish con-

quistadores were cruel to the natives, that the Spanish Govern-

ment had the most benign and unselfish sympathy for them. Prof.

Chas. P. Lummis declares: “There could be no more useful read-

ing than the laws of Spain as to the aborigines of America. They

contain the highest minded, most complete and most noble Indian

policy ever framed by man.”
Among the first missionaries of the West Indies and Mexico,

the most illustrious name is that of the venerable and courageous
Dominican, Las Casas. Beginning in 1602, he labored zealously

for more than 60 years, spreading the light of the Gospel among
the natives, and pleading for their protection against the injus-

tice and cruelty of the Spanish soldiers and adventurers. Las

Casas crossed the ocean 16 times in order to plead the cause of the

Indians at the court and before the throne of Spain. He even ap-
pealed to Pope Paul III, and secured from him the Magna Charta
in the Brief of 1537 which decreed that “no Indian should be en-

slaved.” Fiske calls Las Casas “the most beautiful and sublime

character in all the annals of Christian history since the Apos-

tles.” So rapid was the evangelization of Mexico that by the

year 1550, 30 years after the conquest by Cortez, there were sev-

eral millions of Christian Indians in Mexico. Father Toribio puts

the number at 9,000,000—nearly the whole population. The first
place in our Southland to receive the Gospel was Florida. Imme-
diately after its discovery in 1512, Florida was visited by a rapid
succession of missionaries; and in 1528 the Rt. Rev. John Jaurez

was appointed by the Holy See, Bishop of Florida. It is sad, how-
ever, to relate^ that within one year after the founding of this

mission, the Bishop and his missionaries were cruelly murdered by
the savages, and the settlement destroyed. Thus, within 36 years

after the discovery of America by Columbus, our soil was bap-
tized with the blood of Catholic martyrs. Later on, after the

founding c>f St. Augustine in 1565, the monastery of St. Helena

was established there; and from this radiant center the light of
the Gospel flashed out successfully among the Florida Indians, and
Cherokees in the territory north of Florida. The first Indian



14 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

school in America was founded and supported by this colony.

But the Spanish missions in the South had a more deadly

enemy to deal with, later on, than the Indians were. About the

year 1700 England began a vigorous system of Protestant colon-

ization along the Atlantic coast; and being the bitter enemy of

both Indians and Catholics she lost no opportunity to destroy the

Spanish Indian missions. This was continued with cruel per-

sistency until 1763, when by the Treaty of Paris, Spain ceded
Florida to England. “This,” says the author, J. G. Shea, “Was the
death blow to the Spanish missions in the South—The missions
were destroyed, the Indians dispersed, and St. Helena the Convent

whence Christianity had radiated over the peninsula, had become

a barrack.” Another author tells us that “the forsaken Florida

Indians, wandering in the pathless everglades, took the name of
Seminoles, which in their own language means Wanderers. By the
time of the Revolutionary War, not a single Indian mission in

the South and East had escaped the destroying progress of Eng-

land.”

The first missionary to visit the country now called Texas
was Father De Olmos, who went there in 1544; but the first
permanent missions in this territory were founded by 14 Fran-

ciscans in 1688. Then for over 100 years, these missions made
encouraging progress.

In 1542 Coronado led an expedition up through the territory

now called New Mexico, accompanied by two Franciscans, Father
Padilla and Brother John of the Cross. These two zealous mis-

sionaries began their noble work, but were soon put to death by

the natives. Nearly 40 years later (1581), three devoted Fran-

ciscans erected a new mission there, but were also martyred soon
after. The next year (1582) Espejo, a Spanish nobleman, ex-

plored the head of the Rio Grande, named the country New Mex-
ico, and founded the mission of Santa Fe. After many mission-
aries had sacrificed their lives in this mission field the savages

finally yielded to their patient and persistent preaching; and so

rapid was the progress of the work that by 1608 there were 50
missions in New Mexico, numbering in all about 800 converts. Ten
years later (1618) Father Salmeron founded a mission in this

territory, and within 8 years baptized 6,500 converts. According

to the account given by Bancroft, there were in this entire mis-

sion field in 1630 about 25 missions, served by 50 missionaries,

and numbering 35,000 Christian Indians, which was practically
the entire population. Although the Apaches and Navajos did

much, later on, to destroy these missions, yet the Catholic Indians

are still numerous in New Mexico.
In what is now Arizona the Jesuits founded the mission of

St. Francis del Bac, in 1692. It fell into decay but was renewed



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 16

by the Franciscans in 1763, when it included Tucson as one of the

outlying stations. Its early progress was slow, for in 1772 it had

a population of only 270, and the Church was poorly furnished.

But later on, it became very prosperous. The fine present struc-

ture was completed in 1797, and today it is one of the most pros-

perous and attractive missions in all the southwest. It is the old-

est active mission in the United States.

When the expedition of Viscaino reached Monterey in 1602,
a writer tells us that there was with him a band of Carmelite

priests who “celebrated the first Mass on the Pacific coast on a

rustic altar under the spreading branches of a venerable live-oak.

—This may be considered the natal day of the California mis-
sions.” The remains of this distinguished old oak may still be
seen just behind the parish Church in Monterey. Here, also, these

dear old Carmelites set up a Cross, and named the spot Carmelo.

But no missions were actually founded on the Pacific coast until

the Jesuits erected them at La Paz on the peninsula of Lower

California in 1697, and it was from this point, about 70 years

later, that Father Junipero Serra started on the famous mission-

ary expedition which brought him to San Diego in 1769. Here he

founded the Mission de Alcala in 1769—227 years after Cabrillo
had touched this coast in 1542, and 7 years before the signing of

the Declaration of Independence. This was the beginning of a

long line of 21 missions rapidly established near the California

coast for a distance of 700 miles from San Diego to Sonoma, north

of San Francisco. These missions were arranged about 30 to 40

miles apart along a trail known as the El Camino Real—the Royal
Highway. Along this holy highway the sandaled feet of the

saintly Padres trod their way through heat and dust to bring
the message of salvation to the dusky natives. When Father Serra
died at Monterey in 1784, he had founded 8 of these missions him-

self, and had made nearly 6,000 converts. The rest of the 21
missions were all built by the year 1823, and it has been estimated

that by this time the total number of converts gained by all the
missions were not fewer than 30,000. It is sad to relate, however,

that when in 1833 the Mexican Government became independent
of Spain, the missions were confiscated and began to fall into de-
cay. The Franciscans were scattered, the Indians were dispersed,
and the mission buildings were plundered and despoiled. Only
one of these—the Mission at Santa Barbara—has never been al-
lowed to fall into decay.

,

And why did Mexico secularize these missions? Simply be-
cause the dear old Padres had been loyal to Spain, just as all good

Catholics are loyal to the rightful government under which they
live. Most pathetic indeed is the appeal which these old mission
ruins make to us; but their sacred influence is not dead. They



16 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DQNE

still have tongues with which to sing their former glory and to

bewail their present desolation. Let us uncover our heads, then,

and listen to their plaintive plea as they make their mute appeal to

us from their lonely towers.

“Is then the old faith dead,”

They say, “and in its stead

Is some new faith proclaimed.

That we are forced to remain

Naked to the sun and rain.

Unsheltered and ashamed ?

“Once in our towers aloof

We rang o’er wall and roof
Our warnings and our complaints;

And round about us there
The white doves filled the air.

Like the white souls of the saints.

“The Saints ! Ah, have they grown

Forgetful of their own.

Are they asleep or dead.

That open to the sky

Their ruined Missions lie

No longer tenanted?

“Oh, bring us back once more

The vanished days of yore.

When the world with faith was filled;
Bring back the fervid zeal.

The hearts of fire and steel

The hands that believe and build
!”

Professor Bolton, of the California State University, says:

“One of the marvels in the history of the modern world is the

way in which that little Iberian nation, Spain, when most of her
blood and treasure were absorbed in European wars, with only a

handful of men, took possession of the Carribbean archipelago,

and by rapid yet steady advance, lasting to the end of the 18th

century, spread her rule, her religion, her laws and her language

over two-thirds of the two Americas As viewed by the
Spanish Government, the work of the missionaries was to Chris-
tianize the natives and extend Spanish rule among them. But
the primary work of the missionaries, first, last and all the time,
was to spread the faith. . . . Discipline and the elements of civil-
ization were imparted at the missions through religious instruc-

tion, through industrial routine, and even, in some instances.



FOR AMEBIC^ CIVILIZATION. 17

through instruction in arts and letters Each fully develop-

ed mission was a great industrial school conducted on principles

which, three centuries later, were adopted by the United States

Government.”

While the Spanish missionaries were laboring in the South-

west, the Catholic, English, and French missionaries were busy

carrying the Gospel to the Indians in the East and North. On
March 25, 1634, the Catholic Pilgrim Fathers, under Lord Balti-

more landed on the shores of the Potomac and planted the colony

of St. Mary’s. Here, after celebrating the Mass and erecting a

Cross, they laid the first foundation of civil and religiotts liberty

in Ameriha. From the very beginning, these Christian colonists
secured the confidence and friendship of the Indians, which was

never lost afterwards. McSherry says, “Maryland was almost

the only State whose early settlement was never stained with the

blood of the natives.” In this benign policy they were imitated,

later on, in 1683 by Wm. Penn. Not only was Penn bepign to-
wards the Indians, but he was also tolerant toward the Catholics

who were among his colonists. But as soon as William of Orange
ascended the English throne, the infernal “penal laws” were en-

forced in the English colonies, and Penn was severely censured

for his liberality toward Catholics. In 1708 William of Orange

sent the following message to Gov. Logan, at Philadelphia : “It has

become a reproach to me here, and to the officers of the Crown,
that you have suffered the scandal of the Mass to be publicly cele-

brated.”

Before John Eliot began to preach to the Indians in Massa-

chusetts in 1646, the French missionaries had evangelized the

Abnakis in Maine, and Micmacs andMontagais in Canada. In 1609

eleven years before the Puritans came to the New World, the
French Jesuits founded a mission station and built a chapel on the

Scoodic river in Maine. Finding this location unsuitable, they

erected another mission in 1612 at the mouth of the Penobscot.

Here they began a noble work in Christianizing the Abnakis ; but

like many other Indian missions, this, too, was fated to be destroy-
ed by English bigotry. The infamous Argali attacked the settle-

ment, killed one of the priests, and carried the other priests and

colonists away. “Thus,” says Dr. John O. Murray,” was the Ab-

naki mission destroyed by the English, a nation whose only words

of peace for the Indian has ever been the sound of the rifle.” Not

until 40 years later was another French mission established

among the Abnakis; and this, too, was destined to be destroyed
by the British, later on, when the French were driven out of the
country. In 1713, after the settlement had been reduced to ashes.

Gov. Dudley, of Boston, proposed to rebuild the Abnaki chapel, if



18 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

they would only accept an English Protestant minister, instead of

a Catholic “blackrobe.” In response to this, the noble Chief stood

up erect, and in a few withering words rejected the contemptible

proposition with dignified scorn. These Abnakis have the dis-

tinction of being the first native Americans who all received the

Catholic faith in a body.

In 1605 French Catholics settled among the Micmacs in Canada

in the same country which was afterward called Acadia,—the
land which our own dear Longfellow has made famous in his im-
mortal Evangeline. The name comes from the Micmac word
Akade, which means Abundance. After persistently persecuting

the missionaries and natives, the climax finally came in 1755,

when 7000 innocent Acadians were carried into exile by the Brit-

ish and scattered promiscously among the colonies on the Atlantic
coast. But so complete was the evangelization of the Micmacs,

that there are even today 4000 Catholic Micmacs in the French

provinces of Canada, who are supporting their own schools and
churches.

At a very early date the French Jesuits founded missions
among the Great Lakes at Sault Ste. Marie, Mackinaw, Green Bay
and other points, which by the year 1665 numbered several thous-
and converts. Every schoolboy is familiar with the names of the
Jesuit Fathers, Hennepin, Joliet, Marquette and others, who
evangelized the Indians around the Great Lakes, in the Missis-

sippi Valley, and in the far Northwest. The work of the “Black-
robes” among the Dakotas is beautifully described in Longfel-
low’s Hiawatha:

“From the farthest realms of morning
Came the Black-robe chief, the Prophet,
He the Priest of prayer, the Pale-face
With the cross upon his bosom.
Speaking words yet unfamiliar

:

Peace be with you, Hiawatha

;

Peace be with you, and your people.

Peace of prayer and peace of pardon.

Peace of Christ and joy of Mary.”

While many ignorant bigots do not seem to know that Cath-
olics have ever done any good in America, or anywhere else, it is
gratifying to find some prominent non-Catholics, here and there,
who are intelligent enough to appreciate, and honest enough to
acknowledge, the noble work done by devoted Catholic mission-
aries in evangelizing the aborigines of America. Among these
we are glad to find some ministers, statesmen and historians who
are_ not afraid to tell the truth. The distinguished Protestant
Episcopal Bishop, Rt. Rev. Austin Scriven, says: “The story of



POE AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. IS

the heroism of the Jesuit priests who, at the risk of their lives,

brought the Gospel to the heathen tribes of North America, en-

during tortures and martyrdom for the faith, forms one of the

noblest and most thrilling chapters in our national history. To

them belongs the honor of being the pioneers of Christianity to

the natives of this country; and I never read the accounts which

have come down to us of these early days, without thanking God

for the splendid example of those saintly lives.” Still more em-

phatic is the language of Senator Vest, of Missouri: “I am a
Protestant. My father was an elder in the old Scotch Presby-
terian church, and my earliest impressions were that the Jesuits
had horns and hoofs and tails, and that there was a faint odor of

sulphur in the air when one of them crossed your path. Some

years ago I was assigned by the senate to duty upon a committee

to examine the Indian schools in Wyoming and Montana. I visited
every one of them. I wish to say now, what I have said before in

the Senate, that I did not see in all my journey a single school that
was doing any educational work, worth while, except those under

the control of the Jesuits. . . . The Jesuits have elevated the In-

dian wherever they have been allowed to do so, without interfer-

ence by bigotry and fanaticism, and the cowardice of politicians

who are afraid of the A. P. A. They have made the Indian a
Christian, and also a self-supporting workman. Go to the Flat-
head Reservation in Montana and see what Father De Smet and
his associates began, and were carrying on successfully, until the

A. P. A. and the cowards who are afraid of them, struck down the
appropriation. I’hese Jesuits are not there, as one of them told

me, for the love of the Indian only. Old Father Ravaille told me,

lying on his back in his narrow cell, with the Crucifix above him

:

T am here not for the love of the Indian simply, but for the love
of Christ.’ The Jesuit has no thought except to do his duty, as

God has given him to see it. I am not afraid to say this, because
I speak from personal observation, and no man ever went among
these Indians with more intense prejudice against the Jesuits

than I did when I left the city of Washington.”
No European nation treated the Indians with such uniform

kindness as did the French. Catholic France was ever seeking
to elevate them. Bancroft says: “It was neither commercial en-
terprise nor royal ambition, which carried France into the heart

of our Continent. Her motive was religion. Religious enthusiasm
founded Montreal, made a conquest of the wilderness, of the upper
lakes, and of the Mississippi Valley. The Catholic Church created
for Canada its altars, its hospitals, and its seminaries.” But with
the suppression of the Jesuits and the triumph of the British over

the French, came the final overthrow of all the Catholic missions
from the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, on the North,



^0 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

to the Gulf of Mexico on the South. Thus did the ascendency of

Protestant England prevent the United States from becoming a

Catholic nation. The distinguished Protestant author, Thomas

WentAVorth Higginson, has well said: “If the control of the New
World had depended solely on the power to obtain the friendship

of its native tribes, North America today would have been French

and Roman Catholic.”
From 1663 to 1832 there were 152 of these heroic pioneer

missionaries, who gave their hearts and lives to the work of Chris-
tianizing and civilizing the North American Indians, and among

these devoted men there were 30 martyrs who sanctified American
soil with their precious blood. But their labors and sufferings

were not in vain
;
for we have today, not only the inspiration that

comes from their noble example, but the visible fruits of their

strenuous labors. It is an encouraging thought that out of the

270,000 Indians in the United States today 106,000 are devoted

Catholics. And let us not forget too, that this wonderful success
of the Latin missionaries in civilizing the Indians, lies chiefly in

the fact that they were Christian civilizers, and not simply brutal

conquerors and exterminators, as most of the Anglo-Saxons have

been. It is a fact that the Puritans of New England utterly ex-
terminated whole tribes of Indians. Under their heartless cruelty

and cold-blooded policy, these tribes all vanished at the approach

of these English saints and civilizers! Their slogan was “The

only good Indian is a dead Indian”
;
and with grim zeal they put

into practice what they preached. On one notable occasion, when
they were attacking the Pequods, the English” commander cried

out, “We must burn them!” and Bancroft tells us that “most of
them—men, women and children,—perished in the hideous con-
flagration.” Here we have a striking instance of their burning
zeal for the welfare of the poor pagans ! Among the famous
“Blue Laws” of Massachusetts, the following was passed in 1675:

“Ordered by the Court that whosoever shall shoot off a gun on any
unnecessary occasion, or att any game, except att an Indian or att

a woolfe, shall forfeit five shillings for every such shott.” Of

course, there were honorable exceptions to this kind of spirit and

conduct, but it must be admitted that this was the prevailing

spirit among the Puritans.
But fire and fire-arms cannot hush the voice of the past. The

accusing accents of exterminated Indians and Christian martyrs

will rise up from their graves and resound, in ominous tones, in

the ear of history. Their blood still cries out from the , soil, and

thoughtful Christian men today are beginning to appreciate the
exalted virtues and noble deeds of these once forgotten and out-

raged saints and heroes. They have left their visible impress in
every nook and corner of our country. Hundreds of thousands of



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 21

our rivers, lakes, valleys, mountains, cities and towns still bear

the beautiful names with which these saintly missionaries chris-

tened them
;
and these stand today as perpetual reminders and im-

perishable monuments of the labors and sacrifices of the conse-

crated Catholic missionaries. Not only do these visible marks re-

main, but the spirit, too, that inspired these men of God, still sur-
vives. We are glad to believe that the spirit of noble Christian
service and sacrifice is still warm in the hearts of many devoted
Christians.

REFERENCES:
‘‘Missions of the Southwest.”—^Adolph Bandelier.
“California Missions.”—Rev. Z. Englehardt.
“History of Catholic Missions in America,” “History of Catholic Missions

Among the Indian Tribes of the United States,” “Discoverers and Explorers

of the Mississippi Valley” and “The Catholic Church in Colonial Days.”—By
John G. Shea.

“The Colonial Period.”—George T. Fisher.
“LaSalle and the Discovery of the Great West,” “The Pioneers of France

in the New World,” and “The Jesuits of North America.”—By Francis
Parkman.

“The Abnaki and Their History.”—Rev. Dr. Ventromile.

X

CHAPTER IV.

Who Were the Founders of Civil and Religious Liberty
In America?

I.

I. WHO WERE NOT THE FOUNDERS?
Again and again and again we have been told that the first

great exponents of our American principles of Civil and Religious
liberty were the Pilgrim Fathers of New England.

Through all the years of our country’s history this boastful
claim has been persistently dinned into our ears, both in song and
oratory, until we are made to feel that it is almost sacrilegious to
question the truth of it. So often have we been spell-bound by
the music of these patriotic eulogies that our enraptured souls
have become so hypnotized that we have almost lost the power to
think We are so bewildered by this extravagant glorification of
these “Fathers” that we hardly know the difference between sound
and sense. Some of us, however, have been fortunate enough to
be aroused from this insane infatuation and are beginning to open
our eyes to the plain truth

;
and we venture now to assert positive-



22 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

ly, and without fear of contradiction, that the Pilgrim Fathers of

New England were not the founders of civil and religious liberty
in America

The famous “Mayflower Compact” has been persistently

glorified as the Original Charter of our American liberties; but

only a slight examination of this document should convince anyone

that it was not an American document, at all. On the other hand,

it was simply a British document, drawn up by British subjects,

expressing their formal avowal of loyalty to the British Crown

and to the English Church,

It does not contain the slightest reference to any American

principle, whatever It was in no sense, a “Declaration of Inde-

pendence,” but simply a Compact swearing allegiance to a foreign

civil and ecclesiastical government, which was simply a Union of

Church and State, Furthermore, these same Pilgrim Fathers evi-

dently did not intend to keep this “Compact,” for they immediate-

ly began to violate it.

In the preamble of this “Compact” they called themselves the

“loyal subjects of our dread sovereigne Lord, King James, Defen-

der of ye Faith;” and they also declared that the object of their

voyage to America was the “advancement of ye Christian Faith

and Honour of our King and Countrie.” Then they proceeded to
combine themselves together into a “Civil Body Politick.” After
declaring themselves to he the “loyal subjects” of Great Britain,

and proposing, also, to stand for the “advancement of ye Christian

Faith and Honour of King and Countrie,” they formed themselves
into a “Civil Body Politick” which immediately began to enact
laws that were directly contrary to the principles of this “Com-

pact.” This celebrated “Body Politick” was not loyal either to
the English Government or to the English church. On this point,
Mr, Shea, in his admirable paper in the American Catholic Quar-

terly Review of July, 1877, pertinently remarks: “The Connecti-

cut and Massachusetts colonists ignored and evaded the English

laws and acted in direct violation of the patents under which they

settled. No man can read the authentic documents without ad-
mitting that they were designed to establish a system in utter

disregard of the English law, and in many points in direct oppo-
sition to it, forbidding men to do what was their absolute right, as
British subjects, to do, and compelling them to do what no Eng-
lish law required.. The claim that they acted for the ‘advance-

ment* of human freedom, though put forward so persistently, is
so utterly absurd that, while repetition has made many think it to
be undoubtedly true, thoughtful men really ‘laugh in their sleeves’
when they put forward this fine phrase to tickle the ears of the
multitude.”

The best Protestant scholarship of today gives the lie to



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 23

the ridiculous claim that the Pilgrim and Puritan fathers were

the founders of civil and religious liberty. The well-known author,

John Fiske, in his “Beginnings of New England,” says: “In

March, 1 629, a royal charter was granted, creating a corporation,

under the legal style of the ‘Massachusetts Bay Company.’ Noth-

ing was said in this charter about religious liberty, for two rea-

sons : the Crown would not have granted it, and it was not what

the grantees wanted. Such a provision would have hampered them

in carrying out their scheme. They preferred to keep in their own

hands the question of how much or how little liberty they would

allow.” Now the extent to which they would allow religious lib-
erty is indicated in the following stanza of a poem written by

Thomas Dudley, first deputy governor, who came over in 1630

:

“Let men of God in courts and churches watch

O’er such as do a Toleration hatch.

Lest that ill egg bring forth a cockatrice

To poison all with heresy and vice.”

On this poem Mr. Fiske remarks: “Such was the spirit of

most of the Puritans of that day.” We do not wonder that a re-
cent thoughtful writer in the Watchman Magazine felt obliged to
say, reluctantly, “It can hardly be shown that the civil and reli-

gious liberty we enjoy today is directly traceable to the Separat-
ists that came over in the Mayflower.”

The Pilgrims did not believe in the separation of Church and

State. They believed in the domination of the State by the Church.

This is plainly asserted by Protestant writers. John Orr Corliss

in a late issue of the Watchman Magazine, says : “Almost the first
thing the Pilgrims did upon landing on American soil was to es-
tablish a Church-State. The State thus formed was simply the

offspring of the Church, and consequently its hand-maid. In oth-

er ^vords, the State was but the Church acting in secular and civil

affairs. This was the very form of government sought by John
Winthrop. As history records, he insisted on a ‘due form of gov-
ernment both civil and ecclesiastical.’ This was a theocracy in
very deed ;— and in it we find the secret of New England’s merci-
less persecution of Mrs. Hutchinson, Roger Williams and the hap-
less Quakers.” This union of Church and State is clearly indicated
also in the following literal form: “All lands, cattell, and other
estates, of any kind, w’tsovr, shall be liable to be rated to all com-
mon charges w’tsoevr, eith’r for ye church, towne, or common
weale.” (Rec. Mass. Vol. 2, P. 210-: 1647).

Mr. Wm. Elliot Griffis, of Ithaca, N. Y., said in a recent issue
of the Homiletic Review: “It is an utterly false estimate and a
misplacement of emphasis to make so much of the Mayflower and
her very mixed company. On this ship were some scamps, and



24 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

some others of colorless character, who furnished the first mur-
derers and the initial duelists in New England. We are every year
discarding the less lovely traits of the Piiritans who united State

and Church, and thus, by an inexorable logic, became persecutors.”

The “Bibliotheca Sacra,” of October, 1920, contained an art-

icle entitled “Our Democracy’s Foundation,” which gave an ac-

count of the recent meeting in Boston of the “International Con-

gregational Council.” In this paper reference is made to Brad-

ford’s “Compact” as the “foundation of modern democracy and

then further on, under the sub-title
—
“The Contribution of Con-

gregationalism to Civil and Religious Liberty,” we find this con-

cluding sentence; “Congregationalism is essentially not demo-

cratic, but Christocratic.” Here we see a beautiful inconsistency.
If the “Compact” was the foundation of democracy, and Congre-

gationalism is “not democratic,” then, Congregationalism is not

founded on the “Compact.” If it is a “Christocratic Theocracy,

how can it also be a democracy

!

The most convincing evidence, however, that the Pilgrim

Fathers did not believe in civil and religious liberty, is to be found

in some of their famous “Blue Laws.” The writer has made a per-
sonal examination of a number of these benign enactments, and

offers the following as fair samples of the entire code

:

No. 13. “No Quaker or Dissenter from the established wor-
ship of this Dominion shall be allofwed to give a vote for the elec-

tion of any officer-” This taw is really a corollary of No. 10, which

required every voter to be a converted church member. Here we
have neither civil nor religious liberty. These enactments, were in

force, both in Massachusetts and in Connecticut
;
and continued to

grow more and more restrictive until 1663, when no one who “re-
fused to attend church” was allowed to vote. (See Rec. of New
Haven Jurisdiction (1653-1664)

;
and Mass. Colon. Records

(1635-6) . On this law No. 13, Mr. J. G. Shea remarks : “This law
was not a dead letter; it was constantly enforced. Nearly a cen-
tury after its enactment we read that Episcopal people in 1740
were hauled to jail for refusing to attend Congregational meet-

ings.”

No. 14, puts a heavy fine on “anyone who would give food
or lodging to a Quaker, Adamite, or other heretick.”

No. 15. “If any person turns Quaker, he shall be banished

and not suffered to return, but upon pain of death.” This famous
law was passed in Massachusetts Oct. 9, 1658, according to Mass.
Colonial Records, Vol. 4 p. 345. In New Haven the penalty of
death was not attached, but instead of this, the offender had one
ear cut off for the first offense, the other ear for the second offense,

and for the third offense he had his tongue bored through with a

red hot iron
;
and all expenses for these courtesies were to be £Sid



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 25

by the recipient. (See exact wording of this law in Archbishop

Spalding’s “Miscellanea,” p. 374). This fine practice of religious

toleration is also recorded in “Revised Statutes of Conn.‘” (1673)

;

“Mass Colonial Records,” Vol. IV., p. 308 (1657) ; “Plymouth Re-

cords,” Vol. 3; and “Session Laws,” (1607).

No. 16. “No priest shall abide in the Dominion; he shall he

banished, and suffer death on his return. Priests may be seized
by anyone without a warrant.” The Massachusetts law against

priests was first passed May 26, 1647, and became more and more
cruel until 1700. (Senn “Gen. Laws of Mass. Bay Colony,” 1672;

“Acts and Resolves of Mass.,” Vol. 1, p. 424; and “Neal’s Appen-

dix,” p. 346). Also in “Rec. of Mass.” Vol. Ill, p. 112, we find
this enactment in its original literary form, as follows: “No

Jesuit or ecclesiastical person ordayned by ye authoritie of ye

pope, shall henceforth come within our jurisdiction; and if any

such person, having been once banished shall be taken the second

time within this jurisdiction, he shall, upon lawful trial and con-

viction, be put to death.” Here again we have union of Church
and State.

Here we cannot resist the temptation to introduce a some-
what lengthy quotation from the able article by Mr. Shea. In

concluding his paper, Mr. Shea delivers this trenchant criticism:

“The claim that these colonies did aught for civil freedom is

utterly untenable; and the claim that they established, or ever

dreamed of establishing, religious freedom is equally so. The

freedom which these men sought was freedom to do their own
will,—and to enforce their own will on their fellow-subjects, or
expel them, if they refused to submit. It was simply the freedom

of a robber-band. How can any sensible man pretend that they
established freedom ! They made their whole system an oligarchy
by restricting the right of freemen (the franchise) only to those

who were admitted as members of the church which they them-
selves had established. Religious liberty was never established in

any New England Colony.
“Yet there are actually men outside of lunatic asylums who

persistently talk of the freedom established in New England.
Their legislation as a whole, even at its best, was narrow, exclu-
sive, tyrannical, and based on no sound views of human nature or
Christian principles. New England has become what she is, not
by such laws, but in spite of them, by the assertion of the real
manhood of her people.”

Yes, we may add, by the manhood of the later generations,
whose more generous character led them to renounce the false
principles of their Calvinistic ancestors. The best type of char-
acter that ever graced New England was not that of the Pilgrim
Fathers, but that of the more sane and humane men who came



26 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

after them. It was such noble men as Garrison, Wendell Phillips,
Peabody, the Adamses, the Websters, Bancroft, Greely, Sumner,

Bryant, Hawthorne, Lowell, Emerson, Whittier, Longfellow and

others, who gave New England the proud position she holds today.
These are the men to whom New England, is indebted for the
glory of her civil and intellectual achievements.

Several years ago the writer made a summer tour through all

the New England States and, of course, visited all the leading his-
toric landmarks. He saw the instruments of torture still standing
on the green at Yale, in New Haven; he saw the spot among the
elms in Boston Common where Quakers were hanged; he sat on
Plymouth Rock on which the Pilgrims trod, just before they began

to trample on the rights of their fellow men
;
he walked over the

summit of Witch Hill at Salem where poor witches were decorated

with hemp neckties just before they started for the other world;
and then, as a relief from the sad reflections that oppressed his

spirit, he visited the soul-cheering spots associated with Whittier,

Longfellow and other benign characters who had sought to
brighten human life with a bit of sunshine. As he strolled
through Concord and gazed on the “Old Manse,” he thought,

“Here is the place where the brilliant young Shierson choked on

the cast-iron theology of his Calvinistic ancestory;” and as he

looked upon the modest tomb of Longfellow in Mt. Auburn ceme-

tery at Cambridge, he thought, “Here sleeps the dust of one of the

sweetest spirits that ever graced the land of the Pilgrims.”

What a contrast between the persecuting Pilgrim and the
peaceful poet. If Longfellow had lived among the Pilgrims and
Puritans, it is certain that he never would have written Evange-

line or Hiawatha. If he had, he would have enjoyed the delight-

ful experience of being kicked out of the community. Like Roger

Williams, he too would have had to And an asylum among the more
merciful savages.

How often have we been told that these Pilgrims brought the
open Bible to these shores! Nothing could be farther from the

truth. They never brought an open Bible to anybody. The only

kind of Bible they knew anything about was a Calvinistic Bible,
—a Bible as interpreted by their Calvinistic preachers. The man
who could not accept the interpretations of the Bible given by
these Calvinists was a heretic, who had to be banished, as Roger
Williams was. If the Pilgrims really believed in an open Bible,

and in the Protestant principles of “private interpretation,” as

the right of each individual, why did they banish Roger Williams
and hang innocent Quakers? Mr. Shea very justly remarks:

“Logically, the Quakers, acting on their own private judgment,
had the same right to hang Puritans that the Puritans had to hang
Quakers.” Why not, if the Bible was open equally to all. No



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 27

statement could be more utterly false than the assertion that the

Pilgrims brought an “open Bible” to America.

We have also been repeatedly reminded that we are indebted
to these “fathers,” not only for the “open Bible,” but also for our

national Thanksgiving holiday. Here is a ridiculous statement

recently made in the Homiletic Review : “In view of the fact that

our nation was founded by men seeking religious freedom, who

brought with them the open Bible, it seems that the Thanksgiving

period, which is a national institution, is an appropriate time to

give thanks also for the Christian Scriptures!” The Pilgrim

fathers knew as little about a national Thanksgiving as they did

about an “open Bible.” The only kind of Thanksgiving they knew
was simply a local affair confined to New England. If such a
thing as a national union Thanksgiving, such as we celebrate to-
day, had been proposed to them, their saintly souls would have

been sorely vexed with righteous indignation. To participate in

any kind of union services with other denominations would have

been regarded by them as a disgraceful compromise. Let us not

forget that we did not begin to have a strictly national Thanks-
giving, until most of these New England fathers had gone to
heaven. Imagine these exclusive Separatists joining in an inter-

denomniational Thanksgiving service with Baptists, Methodists,

Episcopalians, Quakers and other “Hereticks!”

No; the Pilgrim and Puritan fathers did not believe in civil
and religious liberty, at all. They were exclusive and intolerant
in both politics and religion. Their cruelties kindle our indigna-

tion and their eccentricities excite our humor. Rev. Dr. Nevin

almost swears that “their treacherous wars upon the Indians for
purposes purely mercenary

,
and their whippings, imprisoning and

killing Quakers and Baptists for their conscientious opinions, will
mark their government through all time as one of the crudest and
meanest that ever existed.”

Washington Irving, in his History of New York (Vol. I, p.
76), justly ridiculed their grim inconsistencies in characteristic
style

:

“Having served a regular apprenticeship in the school of per-
secution, it behooves them to show their proficiency in the art.
Accordingly they employed their leisure hours in banishing

,

scourging or hanging divers heretical Papists, Quakers and Ana-
baptists for daring to abuse the liberty of conscience, which they
now clearly vroved to imply nothing more than that every man
should think as he pleased in matters of religion, provided he
thought right; for otherwise it would be giving a latitude to damn-
able heresies. Now as they {the majority) were perfectly con-
vinced that they alone thought right, it consequently follovjcd that
whoever thought wrong, and obstinately persisted in not being



28 W!HAT catholics have done

convinced and converted, was a flagrant violator of inestimable

liberty of conscience, and a corrwpt and infectious member of the
‘Body Politick,’ and deserved to be lapped off and cast into the

fire.”

Now then, from the foregoing evidences, we know that the
New England Fathers were not the originators of our American
principles of civil and religious freedom

;
but instead of this, these

famous “Fathers” were really the most vehement enemies of these

principles that ever trod on American soil. This brings us now
to the second general division of our subject

II. WHO WERE THE FOUNDERS OF CIVIL AND
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN AMERICA?

We answer promptly, and without fear of contradiction, that
this high honor belongs to Lord Baltimore, the Catholic founder

of the Colony of Maryland
;
and to prove this, we invite you to ex-

amine with us some of the historic documents connected with the

early history of our country. It is well known that the greatest
bulwark of civil liberty in the world is the famous Magna Charta.
It was the foundation, not only of British, but also of American

constitutional freedom. Who were the framers of this memorable
document? Archbishop Langton of Canterbury, and the Catholic

barons of England. On the plains of Runnymede, in 1215, they
compelled King John to sign that paper which was the death-blow

to his arbitrary power, and the corner-stone of constitutional gov-

ernment. It is significant that the only one of the early American

colonies that put the principles of this charter strictly into prac-

tice, was the Colony of Maryland, on the Chesapeake.

It is a remarkable fact that all the earlier writers of Amer-

ican history uniformly recognize Lord Baltimore as the first great

exponent of civil and religious liberty in America. General B. T.

Johnson, in his “Foundations of Maryland,” (p. 12,) says: “Cal-

vert adopted the principle of religious liberty, as covered by, and

included in, the guarantees of the ‘Great Charter’.” It is not too

much to say that this colony was the cradle of civil and religious
liberty in the United States. It is also significant that Maryland

was the only one of the colonies settled by Catholics
;
and it is a

notable fact that here the banner of liberty of conscience was

held aloft, and the oppressed of other colonies were invited to seek

protection and liberty under its shadow. On this point. Cardinal
Gibbons, in his excellent discussion of civil and religious liberty,

quotes from Bancroft’s History of the United States. From this
history, whose author was a New England Protestant clergyman,
we gather the following facts, about the government of the Mary-
land colony: “The Catholics took quiet possession of the litUo



FOE AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 29

pZace, and religious liberty obtained a home—its only home in the
wide world—at the humble village which bore the name of St.

Mary. The foundation of the Colony of Maryland was peacefully

and happily laid. Within, six months it had advanced more than

Virginia had done in many years. * * * far more
memorable was the character of the Maryland institutions. Every

other country in the world had persecuting laws; but through the

benign administration of the government of that province, no

person professing to believe in Christ was permitted to be molested

on account of religion.
* * * Roman Catholics, who

were oppressed by the laws of England, were sure to find a peace-

ful asylum in the quiet arbors of the Chesapeake; and there, too,

Protestants were sheltered against Protestant intolerance. Such

were the beautiful auspices under which Maryland started into

being.
* * * Jts history is the history of benevolence, grati-

tude and toleration. Maryland was the abode of happiness and

liberty. Conscience was without restraint. A mild and liberal
proprietary conceded every measure which the welfare of the col-

ony required. * * * Ever intent on advancing the interests

of his colony. Lord Baltimore invited the Puritans of Massa-

chusetts to emigrate to Maryland, offering them lands and priv-

ileges and free liberty of religion."

Here Cardinal Gibbons gives us the exact words of an act

passed April 2, 1649, by the general assembly of Maryland, an

act which will reflect unfading glory on that state as long as lib-

erty is cherished in the hearts of men : “Whereas, the enforcement
of conscience in matters of religion hath frequntly fallen out to

be of dangerous consequence in those commonwealths where it has

been practiced; and for the more quiet nad peaceable government

of this province; and the better to preserve mutual love and unity
among the inhabitants; no person whatsoever, within this prov-
ince, professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall from henceforth
be in any way troubled or molested for his or her religion, nor in
the free exercise thereof, nor in any way compelled to the belief or
exercise of any other religion against his or her consent." Upon
this noble statute, Bancroft makes the following candid and judi-
cious comment: “The design of the law of Maryland was to pro-
tect freedom of conscience; and some years after it had been con-
firmed, the apologists of Lord Baltimore could assert that his gov-
ernment had never given disturbance to any person in Maryland,

for matter of religion; that the colonists enjoyed freedom of con-
science, not less than freedom of person and estate, as amply as
ever any people in any place of the world. The disfranchised
friends of prelacy from Massachusetts and the Puritans from
Virginia were welcome to equal liberty of conscience and political
rights in the Roman Catholic province of Maryland."



so WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

Cardinal Gibbons then continues the study of this subject by

presenting a quotation from a work by Wm. Hand Browne, a dis-
tinguished Protestant scholar. Mr. Browne was a graduate of

the University of Maryland, and was for several years editor of

“The Maryland Archives” and president of The Maryland His-

torical Society and professor of English literature in Johns Hop-

kins university. Speaking of Calvert, the proprietary of the

Maryland colony, Mr. Browne remarks: "“While as yet there was

no spot in Christendom where religious belief was free, and when

even the Commons of England had openly declared against toler-
ation, Calvert founded a comnmnity wherein no man was to be
molested for his faith. At a time when absolutism had struck
down representative government in England, and it was doubtful

if a Parliament of freedom would ever meet again, he founded a

community in which no laws were to be made without the consent

of the freemen.”

In his History of the United States, Vol. I, p. 244, Bancroft

makes the still more marvelous statement that “Calvert deserves

to be ranked among the wisest and most benevolent lawgivers of
all ages. He was the first in the history of the Christian world to
seek for religious security and liberty of conscience. In a remote

corner of the world the mild forbearance of this proprietary adopt-

ed religious freedom as the basis of the State.” (See Bancroft’s

History U. S., Vol. I, Chap. 7, et seq.)

Thus while the New England Fathers were grimly tramp-
ling on the rights of their fellowmen, these Catholic Fathers of

Maryland were building up a colony founded on the principle of

civil and religious liberty; and this was nearly 150 years before

Thomas Jefferson and his colleagues incorporated the same prin-
ciple in our American Constitution.

On this point, Cardinal Gibbons makes the following signi-
ficant remark: “It is worthy of note that when the members of
the Constitutional Convention declared in 1787 that ‘Congress

shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or pro-
hibiting the free exercise thereof, ‘ they were echoing the senti-

ments and even repeating the language of the Maryland Assembly

of 1649, which declared that ‘No person whatsoever within this

province, professing to believe in Christ shall henceforth be in any

way molested for his or her religion, nor in the free exercise there-
of.” (See Cardinal Gibbons’ masterly discussion of this whole

question in “The Fiaith of Our Fathers,” Chap 17).
Mr. Jos. W. Thomas, a distinguished member of the Mary-

land Historical Society, pays the following glorious tribute to the

Catholic Legislators of Maryland who enacted this memorable
statute: “Higher than all titles and badges of honor, and more ex-
alted than royal nobility, is the imperishable distinction which



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 31

the passage of this broad and liberal act won for Maryland and

for the members of that never-to-be-forgotten session. May the

sacred spot which gave it birth be forever hallowed!”

Now let us see how some of the Protestants of that day appre-

ciated these mild and generous laws of toleration. We are told
that five years later, when the Puritans gained the ascendency in

Maryland, they were guilty of the infamous ingratitude of dis-

franchising the very Catholic settlers by whom they had been so

hospitably treated. Bancroft says : “They had neither the grati-

tude to respect the rights of the government by which they had

been received and fostered, nor the magnanimity to continue the

toleration to which alone they were indebted for their residence

in the colony. An ‘Act Concerning Religion’ forbade liberty of
conscience to be extended to ‘Popery, Prelacy, or licentiousness of

opinions’.” Bancroft says, further : “These new commissioners is-

sued writs of election to a general assembly—writs of a tenor
hitherto unknown in Maryland. No man of the Roman Catholic

faith could be elected as a burgess, or even cast a vote. It repeal-

ed the Toleration Act of 1649, and created a new one, more to

its mind, which also bore the title, ‘An Act Concerning Religion,’

but it was toleration with a difference. It provided that none who

professed the Popish religion should be protected in the province,

but were to be restrained from the exercise thereof.”

Cardinal Gibbons informs us further that “After the over-

throw of the Puritan authority, and the advent to power of the

members of the Church of England, the second act of the assemb-

ly was to make the Protestant Episcopal Church the established

church of the province.” In 1702, it was re-enacted, with a toler-

ation clause, as follows : “Protestant dissenters and Quakers were

exempted from penalties and disabilities, and might have separate

meeting houses, provided they paid their forty pounds per poll

to support the Established Church. As for the ‘Papists,’ it is need-
less to say that there was no exemption or license for them.”

In 1704 a law was passed prohibiting the increase of popery

in the Maryland colony. The celebration of the Mass was declar-

ed to be an offense, and Catholics were taxed double the amount

required of the Dissenters. They were also forbidden to approach
the State House nearer than 150 yards. Lastly, to finish off their

work of intolerance, they prohibited Catholics from teaching or

promulgating their doctrine in any part of the colony. Thus came
the tragic end of the benign Catholic government of Maryland, the

only spot in all the land where men might worship God according
to the dictates of conscience. Thus was crushed under the iron
heel of intolerance, the benign Catholic rule of the only colony that

gave complete religious liberty to its people, and invited the reli-

gious fugitives from other intolerant colonies to come and practice



32 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

their proscribed beliefs in the “Land of the Sanctuary.” (See

Woodrow Wilson’s “History of the American People,” Vol. I, pp.
180-31; and Bancroft’s U. S. History, Vol. I, p. 438).

These penal laws continued to oppress the Catholics of Mary-

land until 1774.

In the New England colonies, as we have already seen, in-
tolerance was rampant, both toward Catholics and toward certain

Protestant sects. Here persecution was more cruel and unrelent-

ing than in any of the other colonies. In Massachusetts, for in-

stance, a favorite pastime with the pious Pilgrims was cutting off

Quaker’s ears and boring their tongues through with hot irons,

and hanging “papists.” In this they showed more mercy, how-

ever, toward the Catholics than toward the Quakers; for while

they tortured the Quakers with repeated mutilation by the use of

sharp knives and red-hot irons, they were kind enough to relieve

Catholics of all future trouble by promptly hanging them.

Now, as we contrast, for a moment, this intolerance and bru-
tality of the Pilgrim Fathers with the beautiful benignity and

clemency of the Catholic Fathers of Maryland, let us lay aside our

blind bigotry,and be honest enough with ourselves and fair enough

toward our Catholic fellow-citizens to render to them the honor

that is due them. Let us exhibit the same spirit of fairness to-

ward them that is shown them by our best and most intelligent

class of Protestants. The learned Protestant historian, Mr. Davis,

in his “Day-Star of American Freedom,” pays the following high

tribute to the illustrious founders of the Maryland colony: “Let

not the Protestant historian of America give grudgingly. Let him

testify with a warm heart, and pay with gladness the tribute so
richly due to the memory of our early (Catholic) forefathers. Let
their deeds be enshrined in our hearts and their names repeated
in our households. Let them be canonized in the grateful regard

of all Americans, and their names handed do{wn through the lips

of a living tradition. In an age of credulity, like true men with
heroic hearts, they fought the first battle of religious liberty; and

their fame, without reference to their faith, is now the inheritance
not only of Maryland, but of all America.”

Thus has it been established, beyond all question, that civil
and religious liberty was first instituted in America by Lord
Baltimore in the Catholic Colony of Maryland

;
and although this

benign rule in Maryland was finally crushed by intolerant Pro-
testant bigots, yet the precious seeds of Christian liberty were not

sown in vain
;
for in the next century they sprang forth again into

perennial life, never to be crushed again. Evil when pushed too
far, always suffers a disastrous rebound

;
and in this case, thought-

ful, fair-minded men, like Jefferson, Madison and others who had
keenly observed the cruel trend of bigotry among the colonies.



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 33

determined to overthrow its controlling influence in civil and ec-

clesiastical affairs. Thomas Jefferson was the first to rise up and

urge an unrelenting warfare against the intolerable civil and re-

ligious oppression of that day. He had been a close student of
public affairs, and he knew all about the cruel intolerance that had
been shown toward Quakers, Catholics and others, by Puritan

and Anglican bigots. Jefferson did his first work in his own state.
After much persistent opposition from the Established Church in

Virginia, he finally succeeded in procuring the passage of the Vir-

ginia “Statute for Religious Freedom,” which has served, ever

since, as the model of similar legislation in all the other states.

Jefferson in his “Autobiography” gives his reasons for taking

such a strong stand against religious intolerance. He shows how
the Puritan and Episcopal bigots had “built up by law a despotic

monopoly of religious worship, taxing and robbing the whole pub-

lic to maintain their own ecclesiastical institution, persecuting
and proscribing all other faiths and forms of worship, and gradv/-

ally establishing over the minds and consciences of men an odious
system of spiritual tyranny.”

By the vigorous help of James Madison and other Virginia
statesmen the famous “Virginia Bill of Rights” was also pushed

through the Assembly in 1785; and the next year Madison was

asked to draft the Federal Constitution of the United States.

Madison, like Jefferson, cordially hated religious intolerance

and persecution, and two years before the Virginia Convention

he wrote these caustic words: “That diabolical, helUconceived

principle of persecution is raging among us. * * * I have
neither patience to hear, talk or think of anything relative to this

matter; for I have squabbled and scolded, abused and ridiculed so
long about it to little purpose, that I am without common pat-
ience.”

Thus, we have found that the principles of civil and religious
liberty which were first instituted by Lord Baltimore in the Mary-

land Colony in 1649, were revived again over 100 years later, by

Thomas Jefferson and his compatriots, first in the Constitutional
enactments of Virginia, and immediately afterward in the forma-

tion of our Federal Constitution.

When the Federal Constitution was first formed, it did not
contain, in clear terms, any definite guarantee for religious free-

dom, but this was finally secured through the persistent efforts
of Jefferson and his colleagues, in the enactment of the first
amendment to the Constitution, which declares that, “Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or pro-
hibiting the free exercise thereof.” (This famous Amendment was
ratified in 1791.)

Here we feel that no more appropriate words could be chosen,



34 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

with which to close this article, than those of Cardinal
Gibbons,

as found on page 239 of his “Faith of Our Fathers”

:

“We may therefore affirm that Lord Baltimore’s Toleration

Act of 1649 was the bright dawn that ushered in the noonday
sun

of freedom in 1787. And we have every reason to believe that the

Proprietary’s charter of liberty with its attendant blessings serv-

ed as an example, an incentive and an inspiration to some at least

of the framers of the Cnstitution, to extend over the
new Repub-

lic, the precious boon of civil and religious liberty.”

REFERENCES:

“History of the United States.”—Bancroft.
“History of Maryland.”—Bozman.
“Church Life in Colonial Maryland.”^—Gambrell.
“Historical View of the Government of Maryland.”—McMahon.
“Loyalty to Church and State.”—Satolli.
“The Faith of Our Fathers.”—Cardinal Gibbons.

X

CHAPTER V.

Catholics in the War For American Independence.

Not only were Catholics the first to establish the principles

of civil and religious liberty, but they were among the very first

to defend these principles in the forum and on the battlefield. We
assert, without fear of contradiction, that from the very begin-

ning of our country’s history down to the present day. Catholics

in America have invariably proved their loyalty to the Govern-

ment by rallying to the colors in every time of national peril, and

giving their enerigies, their means and their lives to the cause of

civil and religious freedom.

This, too, in spite of continued persecution. As we have al-
ready shown, legal restrictions against Catholics continued to be

in force, not only in the Colonial period, but for many years after-
ward. This, of course, was the natural result of the Reformation.

The Colonial period of America came in soon after Protestantism

was established in England
;
and as the American colonies were all

under British rule for over 150 years previous to the Revolution,

the same Penal Laws that oppressed Catholics in England also
oppressed them in America. If England persecuted Catholics at
home, she would most naturally do the same thing in her depend-
encies.

The distinguished Protestant jurist, Hon. Dudley G. Wooten,
frankly declares ; “Protestantism, .transplanted to America in the



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 36

seventeenth century, began the same course, in its conduct in the

older countries. Among the original thirteen colonies only three
—Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island—permitted the
slightest liberty of conscience or freedom of belief in religion.

Maryland was a Catholic colony, founded by the Calverts as a re-

fuge for the faithful driven to the New World by British bigotry
and brutality

;
and by them and the Carrolls it was ever maintain-

ed as the home of absolute equality, toleration and freedom in

matters of faith and devotion. Pennsylvania was settled mainly

by Quakers and Irish immigrants, and they were compelled in

self-defense to adopt and enforce a large measure of religious

freedom. Rhode Island was the child of Puritan proscription

against the Baptists, and the exiled Roger Williams proclaimed

spiritual liberty as his declaration of independence from the nar-

row and cruel bigotry of the New England fanatics. But Mary-
land alone, and from the beginning, was always religiously free,

despite the repeated efforts of the Virginia Episcopalians to stamp

out her liberties.”

In the very beginning of our country’s history it was em-

phatically proclaimed by the dominant Protestant element that

“this is a Protestant nation
;
that popery and papists have no place

in the civil and religious scheme of American institutions; that

Catholicism is hostile to civil and religious freedom, and that

Catholics should be barred from participation in the activities of

our national life.”

But as the menace of the impending Revolution became more

and more apparent, the British government, from pure policy,

felt obliged to assume a more tolerant attitude toward her Cath-

olic subjects in America, in order, if possible, to retain their loy-

alty to the mother country in the approaching conflict. In this

she was successful with her Canadian subjects, but not with the

Catholics in the 13 colonies. The reason for this is apparent.

When France, in 1763, ceded Canada to England, one of the terms
of the treaty was that civil and religious liberty should be granted
to Catholics

;
and .this was constitutionally sanctioned and extend-

ed by the “Quebec Act,” passed by the British parliament in 1774.

But it is noteworthy that this very act of toleration toward
Canadian Catholics caused a certain class of Protestant fanatics

in the 13 colonies to reproach the mother country for her toler-
ation, and also to renew their persecution of Catholics in the
colonies.

Thus did the fanatical John Jay lift up his voice and cry out
against the “Quebec Act”

:

“We think the legislature of Great Britain is not authorized
by the Constitution to establish a religion fraught with sanguin-
ary and impious tenets, and to erect an arbit’’ary form of govern-



36 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

ment in any part of the globe. By this the Dominion of Canada is

so extended, modeled and governed as that, being disunited from

us, detached from our interest by civil as well as religious pre-

judices, by their numbers daily swelling with Catholic immigrants

from Europe, they might become formidable to us, and on occa-

sion, be fit instruments in the hands of power to reduce the ancient

free Protestant colonies to the same state of slavery with them-

selves.”

It is truly remarkable that such a resolution as this should

have been “engineered” through the Continental Congress, im-

mediately after that Congress had recommended that “all former

differences about religion or politics should cease and be forever

buried in oblivion.”

So deep and strong was the anti-Catholic spirit that still lin-

gered in the Colonies, that whenever any tolerant measure was

proposed, there was always some bigoted fanatic ready to oppose

it. In 1777, after the war had already begun, the New York Col-
ony held a sort of State Convention for the purpose of forming a

State Constitution. In this Constitution was incorporated the fol-

lowing article: “The free toleration of religious profession and

worship shall forever hereafter be allowed to all mankind.” To
this, the famous John Jay felt religiously inspired to offer the fol-

lowing amendment: “except the professors of the religion of the

Church of Rome, who ought not to hold lands, or be admitted to a
participation in the civil rights enjoyed by the members of this

state, until such time as said professors shall appear in the Su-

preme Court of the State and there most solemnly swear that they

verily believe in their conscience that no pope, priest, or forign

authority on earth hath power to absolve the subjects of this State

from their allegiance to the same.” Mr. Jay had evidently been

reading some spurious history of the Middle Ages. It is gratify-

ing, however, to know that his motion to amend this article in the
State Convention was lost.

Two years before this, when Washington went to Cambridge
to take command of the Continental Army, he found the fanatics
in the army still determined to celebrate “Pope’s Pay,” as usual,
on Nov. 5, by burning the pope in effigy. But Washington was too
generous as a Churchman, ana too wise as a Statesman to allow

any such wicked nonsense
;
and promptly rebuked it in the follow-

ing severe terms : ‘As the Commander-in-Chief has Ibeen appraised

of a design formed for the observance of that ridiculous and child-

ish custom of burning the effigy of the Pope, he cannot help ex-

pressing his surprise that there should be officers and soldiers in

this army so devoid of common sense as not to see the improp-
riety of such a step. It is so monstrous as not to be suffered or ex-

cused. Indeed, instead of offering the most remote insult, it is our



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 87

duty to address public thanks to our Catholic brethren, as to them

we are indebted for every late success over the common enemy in

Canada.”

Yet, in spite of the delicacy of the political situation, and in

direct opposition to Christian charity, the 13 colonies continued

to have various kinds of legal restrictions of the rights of Cath-

olics. Nine of the colonies had religious test-oaths, and the other

four had discriminating laws against Catholics; and these con-

tinued to be more or less in force until the close of the Revolution.

Not until the adoption of the National Constitution in 1787 was

complete civil and religious liberty legally granted to Catholics;

and even after this, their legal rights were repeatedly ignored in

many instances.
But notwithstanding all these serious disabilities by which

Catholics were so unjustly hampered, it is to their everlasting

credit that with superb magnanimity they drew the veil of char-

ity over all past grievances and threw themselves unreservedly

and heroically into the glorious struggle for American Independ-

ence. The distinguished Catholic historian. Dr. John 0. Murray,

in his “Popular History of the Catholic Church in the U. S.,” (p.

161), gives us a few startling facts as to the disorganized condi-

tion of the Catholic Church in America at the time of the Revo-

lution :

“At the beginning of the Revolution, the Catholic Church, as

a completely organized body, had no existence in the 13 colonies.

In most of them the Catholic was an outlaw, the priest a felon.
Even Maryland had only private chapels, and Baltimore was only
a station, visited once a month. The rites of the Church were no-
where publicly celebrated, except in Philadelphia.”

There was no episcopal see in the colonies until after the
Revolution, when John Carroll was made Bishop of Baltimore in
1789.

Another Catholic writer in the North American Review of
January, 1876, informs us that in 1776 there were not more than
fifty Catholic congregations with about twenty-five priests, while

the Congregational church, which was then the largest and most
influential religious body in the country, had about 700 churches,
with nearly as many ministers

These facts will prepare us now to appreciate the relative
proportion of Catholics in the Colonial Army.

And here we encounter a miracle. According to good author-
ity, the whole population of all the colonies ki 1776 was estimated
to be about 3,000,000, of which not more than 30,000 were Cath-
olics, at the very highest. According to this, the Catholic popula-
tion was not more than one one-hundredth of the entire popula-
tion, which, if they had enlisted in the army in the same propor-



38 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE
/

tion as non-Catholics did, would have made the per cent of Cath-

olic soldiers in the colonial army exceedingly small and insigni-

ficant. But according to several different concurring accounts,

the number of Irish soldiers alone amounted to one-half of the en-

tire fighting force! In 1776 the House of Lords appointed a com-

mittee to inquire into the strength of Washington’s army with the

result that Joseph Callaway, a Royalist of high rank, testified be-

fore this committee that “one-half of the American troops were

Irish, one-fourth English and Scotch, and the other fourth native

Americans.” Now how could there be so many Irish in the Amer-
ican army, when the Catholic population in the colonies was rela-

tively so small? The only possible answer seems to be, that eith-

er the majority were not Catholics, or they lived too remote from

church to be known as Catholics.

We are informed by good authority that from 1619—one year
before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock—down to the Revo-
lution, Irish immigrants fairly swarmed into most of the Amer-

ican colonies. In 1729, 6,000 arrived and settled in Philadelphia

;

and James Logan, secretary to William Penn, in the same year,

declared that it looked as if all Ireland were coming to Pennsyl-

vania. One writer in South Carolina declared that it seemed

that every Irish ship was headed for Charleston. These state-

ments are corroborated by the numerous Irish family names and

place-names to be found in practically all of the Atlantic States.

And this Irish immigration to America continued with increasing
rapidity up to the time of the Revolution, and even during the

Revolution.

Anthony Marmion tells us that from 1771 to 1773 not less
than 25,000 Irish emigrated from Belfast, Derry and Newry to
America

;
and Spencer, in his “History of the United States,” says

that in the years 1771 and 1772, 17,350 Irish emigrants arrived in

America; and Michael J. O’Brien, in his great work, “Hidden

Phases of American History,” (p. 389), tells us that documentary

evidence proves that between 1767 and 1774 not fewer than 63,-

360 Irish immigrants came to America. This was a critical per-
iod in our history, and these Irish who were being driven out of
their homeland by England’s infernal “Penal Laws,” were a God-

send to us. Of course, the condition of the Irish Catholics was not
very much better here than in Ireland, so long as the colonies were
under British rule; and therefore the Irish Americans were all

the more ready to help the colonists throw off the British yoke.
So intense was the zeat of the Irish for the cause of American
freedom, that even the Irish in Catholic France raised troops and

sent them to America.

In 1779 Count Arthur Dillon, the son of an Irish nobleman

in the service of Louis XVI, addressed to the French War Office,



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 39

a petition on behalf of all the Irish soldiers in France craving

that they be allowed to go to fight for American freedom. The

petition being granted, he sailed from Brest with 2,300 Irish

troops. In conformity with the American plan of campaign, Dil-

lon was directed to attack British strongholds in the West Indies.

He and the other Irishmen, the very van of the forces sent from

France, soon paralyzed British power in the West Indies and

captured there, bases of British activity against America.

And here, in this continual influx of Irish into America dur-

ing the Revolution we have a suggestive fact that gives us addi-

tional information as to the actual proportion of Irish in the col-

onial army. With this constant increase during the war, the num-

ber of Irish in the American army at the close of the Revolution

was far more than one-half of the whole army. Carl Solliday, in

a recent issue of the Catholic World, gives some striking figures

as to the immense accumulation of Irish soldiers in Washington’s

army by the end of the Revolution. In this enlightening article

we find the following remarkable statement: “Joseph Galloway
said in the House of Lords that one-half of the American army

was Irish; but more accurate investigation has shown that prac-

tically one-half of the regular soldiers of the colonies were horn in

Ireland, while a third more of Washington’s troops were of Irish
ancestry” This raises the proportion of Irish soldiers in the

American army to five-sixths of the whole number. No wonder
George Park Custis said, in his day, that in the Revolution : “Ire-

land furnishd 100 men to every single man furnished by any other
foreign country.”

Now, just a word about the lapsed Irish Catholics in Wash-
ington’s army. When we call to mind the cruel and incessant per-
secution of Catholics in the American colonies during more than

150 years of British rule, we should not be surprised that large
numbers of them fell away from the Church. The Catholic author
of “The Question of the Hour,” says

: ,

“As there was no room in New England or Virginia for the
Catholic religion, the Irish settlers in those colonies were hound to
fall away from the mother church, and many of them did so.”

But we venture to say just here, by way of digression, that a
lapsed Catholic does not mean a true Protestant, except perhaps
in very rare instances. A lapsed Catholic is usually an infidel,
who in many instances comes back to the mother church before he
dies. The Catholicity in the average Irish bosom is deep-seated
and practically invincible; and it takes more hellish persecution
to drive it out of an Irishman than out of anybody else. An Irish-
man’s faith, like the Irish race, is well night indestructible

;
and

about the only way to destroy it is to kill the Irishman. And this,



40 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

too, is almost impossible, for a race that can endure 700 years of

crushing oppression, and still live is practically immortal.

No doubt, most of these lapsed Irish in Washington’s army
were still Catholic at heart, and finally came back to the Mother

Church, and made a good confession before they went to their

death.

As is usual in case of approaching war, there must be a lot of

interminable parleying done before the fighting begins; and in

this instance, America not only parleyed with England but nego-

tiated with Ireland. This, of course, was a very hazardous busi-

ness for both Ireland and America, but especially for Ireland, as

she lay at the very threshold of the mother country. For these

people who had been subject to England for centuries to aid a
people who were in rebellion against England, would naturally be
interpreted by the British as treason

;
but after all, there was no

more treason in it, than there was in Patrick Henry’s memorable

speech, when he told the vociferous Tories to “make the most of

it !” As a matter of fact, Ireland and America were “in the same

box.” England had her heel on both of them, and of course, they

sympathized with each other as fellcnv-rehels. To fight for free-

dom was their only hope
;
and America would never have broken

the shackles of British tyranny without the help of the Irish. It

is noteworthy that Hon. Luther Gardiner, in a speech in the House

of Commons, on April 2, 1784, declared : “I am assured that it was
the valor of the Irish that detached America from England.”

Both Ireland and America were chafing under the same Eng-

lish yoke, and therefore the American colonists did not think it

improper or treasonable to negotiate with their Irish fellow-suf-

ferers in the great cause of freedom. Hence, the sagacious Frank-

lin was sent over to Ireland in 1771 to secure the co-operation of

the Irish. FVanklin held out the inducement to them that “by

joining their interests with ours a more equitable treatment from

England might be obtained for themselves, as well as for us.

(Franklin’s Works, Vol. VII., pp. 557-558). This, of course, in-

terested the Irish and readily brought them to our aid. The re-

sponse of the Irish was so unanimous in favor of America that
Pitt declared : “Ireland is with America to a man.” Our appeal to
the Irish incited in them such a zealous interest in the cause of
American freedom, that in spite of all kinds of threats and con-

cessions, Lord North and his colleagues could not win them from
us.

So eager were the Irish to help win civil liberty for both Ire-

land and America, that they could not even wait for any “Declar-

ation of Independence.” While the Americans were still parleying

with England, the rampant Irish proceeded at once to put up a

different sort of argument out in the open field. A year before



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 41

Washington took command of the army, the valiant General Sulli-

van struck the first blow on Dec. 11, 1774, by seizing Fort Wil-

liam and Mary at New Castle, New Hampshire, and capturing 15
cannons and 100 barrels of powder, which was used with good

effect, later on, by the 258 Irish heroes at Bunker Hill.

The next military stroke came on May 11, 1775, when Jere-

miah O’Brien made the first victorious naval attack on the British

off Machias on the coast of Maine. J. Fenimore Cooper was pleas-

ed to call this battle the “Lexington of the Seas.”

Here we could give a long list of the names of the Irish heroes

who helped us win our independence; but for want of space, we

can give only a few of the most prominent.

The intrepid Commodore “Jack Barry” has the distinction of

being the “Father of our American Navy;” and it is to his ever-

lasting honor that he scorned a high British position and a bribe

of $80,000 offered him by Lord Howe, and remained with his lit-

tle flag-ship, the “Effingham.”

Washington was so keenly appreciative of Irish honor and

heroism that he selected the following Irishmen as members of

his Body Guard to stand near him through the perilous vicissi-

tudes of the war : Chas. Dougherty, Jas. Hughes, Wm. Hennessy,
Denis Moriarty, Jeremiah Driscol, S. Daly, Jno. Finch and Thos.

Gillen.

The famous Irish General, Stephen Moylan, was Washing-
ton’s most trusted and efficient aide-de-camp; and Washington’s

Secretary through the entire war was the valiant Col. John Fitz-
gerald.

Dr. Richard H. Clarke, in his book “The Father of His Coun-
try,” says : “Washington had no more devoted friend or one whom
he esteemed more highly, than Colonel John Fitzgerald, of Alex-
andria. It was Col. Fitzgerald who, in 1774, introduced Stephen
Moylan to Washington at Mt. Vernon, where they both were al-
ways welcome guests. As an aide-de-camp to Washington, Fitz-
gerald served him gallantly to the end. He was the intermediary
and medium of communication between the General in the field
and Martha Washington at Mt. Vernon, and was thus the con-
fidential friend of Washington.”

Among the prominent Irishmen who gave financial aid to
the Revolution were Charles Carroll, regarded as the wealthiest
man in the colonies

;
and the four noted Catholics of Philadelphia

—Shea, Delaney and the Smith brothers—donated to Robert
Morris, the Financier of the Revolution, $55,000 for food and
clothing for Washington’s suffering' troops. It ife also note-
worthy that the Irish organization in Philadelphia, known as
“The Friendly Sons of St. Patrick,” contributed $517,000 in 1780
to feed Washington’s army. Washington showed his apprecia-



/

42 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE
/

tion of their loyalty by attending their special celebration Of St.

Patrick’s Day, on which occasion the hall was decorated with the
Irish colors, combined with “Old Glory.”

Among the prominent men who were powerful factors in
moulding public sentiment in favor of American independence,,

were such Irishmen as Chas. and Daniel Carroll, Matthew Lyons,,

William Thompson, John and Edward Rutledge, James Duane,.
Thadeus McCarthy, John Sullivan, Wm. Bryan, Wm. Tennet and
others.

Twenty Irishmen were members of the Continental Con-
gress from its first session in 1774 to 1787. The names of all of
these could be given here, if space would permit.

We also have the names of nine Irish governors from 1700
to 1788 in the following Colonies

:

Carolina—James Moore, 1700.
North Carolina—Arthur Dobbs, 1754.
North Carolina— Matt. Rowan 1764.
South Carolina—John Rutledge, 1776.
South Carolina—Thos. Burke, 1781.
South Carolina—Ed. Rutledge, 1788.
Delaware—John McKinley, 1776.
Pennsylvania—Geo. Bryan, 1788.
The Secretary of the Congress that issued the Declaration

of Independence was Chas. Thompson, of Derry, Ireland; and

among those who signed this immortal document were the fol-
lowing, who were either Irish born or of Irish descent: Charles
Carroll, Jas. Smith, Geo. Taylor, John Rudledge, Matt. Thornton,

Thos. McKean, Geo. Read, Thos. Lynch and Robert Paine; Han-

cock and Whipple were of Irish descent on the maternal side.

Among all the signers of the Declaration of Independence
there was no one more truly devoted to civil and religious liberty

than the peerless Charles Carroll, of Carrollton. This is strik-

ingly exhibited in a letter he wrote to Washington’s foster-son.

Geo. W. P. Chstis, on Feb. 20, 1829, when he was far advanced in

age. In this letter he said : “When I signed the Declaration of In-
dependence, I had in view not only our independence of England,

but also the toleration of all sects professing the Christian

religion, and communicating to them all, equal rights—Believing,
as you must, in the disabilities and proscription of the Roman
Catholics in Maryland, you will not be surprised that I had this

grand design much at heai't, founded on mutual charity, the basis

©f our holy religion.”

Well might George Washington Parke Custis say to his coun-



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 43

trymen later on: “This Shamrock should be entwined with the
laurels of the Revolution. Americans, recall to your minds the
recollections of this heroic time when Irishmen were your friends,
and when in the whole world we had not a friend beside. The
rank grass had grown over the grave of many a poor Irishman
who had died for America ere the Flag of the Lillies floated in the
field beside the Star Spangled Banner.”

Yes the Irish came to our rescue long before the French be-
gan to take an interest in us. Archbishop Spalding in his Mis-
cellanea, exclaims : “Can America ever forget that the Irish were
the first people in Europe to sympathize with us; and can we for-
get that it was this generous sympathy and aid given us by the
Irish that was alleged by the British to be the reason why the
petitions of Ireland for political enfranchisement were rejected.”

Yes if St. Brenden was indeed the first to discover this west-
ern land, in the distant past, then America is really the New Erin,
where every down-trodden refugee from the “Emerald Isle” may
find a home, and where the Shamrock may forever be entwined
with the “Red, White and Blue.”

Now, in order to be more fair, let us admit that even three-
fourths of the Irish in Washington’s army were Protestants or
lapsed Catholics, we are still obliged to take into account the
other Catholics in the colonies who were not Irish. These, to-
gether with the Catholics from France, Spain, Poland and other
foreign countries, would abundantly make up for all these non-
Catholic Irish, and will give us a Catholic majority in the Colonial
army. So, after all the deductions that can fairly be made, we
still have before us the amazing spectacle of an American con-
tinental army that was mostly Catholic! This would, indeed,
seem miraculous, if it were not for the fact that among the
3,000,000 people in the colonies, there were thousands and thous-
ands of Tories, who, of course, did not join Washington’s army;
and every one knows that nearly all of those Tories were Pro-
testants.

With all these facts before us, we feel safe in saying that the
greater number of patriots in the struggle for American Inde-
pendence were Catholics. Catholic Spain gave us 1,000,000
francs, 3,000 barrels of powder, blankets for nearly 10,000 sol-
diers, and opened the port of Havana for our Navy. At the same
time, Spain drew the other European nations into an armed
neutrality, which held England in check.

Catholic Poland gave us Kosciusko and Pulaski
;
and Catholic

France ! What would we have done if the French fleur-de-lis had
not followed the Irish Shamrock to our shores? Besides furnish-



44 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

ing us with over $3,000,000, France fitted out and sent to us the

most powerful navy since the days of the “Invincible Armada,”

and furnished us with the great commanders. La Fayette, De
Grasse, Rochambeau, Count D’Estaing, and others. It was De
Grasse and LaFayette who bottled up Cornwallis at Yorktown;
and with the co-operation of a land force of about 6,000 French

and American soldiers under Rochambeau and Washington, Corn-

wallis was forced to surrender, which practically ended the war.

And here again, (let us not forget it) there stood close beside
Washington the two valiant Irish generals, Moylan and Fitz-

gerald.

But the glory of the Irish record in the war was not yet com-
pleted; for just as the treaty acknowledging American indepen-

dence was being ratified, the gallant Barry, off the coast of Florida

won a most brilliant naval victory. Indeed, it was Captain
Barry’s succession of brilliant victories during the entire war that
caused Washington, a few years later, to appoint him to organize

and command the American navy that was to maintain the honor
of the new Republic.

In closing this account of the participation of Catholic

France in our struggle for independence, we feel that it is due to
France to say that we could not have gained our independence
without her. This is generally admitted by American historians

;

and the great Washington was generous enough to say: “In the

midst of a war, the nature of difficulties of which were peculiar

and uncommon, I cannot flatter myself in any way to recompense

the sacrifices France has made. To call her brave were to pro-

nounce but common praise. Wonderful Nation! The ages to come

will read with astonishment the history of your brilliant exploits.”

When the war was ended a Te Deum was sung in St. Joseph’s
in Philadelphia, which was attended by Washington and La

Fayette.

REFERENCES:

“Life of Jay.”—Tellew.
“History of the United States.”—Bancroft.
“Jay’s Treaty.”—Bemis.
“Franklin’s Works,” Vol. VII, pp. 557, 558.

“The Father of His Country.”—Richard H. Clarke.
“History of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States.”—Thomas

O’Gorman (pp. 250-258).

“Hidden Phases of American History.”—Michael J. O’Brien.
“Catholic Builders of the Nation.”—^^Published by Continental Press,

Boston, Mass.



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 45

CHAPTER VI.

Catholics In the Formation of the American Republic.

In the Revolution, the common cause of liberty the common
clanger, and the unflinching loyalty and valor of the Catholics,

tended to subdue the intense anti-Catholic spirit which was so

prevalent at the beginning of the war; and this caused Catholics

to be admitted freely into the deliberative councils of the young

Republic. Fair-minded and sagacious statesmen, like Madison,

Jefferson, Washington and others, had become thoroughly dis-

pleased with the civil and religious intolerance which the different

sects and factions had shown toward one another, and especially

with the unjust discriminations made against Catholics.

First of all, the combined efforts of Madison and Jefferson se-

cured the passage of the “Bill of Rights” in the Virginia Assem-

bly, by which the state threw off the shackles of ecclesiastical op-

pression and completely succeeded in divorcing Church and State.

They were thoroughly tired of the domination of “the Established

Anglican Church,” which had built up, by law and governmental

support, a despotic monopoly of religious worship, taxing the

entire population to maintain the Anglican Church, and perse-

cuting and proscribing all other faiths and forms of worship, and

gradually establishing over the minds and consciences of men an
odious system of “spiritual tyranny.” Jefferson himself, in his

“Autobiography,” gives these as the main reasons that impelled

him, with untiring effort, against bitter opposition. Anally to se-

cure the passage of the Virginia “Statute for Religious Freedom.”

So well did he succeed in his relentless warfare against ecclesias-

tical dominion that today his standard of religious freedom is the

accepted standard of every American state.

But while Madison and Jefferson were the flrst to institute

civil and religious liberty in the young American Nation, let us

not forget that Lord Baltimore had instituted the same thing in

the Catholic colony of Maryland more than one hundred years

before. Jefferson, of course, could not have been ignorant of

this, and consequently he and his colleagues must have derived

their inspiration from this noble. Catholic precedent. There is
a remarkable similarity between the Virginia “Statute for Re-

ligious Freedom” and the “Toleration Act,” of Catholic Mary-
land; and it is not true, as some up-to-date rationalists would
have us believe, that free-thinking Thomas Jefferson “was the
originator of all our American principles of freedom.”

Soon after the establishment of civil and religious liberty in



46 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

Virginia, the law-makers of the new Nation wisely began to con-
sider the formation of a federal constitution as the basis of all

future legislation. It is remarkable that while at this very time

there were still a number of misguided Protestant fanatics who
vehemently proclaimed that “this is a Protestant nation in which

there is no place for papists and popery,” there was a truly

patriotic and influential class of Catholics who were actively in-
terested in the formation of the national constitution. Their

loyalty and competency were so well appreciated by the better

class of Protestants that they were officially honored with the

privilege of participating in the founding and building of the

nation. Consequently we And that among the framers of the Con-
stitution there were seven Irishmen, some of whom we know were
Catholics; and it was an Irishman who first printed that docu-
ment, and an Irishman who first read it publicly. Here are the
names of the seven Irishmen who were members of this Constitu-
tional Convention : Charles Carroll, Daniel Carroll, Thomas Fitz-
simmons, John Rutledge, James McHenry, Pierce Butler, and

George Read.

The first draft of the Constitution did not contain, in very

clear form, any guarantee for religious freedom
;
and it has been

reported that it was the distinguished Catholic Daniel Carroll, of

Maryland, who drew up a memorial to Congress urging the neces-
sity of a constitutional provision for the protection and mainten-

anie of civil and religious freedom.

When this memorial was presented to the Convention, it was
favorably received, and resulted finally in the enactment of the

first Amendment to the Constitution, which declares that “Con-
gress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This Amendment was
ratified in 1791.

When the members of the Constitutional Convention inserted
this Amendment in the Constitution, Cardinal Gibbons says, “they
were echoing the sentiments and even repeating the language of

the Maryland Assembly, which in 1649 declared that ‘No person

whatsoever within this Province, professing to believe in Jesus

Christ, shall from henceforth be in any way molested for his or
her religion, nor in the free exercise thereof.’ We may, therefore,
affirm that Lord Baltimore’s ‘Act of Toleration’ in 1649 was the

bright dawn that preceded the noonday sun of freedom in 1787

;

and we have every reason to believe that the Proprietary’s Char-
ter of liberty, with its attendant blessings, served as an example,

an incentive, and an inspiration to the framers of the Constitu-

tion, to extend over the New Republic the precious boon of civil
and religious liberty.”



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 47

And yet, despite all these historic evidences, we have been re-

minded, again and again, that our American freedom is to be at-

tributed to the influence of the liberty-loving Pilgrim Fathers of

New England.
Religious freedom was thus secured for the original thirteen

states, but as yet, there was no provision for its extension into any

other territory of ours. It was necessary therefore, to enact a

simitar statute to secure civil and religious freedom in the “North-

west Territory,” which we acquired at the close of the Revolution

;

hence, our statesmen passed the famous “Ordinance of 1787,”

which took that territory Out of hands of the Virginia colony and

made it a part of the national domain of the young Republic.

But how did We acquire this “Northwest Territory?”

It should be noted that our conflicts in the Northwest Terri-

tory were practically contemporaneous with our struggles with

England in the Revolution proper; and hence, we had a double

conflict, with the uncivilized Indians on one side of us and the

British on the other. We have already noted the reason why the
Canadians did not join the colonists in their revolt against Eng-

land
;
but neither did they, as a people, fight against the colonists.

There is no record of any Canadian regiment, or even company,

being enlisted under the British banner. As a body, the Canadians

were neutral; but as individuals, quite a number of them came

over into our territory and joined us in our struggle for freedom.

It is a matter of record that two regiments of Canadian volun-

teers joined the Americans, and were known as “Congress’s Own,”
on account of their valuable services. With them we may group
the Catholic Indians of the North and Northwest, who, under the

celebrated Chief Orono, guided by Father Gibault of Vincennes,

rendered valiant aid to the struggling colonists. Orono bore a

Continental Commission giving him authority to lead his tribes-
men to the field of battle. In Judge Cauthorn’s History of Vin-
cennes, (pp. 79, 80), we find the very names of the 150 men who
marched through Vincennes under Col. George Rogers Clark

;
and

89 of these, (nearly two-thirds), were names of Irishmen, most of
whom were undoubtedly Catholics. It is to the everlasting credit
and honor of Father Gibault, the patriotic priest of Vincennes,

that he, in company with Francis Vigo, a Spanish merchant, ren-
dered valuable aid to General Clark, and thus helped to raise the
American Flag over the stations of the Northwest, which gained
for us a vast territory out of which we have carved several power-
ful states. Thus by the aid rendered to General Clark by Father
Gibault, a whole empire of sovereign states was finally added to
our young Republic in the very beginning of its existence. This
patriotic priest led the Catholic Indians, as well as Catholic white
men, into the cause of thq American colonists, and later on, in



48 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DO|NE

1780, Washington’s own state, Virginia, recognized his services
by a public resolution of its legislature. Thus did we acquire the
great Northwest Territory by the help of Catholics, led by a pat-

riotic priest.

When we consider these significant facts, we do not wonder
that the great “Father of his Country” cheerfully expressed his

gratitude publicly to the Catholics who helped us gain our na-
tional independence.

In New York, on March 3, 1789, while Washington was pre-
paring for his inauguration as the first President of the New Re-
public, an address of congratulation was read to him in behalf of
the Catholics of America. It was signed by the three illustrious

Carrols—Charles, Daniel and John—^the last of whom became the
Bishop of Baltimore in this same year; and by Thomas Fitzsim-
mons of Philadelphia, and Dominic Lynch of New York. In re-
sponse to this courtesy, Washington, later on, (March 12, 1790)

,

addressed an open letter “To the Roman Catholics in the United
States,” in which we find this significant paragraph: “I hope ever
to see America among the foremost nations in examples of justice
and liberality; and I presume that your Protestant fellow citizens

will not forget the patriotic part you took in the accomplishment

of the Revoultion and the establishment of the Government, or

the important assistance which they received from a nation in

which the Roman Catholic faith is professed.”
Humanly speaking, it is not too much to say that we should

have had no United States at all, had it not been for the unflinch-

ing patriotism of Catholics. So admirable was the loyalty of the

Catholics, and so influential had they become by their high char-

acter and potriotism, that at the close of the Revolution (1783)

the Church gained one of its most distinguished converts—Rev.
John Thayer, a scholarly Congregational minister of New Eng-
land, and this too, in the midst of strong anti-Catholic intolerance.

So much for Catholic loyalty in the struggle for American
freedom and the founding of the Nation,

REFERENCES:
^‘Jefferson’s Autobiography.”

“Statute for Religious Freedom,” of Virginia.

“History of Vincennes.”—Cauthorn. (pp. 79, 80.)
“Life and Times of Archbishop Carroll.”—Shea (p. 348).

“Elliott’s Debates,”—Vol. II, pp. 120-148, Vol. IV., p. 242.
“Madison’s Journal.”

X-



FOE AMEEICAN CIVILIZATION, 49

CHAPTER VII.

Catholics in the Preservation of the Union.

Soon after the establishment of the young Republic, our fore-

fathers began to cast about for a home for our national ofRcials-

—a capitol city which should be the center of our government.
Congress, therefore, appointed a committee of three to examine

proposed sites for a federal city. These three men were Doctor
David Stuart, physician to the president. Chief Justice Johnson of

Maryland, and Daniel Carroll, of the famous Catholic Carroll

family. They selected a site covering part of the Carroll estate;

so that our great Capitol at Washington today stands on a site

given to our Nation by a Catholic, and within the identicalterri-

tory in which Lord Baltimore and the Maryland statesmen in 1649

first unfurled the banner of religious liberty. It is also worthy of

note that it was the Catholic Major General Charles L’Enfantwho

laid out the Capitol City, and the Catholic Francis Pope who owned
the White House Grounds and the Catholic John Hoban who drew
the plans for the White House, and the Catholic Robert Brent who
was the first Mayor of the Capitol City, which office he held for

ten years.

Then, later on, when the “Father of His Country” had passed
on to his eternal reward, the Catholic Bishop Carroll preached

a notable panegyric on Washington in St. Peter’s, Baltimore, on

Feb. 22, 1800.

The failure of the “Irish Rebellion” in 1798 increased the
Irish emigration to America so rapidly that, according to good

authority, not fewer than 6,000 of these “Exiles of Erin” landed

on our shores between 1798 and 1812. They were here just in
time to participate in our second conflict with England—^the “War
of 1812”—and of course, we know which side they would take in
the conflict.

We must also note that in 1806 the “Louisiana Purchase”
more than doubled our territory, and also helpel to double our pop-
ulation; and this also increased the number of Catholics in the
United States by bringing in large accessions of French Catholics
in the far West and Southwest.

From this time down to the present day the Catholic popula-
tion of our country has grown far more rapidly than our general
population has

;
and in every national crisis thru which we have

passed, our Catholic people have invariably come to the front in
defense of what they believed to be the true principles of civil and
religious liberty. In the “War of 1812” thousands of Catholics
were found among the officers and in the “rank and file” of the



60 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

American Army. It was by the valiant assistance of French Cath-

olics that General Jackson’s “Mountaineers” won their great vic-
tory over the British in the famous “Battle of New Orleans.” It
is noteworthy, too, that when General Jackson and his army
marched into New Orleans, after this signal victory, the whole
Catholic populace came out to greet him, while a Te Deum was
sung in the Catholic Cathedral, near which Jackson’s statue stands

today.

Later on, in our war with Mexico, a country which was pre-
dominantly Catholic, our American Catholics proved their loyal-

ty to the United States. When our victorious army entered the
City of Mexico, the first American flag borne into the city was

carried by a regiment under the command of the Catholic General,
James Shields. Here we see a practical refutation of the false
claim, so often made, that all Catholics are a unit in their civil

allegiance to the Pope; and that our American Catholics consti-

tute a “Political Machine” under papal control.

The same absurdity is apparent, also, in the conduct of Cath-

olics in our “Civil War.” As American Catholics had fought

against Mexican Catholics, so in our Civil War Southern Catholics
fought against Northern Catholics. The former were as loyal to

the Southern Confederacy as the latter were loyal to the Union.

Beauregard and ether Confederate officers were Catholic, while

on the Union side there was a brilliant galaxy of Catholic officers

—Sheridan, Meagher, Corcoran, Shields, O’Brien, McMahon, and
many others too numerous to mention. While it is not the pur-
pose of this paper to discuss the causes of the Civil War, it is

enough to say, in passing, that the whole contest was not a matter

of loyalty against disloyalty, but simply a difference of opinion

as to the proper interpretation of the Constitution in regard to

the true relation of the sovereign states to the federal government.

The Confederates were not a lawless mob, but simply an organ-

ized body of “rebels,” just as the colonists were, at the time of the

Revolution. They were all loyal to what they believed to be the
just principles of civil authority. While the writer himself is a

Unionist, thru and thru, and deeply deplores the Confederacy as

a serious and fatal mistake, yet he would be far from charging the
Confederates with deliberate lawlessness.

Who can listen to the music of that Southern Marseillaise

—

“My Maryland! My Maryland!”—written by that Catholic South-
erner, James R. Randall, without feeling a thrill of deep emotion;

and who can read that pathetic apotheosis to the Confederate
cause

—

“The Conquered Banner”—written by the poet-priest.
Father Ryan, without being filled with reverence and admiration

for the sincere devotion that may be given to a “Lost Cause” ?
It is an established fact that the ruling classes in England



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 61

were thoroughly in sympathy with the Southern Confederacy, as

is evidenced by the fact that she permitted swift sailing vessels

and steamers to be fitted out from her ports laden with munitions

of war to aid the Conferedacy. The British government issued

a proclamation of professed neutrality, which of course, was a

virtual recognition of the independent national integrity of the

Confederate States. Her main reason for thus putting the Con-

federacy on the same footing with the United States was her de-

sire to perpetuate slavery. This attitude of England toward slav-

ery was severely rebuked, not only by American statesrnen, but

it was formally condemned by a body of Protestant ministers in

France. (See Jackman’s “History of the American Nation,” Vol.

IV., p. 892; and Vol. V., p. 990.)

It is well known that Jefferson’s original draft of the Declara-

tion of Independence was pretty thoroughly altered and revised

by the Continental (Congress before it was finally completed and

adopted and published in its present form. It was the privilege

of the Author, while in Washington several years ago, to see the

old, faded, interlined copy of this precious document, as it ap-

peared just before a “fair copy” of it was written out in full for

publication. Most of the alterations were slight, and were incor-

porated into the document by brief interlinear additions and

eliminations; but aside from all these smaller alterations, there

was one large paragraph, which Jefferson had written in the

original draft, which was entirely left out through the influence

of, and in defference to, a number of “hyphenated” characters who
were not yet “100 per cent Americans.” This paragraph as Jef-

ferson had written it, was especially objectionable to these

“hyphenates,” because they regarded it as entirely too radical, in

its open, undisguised, condemnation of King George for introduc-

ing and operating in the American Colonies, a most disgraceful

and degrading slave traffic! Here is the paragraph in which

Jefferson arraigned King George for permitting this hellish traffic

of buying and selling human beings

:

“He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violat-
ing its most sacred rights of life and liberty, in the persons of a

distant people v/ho never offended him, capturing and carrying

them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable
death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the

opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King
of Great Britain ! Determined to keep open a market where men
should be bought and sold, he prostituted his negative by sup-
pressing every legislative attempt to restrain this execrable com-
merce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact
of distinguished dye, he is now exciting those very people,
(negroes) to rise up in arms against us and procure that liberty.



62 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

of which he deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom
he obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed

against the liberties of one people by crimes which he is urging

them to commit against the lives of another (people)

In this remarkable passage, Jefferson dealt a few stunning

blows at King George and his Parliament, in true characteristic

Jeffersonian style; and, like Washington and other genuine Amer-

ican patriots, he felt that, on account of England’s treacherous

dealings with the American Colonies, we should cut loose from all

dependent relations with Great Britain, and declare ourselves

absolutely independent. He felt that the time had come for com-
plete separation from the mother country, and he had no patience

with any so-called American who was still content to cringe at the

feet of any English Sovereign.

Jefferson was greatly pained over the expurgation of this

paragraph from his original draft of this document, and com-

plained of it in a letter to his friend, Mrs. Wells, written as late

as 1819, in the following contemptuous terms : “The pusillanimous

idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with,
still haunted the minds of many; and for this reason those pas-

sages (of the Declaration of Independence) which conveyed cen-

sure on England, were struck out, lest they should give offense.”

It is remarkable that this passage, in which the slave traffic

was so bitterly condemned, was written by a staunch Southern

Democrat and a Virginian

!

It may not be too much to say, that Thomas Jefferson was one
of the most conspicuous examples of a true “100 per cent Ameri-

can” that ever breathed on American soil; yet, he was more, in

his heroic defence of Civil and Religious Liberty, he was the very

incarnation of Americanism!

Just recently, (April 18, 1921) Lloyd George made the fol-
lowing remarkable statement : “At the outbreak of the American

struggle (Civil War) nearly every one in these islands sympa-
thized with the South. Wm. Gladstone took this view, and only
John Bright, (the famous English statesman), did not waver in

his adherence to Lincoln’s cause.” Now, this very fact, aside from

any other, would be sufficient to put the Irish, as a class, against

the Confederacy and in favor of the Union; and that is just what

happened. The thousands of Irish that had immigrated to our

shores since their unsuccessful “Rebellion” in 1798, were only too

ready to antagonize anything that might be in favor of England.

When the “first gun of Sumter’ was fired there were already many
Irish Catholics in the garrison under Major Anderson; and when
Lincoln made his first call for troops in 1861, among the very first
to respond, was the famous Irish 69th New York regiment under
the command of Col. Michael Corcoran.



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 63

So freely did the Irish and other Catholics respond to the mili-

tary call, that good authority declares that “in the Civil War, the

proportion of Catholics in the Union Army was douhU the pro-
portion that Catholics bore to the whole population ; and a whole

host of Catholic generals served in the federal army to preserve

the Union.”

Here again,, we feel obliged, for want of space, to omit the

long list of names of the Catholic generals in the Union Army.

On April 23, 1861, the celebrated 69th New York regiment
marched out of the city with flying colors, amid the wild cheers of

the populace. At the head of the column was a decorated vehicle

bearing the flaming mscvi^tion “Sixty-Ninth—Remember Fonte-
noy!” This reference to Fontenoy carries us back to the European

historic back-ground of this famous regiment. Capt. D. P. Con-

yngham, one of the Irish oflicers associated with the gallant Irish

General Meagher, in the Civil War, gives us a fine account of this

in his book, “The Famous Irish Brigade.” From his very inter-
esting account of the exploits of the Irish who had enlisted in
France long ago under the Fleur-de-Lis, we quote the following

:

“There are few battle-fields in Europe and America where

the Irish soldier has not left his footprints. . . . The exploits of

the Irish at Ramifies and Fontenoy, are proudly chronicled in

French history. The latter, especially, was as decisive for the

French as Waterloo was for the English. . . . Even King George
uttered this memorable imprecation against England’s Penal

Code : ‘Cursed be the laws that deprive me of such subjects’.”

This explains the reference to “Fontenoy” in the parade of

the 69th regiment in New York. They simply reminded them-
selves that their famous regiment had a history.

And Fontenoy, famed Fontenoy,
had been a Waterloo

;

Were not these exiles ready
then, fresh, vehement and true?”

Just here we may be permitted to extend this digression a
little further by repeating the fine eulogy which the Duke of Well-
ingford passed on the extraordinary valor of the Irish Catholics

in his army. In a speech in the House of Lords he said : “It is well
known that of the troops which have been entrusted to my com-
mand at various times, ... at least one-half were Roman Cath-
olics. . . . Your Lordships are well aware for what length of time
and under what difficult circumstances they maintained the em-
pire, . . . and how they kept alive the only spark of freedom
which was left unextinguished in all Europe. . . . My Lords, it
is mainly to the Irish Catholics that we owe our proud predomin-
ance in military achievement. ... We must confess, my Lords,



s4 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

that without Catholic blood and Catholic valor no victory could

ever have been obtained.”

Has England forgotten all this?

What was known as the “Irish Brigade” in the Civil War,
consisted chiefly of the 69th N. Y. V., the 63rd N. Y. V., the 88th

N. Y. V., and the 9th Massachusetts. These regiments comprised

at the beginning of the war, about 3,000 soldiers
;
and this famous

69th regiment consisted of nine companies, with a total of more

than 1,000 men This entire “Irish Brigade” has the distinction
of being engaged in more than 25 of the leading battles of the

Civil War.

But in addition to this “Brigade” there were thousands and

thousands of Irish soldiers amalgamated with various other com-

mands throughout the Union Army, making a total of nearly 1,-

000,000 loyal Irishmen, who fought to preserve the Union. Gov-
ernor Phillips of Wisconsin, while commending the loyalty of

Catholics in the “World War,” also refers to their loyalty in the

“Civil War” by saying- “The Catholics are made of the sort of stuft
that built up a strong Union Army.”

REFERENCES;
‘The Catholic Foundation of Our National Capitol.”—Downing.
“History of the National Capitol.”—^W. B. Bryan. Macmillan, 1914.
“History of the American Nation.”—Jackman.
“Life and Times of Lincoln.”—Lamon.
“The Irish Brigade.”—D. T. Conyingham.
“Numbers and Losses in the Civil Wlar.”—-Thomas L. Livermore.

X

CHAPTER VIII.

Catholics in the World War.

As to Catholic loyalty in the recent “World War,” it is already

so well known and so fully appreciated by our American people,
that it is hardly necessary to add another word now to their glor-
ious record. It will be enough simply to relate a few of the offi-

cial declarations of several Catholic institutions, and how heartily
these expressions of loyalty were appreciated by President Wilson

and other non-Catholic officials of high rank; and then close by

mentioning a few of the special outstanding military achieve-

ments of Catholics during the war. As soon as war was declared,
President Wilson received the following “Letter of the Catholic

Archbishops to the President of the United States”:

“Mr. President : Standing firmly upon solid Catholic tradition



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 55

and history from the very foundation of this nation, we reaffirm in

this hour of stress and trial our most sacred and sincere loyalty

and patriotism toward our country, our government, and our flag.

“Moved to the very depths of our hearts by the stirring ap-

peal of the President of the United states and by the action of our

national congress, we accept whole-heartedly and unreservedly

the decree of that legislative authority proclaiming this country to

be in a state of war.

“We have prayed that we might be spared the dire necessity
of entering the conflict. But now that war has been declared we

bow in obedience to the summons to bear our part in it, with fidel-

ity, with courage and with the spirit of sacrifice, which as loyal

citizens we are bound to manifest for the defense of the most sac-

red rights and the welfare of the whole nation.

“Acknowledging gladly the gratitude we have always felt
for the protection of our spiritual liberty and the freedom our

Catholic institutions under the flag, we pledge our devotion and

our strength to the maintenance of our country’s glorious leader-

ship in those possessions and principles which have been Amer-

ica’s proudest boast.

“Inspired neither by hate nor fear, but by the holy sentiments

of truest patriotic fervor and zeal, we stand ready, we and all the
flock committed to our keeping, to co-operate in every way possible
with our President and our national government, to the end that

the great and holy cause of liberty may triumph, and that our be-
loved country may emerge from this hour of test stronger and
nobler than ever.

“Our people now, as ever, will rise as one man to serve the
nation. Our priests and consecrated women will once again, as
in every former trial of our country, win, by their bravery, their
heroism and their service, new admiration and approval.

“We are all true Americans, ready as our age, our ability and
our condition permit, to do whatever is in us to do, for the pre-

servation, the progress and the triumph of our beloved country.

“May God direct and guide our President and our govern-
ment, that out of this trying crisis in our national life may at
length come a closer union among all the citizens of America, and
that an enduring and blessed peace may crown the sacrifices which
war inevitably entails.

“James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore.
“William Cardinal O’Connell, Archbishop of Boston.

“John Ireland, Archbishop of St. Paul.
,

“John J. Glennon, Archbishop of St. Louis.
“Sebastian G. Messmer, Archbishop of Milwaukee.
“Henry Moeller, Archbishop of Cincinnati.



WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

“Edward J. Hanna, Archbishop of San Francisco.

“George W. Mundelein, Archbishop of Chicago.”

No wonder the President’s heart was thrilled and warmed
by this expression of loyalty! We are not surprised that the grate-
ful President expressed his appreciation of this so heartily in the

following note to Cardinal Gibbons

:

“The very remarkable resolutions unanimously adopted by

the Archbishops of the United States at their annual meeting in

the Catholic University on April 18, last, a copy of which you were

kind enough to send me, warms my heart and makes me very
proud indeed that men of suchlarge influence should act in so large
a sense of patriotism and so admirable a spirit of devotion to our

common country.”
Not only President Wilson, but other high officials expressed

their appreciation of this declaration of loyalty. A. Mitchell

Palmer, Attorney General of the United States, said

:

“I have read with deep interest the Pastoral Letter of the

Archbishops and Bishops to their clergy and people of the Cath-

olic Church in the United States, the first that has been issued in

the past thirty-five years, and was impressed with its profound

thought and lofty tone.

“The greeting from the dignitaries of the church is addressed

to their people, not only as members of the Catholic Church, but

as citizens of the Republic.

“I am glad that the Catholic Church in the United States, as
exemplified by the Pastoral Letter, is showing such splendid and

progressive spirit.”

In perfect harmony with this was the declaration of loyalty

made by the “American Federation of Catholic Societies.” In
their Convention in Kansas City, Mo., this organization declared

:

,“We renew assurances of fidelity already offered to the Presi-

dent of the nation by the Catholic Archbishops, and we pledge
without reservation our blood and our treasure for the defense

and the perpetuation of our beloved country which offers the full-

est measure of religious, political and economic liberty, not only

to its own people, but to the oppressed of every land.

“Whether the war be long or short, we pledge the undeviating
loyalty of 3,000,000 Catholic men and women united in feder-
ation.”

In regard to the patriotic spirit of this “Federation,” the

Editor of the “Davenport, (la.) Democrat,” had this to say, in

the issue of Aug. 28, 1917

:

“That is the sentiment that permeates the meeting, and which

has been evident not only in the words but the acts of the Catholic

societies ever since America entered the war. The loyalty of



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 67

American Catholics is beyond question, and they stand as a body

in earnest support of their government to the end of the war, and

for principles of democracy which must govern the peace that

shall follow the war.”

The “Catholic Educational Convention” also passed the fol-

lowing resolutions

:

“The Association gives its whole-hearted support to the Chief

Executive of our country. President Wilson, in this supreme mo-

ment of trial. It pledges unswerving fidelity and devotion to him

in the prosecution of the war for the complete attainment of the

high and moral ideals set forth by him.

“In a spirit of humility and gratitude we give thanks to God
for the splendid patriotism displayed in this crisis by the gradu-

ates of Catholic colleges, who have rallied to the colors in sur-
prisingly large numbers in a spirit of entire devotion.”

Here also is the official record of the Georgetown Catholic

University, at Washington, D. C., giving the enrollments of its

students in the service of the United States

:

Of the sons of the great Catholic University 2620 were en-

rolled in the service list. Of these 54 sacrificed their lives and 28

were decorated for their achievements. The detailed list indicates

the following ranks and numbers for the Georgetown men in the
army: Generals, 3; colonels, 18; majors, 9; captains, 148; lieu-

tenants, 649 ; candidates,181 ; noncoms, 227 ; privates, 811. In the

navy : Admirals, 1 ; lieutenants, 37 ; ensigns,129 ; P. 0., 96 ; sea-

men, 175.. In the marines: Majors, 7; captains, 5; lieutenants,

25 ; candidates, 7 ; noncoms, 11 ; privates, 31. The total number
for the army was 2096 ; for the navy, 438, and for the marines, 86.

Here are the utterances of some of the individual members of
the Hierarchy.

In a memorable discourse delivered from the pulpit of his
Cathedral in Baltimore, the Sunday after Congress had declared
that our country was in a state of war. Cardinal Gibbons uttered
these patriotic words

:

“The primary duty of a citizen is loyalty to country . . . .
exhibited by an absolute and unreserved obedience to his country’s
call .... manifested by solemn service, not by empty declam-
ation. ... In the present emergency it behooves every American
citizen to do his duty, to uphold the hands of the President and
the Congress in the solemn obligations that confront us, to pray
that the Lord of Hosts may inspire them to such measures as will
redound to the glory of our cuntry, to righteousness of aim and
conduct and to the future permanent peace of the world.”

On the same solemn day Cardinal Farley, from the pulpit of
his See, declared:



68 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

“Our President and our national Representatives having

spoken, our response to the voice of authority which they embody

will be to rally around our flag with complete fullness of devotion,

with loyal hearts and sturdiest arms, to place all that we have and
all that we are, at the service of our country. We will not shrink
from any sacrifice in her behalf. We will render to her what our
Catholic faith and teaching both sanction and sanctify. No de-
mand on our citizenship will go unanswered or find us other than
true Americans, true children of the Church, which never was

found wanting in any crisis of our country.”

And Father Dromgoole, representing Archbishop Prender-
gast, delivered this clear-cut declaration of loyalty:

“Every faculty of the Church, manhood, womanhood, priest-

hood, sisterhood, churches, schools and hospitals are lined solidly

behind the nation and the President. Spiritually, intellectually

and materially the Catholic Church is behind the President.”

Many more similar expressions of loyalty came from the lips
of other members of the Hierarchy, and from the rank and file of

the clergy all over the land. Large numbers of the priests volun-

tarily left their parishes, for the time being, and enlisted as chap-

pains in the army. So freely did the Catholics respond to the call

of the Nation, that Secretary Baker, in a statement issued on

Sept. 22, 1917, declared that Catholics constituted 35 per cent of

the new army. It was found, later on, that at least 40 per cent of
the army and navy were Catholics. To appreciate the full signi-

vcance of this we need to bear in mind that Catholics constituted
only about 16 per cent of the entire population of the United

States.

A writer in the Extension Magazine said: “Not only have
Catholics furnished 40 per cent of the fighting force on land and

sea and in the air, but they have bought Liberty Bonds, Thrift

Stamps, and have enrolled in the Red Cross and in the League of

Conservation, and other organized means of winning the war. But

all this was to be expected; for every Catholic School, is a nursery

of patriotism, and every Catholic pulpit a gospel of loyalty, and

every Catholic altar a plea for sacrifice.”

Not only did Catholic men show their loyalty to the country,
but the dear Catholic Sisterhoods all over the land sent up their

prayers to God and offered their services as nurses of the sick and

the dying, both in the hospitals and on the battlefields. As a mat-
ter of fact, thousands of these dear “angels of mercy” went to the

scene of war, and many of them lost their precious lives in seek-
ing to save the lives of others. This was not only true in the re-
cent gigantic war; but it has always been true in all the wars

through which our nation has ever passed. A recent writer gives



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 59

US the following brief account of the noble work of the nuns in

our Civil War

:

“There were 250,000 Catholic soldiers in the Union Army.

Excepting Louisiana and Maryland, there were more Catholic

Sisters nursing the Union soldiers than there were Catholics in

the entire Confederate Army. Every Order of Catholic Sisters in

the country sent every available Sister to nurse the sick, wounded

and dying in field and hospital. They served without pay through-

out the long, dark struggle. Their charm, grace, efficiency and

skill at all times under the superb management of Sister Anthony

and Mothers Catharine Spaulding and Columbo Caroll, won and

received the eternal gratitude of the entire nation. What these
noble women proved themselves to be in those troublesome times,
so too are such today. The crawling, sneaking, human viper who
dares to slander them deserves and should receive the withering

and everlasting curse of humankind.”

Just here we beg to give the Immortal Lincoln’s eulogy on the
heroic labors of the Catholic Sisters on the battlefields of the Civil

War. From the great heart of this Great Man came these warm
words of appreciation

:

“Of all the forms of charity and benevolence seen in the

crowded wards of the hospitals, those of some Catholic Sisters

were among the most efficient. I never knew whence they came or
what the name of their order. More lovely than anything I have
ever seen in art, so long devoted to illustrations of love, mercy and

charity, are the pictures that remain of those modest Sisters go-

ing on their errands of mercy among the suffering and the dying,
gentle and womanly, yet with the courage of soldiers leading a

forlorn hope, to sustain them in contact with such horrors. As
they went from cot to cot distributing the medicines prescribed,

or administering the cooling, strengthening draughts as directed,

they were veritable angels of mercy. Their words were suited to

every sufferer. One they incited and encouraged, another they

calmed and soothed. With every soldier they conversed about his
home, his wife, his children, all the loved ones he was soon to see
again if he was obedient and patient. How many times have I
'seen them exorcise pain by their presence or their words. How
often has the hot forehead of the soldier grown cool as one of these
Sisters bathed it. How often has he been refreshed, encouraged
and assisted along the road to convalescence, when he would other-
wise have fallen by the way, by the home memories with which
these unpaid nurses filled his heart!”

These words will be inscribed on the monument which will
soon be erected in Washington as a memorial to the nuns of the
battlefield. Let bigots of every stripe, peruse them and learn from



CO WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

a mind that was immeasureably superior to theirs how to appreci-

ate some of the work of our Sisterhoods.

But among all the achievements of Catholics in the World

War, none has been more active and heroic than those of the

Knights of Columbus. To state these in detail would require a

volume; and for want of space, we shall simply summarize their

activities as briefly as possible.

In the very beginning of the war, the Knights assured Presi-

dent Wilson of their loyalty; and the President showed his con-

fidence in their word by the following note through his Secretary,

Mr. Tumulty:

“My Dear Mr. Flaherty:

“The President genuinely appreciates the heartening assur-

ances that you give him in your telegram of August 7 in the name

of the Knights of Columbus of the United States. Such messages

do much to keep him in heart and he asks me to convey to you one
and all an expression of. his cordial thanks.”

Not only did the Knights premise their loyalty, but, later on,

they proved it by “making good.”

On March 15, 1918, the President wrote to the K. of C.

:

“Gentlemen : As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy,
I heartily approve your plan to accumulate a fund to be spent for

the spiritual and material welfare of our soldiers and sailors, and

I am very much gratified to note that your effort, while born of
the charitable impulse of a single Church, is non-sectarian in its

scope and purpose and intended to confer a fundamental benefit

on all those whose mental, moral and physical health is our solemn

concern. Sincerely yours, Woodrow Wilson.”

Here is a summary of some of the things which the Knights
of Columbus did during the war and since:

They erected 500 buildings at the cantonments, army and
navy posts in this country.

They established many recreational and provisional centers
in France, Belgium, England, Italy, Germany.

They supported 2000 Secretaries here and abroad (there was
sufficient work for double this number of Secretaries)

.

They gave away not only stationery, but candies, chewing
gum, tobacco, pipes, cigarettes, coffee, doughnuts, all kinds of ath-
letic goods, etc.,—absolutely free of charge.

Every form of entertainment was free to the soldiers
;
these

entertainments included not only movies, bur high class theatri-

cals, boxing matches, lectures, and a real three-ring circus
;
they

carried their provisions in auto trucks, aeroplanes, and on the



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 61

backs of their Secretaries far up into the fighting lines in the

Argonne, Chateau Thierry and other battlefields.

They took photographs of the graves of the American boys

buried in France and sent the pictures to the relatives of the

fallen.

They were the first to accompany the Army of Occupation in-

to Germany and the last to leave there; after the signing of the

Armistice all their attention centered on preparing wholesome

recreation for the soldiers for the promotion of contentment un-

til such time as the boys could get back home. Athletic goods by

the ton were then supplied to the boys, and creature comforts

were given out lavishly.

As soon as the soldiers began to return, the Knights estab-

lished Employment Bureaus in every large city and had their

members go about from factory to factory, from merchant to

merchant, to find jobs for the boys.

The Knights never inquired whether the soldier had any

religious affiliations or not, whether he was Catholic or not. When
the soldier filled out the card for employment or for any other

attention, there was no query about his religion to be answered.

One writer tells us that during one year the Knights spent

$2,748,206 for the educational and hospital assistance of pearly

100,000 veterans. Every cent of the money contributed for the

soldier is being used in his behalf, and there is no Catholic re-

ligion tag on anything. The soldier may go to any school he
wishes, and he may be in any one of 862 hospitals, in which dis-
abled soldiers are being treated. There is no question asked about

the religious affiliation of the soldier, no discrimination shown no

matter what his race or nationality be.

Then the same writer concludes : “These and many other kinds
of service, too numerous to mention, were the unselfish, patriotic

contributions of the K. of C. to relieve the awful after-effects of

the War.”

Of their splendid work overseas. General Pershing said

:

“I wish to express to the Knights of Columbus my apprecia-
tion and that of the officers and men under my command for the
valuable services rendered by your organization to the American
Expeditionary Forces.

“The active work of your organization in France begun early
in 1918, was well under way by the Spring of that year, and has
been increasing in scope ever since.”

Not only as fighters, but as benefactors, the Knights have
elicited the highest praise. Secretary Hoover said

:



62 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

“The 800,000 members of the Knights of Columbus are known
to be united against anarchy and disorder, but you could not pos-

sibly have taken a better step towards giving your splendid sup-

port to the European Relief Council. I express to you the grati-

tude of the 3,500,000 children we have been able to save through
the effortsof the Knights of Columbus and the other organizations

united with you in the European Relief Council.”

As to the unflinching loyalty of the Knights, Governor Ham-
mond of Minneapolis declared: “I believe thoroughly that no
order of citizens in this country is more patriotic and more de-

voted to America today than the Knights of Columbus.”

Now out of the numerous eulogies passed on the Knights by
non-Catholics of high standing we will close this point by quoting
the following fine compliment made during the war by the Dayton
(Ohio) Journal:

“One of the great Orders in America is the Catholic Knights

of Columbus. It is American clear through. It is doing a mighty

work in the cantonments and on the fields of battle. It is working

side by side with the Y. M. C. A. and is doing equal, if not greater

service than this famed organization of Christian young men. The

work of the Knights of Columbus is practical. To their halls are

invited all soldiers, irrespective of creed or faith. They have

realized that loneliness and homesickness come to the lads who

have been gathered to defend the sacred principles upon which

civilization is founded. They are the disciples of cheer, the apos-

tles of joy.

We have all heard much spluttering in these latter days by
the K.K.K. about what constitutes a “100 per cent American.”

Someone has humorously remarked that the Klan’s conception

of a “100 per cent patriot” is “one who was horn in America, who

lives in America, and who stays in America, when there is fight-

ing to do abroad.” The “Caseys,” instead of wasting time splut-

tering about definitions have simply got busy and shown us what

it is to be a “100 per cent American.”

REFERENCES:
“Letter of the Catholic Archbishops to the President of the United

States.”

“Resolutions of the American Federation of Catholic Societies.”

After all the foregoing historic evidence of Catholic Patriot-

ism, extending through all the decades of our country’s history,

one would naturally suppose that the spirit and attitude toward

Catholics in America would be one of peace and amity and frater-



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 63

nalism. But here we encounter a most disheartening
disappoint-

ment. Instead of peace and good-will, we find the
most bitter

hatred, suspicion and persecution.

CHAPTER IX.

How Catholic Patriotism Has Been Appreciated and

Rewarded in America.

A CHAPTER IN AMERICAN PERSECUTION.

Beginning with the old English “Penal Laws” in forc^ dur-

ing the Colonial days, there has been carried on, under
^fferent

forms of organization, a succession of outrages against
Catholic

citizens, that has extended down through all the decades of

our country’s history. Though the forms of persecution have

varied at different times, yet the spirit has been always the
saine.

All these outrages have been animated by the same old false

assumption that Catholics owe civil allegiance to Rome ; and hence,

cannot be loyal citizens of any state government. This has been

the dominant note with all these anti-Catholic persecutors through

all the years ; and on this one note they are still continuing
to harp.

First there came in 1831 the “American Protestant Society

which soon resulted in a severe outbreak. Dr. Husslein, the dis-

tinguished editor of “America,” tells us that “the bigotry incited

by press and pulpit, and stimulated by public placards, found its

complete expression in the destruction of the Ursuline Convent at

Charlestown, Mass., in 1834. Not only was the Blessed Sacra-

ment dishonored, but everything within the building was de-

stroyed, and then it was burned to the ground. The charges that

had been made against the Sisters of this Convent were disproved

by a Protestant committee, but it was too late ; the harm had al-

ready been done. Such was the first result of this campaign of

slanderous accusations against Catholic institutions. In Boston,

the Pope was shot in effigy by the “Washington artillery.”
_

During these outrages the Massachusetts State Legislature

asserted that “Catholics owed temporal allegiance to a foreign

potentate,” which shows what the real motive was behind all this

persecution
;
and hence, in 1834 the Catholic archbishops and

bishops of the United States, assembled in the Third Provincial

Council of Baltimore, published the following declaration: “We

owe civil and political allegiance to the several States in which we

live and also to our general government. When we acknowledge
the spiritual and ecclesiastical supremacy of the Chief Bishop of

our Universal Church, the Pope, we do not thereby detract from

the allegiance to which our temporal governments are plainly e»-



WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

titled, and which we cheerfully give
;
nor do we acknowledge any

civil or political supremacy, or power, over us in any foreign

potentate
;
even the Chief Pastor of our Church.”

The next organization against the Catholic Church arose in

1844, known as the Native American Party.” Here is an ac-
count of the kind of work done by this “Native American Party”

during the first five months of its existence, as given by the Rev.

M. Fithian, a Protestant minister: “Two Catholic churches
burned

;
one thrice fired and desecrated

;
a Catholic seminary and

retreat consumed by the torches of an incendiary mob; two rec-

tories and a valuable library destroyed
;
forty dwellings in ruins

;

about forty human lives sacrificed
;
and sixty of our fellow-citizens

wounded
;
riot, rebellion and treason rampant

;
the laws boldly set

at defiance, and peace and order prostrated % ruffian violence.”
Later on, in 1852, came the notorious “Know Nothing” agita-

tion, which was simply a development of the “Native American

Party.” The first protective act of these fanatics was an attack

on a convent of helpless and inoffensive nuns in Providence, R. I.

Next followed outbreak of civic hatred from press and platform

in the cities of Boston, Baltimore, Wheeling, Pittsburg, and many
other places. The agitation reachel its climax in the mob attack
upon the Cathedral in Cincinnati, resulting in the loss of several

lives. This “patriotic’ violence now continued with the bloody
riots of St. Louis; with the tarring and feathering of a Jesuit

priest at Ellsworth, Me.; with the attempted destruction of

churches in Newark, N. J., Williamsburg, N. Y., and Manchester,

N. H.
;
and with the successful burning and wrecking by gun-

powder of Catholic churches in Bath, Me., Dorchester, Mass., and

Sydney and Massillon, Ohio. The supreme triumph of this move-
ment finally came, on what is known as “Bloody Monday,” in
Louisville, Ky., August 6, 1855. Bishop Spalding gives the fol-

lowing lurid account of it : “We have just passed through a reign
of terror surpassed only by the Philadelphia riots. Nearly a hun-

dred poor Irish and Germans have been butchered or burned, and

some twenty houses have been fired and burned to the ground.

The city authorities, all ‘Know-Nothings,’ looked calmly on, and

they are now endeavoring to lay the blame on the Catholics.”
This last incident, inleed, was a refinement worthy of Nero

himself; and caused the Catholic Hierarchy again to repeat the

Catholic principle of patriotic allegiance to civil authority.

To counteract these uncalled-for outrages the Catholic arch-
bishops and bishops of our country assembled in the First Plenary

Council of Baltimore, and in their pastoral letter addressed these

words to the Catholics of our country : “Attachment to the civil

institutions under which you live has ever marked your conduct
as citizens. We cannot, however, deem it altogether unnecessary



FOE AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 65

to exhort you ever to discharge your civil duties from the higher

motives which religion suggests. Obey the public authorities, not

only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. Show your attach-

ment to the institutions of our belovel country by prompt compli-

ance with all their requirements, and by the cautious jealousy with

which you guard against the least deviation from the rules which

they prescribe for the maintenance of public order and private

rights.” This episcopal appeal to the Catholic people shows the

true attitude of the Church toward civil authority.

Just here it is interesting to note that it was during this

period of anti-Catholic fanaticism that Abraham Lincoln wrote

the following to his old friend, Joshua F. Speed, in 1855: ‘‘You

inquire where I now stand. That is a disputed point. I think I
am a Whig

;
but others say there are no Whigs, and that I am an

Abolitionist. I am not a Know-Nothing, that is certain. How
could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of
negroes be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our

progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a
nation we began by declaring that ‘All men are created equal.’
We now practically read it: ‘All men are created equal, except
negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control it will read : ‘All
men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Cath-
olics.’ When it comes to this, I should prefer emigrating to some
country where they make no pretense of loving liberty—^where
despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of

hypocrisy.”— (“Recollections of Abraham Lincoln.”—Lamon).
Here also, in this period of “Know-Nothing” agitation, we

hear another courageous voice of rebuke. Hon. Henry A. Wise,
Governor of Virginia, had the manhood to say in the “Richmond
(Va.) Inquirer,” of November, 1855: “I am a native Virginian,
‘intus et in cute’ a Virginian

;
my ancestors on both sides for two

hundred years were citizens of this country and this state. I am
a Protestant by birth, by baptism, by education, and by adoption.
I am an American; yet in every character, in every relation, in
every sense, with all my head, and all my heart, and with all my
might, I protest against this secret organization of native Ameri-
cans and of Protestants, to proscribe Roman Catholics and natur-
alized citizens.”

A little later on, about 1880, the notorious “A. P. A.,” of
which we have all heard so much, arose and began its famous
American Protective asinine performances. So bitter and sweep-
ing was their “patriotic” program against Catholicism that they
proposed, not only to drive all Catholics out of America, but out

of the whole world! This sweeping threat of the A. P. A. against
Catholic citizens was noticed and rebuked by Mr. Brann, the
famous editor of the “Iconoclast,” in an issue of that paper pub-



66 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

lished about 1895. Brann quotes the following paragraph from

an address delivered in Milwaukee at that time by the president

of the Supreme Council of the A. P. A. : “If coming generations

are to be secure in the enjoyment of their liberties, we must drive
the enemy, not from the United States only, not from the New
World to the Old; but we must drive them off the face of the
earth! We must destroy the devil’s brood, root and branch, by
the power of A. P. A.-ism!”

Again Mr. Brann, after remarking that the A. P. A. were

“preaching war,—a war of extermination,” quotes the following
sentence from their official organ, published then in San Fran-

cisco : “In Rochester, N. Y., a had A. P. A. man shot and killed
a good Catholic. The chief regret is that he did not have a maga-

zine gun, instead of a single shooter.”

Then Brann remarks, in his characteristic style: “I am not
much in favor of a press censorship nor the abridgment of the

right of free speech; but I do think that men who persist in a
deliberate attempt to precipitate a civil war should be hanged for
treason. My bump of veneration is not so abnormal that it wears
holes in the steeple crown of my Mexican hat

;
still I hold that the

orator or editor who flagrantly defames and systematically vilifies
any religious cult considered sacred by millions of law-abiding

men is a blasphemous brute, and that it would be entirely con-
sistent with the American idea of liberty to clap a cast-iron muzzle

on him and lose the key. ' See “Brann’s Defense Against the

Enemies of Catholicity,” pp. 120-144.

This whole tragic record of the persecution of Catholics in

America is thus briefly summed up, in a sentence or two, by Car-
dinal Gibbons : “In more than one instance in our nation’s history

have our churches been desecrated and burned to the ground, our

convents invaded and destroyed, and our clergy exposed to insult

and violence. These injuries have been inflicted on us by incen-

diary mobs animated by hatred of Catholicism. Yet, in spite of

these provocations, our Catholic citizens, though wielding an im-

mense numerical influence in the localities where they suffered,

have never retaliated. It is in a spirit of just pride that we can
affirm that hitherto in the United States no Protestant house of

worship or educational institution has ever been destroyed by

those who profess the Catholic faith.” This is truly a wonderful
account of the marvelous patience and meekness of our American

Catholics. With these facts before us, we do not wonder that the
generous and distinguished Protestant minister. Dr. Washington

Gladden of Columbus, Ohio, felt justified in saying: “We Protes-
tants should remember and confess that the most grievous cases

of religious persecution which have occurred during our genera-

tion were not the persecutions of Protestants by Roman Catholics,



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 67

but of Eoman Catholics by Protestants.” (See “Faith of Our

Fathers,” by Cardinal Gibbons).

But while the persecution of Catholics in America today has

become less violent in action, it is still none the less bitter and un-

relenting in spirit. It is still based cn the same old false assump-

tion of papal domination over civil and political affairs. This is

still the prevailing note of all the anti-Catholic agencies, and it is

their continual harping on this one note that has made it neces-

sary for the Church repeatedly to assert her loyalty to all legiti-

mate civil authority.

So, again in 1884, the Catholic archbishops and bishops of our

country, assembled in the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore,

made this declaration : “We repudiate the assertion that we need
to lay aside any of our devotedness to our Church to be true

Americans
;
that we need to abate any of our love for our coun-

try’s principles and institutions to be faithful Catholics. We be-
lieve that our country’s heroes were the instruments of God in

establishing this home of freedom
;
to both the Almighty and to

His instruments in the work, we look with grateful reverence;
and to maintain the inheritance of freedom which they have left

us, should it ever be imperiled, our Catholic citizens will be found

to stand forward as one man ready to pledge anew ‘their lives,
their fortunes, and their sacred honor.’

”

yet, in spite of these repeated authoritative declarations of

the Church, and in spite of all the patriotic service which Cath-

olics have invariably rendered to our country in every national

crisis, the same old song of “papal domination” continues to be
sung.

These “calamity howlers” have even gone so far as to declare

boldly that the Knights of Columbus are the Pope’s military
“right arm,” and are storing away arms and ammunition witb
which to fight the Pope’s battles. One of these venemous anti-
Catholic papers on February 5, 1914, displayed the following
startling headline : “Three Hundred 'fhousand Catholic Knights
Armed to the Teeth, Awaiting the Orders of Their Vicar Gen-
eral !” Just think of it! The Pope has an armed militia, in these
United States, as large as our standing army! This would be
truly amazing and alarming if it were not known to be a Colossal
Lie. These false and vicious charges habe been disproved again
and again and yet they continue to be flaunted before the public
with an infernal persistence that only incarnate demons could
sxercise.

While it is to be regretted that many good people are deceived
and misled by these false alarms, it is gratifying, on the other
hand, to note how severely these falsehoods are condemned by
many of our most prominent non-Catholic friends. One of the



68 WiHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

most scathing denunciations of these misrepresentations comes

from xJr. VVashington Gladden of Columbus. Ohio. This distin-

guished divine said: “It is sickening to note the morbid eager-

ness to make public feeling against Catholics; to search out and
magnify all that is discreditable in them; to put the worst con-

struction on all that they say or do ; never, by any inadvertence to

note a point in their favor
;
and sometimes, alas, to give currency

;

to the most fiendish fabrications and forgeries, attributing to '

them crimes and atrocities of the most diabolical character. Noth-

ing more infernal than that alleged “oath” of the Knights of

Columbus has ever been produced by human malignity. It has
|

been proven again and again, in courts, to be a forgery, and the
|

publishers of it have been condemned and punished for libel; but

it is still in circulation ! It is simply amazing that anybody should

expect any credit to be given to a concoction so monstrous ; but it I

is more astonishing to know that it has been accepted as a genuine
document by hundreds of thousands of church members. Oh.

fellowmen, isn’t there honor and decency and manliness enough
i

among our Protestant Christians to put an end to such hellish

calumnies !”
I

The recent movement of the Ku Klux Klan is but a rebirth of I
anti-Catholic movements of other days. True the Jew and the ;
Negro share with the Catholic in the vilification so freely uttered, t

yet there is no gainsaying the real motive. Against these false
]

premises and uncharitable charges of the hooded Knights, Dr. Wil- ;

bur E. Crafts, Supt. of the International Reform Bureau, has this
,

to say: “As no Negro, Jew, or Catholic is eligible to membership,
|

manifestly it is the Protestant Americans who are guilty of the I
folly and sin of this profiteering in hate and bigotry, and there- i

fore, intelligent Protestant Americans through their pulpits and

religious papers should take the lead in unveiling and breaking

up this conspiracy against democracy and public peace. The last :

country in the world that can safely afford to tolerate racial or

religious hate and bigotry is the United States. Practically every

nationality in the world is represented in our population, while the

number of religious beliefs among us is almost without number.
This being true, the only way we can get along in peace and har-
mony is through the free exercise of broad toleration and true
democracy. The only sure way there is of having our own rights
respected is to respect the rights of others. Americanism is not

so much a matter of birth or religion as it is of spirit. He is a
true American who believes in and practices the American ideals.
Bigotry, hate, intolerance and fanaticism are not American traits

or ideals. Men and women of many creeds and nationalities
founded this country and established its independence; the same

is true of those who have preserved and defended it. And if we I



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 69

are to fulfill our destiny we must remain true to the ideals and

traditions under which we have grown great and powerful.”

—

(Pennsylvania Grange News, October, 1921).

Thomas Dixon, the well-known author of the “Klansman,”

also condemns this modern K. K. K. and declares that it has

“stolen the livery of the original order,” and that its assault on

Jews, Negroes, and Catholics is the “acme of stupidity and in-

humanity,” and is sure to lead to “riot, anarchy and bloodshed.”

Hon. Benjamin Loring Young, of Massachusetts, is still more

severe and declares that “the klan has already left behind it a trail

of passion, hatred, violence, bloodshed and murder.” He then
adds further : “The Klan is false to the Declaration of Independ-

ence, and false to the Constitution of the United States.
_

Nothing

can justify political movements based on race or religion. The

Klan should be fought, not only by Catholics, Jews and Negroes,

but by every decent white Gentile and Protestant in America.”

There are other anti-Catholic movements, however, which we
have more reason to take into serious account. They are well

organized and their personnel is of a higher rank and influence.

Among these more refined anti-Catholic organizations the
two most potent and influential are “The Evangelical Protestant

Society" and “The National Patriotic Council”; and these two

organizations propose to co-operate, and to carry on a nation-nvide

crusade against the Catholic Church. What these two well-
equipped forces propose to do for the Catholics of the United

States is truly amazing. Perhaps the best account of the purpose

and scope of their proposed work is the following by Mr. William
E. Brigham, as published in the “Boston Transcript,” July 19,

1911. By way of caution and warning, Mr. Brigham says

:

“Religious blocs have not yet appeared in Congress, but they

might prove a natural sequence, if Congress is to reflect all the

organized forces which are attempting to play upon legislation

throughout the country. Not since the Civil War, possibly, has so
general an effort been made to revive the old spirit of Know-Noth-
ingism which exerted such a subtle yet powerful influence upon

elections following the organization of the Know-Nothing Party
about 1852. No less than. three separate, distinct organizations
of national scope, formed for the expressed purpose of attacking
the Catholic Church or preventing Catholics from attaining public
office, are now in the field,—^two of them of very recent origin.
One is the Ku Klux Klan, another the Evangelical Protestant So
ciety,^ with headquarters in New York, and the third the National
Patriotic Council, which met in Washington a few days ago and
hopes to work with the Evangelical Protestant Society. The
Evangelical Protestant Society is an organization which aims



70 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

to include in its membership the one hundred and twenty thousand

Protestant clergymen of the United States and many times that
number of the laity. Its particular purpose is to fight the Papacy

as a political organization, while the National Patriotic Council

evidently intends to specialize in keeping Catholics out of public

office.”

All this continued organized activity against the Catholics of

the United States only shows how deep-seated and bitter has been
the anti-Catholic bigotry that began with the “Penal Laws,” trans-

mitted by Protestant England into our American Colonies; and

which has repeatedly shown itself in the most outrageous form of

persecution through all the years of our country’s history. This,

too, in spite of the most faithful loyalty of Catholics to our gov-

ernment in every time of national emergency. And now, while
the modes of attack are, in general, less crude and cruel than in

earlier days, yet the spirit of our enemies is no less bitter and un-

relenting. We are still hated with an intensity that is almost dia-
bolical. And all this, under the false and ridiculous pretense that
the Church is antagonistic to the State, and hence. Catholics can-

not be loyal to civil authority. The Pope, they say, claims our

civil allegiance, as well as our religious devotion ; and we Catholics
must submit to it, even though it should conflict with the civil

authority of the State. This ridiculous “Catholiphobia,” as some

one has called it, has been the one note on which our enemies have

harped through all our country’s history. To justify this furtive
plea of “papal domination,” they point to the occasional conflicts

between the Popes and the Princes of the “Middle Ages,” and in-

sist that they prove that the Church was determined to rule the

State. As a matter of fact, however, the very opposite was true.
These Princes were determined to dominate the Church, even in

spiritual matters, and the Popes were obliged to resist them, in

defense of their own spiritual prerogatives.

REFERENCES:

“U. S. Catholic Historical Records and Studies,” Vols. II, III, IV, V.

“Catholic Encyclopedia,” Vol. VIII, pp. 677-689.

“History of, the United States.” Schouler, Vol. V, p. 305.

“Life of Lincoln,” Nicholay and Hay, Vol. II, p. 357.

“The Murders of Mer Rouge,” By John Rogers, of St. Louis, Mo. Rogers

is a 32nd Degree Mason.

X

This brings us to our next question

—



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 71

CHAPTER X.

Does the Church Teach That Catholics Owe Civil

Allegiance to Rome?

The answer to this question has already been anticipated, in

part, but now in order to answer it more fully and logically, and

with the best effect, we will consider, in a few brief paragraphs,

what the highest authority in the Church has always taught on

the proper relation of Church and State, as exhibited in the “Mid-

dle Ages.” To begin with, it is important to keep in mind the fact

that at that time, both Church and State were Catholic, and there-

fore, the civil rulers were also the spiritual subjects of the Pope;

and yet in many instances these Catholic princes were corrupt,
and sought to over-ride the Pope by ignoring his spiritual prero-

gatives. In other words, they insisted on carrying out personal

and political schemes that were contrary to the laws of God ; and

when they did this, they invaded the spiritual sphere and sub-

jected themselves, as Catholics, to the legitimate censure of the

Pope. The truth is, the Church has never attempted to dominate

the civil power. She has invariably kept herself within her own
spiritual realm, and never clashed with the civil power, except

when her spiritual functions obliged her to defend her own spiri-
tual rights, or the moral and religious rights of the people. At
times, she was obliged to exercise her legitimate spiritual author-

ity in order to withstand the wicked Catholic rulers who sought
to oppress the innocent, or to carry out other corrupt and wicked

designs. In all these instances, the Church was the faithful pro-
tector of the weak and the innocent against the oppression of the
strong and the vile. Ancellon, though unfriendly to the Pope,

says : “In the Middle Ages, it was the power and influence of the
Popes that stayed and prevented the despotism of the emperors;”

and a Protestant minister, in the American Encyclopedia, says:

“The papal power was for ages the great bulwark of order in
Europe.” On this point the following words from Cardinal Gib-
bons are pertinent: “In all the ages, the Church has not only re-
spected the conscience of the people in embracing the religion of

their choice, but she has also defended their civil rights and lib-
erties against the encroachments of temporal sovereigns. One of
the popular errors^ that has taken possession of some minds in
our times is that in former days the Church was leagued with
princes for the oppression of the people. This is a base calumny
which a slight acquaintance with ecclesiastical history would soon
dispel. It is a remarkable fact that the most unrelenting enemies



72 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

of the Church have been the princes of this world, and so-called

Christian princes, too. . . . The Church has always felt it to be

her duty in every age to raise her voice against the despotic, arbi-

trary measures of princes. Many of them chafed under the salu-
tary discipline of the Church. They desired to be governed by no

law except the law of their own licentious passions and boundless

ambitions. A Protestant American reviewer has well said: Tt
was a blessing of Providence that there was a spiritual power on

earth that could stand like a stone wall against the tyranny of

earthly sovereigns.’ ” It must be said to the everlasting honor of

the Popes that their uncompromising resistance to despotic

princes, and their unfailing defense of the rights of the poor and

the oppressed, is the most glorious chapter in the Church’s his-

tory.

But it has also been repeatedly urged that these frequent

clashes between the Church and the State in an earlier day indi-

cate that the spirit of the Church is autocratic, and that she

aspired to dominate the civil power. This is a hasty conclusion,

resulting from careless study of the Church’s history, and also

from ignorance of the Church’s teaching on the true relation of

Church and State. Now, what is the Church’s attitude toward

politics? This is clearly answered by the distinguished Catholic

author and editor. Rev. Joseph Husslein, S, J., in the following

words : “The Church can never entertain political ambition. She,

clearly and without hesitation, acknowledges the sovereignty of

the State in temporal matters, reserving to herself the spiritual

sovereignty in things of the soul. To all the accusations against

her she has but one answer to make,—^the answer of Christ when
He was accused in the same manner, viz : ‘My kingdom is not of
this world.’

”

In his Encyclical “Immortale Dei,” on the “Christian Consti-

tution of States,” Pope Leo XIII wrote: “The Almighty has

apportioned the charge of the human race between two powers:
the ecclesiastical and the civil

;
the one being set over divine, and

the other over human things. Each in its kind is supreme. Each
has fixed limits within which it is contained. . . Whatever is of

sacred character, whatever belongs to the salvation of souls, or to

the worship of God, is subject to the power and judgment of the

Church
;
and whatever is to be ranged under the civil and political

order is rightly subject to civil authority.” On this declaration of
Pope Leo, Dr. Husslein remarks : “The Church, therefore, accord-
ing to the institution of her Divine Founder and the declaration

of her sovereign pontiffs, is not concerned with purely civil and

political matters, so long as there is no violation of the laws of

God, and no infringement of her own sacred rights.”
But while the Church can have no political ambitions, she is



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 73

obliged to safeguard the spiritual rights of her children against

any violation of these rights by the State. This truth is clearly

expressed by Victor Cathrein, S. J., in his “Moralphilosophie,” in

the following words : “The Church has the right to provide that

her subjects be not seduced to commit sin, or suffer detriment to

their spiritual welfare, through the ordinations of secular auth'or-

ity. It would be very wrong to call this indirect power over tem-

poral matter a secular power. It is, and remains, a spiritual

power; because it extends to temporal matters only in so far as

spiritual interests are concerned. Its final object is spiritual."

Here, again, we quote the clear statements of Dr. Husslein:

“Should any political party, or should the State itself, propose

what is unjust and sinful, it is evident that the voice of the Church

must be heeded. The Church must always protest against crime,

the enemy of the State. Of two things, however, both Catholics

and non-Catholics may rest asured : The first is, that the Church
will never interfere with any man’s economic or political views,

unless those views are spiritually pernicious or sinful. Against

sin, she is always obliged to cry out. The second is, that loyalty

to the Church will never stand in the way of genuine patriotic in-
terest. A true Catholic must of necessity he a true patriot.”

It is this spiritual function of the Church also that constitutes

her truly democratic character. Being a great spiritual democ-

racy, the Church can fiourish under any form of civil government

that is not unjust and oppressive. The Church has no preference

for one form of government over another; empire, monarchy or

republic, all meet with her aproval, so long as they keep in view

the common good for which social authority is constituted. Pope
Leo XIII has thus defined the attitude of the Church : “Catholics,

like all other citizens, are free to prefer one form of government

to another, precisely because no one of these social forms is, in

itself, opposed to the principles of sound reason or the maxims of
Christian doctrine.” At another time in his Encyclical “Sapientae
Christianae,” on the “Chief Duties of Christians as Citizens,” the

same Pontiff writes : “The Church holds that it is not her province

to decide what is the best among many diverse forms of govern-
ment and civil institutions of the Christian states. Amid the
various kinds of state rule she does not disapprove of any, pro-

vided the respect due to religion, and the observance of good
morals, be upheld.”

On the democratic character of the Church it is interesting
. to note, just here, what that brilliant student of American Democ-
racy, de Tocqueville, said on this point nearly one hundred years
ago. In his masterly work he states that the Catholic religion has
been erroneously looked upon as the natural enemy of democracy;
and then, on the contrary, he declares his conviction that Roman



74 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

Catholicism is decidedly favorable to the democratic doctrine of

equality. On page 281, (Ed. 1838), he plainly asserts that “the
Catholics constitute the most democratic class of citizens in the

United States,” (See Dr. C. B, Wilmer’s article in “Atlanta

Journal,” October 3, 1920)

.

Woodrow Wilson, also, in his “New Freedom,” (page 85),
said of the Church’s democratic character, both in the Middle Ages

and at present'. “The Roman Catholic Church was then, as now,
a great democracy. There was no peasant so humble that he might

not become a priest and no priest so obscure that he might not

become a Pope.”

While the Hierarchy, in itself, is not a democratic form of
government, yet there is in it the democratic spirit of equality,

based on personal merit and effort, and not on the mere accident

of birth or social position.

From the foregoing, it is perfectly clear that the spiritual
sphere of the Church and the civil sphere of the State are entirely

distinct, and yet essentially harmonious. The function of the one
is religious, while that of the other is civil; and instead of being

essentially antagonistic, they are reciprocal and co-operative.

This question being settled, it is easy now for us to answer the
main question of this paper, namely: Do Catholics owe civil alle-
giance to the Pope? If the Church’s function is purely religious

and spiritual, and not civil, then it follows, as a matter of course,

that no Catholic owes civil allegiance to the Pope. This is so clear

and conclusive that it would seem that any reasonable mind would

be bound to see it; and yet, for the benefit of the persistent

doubter, we will emphasize this truth still further, by some corro-
borative statements from prominent Catholic and Protestant

sources. Cardinal Gibbons says : “In his spiritual affairs, every

Roman Catholic owes allegiance to the Pope
;
but in matters con-

cerning his civil welfare, or that of his country, every Roman
Catholic is as free as any other American citizen to act as his wis-

dom and conscience dictate.” “The Chicago Inter-Ocean” (Prot.)
says: “The Catholic owes a certain allegiance to the Pope, and

yet he can be a good citizen ; for that allegiance is a spiritual mat-

ter, about which the government does not concern itself. The
Catholic takes his religion from Rome, but he supplies his own
politics. His conscience is no more liable to lead him into conflict
with the State than is the conscience of any other religious man.

In this respect he is in the same position as the Protestant who
takes his religion from the Bible.” The same thought is em-
phasized by Bishop England, of Charleston, S. C. : “Let the Pope

and Cardinals and all the powers of the Catholic world make the
least encroachment on our Constitution, and we will protect it
with our lives ; yet we are most obedient Papists.” Rt. Rev. B. J.



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 75

Keiley, of Savannah, Ga., declares: “Catholics in civil matters

owe and pay allegiance and loyal support to no person, or power,

or authority, save the United States ; the Pope has no civil author-

ity over us; and no Catholic recognizes in him any right, or title,

to have or demand civil allegiance.” Rev. K. A. Bray (Episcopal)

of New York, says: “To those who are forever harping on the
power of the Pope, meaning not his spiritual, but his temporal

power, the problem set by this World War must be a hard nut to
crack. When Roman Catholic fights his brother, each owing alle-
giance to the same spiritual head, yet each with his life protesting

allegiance to different and opposing temporal rulers.”

The American Bishops, assembled in the Third Plenary^ Coun-

cil of Baltimore, spoke the mind of the Church when they said:

“We claim to be acquainted with the laws, constitutions and spirit
of the Catholic Church and with the laws, constitutions and spirit

of our country, and we emphatically declare that there is no an-
tagonism between them.” Thus does devotion to the Church only

intensify our loyalty to the State.

Now, in addition to the preceding authoritative declarations

of the Hierarchy on the principles of Catholic loyalty and patriot-

ism, we beg to present here a few of the numerous high-class
Protestant testimonies to the same unswerving patriotism and

heroic service of our American Catholic citizens. All fair-minded

non-Catholics admit, without hesitation, that the influence which

the Catholic Church exerts on the general welfare of the United

States, is beyond computation. So great and benign is her in-

fluence that many of our best non-Catholic citizens do not hesitate
to declare that her presence is absolutely necessary to our safe

existence. She is not only a defense in time of war, but she is at

all times a most efficient protection against lawlessness, anarchy,

Bolshevism, and other kindred evils that imperil our nation. On
this point, the “Outlook” had this to say : “America today stands
in peculiar need of that contribution which the Roman Catholic
Church is peculiarly fitted to furnish. The chief peril of America
is from dis-organizing forces and a lawless spirit. One of the
chief lessons Americans need to learn is reverence for constituted
authority and willing obedience to law.”

The “Los Angeles Times” declares: “The Catholic Church
in America stands like a stone wall against anarchy and socialism
and the divorce evil

;
and it always upholds law and order. For

these reasons alone, no right-minded American can find cause for
alarm in the growth of the Catholic Church in this country.”

The Texas “Democrat” said, April 14, 1914 : “To the average
American Catholic, the Stars and Stripes—^the American flag

—

is next in sacredness to the Cross of Christ. If American institu-
tions were as sacred in the hands of those who in books and news-



76 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

papers seek to arouse Protestant prejudice against Catholicism,

as they are in the hands of the American Catholic, but little harm
would befall the most sacred safeguards which our fathers threw

around the religious and political liberties which we enjoy.”
“The Federation Review” (A Hebrew organ) says: “As re-

gards the Catholics, moreover, let us not forget that they wellnigh

constitute the backbone of our fighting forces on sea and land,

and the upholders of law and order in our cities and villages. It

is an open truth that the Catholics furnish the largest proportion

of blue-coats, blue-jackets, and boys in khaki.”

In an editorial in the “Oakland (Cal.) Inquirer,” May 31,
1915, we read: “It is beyond cavil that the especial concern of
Catholics is to exalt patriotism, to inculcate obedience to estab-

lished political authority, and to instill reverential regard for the

nation, its laws and its flag.”
Dr. C. B. Wilmer, in an article in the “Atlanta (Ga.) Jour-

nal,” October 3, 1920, gives us his very encouraging estimate of

Catholic loyalty both in peace and in war, and warns us seriously

against all anti-Catholic misrepresentations of Catholic patriot-

ism. He fearlessly declares : “I feel perfectly sure that if it ever
comes to a showdown between the forces of righteousnss, law and

order, on one side, and the hell-spawned forces of anarchy on the

other, that our Roman Catholic friends will be found fighting side
by side with all lovers of God and humanity; I therefore deplore

all misrepresentations of them, all denial of their political rights.

That there is anything inconsistent between the allegiance of

Roman Catholics in this country to the Pope across the seas and
ioyalty to American government is indignantly denied by men
whose characters we are bound to respect.

“I feel, for one, that we can trust the Roman Catholic Church
and the American Republic in fellowship with each other, and my
appeal is this : let us all, Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Protes-
tants alike, nay, Jews and Gentiles—march together, shoulder to
shoulder, for the safety of the Republic and the moral and political

leadership of the world.”

Not only the Catholic Church in general, but the Knights of

Columbus in particular have always shown their superb patriot-

ism, especially in the recent war. Indeed, the principles of true

Catholic loyalty are contained in their ritual. After a careful

examination of this ritual, a committee of Masons in Los Angeles,

Calif., made the following generous statement : “The ceremonial

of the Order teaches a high and noble patriotism, instills a love of

country, inculcates a reverence for law and order, urges the con-

scientious and unselfish performance of civic duty and holds up

the Constitution of our country as the richest and most precious

possession of a Knight of the Order.”



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION.
77

Like the great Church, of which this
noble Order of Knights

is a part, their civic loyalty is
simply a part of their religion.

As an unmistakable proof of their
loyalty to

the recent war, our Supreme Board of
Directors, on the 14th day

of April, meeting to provide for
the emergency created by the

declaration of war, passed the following
resolution, which ou

Supreme Knight transmitted to the
President and to the Con-

^"^^^“The Supreme Board of Directors of the
Knights of Colum-

bus, at a called meeting held this
14th day of April, 1917, in the

city of Washington, realizing that the
crisis confronting our coun-

try calls for the active co-operation
and patriotic zeal of every

true citizen, hereby reaffirms the
devotion of 400,000 members of

the Order in this country to our
Republic and its laws, and pledges

their continued and unconditional support
to the President and

Congress of the Nation in their determination
to protect its honor

and its ideals of humanity and right.” „ ^ , , , ,

As to the attitude of our Knights of Columbi^
toward SociaL

ism, Bolshevism, Anarchy, etc., our
Supreme C(mncil in 1919

passed the following resolution :
Pledging the Order to ^sht

Bolshevism and all that it means and threatens
against law and

order, we pledge our manhood, our mentality and,
if need be, our

brawn, to protect the Constitution, to
safeguard true democracy,

to preserve respect for the law and
all duly constituted civil

authority. This we are in conscience bound to do by
the teacnings

of the Church,—it is a bounden duty, not fancy, or pleasure, or
mere lip-service.” u..

No truer devotion to civil authority and civic welfare
can be

found anywhere than is expressed in this superb
pledge. Not

only is the K. of C. Order perfectly loyal to all
civil authority, but

the Order, as such, is never a “political
machine,

^

as has often

been charged by anti-Catholics. While the Order
is always per-

fectly patriotic, yet it is never partisan. Every
individual Knight

is absolutely free and unhampered in his politics.
He is perfectly

free to vote either for or against any partisan
measure which may

be proposed in the politics of his state or
nation, regardless of the

views of any other Knight of the Order. This
free democratic

character of the Order is clearly indicated in the
following serious

charge given to the Order by the Hon. Joseph E.
Randall, a U. b.

Senator from Louisiana, and himself a Knight of the
Order. In

a letter published in the ''Columhiad/' July, 1914,
he said: Per-

mit me to remind you, my brothers, that Knights of Columbus are

forbidden to use this Society in any way in politics. You can not,

without violating both the letter and the spirit of our rules,
med-

dle in elections or participate in organized effort to
advance the

political fortunes of any man, or set of men. We have no right.



78 WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

as a Society, to interfere with politics, and should let it alone.

Each individual Knight must have entire freedom of action in all

political matters. This wise rule should be strictly followed.”

Here we have a fine expression of the truly democratic spirit.
Here is a beautiful combination of Latw and Liberty, each balanc-

ing the other and holding it steady. The Order cannot trample

on the civil rights of the individual, and no fanatical individual
|

can dictate the principles and policy of the Order. Neither the
|

Knights of Columbus nor the Great Church, of which it is a part,

can ever be degraded into a mere “Political Machine.”
I

Now, as to the superb loyalty of American Catholics, in gen-

eral, and also the special fitness of the Church in the work of ,
Americanizing our foreign population, and saving them from Bol-

shevistic contamination, we have the following enlightening and
suggestive appeal from the pen of the Rev. Dr. Lloyd C. Douglas,

Pastor of the First Congregational Church in Akron, Ohio. Dr.

Douglas declares frankly and fearlessly: “The Roman Catholic
Church has, during the last twenty-five years, rendered America

a service that is utterly beyond the estimation of the ordinary

citizen.

“The strong material influence exercised by Roman Catholi-
cism over our unassimilable foreign population, which has been

coming into this country by the millions in the last twenty years,

has protected this country from the general attitude of revolt and

disaffection against institutions, organizations and government

which is so strongly marked in a great deal of our European im-

migration.

“One of the strongest forces at work in this country today to

hold an attempted Socialism to restraint, and reduce to a minimum
the sporadic efforts to encourage Bolshevism in this country has

been the Roman Catholic Church; and whatever may be the dif-
ference of opinion between Catholics and Protestants as matters

of doctrine, Protestantism should be unprejudiced enough to

admit the high-grade service rendered to this country by Roman
Catholicism in its dealings with a large class of people for whom
Protestantism has no message.”

Now, from all the foregoing evidences, it is perfectly clear
that Catholics do not owe civil allegiance to the Pope of Rome.

Instead of there being anything in the Catholic religion

which would interfere with the patriotism and loyalty of any

Catholic citizen, the Catholic religion is decidedly favorable to the

most ardent love of country and patriotic service. It has been

observed, again and again, that the most devoted Catholics are the

most loyal citizens in time of peace, and the best fighters on the

battlefield. On this point, let us listen to the wise counsel given
to our Catholic soldiers by one of the highest dignitaries of the



FOR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 79

Church: “Recent history shows, says John Cardinal Bonzano,

former Papal Delegate to the United States, “that all your aspira-

tions, even your patriotism, may be suspected because of your

religion. But do not be afraid to stand up and say that your

religion is its own defense ; that in the principles of your Catholic

religion lies the very strength and vigor of your loyalty and devo-

tion to your country; that a Catholic’s fidelity to his religion is

the measure of his citizenship; that the American Constitution is

sacred to you, and second only to the Constitution of God as out-

lined in the Gospels ; and that, while you bow respectfully to the

authority that guides the destinies of your immortal souls, you

thereby all the more submissively bow to the authority that directs

your material welfare.”

Now, in the face of all the evidences presented in the fore-

going articles on “What Catholics Have Done for American Civili-

zation,” is it possible for any intelligent, fair-minded American to

regard the Catholic Church as a “Menace” to our American insti-

tutions? If the Church is really a “Menace,” to anything in this

country, it is to the gigantic political and social evils which im-

peril our civilization. Yes
;
to Bolshevism, Anarchy, the Divorce

Evil, Atheism, Rationalism, and other dangerous influences which

threaten the integrity and welfare ot our Christian Civilization,

we admit that the Holy Catholic Church is, indeed, a most formid-
able “menace.” Indeed, in regard to some of the above named
evils, she is almost the only really effective “menace.” Against

this foul, filthy Divorce Evil which threatens to rot the very heart

out of our American family life, she stands almost alone. Not
only today, but through all the decades of our American history,
she has always been our mightiest bulwark against all the evil

forces that have ever threatened to sap the foundations of our
beloved Nation. She has always stood staunch and immovable
for law and order, and for all that is highest and best in our
American Civilization; and without her presence and influence
our beloved Nation would crumble into ruins. Let us <-hank God
that we have her here to save us from social disintegration and
destruction.

And now, in concluding this booklet, we can think of no more
appropriate words than are to be found in the following eloquent
speech delivered by Hon. Martin H. Glynn, Ex-Governor of New
York, on Memorial Day in 1917, in Washington. This gifted
orator said of “Catholic Patriotism”

:

“The patriotism of the Catholics of the United States is a self-
evident proposition

;
it needs no demonstration

;
no substantiating

evidence
;
no mathematical proof. It is written on every page of

our country’s history and no man’s hand can blot it out. Catholic



so WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE

patriotism plowed the Atlantic with Columbus, and with Balboa

it looked upon the Pacific from the peak of Darien. With DeSoto

and Marquette it discovered the Mississippi, with Cartier it sailed

the picturesque St. Lawrence; and with Ponce de Leon it sought

the fountain of everlasting youth in the ‘Land of Flowers.’ With

its early missionaries it blazed the trails of our primeval forests,

with the Cross of Christ in one hand and the Banner of Civiliza-

tion in the other. The discovery of America, my friends, was the
most momentous contribution to the cause of democracy since the

advent of Christ. For the discovery of this New World, where
democracy could grow and spread around the globe, a Catholic

monk gave his eloquence, a Catholic king his treasures, a Catholic
queen her jewels; and a Catholic navigator gave his brains and

energy. In peace-time and in war-time, we Catholics have fur-

nished this country with our quota of the men and women who
stand out on the pages of the Nation’s history, like towering

mountains on the plain. Today, we Catholics love to tell the names
of our own on the Nation’s Roll of Honor, as we love to tell the

beads of our rosaries. We like to remember how the Magna Charta,
the inspiration of our own Declaration of Independence, the foun-
dation-stone of the Constitution of the United States, was wrested

from old King John by Cardinal Langton and the Catholic Barons

of England. We like to remember how, years and years before
the Colonies began their fight for independence in 1776, Lord

Baltimore -had written into the Charter of Catholic Maryland the

inspirational principle of ‘no taxation without representation.’

We like to remember how George Calvert, of Maryland, gave this
country its first example of freedom in religious worship. From
these sentiments, we do not hesitate to assert that we believe that
the Declaration of Independence is the greatest political exposi-

tion of a freeman’s rights ever penned by the hand of man, and

that the Constitution of the United States is the most luminous

chart by which a nation ever steered the Ship of State, and that

the Star-Spangled Banner, with all that it symbolizes and all that

it actualizes, is the most glorious flag in the history of mankind.

My friends, let it never be forgotten that the patriotism of the
Catholics of this country began in 1492 and will last ‘Whilst the

earth bears a plant and the sea rolls a wave.’
”

REFERENCES:

‘Taith of Our Fathers.”—Cardinal Gibbons.
‘‘The Church and Politics,” and “Loyalty of Catholics.”—Husslein.
“Is the Catholic Church a Menace?”—Dudley G. Wooten.
“Union of Church and State.”—Dudley G. Wooten.



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