advantage of what they find in
America--our easy-going trust, our quiet certainty of liberty, our
open-handed and open-homed and hail-fellow-well-met democracy?
We see the army being organized and drilled under our eyes; and we can
read upon its banners its purpose proclaimed. Just as the Prussian
military caste had its slogan "Deutschland ueber Alles!" so the
Knights of Slavery have their slogan: "Make America Catholic!"
Their attitude to democratic institutions is attested by the fact that
none of their conventions ever fails in its resolutions to "deeply
deplore the loss of the temporal power of Our Father, the Pope." Their
subjection to priestly domination is indicated by such resolutions as
this, bearing date of May 13th, 1914:
The Knights of Columbus of Texas in annual convention
assembled, prostrate at the feet of Your Holiness, present
filial regards with assurances of loyalty and obedience to
the Holy See and request the Papal blessing.
On June 10th, 1912, one T.J. Carey of Palestine, Texas, wrote to
Archbishop Bonzano, the Apostolic Delegate: "Must I, as a Catholic,
surrender my political freedom to the Church? And by this I mean the
right to vote for the Democratic, Socialist, or Republican parties
when and where I please?" The answer was: "You should submit to the
decisions of the Church, even at the cost of sacrificing political
principles." And to the same effect Mgr. Preston, in New York City,
Jan, 1, 1888: "The man who says, 'I will take my faith from Peter, but
I will not take my politics from Peter,' is not a true Catholic."
Such is the Papal machine; and not a day passes that it does not
discover some new scheme to advance the Papal glory; a "Catholic
battle-ship" in the United States navy; Catholic chaplains on all
ships of the navy; Catholic holidays--such as Columbus Day--to be
celebrated by all Protestants in America; thirty million dollars worth
of church property exempted from taxation in New York City; mission
bells to be set up at the expense of the state of California; state
support for parish schools--or, if this cannot be had, exemption of
Catholics from taxation for school purposes. So on through the list
which might continue for pages.
More than anything else, of course, the Papal machine is concerned
with education, or rather, with the preventing of education. It was in
its childish days that the race fell under the spell of the Priestly
Lie; it is in hi
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