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TEN
THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
NOVEMBER 21, 1937
Publisher Disproves Spanish Letter Charges
Protestant Editor Answers
Open Letter of Ministers
Russell Palmer Says His Personal Investigation Shows
There Is No Basis for Charges in Statement Publish
ed in New York Times—Refuting Evidence Cited
(N. C. W. C. News Service)
NEW YORK.—Allegations against
the Spanish Insurgents made by the
Committee of 150 Protestant Amer
ican clergymen and educators in an
open letter to the Spanish ^hierarchy
last month, are challenged In a letter
sent to each of the signatories by
Russe' Palmer, head of Palmer Pub
lications, Inc., and publisher of World
Petroleum and other trade maga
zines-
Mr. Palmer is a Protestant and a
Mason. His people have been na
tive American Protestants, he states,
for ''some 300 years". He returned
recently from a two months' 2,700-
mile journey through Rightist Spain.
He also has lived in Spain and visit
ed that country many times before
the Spanish Civil War. He was edu
cated at Dartmouth College, and re
sides at Altadena, Cal.
In addition to denying the asser
tions of the ministers and educators
on many specific counts, Mr. Palmer
refutes the charge of “systematic de
struction of Protestant missions" in
Rightist Spain.
His visit to Insurgent Spain, Mr.
Palmer said in an interview here to
day. was made on his own initiative,
and at his own expense. With a
salvo conducto, or safe conduct pass,
given him by Insurgent Government
officials he declared he visited all
parts of the territory now held by
General Frances troops.
Mr. Falrner said he went to Spain
to learn the fate of friends who had
been living in Malaga, Madrid and
other Spanish cities at the outbreak
of the revolution. All of his observa
tions are from first-hand personal
experience, he added. He empha
sizes that his present action is not
for the purpose of promoting contro
versy. but that he writes because he
knows personally that several state
ments in the letter of the 150 are
untrue, and thinks some signers may
have had no opportunity to verify
statements in it.
In his communication to each of
the signatories of the letter of the
Committee of 150, Mr. Palmer said:
O- O
MR. PALMER’S LETTER |
0 O
“My attention has been drawn to
The New York Times of October 4
in which your name appears as one
of the 150 signatories to an open let
ter on Spain.
“Because I have just returned from
that country, I take the liberty of ad
dressing you and other signers to call
attention to a number of statements
in this letter which I personally
know to be untrue. 1 have no wish
to promote controversy, but feel that
you may not have had 'the oppor
tunity of verifying all the statements
appearing over your signature.
"I have always been interested in
Spain and visited that country a
number of times before, during and
since the Republic, and was a resi
dent there for several years. I can
reasonably claim to know intimately
every part of the country, except a
small section in the extreme north
west around Coruna- This summer
1 visited Spain on my own initiative
and at my own expense, motoring
some 2.700 miles from the Bay of
Biscay to the Mediterranean and
back again. . . .
0 O
1 BASQUES WELCOME FRANCO |
o o
“Some reference is made to the
‘blotting out of Basque liberty in
blood and iron ballots'. I followed
the campaign in the Basque country
intimately, visiting the front daily for
a long period and entering freshly
occupied villages ard discussing with
hundreds of Basque inhabitants and
refugees their problems. I went into
practically every town within a radius
of twenty-five miles of Bilbao as
soon as it was occupied, and enter
ed Bilbao, itself, the day it fell. With
out exception, all of the Basques
that I interviewed were delighted at
being relieved by General Franco
after having lived for months under
what they described as the tyranny,
slave-labor, and property confisca
tion of President Aguirre of the so-
called ‘Basque Republic’ whose Com
munist-inspired dictatorship had de
prived them of all personal security
for months while their country was
systematically plundered. You will
recall that the stolen personal
wealth of the Basques was after
wards seized on the high seas by the
French, English and Dutch for re
turn to its lawful owners.
“The scenes accompanying the fall
of Bilbao were reminiscent to those
which took place in Alsace and Lor
raine after the World War. The pop
ulation wept and embraced Franco s
troops as they entered. I carried
with me an amateur moving picture
camera and personally recorded these
scenes which are abundantly indica
tive of the delirious joy of the peo
ple-
0 — —o
1 FEDS MINED GUERNICA I
O — O
“One paragraph in your letter re-
* fess to Nazi bombers who poured
fi and destruction on women and
children in Madrid. Durago. Guet-
nica, Almeria and Malaga. Durango
showed some signs of street fighting,
but no bombing. I explored the ruins
of Guernica very exhaustively and
believe that anyone who does so will
come to the same conclusion that I
did, viz. that the town was dyna
mited by retreating Basques. I took
a number of photographs of Guernica
which showed damage which could
not possibly have been effected from
the air. As to the bombing of Mal
aga by Nazis, I can only say that
one day in the middle of June when
I was dining with friends in the
Monte de Sancha section of Malaga,
miles from the front, the city was
attacked by a fleet of Red bombers
from Valencia. These attacks are
continuing to this da3\
“Doubt is expressed in the letter
about the Communist inspiration of
the so-aclled official government. I
saw many pieces of quipment cap
tured on the Basque, Madrid, and
Cordoba sectors bearing the Com
munist hammer and sickle. I brought
back with me from Bilbao a complete
file of local newspapers published
during the siege, all of which fea
ture the Communist orders of the
day.
O O
! CHARGES REPUDIATED I
0 — — o
“Frequent mention is made in the
letter which you signed to mass ex
executions at Badajoz and elsewhere.
1 made the most careful investigation
possible and was unable to satisfy
myself that any mass executions have
ever taken place anywhere in Na
tionalist Spain- I saw many prison
ers taken and all were treated with
the utmost consideration. The three
journalists on whose reports the false
rumor of mass executions at Badajoz
was based have all repudiated their
statements; and in his very well doc
umented book on the siege of the Al
cazar, Major Geoffrey McNeill-Moss
quotes several British subjects, in
cluding some British war correspond
ents who were on the spot, to the
effect that the story is absolutely un
true.
“While it is not directly based on
my own experience, you may be in
terested in the enclosed copy of a
recent report on the position of Pro
testants in Spain which was the re
sult of an inquiry General Franco
caused to be made of these charges
when they appeared originally in the
English newspapers. (This letter dis
proves, with precise data, allegations
of killing and molestation of Pro
testant ministers, giving the present
addresses of several of those who, it
was charged, had been killed.—Ed.)
“I trust you will pardon me for
addressing you at all and particularly
in burdening you with a communi
cation of this length, but in view
of the extent of the letter on which
I have been commenting it has been
difficult for me to deal with it brief
ly.’’
NEW ORLEANS National Council
of Catholic Women is collecting jew
els and old gold for the ostensorium
which will be used at the National
Eucharistic Congress to be held there
in October of next year.
HARVEY'S
CAFETERIA,
Harvey J. Rape, Mgr.
Telephone F-3671
ID5 East Main St.
Durham, N. C.
George V. Wynn
Clyde M. Kelly
J. M. Barnes
Hall-Wynne &
Co., Inc.
Funeral Director
1113 West Main St.
PHONE N-147
Durham, N. C.
AMBULANCE
Father O’Brien St. Mary’s Parish Pastor
at Durham N. C., for Over Thirty Years
SAINTLY FR. PRICE
WAS HIS ASSOCIATE
IN EARLIEST DAYS
St. Mary’s Church, Durham
Native of Washington, D.C.,
He Lived in New Bern as
Boy—Ordained in 1898
Before the establishing of the Dio
cese of Raleigh, the Vicariate of North
Carolina, of which the late Cardinal
Gibbons was the first Vicar-Apostolic
even as Bishop Hafey was the first Or
dinary of the See of Raleigh, had a
stirring history, and it is exemplified
nowhere more vividly than in St.
Mary's Parish in Durham where for
the past thirty years Father William
F. O'Brien has been pastor.
Father O’Brien now is in the fortieth
year of his priesthood; all of his priest
ly life and al but fifteen years of his
life have been spent in North Carolina,
thus making him one of the pioneer
priests and pastors of the entire South.
Father O’Brien was born in Wash
ington. D. C., September 18. 1872, the
son of Mr. and Mis. William J. O'Brien,
natives of Ireland who met and were
married in Washington, D. C. Follow
ing the War Between the States, Mr.
O’Brien was connected with the War
Department, and then became super
intendent of the National Cemetery, a
post he held at the time of his death
in 1899.
After preliminary education in the
parochial schools of Baltimore, Fa
ther O'Brien attended schools at Fav-
etteville, Ark., and New Bern, N. C„
coming to New Bern at the age of 15.
He then entered Belmont, spending
five years in the college there and
four in the seminary, and he was or
dained June 12, 1898.
Shortly after his ordination. Father
O’Brien was appointed assistant at 9t.
Paul’s. New Bern, and placed in charge
of the congregation for the colored
there, the following year he became
pastor of St. Patrick’s Church, Fay
etteville. In 1901, he became associat
ed with Father Price, co-founder of
the Maryknoll Missionary Society, in
the North Carolina Apostolate; Father
Price died on the Chinese mission
field. Father O’Brien assisted him in
the establishment and editing of
Truth.
From 1901 to 1907, Father O'Brien
was engaged in work on the North
Carolina missions, made weekly visits
to the Soldiers’ Home, the penitentiary
and the County Home in Raleigh and
served as chaplain of the Orphanage at
Nazareth. In 1907 he was appointed
pastor at Durham.
Durham in 1865 had less than one
hundred residents; now it has consid
erably in excess of 50,000. The first
Catholic family came to the city in
1879, and priests from Raleigh attend
ed the mission until Father O'Brien’s
appointment as pastor. Father
O'Brien’s first concern was the es
tablishing of a school for the parish;
this he succeeded in doing in 1909, al
though there were but fifteen chil
dren in the parish. The Dominican Sis
ters of Newburg, N. Y.. were and are
the teachers, and the number regis
tered has grown from fifteen to over
one hundred. The congregation has
grown from a mere handful to about
250 members, many of them converts
brought to a knowledge of the faith
by Father O’Brien. Duke University’s
Catholic students a 1 so attend St.
Mary’s and are ministered to by Fa
ther O’Brien.
Coming to North Carolina as a boy,
securing most of his education with
in the state, including his course in
the classics, philosophy and theology,
and with thirty-seven years of priest
ly service within its borders, Father
O'Brien is a Carolinian of the Caro
linians as well as a most zealous and
devoted priest. No one is held in
higher esteem than he in Durham and
its missions, which Father O'Brien still
attends, and the devotion of his peo
ple and the good will of those not of
the faith are tributes to his own zeal,
life and character.
Greetings and
All Good Wishes
Froiu
The Durham Morning Herald I
The Durham Sun