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LEGION OF DECENCY PLEDGE
VOL. XV. No. 7
AUGUSTA, GEORGIA, JULY 21, 1934
ISSUED MONTHLY—$2.00 A YEAR
“The Only Catho
lic Newspaper
Between Balti
more and New
Orleans
Published by the
Catholic Lay
men’s Association
of Georgia.
( By N. C. W. C. News Service)
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT h a s
named Archbishop Edward J. Hanna
of San Francisco chairman of the
National Longshoreman’s Board to
investigate the maritime strike on the
Pacific Coast.
MAJ. GEN. MATTHEW TINLEY
of Council Blulfs, Iowa, has been
awarded the United States Flag As
sociation’s Medal for outstanding law
enforcement during the past year.
The citation, read at the Governor’s
office in Des Moines, cited General
Tinley’s leadership in the suppression
of the farm riots in Western Iowa in
the spring of 1933.
IRELAND’S Catholic Truth Con
gress, against which threats were ut
tered, was held in Belfast without
untoward incident. Cardinal Mac-
Rory, two Archbishops and sixteen
Bishops were among those attending.
A CHAIN PRAYER was torn to
bits in the pulpit by the Rev. James
G. Harold of Bowhill, Fife, England,
who denounced its circulation as
“rank superstition ”
A CHINESE PRIEST, the Rev.
Thowas Tien, of the Society of the
Divine Word, whose American head
quarters are at Techny, 111., has been
named Prefect Apostolic of the Yang-
ku Mission district. There are four
teen priests in the district, all Chi
nese but one.
A M ILLION DOLLARS was
spent in the United States last year
in anti-religious and anti-Ameri can
propaganda, Auxiliary' Bishop Shiel
of Chicago told the Sodalist conven
tion in Chicago. The Young Pioneers,
radical youth organization, was re
sponsible for a large part of the loss
of 127,000 members withdrawn from
the Bey Scouts.
NEW ORLEANS will entertain the
silver jubilee convention of the
Knights of Peter Claver in August.
Colored priests will officiate at the
opening solemn Macs.
REV. GODFREY HUNT, O. F. M„
widely known Franciscan of Wash
ington, and formerly attached to 'he
Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in
Jerusalem, died July 12. Father God
frey was bom in England In 1878.
REV. ALPHONSE SCHW1TALIA,
S. J., dean of the St. Louis Medical
School, is one of eight medical lead
ers appointed members of an Ameri
can Medical Association committee
to re-examine and reclassify the
schools of medicine of the country.
. PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT was
praised eg “a leader who is employ
ing Christian principles in govern
ment”, a resolution adopted by the
Sodality of Our Lady convention in
Chicago declared. Five hundred dele
gates frow 75 Catholic colleges and
universities attended.
TIMOTHY F. WALSH, a member
of the internationally famed architec
tural firm of Magennis and Walsh,
and a brother of Bishop James A.
Walsh, M. M.. superior-general of the
Maryknoll Fathers, died July 10 at
h J s home in Ncrih Scituate, Mass.
Bishop Walsh was with him when he
died.
Coadjutor Bishop
Most Rev. James E. Cassidy, Aux
iliary Bishop and Apostolic Adminis
trator of the Diocese of Fall River,
who has been named Coadjutor Bish
op of that diocese, with the right of
succession.. Bom in Woonsocket, R.
I.. Bishop Cassidy was ordained in
1898. He served as Chancellor and
fetter as Vicar General of Fall River.
On May 27, 1930, he was consecrated
titular Bishop of Ihora and Auxiliary
to the Most Rev. Daniel F. Feehan,
Bishop of the Diocese of Fall River.
October 3, 1930, he was appointed
Apostolic Administrator of that See.
Jesuit Fathers Given
West Baden Hotel
Non-Catholic Presents Prop
erty as Scholasticate
(By N. C. W. C. News Service)
CINCINNATI—The former famous
spa, West Baden Springs Hotel, at
West Baden, Ind., has been donated
by Edward Ballard, its non-Catholic
owner, to the Chicago Province of the
Society of Jesus. The institution will
be used as a school of Fhilosophy and
Science for Jesuit scholastics. An
nouncement of 'he gift has been
made by the Rev. Charles H. Cloud,
S. J., provincial of the Chicago Pro
vince.
Closed a year, the spa was valued
prior to the depression at $7,000,090.
At first, it is said, the Jesuit’s plan
ned to buy the spa, but the sale fig
ure was too high. It was also said
that Mr. Ballard has desired to keep
the spa intact and that its use as a
school by the Jesuits, would fulfill
this desire, the gift followed.
Hollywood Pledges Reform
as Bishops Push Campaign
(By N. C. W. C. News Service)
CINCINNATI. — As the Catholic
Bishops’ Committee on Motion Pic
tures, after session here, announced
plans to extend the Legion of De
cency membership “to every town
and city in the United States," rep
resentatives of the motion picture
industry, sent ' to confer with tfee
Bishops, made promises to reform on
behalf of Hollywood.
Acknowledging these promises,
which pledged a new attempt at self
cleansing on the part of the indus
try, the Bishops’ committee, in a state
ment, declared it “views with favor
the renewed efforts of the organized
industry to discharge its responsibil
ity,” and would co-operate with such
efforts. It also expressed hope that
moral improvement in the films
would follow.
However, it declared that Catholics
“are convinced that in the long run,
the desired results of a wholesome
screen can be assured only through
unfailing opposition to evil motion
pictures. “It asserted also that sup
port of the Catholic campaign of pro
test must be maintained” so that the
producers of films may be “consant-
iy aware” of the demand for clean
pictures.
FIFTY-FIVE Archdioceses have al
ready had organized manifestations
of the Catholic crusade against inde
cent motion pictures. These dioc-
ceses have a total population of more
than 11,000,000 Catholics.
How many individuals have signed
the pledge of the Legion of Decency
it is impossible to compute. However
one Bishop expressed the conviction
that already “almost five million
Catholics have been mustered in”
the campaign against evil motion pic
tures. Others have estimated that
this number have signed the pledge
of the Legion of Decency or would
sign in the very near future. Addi
tional dioceses are organizing.
Legion of Decency Movement
mally Launched in Georgia
Promises of Reform Made to
Ward Off ‘Decency Cam
paign’ in 1930 Were Pub
licized Loudly and Ignored
The Rev. Daniel A. Lord, S. J., na
tional director of the Sodality of
Our Lady, and editor of The Queen’s
Work, St. Louis, a member of the
committee co-operating at the re
quest of the motion picture produc
ers in the drawing up of a motion pic
ture code, asserts that “if the motion
picture industry were true to its
promises and lived up to its owm vol
untary code, our Crusade of the Le
gion of Decency would not he neces
sary. What we are doing is standing
by the agreement of decency and
self-respect that the motion picture
groups solemnly signed and then im
mediately repudiated.”
The motion picture code was signed
by the motion picture producers,
large and small, at a meeting in
March, 1930, at which Will Hays pre
sided. The agreement was warmly
commended by the pulpit and press.
A year later. Father Lord spent two
weeks at Hollywood going over with
Mr. Hays and motion picture authori
ties films which seemed to violate
the code. “Once more the code was
accepted,” Father Lord says, “and
again approved by the men respon
sible for making the pictures.”
The code was respected and ad
hered to for a while, but gradually
they began to ignore it, Father Lord
reports, in minor matters at first,
then more boldly, until “at the pres
ent moment never less than fifty per
cent, and usually as high as sixty
per cent, of the films frankly and un-
blushingly violate the producers’ own
signed and accepted and publicized
code.” Hence the launching of the
Legion of Decency to compel the
producers to live up to their promis
es.
THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL, sec
ular daily, editorially recalls that the
Board of Moral Welfare of Mr. Hays’
own Presbyterian Church, in 1925
took him to task for the low moral
level of the motion pictures. “Mr.
Hays repeatedly .promised reform.
His 1930 code forbade “obscenity in
word, gesture, reference, song, joke
or by suggestion; dances which em
phasize indecent movements are to
be regarded as obscene. Indecent or
undue exposure is forbidden. That
code is still in effect. Yet when, in
all the history of motion pictures,
has there been more obscenity in
suggestive ‘wise cracks’ than now?"
GERALD GRIFFIN, president of
the Catholic Actors’ Guild, in a ra
dio address over WLWL in New
York, heartily commended the Legion
of Decency movement. A»to the pro
ducers giving the public what it
wants, “that is untrue,” Hr. Griffin
said. “The public is never consult
ed. They tell you mainly that ‘the
public seldom knows what it wants.’
But in the present situation a large
army of theatre-goers are stating in
no uncertain terms what they do
want.”
IN NEW YORK, Catholic, Protes
tant and Jewish leaders have organ
ized not only to purge the motion
pictures but the stage and literature
from obscenity.
PHILADELPHIA motion picture
houses which threatened to close
their theatres as an answer to the Le
gion of Decency campaign, thus
throwing thousands of persons out
of work, now say they have no in
tention of closing their theatres.
Missionary in Orient
REV. MR. JOHN J. O’CONNOR, S.
J., who visited his former home in
Augusta this week on his way to Cey
lon, where he has volunteered to
spend the rest of his life as a mis
sionary and teacher. He has been a
member of the faculty of Jesuit High
School, New Orleans, and faculty di
rector of athletics for the past three
years. After visiting his parents, who
now live in Toledo, O., he will go to
Ceylon via Rome, where he will be
received in audience by the Holy
Father. Mr. O’Connor, who will make
his theological studies in Bombay, is
a grandson of the late P. J, O’Con
nor, for many years sheriff of Rich
mond County. His sister, Miss An
toinette O’Connor, is a member of the
Dominican Sisters at Adrian, Mich.
At Augusta he was tendered a recep
tion at the home of his uncle and
aunt, Mr. and Mrs. G. Frank Bolder,
Tuesday night.
Dr. Fulton Sheen is
Named a Monsignor
(By N. C. W. C. News Service)
WASHINGTON—His Holiness Pops
Pius XI has named the Rev. Dr. Ful
ton J Sheen of the Catholic Univer
sity of America, noted pulnit and
radio orator, a Papal Chamberlain
with the title of Very Reverend Mon-
signor. Monsignor Sheen has sailed
for Europe, where he will deliver a
series of lectures this summer in
England.
No section of the United States is
better represented in the Legion of
Decency campaign than the Southeast
and the South. Practically every Dio
cese in the South has alreday taken
effective steps to cooperate with the
movement.
In the Southeast, in addition to the
activity in Georgia directed by the
Most. Rev. Michael J. Keyes, D. D.,
Bishop of Savannah, os recorded in
this issue of Tire Bulletin, there are
parallel efforts in neighboring Dio
ceses.
In North Carolina a recent pastoral
by the Most Rev. William J. Hefey,
D. D., urged the establishing of local
Legion of Decency committees to
work in cooperation with the pastor
in protesting improper and com
mending good pictures.
South Carolina’s Legion of Decen
cy campaign is now in its advanced
organization stages, after recent pub
lic statements of the Most Rev. Em
met M. Walsh, D. D., Bishop of Char
leston.
In Florida, the Sodality Union of
the Diocese of St. Augustine has dis
tributed Legion of Decency pledges,
which the Most Rev. Patrick Barry,
D.- D., Bishop of St. Augustine, has
urged his people to sign.
The Diocese of Mobile, under the
20,000 PLEDGES ARE
DISTRIBUTED IN THE
CHURCHES OF STATE
Bishop Keyes Names Cath
olic Layman’s Association
Clearing House for Cam
paign in the Diocese
The distribution of 20,000 Legion of
Decency pledges in the churches of
Georgia at the direction of the Most
Rev. Michael J. Keyes, D.D., Bishop
of Savannah, Sunday, July 8, for
mally launched the Legion of Decen
cy movement in this state and Dio
cese. Sermons on the purpose of the
movement and the evils it is striving
to correct were delivered in the va
rious churches, and the people ear
nestly urged to respond to the call of
their Bishop and give their whole
hearted support to the movement.
Among the thousands of pledges al
ready signed in Georgia are a num
ber voluntarily sent in by persons
who write that they are not Catholics,
but that they are in hearty accord
with the movement and wish to be
recorded as supporting it.
Bishop Keyes has designated the
Catholic Laymen’s Association of
Georgia as the clearing house for the
campaign; the pledges were printed
and distributed, at the request of His
Excellency, by the Laymen's Associa
tion. Several parishes sent in urgent
calls for additional pledges; the Very
Rev. Edward P. McGrath, S.M., pas
tor of Sacred Heart Church, Atlanta,
requested a second supply of two
thousand. The Catholic Laymen’s As
sociation will be pleased to furnish
without charge copies of the Savan
nah Diocesan pledge to parishes, or
ganizations or individuals requiring
them.
The launching of the Legion of De
cency campaign was emphasized in
the press cf Georgia, the day follow
ing the distribution of the pledges. A
number of newspapers carried the
pledge in full, and in some cases in a
form ready for signing.
THE METHODIST MINISTERS’
Union of Savannah, according to a
story in The Savannah Press and The
Morning News, which was relayed to
its member newspapers by the Asso
ciated Press, “endorsed the pledge
direction of the Most Rev. Thomas J.
Toolen, B. D„ Bishop of Mobile, has
had tens of thousands of Legion of
Decency pledges distributed and
many thousands already signed.
In Tennessee, a pastoral of the
Most Rev. Alohonse J. Cmith, D. D.,
Bishop of Nashville, on the Legion of
Decency movement was read in the
churches of the Diocese June 24,
pledges were distributed and signed,
and a letter stating the purpose of
the movement was sent by Bishop
Smith to the motion picture theatre
operators of the state.
In other Dioceses of the South there
is similar activity. Tire campaigns are
not being organized for a few weeks
or for a few months but on a perma
nent basis. Not merely individual
members of parishes, but parishes as
such and Catholic organizations are
lending their united efforts not against
the motion pictures as an indus
try nor the local motion picture thea
tres or officials, but against pic
tures which offend Christian moral
ity, and there will be no change
in their determination not to pa
tronize the theatres as long as a sa
lacious or otherwise objectionable
picture is being shown.
(Continued on Page Seven)
Southeast Vigorously Aids
Legion of Decency Campaign