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THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
THE BULLETIN
The Official OrgaD of the Catholic Laymen’s
Association of Georgia
RICHARD REID, Editor
815-816 Lamar Building Augusta. Georgia
Subscription Price $2.00 Per Year
ASSOCIATION OFFICERS FOR 1937-1938
ALFRED M. BATTEY Augusta President
J. J. HAVERTY. K. S. G.. Atlanta ...First Vice-President
J. B. McCALLUM. Atlanta Secretary
THOMAS F WALSH, Savannah Treasurer
RICHARD REID, Augusta Executive Secretary
MISS CECILE FERRY, Augusta. Asst. Exec, Secretary
Vol. XIX
March 26, 1938
No. 3
Entered as second class matter June 15, 1921, at the Post
Office at Augusta. Ga.. under act of March, 1879. Ac
cepted for mailing at special rate of postage provided
for in Section 1103. Act of October 3. 1917, authorized
September l 1921
Darrow vs. God
C LARENCE DARROW, the most conspicuous agnostic
of the decade and one of the most notorious of
the generation, is dead, Clarence Darrow whose philoso
phy of life was summed up in these declarations:
“I feel, as I always have, that the earth is the home,
and the only home, of man, and I am convinced that
whatever he is to get out of his existence he must get
while he is here.”
“I am an agnostic because I am not afraid to think.
I am not afraid of any god in the universe who would
send me or any other man or woman to hell. If there
were such a being, he would not be a god; he would
be a devil.”
God is the judge of Darrow's sincerity. It is beyond
the province of any man to evaluate his motives; God
alone knows the recesses of Darrow’s heart. We recom
mend him to the mercy of God, but in so doing we
cannot in conscience join in the hymns of praise be
ing offered to this apostle of agnosticism even by Chris
tian leaders.
There is no way of estimating the damage that Darrow
did to the faith of uneducated and half-educated people
by his attacks, for instance, on the Bible in the Scopes
trial. His specialty was setting himself up as an Ecum
enical Council and dogmatically interpreting the Bible,
and then ridiculing and demolishing the straw man he
had constructed. His line of reasoning was evident also
in his discussions of such matters as the Biblical ac
count of Jonah and the whale. He first interpreted the
passage to suit himself, and then undertook to prove
that such an explanation was impossible and foolish.
He who insisted on respect for all opinion, no matter
how ridiculous, had no respect for the conviction of
practically all peoples of all ages and all nations that
there exists an Almighty God, Creator of Heaven and
Earth, and that Creator cf Heaven and Earth could ac
complish the incidents recorded in the Bible even in
the strained way they are described by Darrow.
Darorw was not an agnostic because he was ‘ not
afraid to think,” but because he did not think through,
assuming that he really was an agnostic. Christ claim
ed to be the Son of God, true God and true Man, a
claim made in a way as historically established as Cae
sar's conquest of Gaul and Cicero’s orations to the Ro
man Senate. He performed miracles to substantiate His
claim, miracles which those of His time hostile to Him
could not deny but tried to explain away. It was He
Who said that those condemned by God will be cast
into hell for all eternity. Darrow did not like that
teaching, and because he did not like it he denied it, just
as he attempted to wipe God out of the universe by
denying His existence.
If Darrow's views affected only himself, it would not
only be possible but proper to be silent about them. But
they had. an unfortunate influence on countless persons
whose mental attainments were not sufficient to enable
them to detect flaws in the arguments of one skilled in
misleading juries, and the thoughtless eulogies by re
ligious leaders will have a tendency to deepen that in
fluence.
tive countries are not, and Bishop Yu-Pin, Vicar-
Apostolic of Nanking, gives further evidence of the
baselessness of the report to which the Charlotte News
refers when he declared in Washington, as reported by
the National Catholic Welfare Conference News Ser
vice and published in The Bulletin of January 29, that
‘'China is neither Communist nor pro-Communist, and
if the Japanese say they are fighting Communism, they
have no reason for fighting the Chinese.” Seventeen
of Bishop Yu-Pin's thirty-three priests have been kill
ed, and several of his churches wresked by Japanese
bombs. The Bishop asserted that he had no inten
tion of mixing in political matters, but that he felt ob
liged to speak out in the name of justice and morality.
The Vatican’s vigorous statement, the declaration of
the Apostolic Delegate, Bishop Yu-Pin’s assertions and
the elementary rules of common sense all demonstrate
the absurdity of the allegations in the editorial in the
Charlotte News. 1716 editorial’s gratuitous suspicions
of the Jesuit Fathers, members of an order which con
duct Fordham, Georgetown, Loyola, Marquette, Creigh
ton, Santa Clara, Holy Cross and numerous other uni
versities and colleges in the United States, who have
educated many of the leading, citizens of the South,
Catholic and non-Catholic, back to the days of the emi
nent North Carolina statesman, William Gaston, are un
worthy of any reputable newspaper.
o
Misleading a University
NE George O. Pershing has been around the coun
try representing himself as the nephew of General
Pershing and delivering addresses in favor of the
Spanish Leftists. In an address at the University of
North Carolina, for instance, where he was billed as
field secretary of the Medical Bureau and North Am
erican committee to aid Spanish democracy”, he is
quoted as saying that “the government in Spain is sup
ported by intellectualists, educators and scientists
rather than politicians. Grafters are supporting Franco,
logically enough, since the fascists turned from ballots
to bullets when they lost the election.”
The Spanish Leftists’ domination by Soviet Russia
and the Soviet's conception of democracy are too well
known to our readers to require us to comment on these
remarks. We should like to report, however, that Gen
eral Pershing’s office states that this man is not known
to the general except through newspaper clippings of
his activities, “and if he is at all related, it is so re
motely that it would take a geneologist to trace it.”
General Pershing’s office also asserts that army
records show that one George O. Pershing was sen
tenced to the Alcatraz Island prison for four years and
nine months on January 26, 1925, when Alcatraz was
a military discipline barracks; he was paroled Septem
ber 14, 1927, and finally released May 28, 1928. The New
York World of January 19, 1929, said that a man giving
this name, claiming to be a cousin of General Pershing
and admitting serving time at Alcatraz, was knocked
clown by a police officer while engaged in a demonstra
tion in front of the British Consulate in New York.
It appears that the University of North Carolina and
the other institutions which have allowed this man to
use their lecture platforms because of his alleged dis
tinguished connections have been very badly fooled.
Dixie Musin&s
The coming of spring coincides
with another spring, that indicated
by the resurgence of Catholic activity
in the Bishop’s campaign for Dioce
san purposes, one destined to be fol
lowed by a harvest season, we are
certain, which will make this year
forever memorable in the Catholic
history of the South.
A Catholic laity, devoted to the
cause of Catholic Action, at the call
of their Bishop swung into action
overnight from Tennessee and Ala
bama to the Carolinas, the Atlantic
and Florida. The final chapter of
the campaign is soon to be written,
and its brilliant content is already a
sured.
The zeal of the laity of Georgia
is a national by-word. They have
demonstrated their loyalty in a man
ner which has won the admiration
of the nation. They have never al
lowed the obstacles confronting them
or their numerical handicaps to be
an excuse for inertia. They regard
the project placed before them by
their Bishop as an opportunity, par
ticipation in which is a privilege.
Those who know the laity of Geor
gia, men and women, and the clergy
with whom they labor, can have no
doubt of the result of the campaign.
w
Unworthy Suspicions
T HE Charlotte, N. C., News of February 28, com
menting on a report from the Japanese foreign
office that Chinese soldiers had kidnapped three Jesuit
jrriests, expressed tire opinion that instead of being kid
napped they have been captured as prisoners of war
who, under certain circumstances, may be justly and
legally executed.
“It does not seem entirely unlikely,” says the edi
torial! “that these Jesuits have been guilty of lending
aid and comfort to the Japanese as against the Chi
nese. For of all the Catholic orders, the Jesuits are
most immediately subject to the Pope. And it is of
record also that, directly after the beginning of the
Japanese attack on China, Pius XI officially accepted
the Japanese claim that it was all bv way of opposing
the Reds, and instructed all Catholic priests and orders
in China to aid the Japanese in this ‘crusade against
Communism’ in every way they cou’d.”
It is a matter of record that the Vatican and the
Apostolic Delegate to the United States have officially
and vigorously denied the reports to which the Char
lotte Nev.'S refers, a denial emphasized in the October
30 issue of The Bulletin on its front page. The Apostolic
Delegate in his statement said that the alleged instruc
tions “were conceived by some irresponsible source with
the manifest purpose of deceiving the American public
on the Vatican's policy of strict neutrality.”
While the Vatican is neutral, citizens of the respec
Pledges Written on Water
HEN the United States, in response to urgent
overtures and promises of great trade advant
ages coupled with a solemn pledge not to permit Soviet
propaganda in the United States, recognized the Soviet
Republic, The Bulletin expressed the conviction that the
prospective trade advantages would not materialize and
that the Reds had no intention of curbing the activities
of the Soviet Reds here. Even before the ink was dry
on the agreements, officials of the Soviet were explain
ing away the pledge of freedom of worship for citizens
of the United States in Russia.
When the Red propaganda from Russia, agitating for
an overthrow of our form of government by violent
means if necessary, assumed such proportions that
some explanation from the Soviet in the light of its
promises was demanded, the Soviet blandly asserted
that it was responsible only for acts of the government
and not for those of the Communist International. There
were two major fallacies in this excuse: If the Soviet
could not control such propaganda here, it had no right
to promise to do so ,and the fact that it could control it
and anything else of that nature from Russia is patent
to anyone who lias even a meagre knowledge of how
completely the government dictatorship dominates life
there.
Now the Soviet goes a step further. As reported in
the previous issue of The Bulletin, Joseph Stalin, dic
tator of Russia, asserts that "we must increase and
strengthen the international proletarian ties of the work
ing class of the U. S. S. R. with the working class of
bourgeois countries. We must organize political help
of the working class of bourgeois countries to the work
ing class of our country in case of military attack. . . .
Support of our revolution by the workers of all coun
tries and particularly the victory of these workers in at
least several countries is a necessary condition for com
plete guarantee of the first conquered country (Russia)
from attempts at intervention and restoration.”
Such a bold, even brazen, statement by Dictator
Stalin, should, in the opinion of the New York Post,
“clear the air completely. Americans who have ap
proved Communist aqtivities in the United States, who
have felt that Soviet Russia was at least friendly to
democracy, are now undeceived.”
In a teachers’ examination the par
ticipants were asked what is meant by
the Alabama arrow.” They didn’t
know. Some of them wrote to edi
tors, who likewise didn’t know. They
asked Mr. Haskin, who got his re
search department busy, to learn that
the Alabama arrow” is Mr. Dixie
Howell, of the Alabama football
eleven, who, to quote The Tampa
Tribune, can “knock over a thimble
at 30 paces with his arrow-like
pass.” How people who didn’t
know that expected to be allowed to
teach school surpasses o.ie’s com
prehension.
Out in Oregon a hotel proprietor
referred to some girls as beautiful
but dumb. One of them snapped.
“The Lord made us beautiful so you
men would love us; and He made us
dumb so we would love you.”
is different”.
Gill, “maybe
well was.”
“Well”, said Mrs. Mc-
they thought Crom-
Father George J. Reid of Clarks
ville, Texas, who died recently, for
merly practiced law in Pittsburgh
with his brother. Judge Ambrose B.
Reid, now and for many years pre
siding judge of the Court of Com
mon Pleas in Pittsburgh. Judge Reid
subscribed for The Bulletin regularly
for his priestly brother, and both al
ways manifested a deep interest in
the work. The editor of The Bulle
tin tried to trace a relationship with
these distinguished sons of the
Church, but never succeeded.
He has likewise failed to establish
any relationship with Father Charles
J. Reid, pastor of St. Joseph’s Church,
Yonkes, N. Y., who in recent years
observed the golden jubilee of his
ordination, an occasion graced by the
presence of the Cardinal-Archbiship
of New York. Nor with Father
Aubrey J. Reid, S. J., of Kansas City,
Mo., whom we met in recent years
in Chicago. Perhaps we are related
to the most famous member of the
family, the one mentioned in the
Bible, thg reed shaken by the wind.
O. O. McIntyre in one of his last
columns said that in a fog George
Creel could pass for Ex-King Alfonso,
which prompted us at the time to re
mark that if the fog was thick
enough we might pass for Robert
Taylor.
In St. Louis recently, Thomas
Franklin, a Negro who had served as
valet for three Archbishops over a
period of 72 years, died at 91, and
Archbishop Glennon delivered the
sermon at his funeral.
Neal O'Hara, syndicated column
writer who served at Camp Hancock
in Augusta during the World War,
reports that “due to Rhode Island’s
so-called 'rotten borough’ system,
less than 5 1-2 percent of the state’s
voters can elect a majority of the
state senate.” One would hardly
think that there could be so much
injustice m a s ate so small that they
once talked of making it into a
miniature golf course. The fading of
the fad saved it.
The Miami Herald believes that it
is not that Southern men are more
colite. but that they can uncover
their bald heads without exposing
them to the danger of catching cold.
Every so often someone in the
South starts a movement against the
custom of men taking off their hats in
the presence of ladies on an eleva
tor. We should like to register our
selves as strongly against the move
ment against the custom. With so
many Southerners suspicious of a
Democratic administration and the
North so filled with hospitality that
they have hostesses on trains and
planes, we must have some distin
guishing characteristic.
“Tobacco Road”, which ran some
thing like four years in New York,
is described by a magazine as “physi
cally and verbally as dirty as any
play U. S. playgoers have seen. In
thirteen cities, from Albuquerque, N.
M., to Boston, Mass., its producers
have had to pay lawyers to fight
lecal censorship. In Chicago, where
a brief filed in the U. S. Court of
Appeals called the play ‘a garbage
pail of indecent dialogue and de
generate exhibitionism’, legal defense
cost nearly $75,000.” The critical ma
gazine was not a sodality organ but
Time, the sophisticated weekly news
magazine.
The passing of McIntyre leaves a
void in the American Press which
it will be as difficult to fill as that
made by the passing of ill Rogers
from the screen. McIntyre was the
butt of cynical jibes from envious
jornalists who attributed his success
to accident instead of to the insight
into human nature which has his.
Seldom did anything said by Mc
Intyre make his column unfit for the
family circle. If his philosophy of
life was inadequate, he did not seek
to turn theologian and impose his
own private opinions on his millions
of readers with the assurance of
one with a divine relation.
The “worrying rock” in North
Georgia doesn’t appeal to Ernest
Camp, editor of the Monroe Tribune
and poet-laureate of the Georgia
Press Association. “A person can
worry anywhere,” says Editor Camp
“and I’d like to encourage ’em to
giggle and grin. Something on the
order of a blarney stone would be
better and I may decide to give one
to the City of Monroe. In the mean
time anyone having a nice blarney
stone they'd like to contribute to the
cause might confer with me.”
“I am tired of marching through
Georgia on slumming trips with Ers-
kine Caldwell just lor the sake of
a cheap laugh,” Sidney B. Whipple,
dramatic critic, writes in The New
York World-Telegram in a vehement
review of “Journeyman”, which seeks
to portray incredible goings-ons in
an imaginary Rocky Comfort, Ga. The
New York Times reviewer comforts
himself with the thought that he be
lieves “the worst is over in the thea
tre for a long time to come.”
The Madison Madisonian, edited by
the Christian-hearted W. T. Bacon,
editorially mourns the death of an
afflicted colored boy who made a
living going on errands. “Life meant
little to him,” Editor Bacon writes,
‘ but we know of no one who so
lived up to the opportunities and
the chances and the encouragement
he received. His affliction perhaps
came about as the result ot some
one’s neglect of him when a child.
At the final roundup when the roll is
called we are thinking that Jimmie
will lead many who stand much
higher in this life.”
If censorship comes to the stage—
or the press^it wilt be brought
about not so much by reformers as
by recreant members of the mofes-
sion. just as it was the sins of
the brewers and distillers which was
crimarily responsible for prohibi
tion.
The daughter of Admiral Perry,
who brought Japan into the family
of nations is the wife of the United
States Ampbassador to Japan, Mr.
Grew, again demonstrating that the
world is a small place after all, or
something like that.
Ralph McGill of The Atlanta Con
stitution. who went to Europe on a
fellowship, could not understand
why the Irish still hate Cromwell.
None of them knew Cromwell, he
told Mrs. McGill. Hating him at this
iate date is stubbornness.
“Is it?” she answered. “Is it,
new?, And; have I not listened to
you curse the Yankees? And were
you acquainted with General W. T.
Sherman?” “Well”, said Ralph, “that
E. M. Wise writing in the Hosch,
ton, Ga., News, says he liked France
but found Italy strange. “I could
understand why the French people
love Southern France but I can't
understand why all the people of
Italy do not move to America. They
must get mighty homesick living in
so strange a place as Italy.” Yet
some people get all excited when
they hear that the Pope is about
to leave his strange country for
ours.
Editor J. J. Thomasson of the Car-
roll County Times, is out of step
with the “Methodist Episcopal
Church, South, irreconcilables” who
are “determined that they just will
not work in harness with Northern
members, they will kick out of traces
first. We greatly fear that when they
get up to heaven St. Peter will have
to build his fences enclosing the
Methodists a little higher to keep
these fellows from jumping out and
coming back to Atlanta.” Well bet
a good ten cent cigar that Editor
Thomasson is a Baptist.
The London Evening Standard says
that Count von Galen, Catholic
Bishop of Muenster, Germany, was
preaching in his Cathedral in West
phalia on the part of the Church in
the education of the young, when a
uniformed Nazi in the congregation
arose and shouted: “What do people
who have no wife and children know
about bringing up the young?” To
which the Bishop immediately and
forceably retorted: “I will not stand
for any derogatory remarks about the
Fuehrer in this Church!”
—R. R.