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About The bulletin of the Catholic Laymen's Association of Georgia. (Augusta, Ga.) 1920-1957 | View Entire Issue (July 30, 1938)
EIGHT THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA JULY 30, 1938 THE BULLETIN The Official Organ of the Catholic Laymen’s Association of Georgia RICHARD REID. Editor 815-816 Lamar Building Augusta, Georgia Subscription Price $2,00 Pei Year ASSOCIATION OFFICERS FOR 1937-1938 ALFRED M- BATTEY Augusta I President J. J. HAVERTY, K. S. G.. Atlanta ...First Vice-President J. B McCALLQM. Atlanta Secretary THOMAS F. WALSH, K. S. G., Savannah Treasurer RICHARD REID, K. S. G. Augusta . Executive Secretary MISS CECILE FERRY, Augusta, Asst. Exec. Secretary VOL. XIX July 30, 1938• No. 7 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. 192L Member of N. C. W. C. News Service the Catholic Press Association of the United States, the Georgia Press Association and the National Editorial Association. The “Appeal” of the Communists r A Southern politician who was a constant source of disturbance during his years of political activity was credited as saying that it was impossible to over estimate the credulessness of the masses. With an amaz ing confidence in his theory, he piled up a mass of po litical defeats perhaps unsurpassed by one of his ability and energy. ' The Communists appear to have inherited the theory. “Purging” Russia of all who dare suggest a course of policy different from that of the despots, even to the ex tent of butchering former Soviet leaders in wholesale groups, they brazenly proclaim that their forces in Spain are battling for democracy. Building up the largest military establishment in the world, they send their agents into the major nations to preach a gospel of peace and disarmament, and then, when it suits their purpose, they suddenly reverse their pacifistic position in an effort, through repeal of neu trality laws, to secure military support for their army in Spain. Emboldened by their success in their brazen misrep resentation they now, through their American leader, Earl Browder, call for a Communist-Catholic alliance. It is a mystery, says the New York World Telegram, how the Communist leader could have expected any al liance, for “to ask Catholics to line up in a ‘united front’ with a party known to the whole world as an arch-de stroyer of religion, a ruthless demolisher of churches, couldn’t pass even for propitiation. It was plain insult, and is rightly treated as such.” There is of course mystery about it. The Communists wish only to confuse the issue and to mislead unthink ing people. Hie New York World-Telegram senses this when it continues: “Mr. Browder's failure to fool Catholics may well presage his failure to fool other clear-headed Ameri cans with his new flatterings and foundlings of democ racy. Instead of reassuring, these gentler and more insidious ‘boring’ tactics only repel.” ^ The Church and the Nazis eports from Vienna indicate that fifty thousand f\ of its citizens have been jailed or placed in con centration camps by the Nazis since Austria was taken ever by the Fuehrer,” The Macon Telegraph says edi torially. “Twelve thousand Catholics were arrested in March. They belong to various groups and associations support ing Kurt Schuschnigg, the Austrian chancellor, who is now awaiting trial on the absurd charge that he was guilty of ‘treason’ in attempting to keep his country in dependent , . . Not less than twenty thousand Jews are in jails or concentration camps.” Among the Catholics jailed or in concentration camps i6 Dr. Frederic Funder, distinguished journalist, and Vienna correspondent of the N. C. W. C. News Service. “Immorality trials”, conceived by the Nazis to weaken the confidence of the laity in the clergy, have been ex tended from Germany to Austria. The Nazis hope to do by vicious attacks on the clergy what they have not been able to do by persecution. The Communists of the United States, at the very time when it is pretending to extend the hand of friend ship to Catholics in order to mislead misinformed Cath olics, is painting the Church as the ally of the Nazis and dictatorships in general in order to create prejudice against Catholics among their non-Catholic neighbors. These tactics fool some people. But “you can't fool all the people all of the time.” The American press, which was misled by the latter propaganda, is now realizing how it has been deceived. Reversion to Barbarism T USKEGEE Institute in Alabama in its semi-annual report on the subject announced July 1 that in the first six months of 1938 there had not been a lynching in the United States. The newspapers had hardly finish ed emphasizing the news when they were called upon to record the brutal killing by a mob of a Negro at Arabi, Ga., after the Negro allegedly fatally shot the town mar shal in resisting arrest. If the Negro was guilty of the crime attributed to him, there was not one chance in a thousand or perhaps a million that he would have failed to pay the penalty of law after a trial. As the Atlanta Constitution said edi torially: “It matters not how guilty the lynchers’ victim was—his guilt does not mitigate in one iota from their great crime.” Leading newspapers of Georgia have denounced the outrage as a crime against the state, the nation and the people of the. nation as well as against the victim; It “has held all America up to the world once more as a nation liable at any time to all the brutality of mob rule, without respect for law.” The Georgia Council of Federated Church Women de clared that “all of Crisp County is indicted until the of ficers of the law, the solicitor-general, the judge and others order an honest investigation of the crime and punishment of the criminals.” Correspondence columns of newspapers have been generously sprinkled with letters from readers com mending condemnation of the barbarous act. The outrage is a violation of all the principles upon which our civilization is based, and wag actuated, as a Georgia minister asserted, “not by a sense of justice but by an outburst of brutality.” Whenever there are men whose consciences are so impervious to Christian prin ciples as to permit them to participate in the bar barities of such a mob, they constitute a threat to the institutions on which our nation is founded, and it is the duty of the law to ferret them out and to punish them with all the vigor at its command. “First Lady of the Universe” T HE love of so many Christians outside the Catholic Church for our Divine Saviour and their ignoring of His Blessed Mother is a paradox which perplexes Catholics. Our friends not of the faith see the Blessed Virgin tenderly caring for Him at the manger at Christ mas, standing at the foot of the Cross on Good Friday, and occupying the largest place in His earthly sojourn in the intervening years, and yet most of them are silent about her. We say most of them, not ail, Dr. William Lyon Phelps, the distinguished professor of English literature at Yale University, in his daily syndicated article pub lished in newspapers on the Feast of the Annunciation, voiced the feelings of many Protestants in the following article which is. particularly appropriate as the Feast of the Assumption approaches: “There is one thing, it seems to me, on which all Catholics and Protestants, and in fact all people of Christian Spirit, can unite, although they have never done so. This is in an affectionate, reverent attitude to ward the Mother of Our Lord. In the old days when the feeling between Catholics and Protestants, based cm ignorance and prejudice, was quite different from what it fortunately is today, Mary was not often mentioned in Protestant houses of worship or among Protestant people. But it seems to me that all of us could unite in recogni tion of the First Lady of the Universe. As we say ‘Our Lord’ we can also say ‘Our Lady’. And on this day es pecially devoted to her memory we can venerate her no matter whether we are Catholic or Protestant; for it must be remembered that Catholics never worship the Virgin Mary, but they do venerate her. There ought to be something intimate and affectionate in our attitude toward the Mother of Our Lord.” , “Union of Church and State” I N the city of Dunkirk, N. Y., Catholics constitute a majority of the citizens. They pay most of the taxes. The city has erected a splendid stadium for school athletics, paid for by the taxes of its people. Most of the money was from Catholics. The Catholic schools of the city requested the use of the stadium for certain of its athletic contests. The re quest was turned down, on the ground that the stadium was for the use of public schools only. In a number of other places where Catholic pay the bulk of the taxes and consequently most of the expenses for maintaining a bus system for bringing children to school, those attending Catholic schools are not per mitted to ride on the buses. Those defending this discrimination assert that to extend these facilities to children attending Catholic schools would be in some way promoting “union of Church and State.” In Canada, in the Catholic and Protestant sections, public funds support religious schools, Catholic, Protest ant and Jewish. No one appears to worry about “union of Church and State” there. Nor in any other of the numerous countries, Protestant and Catholic, where this system prevails. In Georgia and the South, there are many ministers teaching in the public schools. Catholics are not dis turbed about “union of Church and State” on that ac count. Segregation Is the Remedy T HE series of murders of little children by perverts which has shocked the country is being utilized in some quarters as an argument for sterilization of criminals and morons. But the fate of these innocent little ones is tragic evidence against it If persons with these criminal, moronic tendencies are to be confined to institutions, there is no point in sterilization. If they are not to be segregated, sterilization will give children and other victims of their depravity no pro tection, for even the most zealous advocate of sterili zation cannot claim that it lessens in any way the evil instincts of these upon whom it is inflicted. If every one of the murderers of these little chil dren had been sterilized, it would not have saved the life of even one erf their victims. A person who k a fit subject for sterilization is a fit subject for segregation in an institution. And persons so segregated flood no communities with tidal waves of woe and terror. Dixie Musings A little boy at St. Joseph’s Home, Washington, Ga., says that there is nothing better in the world than Ha waiian music and a box of vanilla wa fers. In the eyes of the Almighty, some of the things adults regard as consti tuting happiness are infinitely more foolish than this is amusing. Kiwanians in convention in San Francisco were warned of the dangers of Communism by Lieut.-CoL George Alexander Drew of Toronto, a promi nent member of the Canadian Bar, who asserted: “The Communists are planning their revolution as quietly as cooing doves. They praise democracy, state that the aims of democracy are synonymous with their own. I am not fearful of the open attack of Com munism. I am fearful of the mistaken tolerance that the best way to combat Communism is to let it wear itself out by the very violence of its emotion.” George E Sokolsky in a series of ar ticles for the Atlanta Constitution and other newspapers, has a list of sixty organizations he says are operating within the Communist United Front. All the members of these organizations are not Communists, he says, but if and when the time comes for a show down, it will be seen that the Com munists control them. Earl Browder, the acknowledged Communist leader in the United States, in testimony before a New York State legislative committee, admitted the existence of Communist uni»s in the Municipal Building, the State Office Building, a home relief office, City College, Teachers’ College, Brooklyn College, Evander Childs High School, Cornell University Medical School, Bellevue Hospital and Mornsania Hos pital, all in New York City. Those who believe there is no dif ference between Communist units in these institutions and Republican or Democratic units are reminded that when Mr. Browder was asked by the legislative committee if "that part of the Communist Party which exists in the United States is a part and parcel of the Communist International in Moscow, looking to the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin,” he answered: “That is correct.” Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin are the high-priests of revolution and the “boring within” tactics to bring it about. Hie latest discovery of the radicals in this country and their parlor-pink associates is that the American Legion is Fascist. “So many patriotic groups are exposing the activities of radical propaganda in this country, some of it in our schools and churches, that the radicals take refuge in counter charges of Fascism,” Hie Macon Tele graph says editorially. Fascism always arises ks an antidote to Communism. If it comes in the United States, Communism will bring it. The Catholic Press is discussing Jer sey City and its mayor, pro and con. Monsignor Ryan is very critical of Mayor Hague, and the Catholic Herald- Citizen endorses his views in an edi torial reprinted in The New World, of ficial organ of the Archdiocese of Chi cago. Patrick F. Scanlon, manag ing editor of The Brooklyn Tablet, dis agrees with the anti-Hague position. We hope that all parties in the discus sion will agree that there is no here sy involved in taking the other side. The Augusta, Ga., Herald editorial ly directs attention to the fact that while the editorial columns of our newspapers are deploring the bomb ings reported from Spain and China, their news columns shout the news that the United States Army now has two of the world’s largest bombers, just completed. bany, Ga., Fire Department. Chief Brosnan's methods have reduced the fire losses in Albany to a vanishing point and given Albany international publicity. Editor Thomas M. Seawell of H»e Winder, Ga., News reports tha; “on his ninetieth birthday a pioneer Kan san declared he had kept you lg by working. But it’s a terrible price to pay.” The Michigan Catholic says that clas sical music attracted fish while swung scared them away. The Catholic Tran script of Hartford expects the advo cates of swing to say that if you don't like swing music you are a poor fish. A Mr. William Low of Hollywood, Cal., is quoted in the Atlanta Georgian as saying: “I am a Catholic, an Ameri can, a Democrat and a member of a labor union. I km also convinced that the government should confiscate all public utilities and all the major or basic industries and operate them on a non-profit basis.” Mr. Low's being a Catholic has noth ing to do with the case. The Catholic Church nowhere and at no time has taken the position Mr. Low advocates. If by confiscate Mr. Low means take without recompense, he advocates something which would seem to be in direct conflict with the Church’s teach ing on the divine command in relation to stealing. Dr. Robert A. Ashworth, director of the Religious News Service, says that religious news ought to bt printed in the secular press in abundance, and the Pittsburgh Catholic ask--. “And what will become of the Catholic Press?” We’re not worried about that. The Catholic Press reaches Catholic peo ple, for the most part The secular press will never replace the Catholic press by merely carrying Catholic news. But in publishing Catholic news it brings it to an audience much larger than the Catholic Press can hope to reach. If it affects one of the reasons for the existence of the Catho lic Press, the numerous other reasons remain. The Catholic Press ought willingly to forego the sense of pro prietorship, that is often its feeling in the exclusive publication of Catholic news, for the advantages inherent in having hundreds of thousands and mil lions of others acquainted with the Church and things Catholic. Today, the up-to-date news weekly, recently told the world or that part of it included among its readers that the Holy Father has a lady chauf feur, Angela Stoppa. Hie fact is that Angela is not Angela at all but An gelo, who is as masculine as Paul in stead of as feminine as Pauline. If you have any discarded waffle- irons or phonograph records, don’t throw them away. In New York the ladies appear to be wearing them as hats. The Progressive Farmer quotes Jef ferson Davis as giving this rule for a gentleman: “Never be haughty to the humble or humble to the hajghty." Father Thomas A. Lahey, C.S.C., in the Ave Maria states that a reli gious census taken in 1936 revealed there were 2809 churches in New York City which, with surrounding real estate, were valued at $318,786,150. Thus all the church property of all denominations in the largest city in the nation is worth less than the pce- perty of some individuals there. General Franco of the Spanish Na tionalists asserts that his ..viators bomb only military objectives. We presume that our bombers are being built for service and not as ornaments. And there is no way in the world for them to avoid killing civilians when they drop bombs, as they must if they drop them at all, on harbors, railroads, ar senals and other places considered to be military objectives from the neces sary height of several thousand feet. A reader writes to The Universe in London asserting that British ships en gaged in carrying supp les for the Left ist government in Spain are engaged in warfare just as truly as English men who have enlisted in the Leftist Army, and there is no more reason to protest the bombing of the one than the shooting of the other. “If these blockade-runners wish to risk their lives for the extra profit of fered to them,” continues the letter, "let them do so in the old-fashioned sporting British spirit, without howl ing indignantly for an immunity to which the rules of warfare do not en title them.” Having gotten into the war zone, it is rather difficult to get Out, but we’ll res olutely betake ourselves now to Black- shear, Ga., where Editor Kirk Sut- live of The Times established some kind of a record by making a plea for watermelons in the first paragraph of his column and reporting the receipt of one a few paragraphs later. The Readers’ Digest for June car ried an article on the fire prevention methods of Chief Brosnan of the Al- The progaganda seeking to line the United States up with ‘t he forces of democracy, England, France and Russia,” against Germany and Italy grows stronger daily. Germany and Italy are anything but democratic countries, but they are the personifi cation of democracy compared to Russia. Such an alliance on the part of the United States would not make the United States a defender of demo cracy but a defender of the colonial holdings of France and England and of Russian ambitions in Spain and China. George M. Cohan has been elected president of the Ca’holic Actors Guild, the twenty-fifth president of an organ ization, of which his father, Jerry Co han, was the first president. We recently saw Mr. Cohan in I'd Rather Be Right”, a genial satire on the New Deal. Mr. Cohan plays the part of President Roosevelt,a role Col umnist Dale Harrison says no other ac tor could play successfully. We are in formed on good authority that Mr. Co han refused to pi?-' some lines about the President and Former Governor Smith which he re garded as offensive were eliminated. Mr. Cohan was sixty years old on the Fourth of July. For two genera tions he has been one of the most wholesome influences in the American theatre. His generosity is proverbial; no actor or actress in history has a rec ord for benefit performances which approaches his. Hie soul of kindliness, he danced through eight performances a week far into thhe summer because taking a long overdue and urgently needed rest would throw the cast out of employment. If President Roosevelt were to go into the stronghold of his most bitter critics and successfully imperse George Cohan's kindly impersonal’ of the president, it would be just bad for the future of opposition t New Deal.
