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THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN'S SSSOCTATION OF GEORGIA
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GEORGIA MINISTER
LAYS FRENCH DEFEAT
TO BIRTH CONTROL
One of the outstanding Protes
tant ministers of the South is the
Rev. Doctor Bascom Anthony, vet
eran preacher of the South Georgia
Methodist Conference, who is a reg
ular contributor to the Wesleyan
Christian Advocate, the Macon Tel
egraph, and numerous weekly papers
of the state.
The following is the greater part ot
an article by Doctor Anthony which
appeared in the Wesleyan Christian
Advoeate in its issue dated August 9,
1944):
FRANCE AND BIRTH CONTROL
It is amazing how our private af
fairs get to be public affairs and how
things we thought concerned no
body but us turned out to concern
the very life and well-being of the
world. Personal liberty in Europe is
now at stake and may be lost because
a lot of men and women in France
thought their private affairs con
cerned nobody but themselves.
A hundred years ago, France was
the dominant country in Europe. The
Thirty Years' War had worn the
Germanic tribes to a comparative
feeble people. Today 80 million Ger
mans threaten to wipe 42 million
Frenchmen off the face of the earth.
How did this upset of numbers come
to pass and why is democracy in Eu
rope threatened with death? Why is
the whole earth filled with fear lest
human freedom and self-government
perish under the heel of a totalita
rian state?
Like the fool of the Bible, France
had no sense of values. She thought
money in the bank, knowledge in
the head, and easy self-indulgence
were of greater worth than sons and
daughters to fill the house with
laughter, the hands with toil and the
heart with a sacrificial love. Today,
she sees that obedience to God’s fun
damental law of “multiply and re
plenish the earth” is of more value
than social pop calls and lazy ease. A
mother who has sons to stand be
tween her and destruction, even
though they perish in the attempt,
will die a better death than one
whose defense is a poodle dog or a
well-bred cat.
I have small respect for either the
intelligence or the character of a peo
ple who seek to avoid the conse
quences of their doings which - are
grounded in natural laws. He is a
common cheat and swindles himself
most who eats undigestible food be
cause he likes its taste and then seeks
to escape indigestion by swallowing
drugs. Self-control and abstinence is
the law that rules characterful peo
ple in all matters. I’d about as soon
be a petty thief depending upon ray
wits to keep me out of the chain-
gang as to be a violator of any basic
law of the universe and use my wits
to avoid its consequences. All
the
thieves that ever pilfered France did
her a thousand times less hurt than
have the respectable, self-indulgent
people who refuse to raise sons and
daughters to strengthen and keep
their mother land.
If the theory of fewer and better
children had any truth in it, how
does it come to pass that Germany,
with her large families, has been a
sort -of finishing school for the schol
ars of all lands for the past 50 years
until Hitler took over all Germany.
While tractors and flying machines
are the peaceable products of our
country the Germans have had the
diabolical intelligence to turn them
into the swiftest and most devastat
ing instruments of death the world
has ever seen. It looks as if this
whole thing of smaller and better
families is based on selfishness and
fails to square with the facts of "life.
Maybe, after all, people are more
than IieSds and pocketbooks and
that life’s real values are found in
these you love and for whom you are
willing to suffer and die.
We have desired more stuff and
fewer children until stuff has so mul
tiplied and children so decreased that
factories and farms find themselves
overstocked with food and raiment
for lack of folks to use them. The
World War has set all Europe to
fighting and destroying instead of
producing. This probably will use up
all of our surplus stuff and if not
ended soon will put farms and fac
tories in need of labor until there will
be no unemployment among us. Then
will come the fever of false pros
perity to be followed by a long spell
of economic anemia, where goods
pile up, capital lies idle, and labor
is not wanted. Then, once more, we
will, have 17-year-old girls telling the
farmers how to farm, old maids
preaching birth control, and political
quacks without brains enough to
make a living telling us how to have
a planned economy which fails to
economize in anything except in
babies
I think I am done preaching Moth
er's Day sermons unless there are at
least two or three young women
there with a promising brood of
children My sense of reality will not
allow me to get sentimental over a
bunch of old maids ond married
women with one or two children or a
shaggy little *dog. I can’t feel pious
over such pretense any more than I
can in praying over a collection bas
ket that doesn’t have enough change
in it to pay for the gas in the cars
parked at the church door.
If you feel like saying “amen" to
this, then say it, but please do not
say “airmen" unless you are singing
it. If you want to slap me for writ
ing this, then think of how France
got where she is today and her great
need of sons and daughters to save
her. In the dark days of reconstruc
tion Ben Hill Said, “He who lets his
country died lets all things die; and
ull tilings dying, curse him.”
INTERIOR OF CATHEDRAL AT CHARLESTON
The Cathedral of- St. John the Baptist, Charlestpn, is one of the most imposing edifices in the South. A
native of Charleston, the Right Rev. Monsignor James J. May, Vicar General of the Diocese of Charleston, is
the rector of tlie Cathedral.
Rector of Bishop England School
Answers P.T.-A. Questionnaire
The Right Rev. Joseph L. O’Brien,
M. A.,'S. T. D., LL. D.. Rector of
Bishop England High School, Char
leston, S. C., in answer to the ques
tion: “What definite, tangible and at
tainable things can the Parent-Teach
er Association and the forces of edu
cation do, or what actions may they
take to defend the ideals of demo
cracy and push forward a positive
advance in democracy?” submitted
by Adeie J. Miuahan. state program
chairman of the South Carolina Con
gress of Parents and Teachers, made
the following response:
In the face of Professor Newlon’s
startling confession (Time, July 22)
to the thousand visiting teachers at
the summer session of Columbia Uni
versity’s Teachers’ College. “We have
taught many fallacies,” it seems to
me that there is much to do • on the
part of P.-T. Associations in the cor
rection of even a few of these fal
lacies. Professor Newlon and his
colleagues of the school of thought
in education of which he is a leading
disciple, rejecting in the freedom, of
academic hodge-podge, have been
poisoning the springs of education
throughout the land a generation
back in the name of academic free
dom: Their march forward has
bogged down and they confess their
fallacies, confronted as they are with
the realization of materialistic
thought, now drenching the earth of
Europe with the blood of youth.
True, indeed, the P.-T. A. and the
forces of education in these United
States have a task before them to de
fend the ideals of democracy and to
push forward in positive advance.
Education, properly defined, is a
co-operation by human agencies, that
is—the forces of Education; to-wit:
the Home, the Church and the State,
with the creator for the attainment
of His purpose in regard to the indi
vidual to be educated and in regard
to the social order of which he is a
member.
In our public school educational
system as it has been developed for
the past two generations, God’s
Creative Purpose has been progres
sively disregarded and denied, with
the result that earnest agencies, such
as the P.-T. A., are concerned with
the problem which, stated simply, is
this—What can we do to save de
mocracy as that system of political
culture has developed in the United
States?
Our public school system under the
leadership of men of the calibre of
John Dewey have betrayed the birth
right of democracy, as the principles
of democracy were laid down by the
founding fathers dn the Declaration
of Independence. The principles of
that political Credo have been
ignored, rejected and forgotten in
text book and in class room. That
Credo teaches positively that (1) man
was created by God. (2) Man was
endowed by God with certain natur
al rights . . . life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness. (3) Govern
ments derive their just power from
the consent of the governed.
Now what does the whole system of
education as now in practice in the
public schools have to say of God,
the Creator, and of man, the crea
ture?
Read the text books, consult the
course of study, ask the teachers,
question your children. God is
ignored, revelation is passed over,
even though in some places there be
a lip service of Bible reading.
Now the P. T. A. members can make
a very definite, a very tangible and
a very attainable contribution to de
mocracy by bringing back into the
home and into the class room the
concepts of the Creator (God) and
the creature (man) as they must be
restored if the sentences of the Dec
laration of Independence are to make
sense.
We have in practically every home
a radio—where are our altars? We
have newspapers, books, magazines;
‘where are our books of devotion?
God as the supreme reality is a
stranger in our class rooms. Is He
any less a stranger in our homes?
What value do we place on the first
Commandment?
Bring back God into our homes and
His worship, and out goes divorce
and birth-prevention and sterilization
and kindred evils which violate the
laws of the Creator and consequently
violate the laws of democracy found
ed on the laws of that Creator who
endowed His creatures with certain
unalienable rights. These evils de
nounce Christ.
Once the home is undermined and
the family ideal shattered, demo
cracy as understood in the Ameri
can language approaches its end. In
the face of present day conditions—
the most grave that have threatened
our hind and our ideals—unless dem
ocracy aided by the forces of educa
tion quickly puts its house in order,
the forces lined- up against the ideas
of life as exemplified by democracy
in the United States to the present
time will be riding rough shod over
those who are looking for “definite,
tangible and attainable things to push
forward a positive advance in de
mocracy.”
I suggest that an objective study
be made, under the auspices of the
P.-T. A. of the training in religion
the boys and girls of today are given.
For five days a week they are ex
posed to a system of mental training
from which God’s Creative Purpose
is excluded. They hear nothing of
that purpose in school. They are
taught the importance of tests in
school subjects; they hear nothing of
the importance of the tests upon
which eternity depends. God is the
author of all life, all liberty and all
other unalienable natural rights. God
has been ixished back into a shadowy
land of uncertainty. Little wonder,
then, that our unalienable rights
, with which He, in His eternal wis
dom endowed us, are fading out of
the picture. •
A democracy can stand only on the
virtue (moral principles) of its peo
ple. This democracy was set on the
eternal principles of God’s Creative
Purpose. If we don’t get back to
that, then our efforts easily reduce
themselves to windmill tilting.
The P.-T. A. has done glorious
work in many ways. But milk and
sandwiches, text books, medical in
spection, physical care of the under
privileged, will not save democracy.
There is only one NAME under
heaven whereby men can be saved—
and, after all, democracies are made
up of men. Get that NAME back in
to the hearts and minds of our youth
and the first step toward something
positive has been taken. How? By
uniting all the forces .of education—
the H O M E, the CHURCH, the
SCHOOL and the STATE. The
HOME fails without the CHURCH;
the CHURCH fails without the
HOME; the SCHOOL fails without
the HOME and the CHURCH; the
STATE fails without HOME,
SCHOOL and CHURCH. We have
put the school above and outside the
Church. The result is now confess
ed: “We have been teaching many
fallacies.” And these fallacies are
endangering our unalienable rights.
Let us replace the fallacies by the
BIRTH RATE DROP
THREAT TO 0. S,
Experts Sound Warning at
'‘Tomorrow’s Child ren M
Conference at Harvard
Colorado Senator
Favors Exempting
Clergy, Religious
WASHINGTON — Exemption from
compulsory miiltar service not only
of clergymen but also of divinity
students is a necessity, Senator Ed
win C. Johnson of Colorado told the
Senate Wednesday.
Participating in the debate on the
Burke-Wadsworth comppulsory mili
tary training bill, Senator Johnson
directed attention to an amendment
to this bill which he introduced in the
Senate this week. This amendment
provides that “regular or duly or
dained ministers of religion and stu
dents who are preparing for the
ministry in theological or divinity
schools resognized as such for. more
than one year prior to the date of
enactment of'this act shall,-be exempt
from training and service (but not
from registration) under ,this act.” .
T contend that such an exemption
is necessary’”, Senator Johnson de
clared “Religion, of necessity, must
have a place of importance in a de
mocracy, and the function of a dem
ocratic government is to encourage
in every way possible the free exer
cise of religion. It“is obvious and be
yond argument that to subject min
isters of religion to compulsory mili
tary training is to seriously interfere
with, if not completely to suspend,
this right.
“The maintenance of the ministry in
a democratic society demands and
has as a necessary corollary the edu
cation of men who will continue the
beneficial and necessary exercise of
this function. Therefore I have made
provision for the exemption of stu
dents who are preparing for the
ministry.
“May I bring to the attention of the
Senators the fact that the provisions
of my amendment are similar to the
provisions of the Draft of 1917”.
“A duly ordained minister of reli
gion as used in my amendment”, said
Senator Johnson, “should mean a per
son who has been ordained in ac
cordance with the ceremonial, ritual,
or discipline of a church, religious
sect, or organization established on
the basis of a community of faith and
belief, doctrines, and practices of a
religious character, to preach and to
teach the doctrines and practices of
such church, sect, or organization,
and to administer the rites and cere
monies thereof in public worship, and
who as his regular and customary
vocation preaches and teaches the
principles of religion and administers
the ordinances of public worship as
embodied in the creed of principles
of such church, sect, or organization-
• “A regular minister of religion, as
used in my amendment, should mean
a person who as customary vocation
preaches ar\d teaches the principles
of a religion and a church, a reli
gious sect, or organization of which
he is a member, without having been
formally ordained as a minister of
religion, and who is recognized by
such church, sect, or organization as
a regular minister.”
(By N. C. W. C. News Service)
BOSTON-—Warnings that the Unit
ed. States faces the fate of destroyed
European nations unless she checks"
her falling birth rate were sounded by
experts at the New England Confer
ence on “Tomorrow’s Children” at
Harvard Summer School.
Married women capable of mother
hood must have four children each on
the average merely to replace the
population, Dr. Clyde V. Kiser, of the
Milbank Memorial Fund of New York,
declared. He said this is necessary*
because they have to balance up the
lack of births among the unmarried,-
the childless married women and the
deaths of children and mothers.:
The 1940 census returns show that-
one-fourth of the states were already
failing to maintain their population by
births as long as 10 years ago, Dr- Ki
ser said. America he pointed out, has
2.000.000 fewer children under 20 than
she had 10 years ago. He stated that in
six states the total white, population as
of 1930 would fail to reproduce itself
by 10 to 2d per cent- These were New
York, Oregon, California, New Jersey,
Washington and Illinois. In six other
states, he said, the deficit would be 10
per cent or less. He named these as
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode
Island, Florida, Missouri and Mary
land.
Certain areas in the southern Appa
lachians give the highest rates of re
production among whites found ir. the
United States, he pointed out. If
there were no migration to the cities
the population of certain counties in
West Virginia, southwestern Virginia,
western North Carolina, eastern Ken
tucky and eastern Tennessee would
double in one generation, he declared.
But. he emphasized, the birth de
cline is spreading from cities to coun
try and is now more rapid in the
country than in the cities.
Prof- Carl C. Zimmerman, of Har
vard, warned that reduced family
size, for some time characteristic of
higher and middle income groups, is
now becoming serious among workers’
families in groups that are native-
born and self-supporting.
“T’-c birth rate in the United States
is now undergoing the same trend
which has brought many European
countries to their present eclipse,”
Professor Zimmerman said.
Dr. Merrill Moore, psychiatrist of
Harvard Medical School, declared that
too small a number of children in a
family had a direct relation to the
prevalence of divorce. “And,” he add
ed, “it may have an obscure relation’
to suicide.”
Ralph Borsodi, ,eftonomist and au
thor and director of the School of
Living, Suffern. N. Y., urged a revival
of “country life’” with people moved
out of the cities.
“The way to end the degeneracy of
our population, to end the sheer
weariness and fear of life which keeps
the city population from reproducing
-itself, is not to make the city better,
nor even to make the city smaller, but
to abolish the metropolitan city alto
gether,” Mr- Borsodi maintained.
. “Population, production, control and
ownership must be decentralized,” he
said. “Country estates or home
steads must be built, not public hous
ing projects.”
In Mr. Borsodi’s view the “normal”
family contains eight to 12 persons and
at least three generations.
On the basis of these specifications,
he said, “the modem city family is
not a normal family at all, but a path
ological family.”
PROVIDENCE HOSPITAL
AUXILIARY IS FORMED
Ten Commandments, for without a
knowledge of God, a people perish.
I suggest, then, most respectfully,
to the members of the P.-T. A. that
they frankly and fearlessly discuss
the question: “How best bring it
about that the children of parents
who believe in God’s Creative Pur
pose be given a .systematic training
in religious and spiritual principles
at least as adequate as that which
they receive daily in the core sub
ject of their course of study as now
outlined? Anything that can be done
to help bring about this training will
be a positive contribtion to the ad
vance of democracy, i
COLUMBIA, S. C. — At a recent
meeting held in the Nurses’ home at
the Providence Hospital, a group of
women formed an organization to be
known as the Providence Hospital
Auxiliary. The officers for the year
will be: President, Mrs. Charles Han
son; vice-president, Mrs. J. J. Ro
berts; secretary, Mrs. Willis Dozier;
and treasurer, Mrs. A. J. Craig. The
committee chairmen are: Activities,
Mrs. John Swygert; membership, Mrs.
P. H. Morgan; card club hostess, Mrs.
Leon Marslio, and publicity, Mrs.
Charles Bultman.
A business meeting will be held
once a month at the Nurses’ Home.
The object of the Auxiliary is to help
the Sisters of Charity who are in
charge of the hospital, not in nursing
the sick but to aid in whatever way
the Sisters might need assistance.
Anyone interested in the work of the
nuns may join irrespective of creed.
For information phone Mrs. P. H.
Morgan of Hagood Avenue.
A card club was also organized at
the first meeting—cards will be play
ed once a month, the day, time and
place to be published before each
game.
The first objective of the organiza
tion is the purchase of a portable
X-ray machine. -
All friends of the Sisters are not
only invited but urged to join the
auxiliary as well as to assist at the
card parties, it is announced.
THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT of the
American people has been fostered
and strengthened by the “Church of
the Air” program of the Columbia
Broadcasting System. His Eminence
William Cardinal O’Connell, Arch
bishop of Boston, has written in a let
ter received by CBS officials in New
York. . : . _..,_.