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NOVEMBER 28. 1942
THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMENS ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
Solicitor General of United States
Delivers Address at Convention of
Laymen s Association in Macon
FIFTEEN
MACON, Ga.—Hon. Chaarles
Fahjr, Solicitor General of the
United States, and a member of
one of Georgia’s leading Catholic
families, was the guest speaker at
the twenty-seventh annual con
vention of the Catholic Laymen's
Association of Georgia held here
on Sunday, October 25.
Solicitor General Fahy, speak
ing at the open session of the con
vention which was held at the
Capitol Theatre, was introduced
to the audience by Hughes Spald
ing", prominent attorney of Atlan
ta, and treasurer of the Endow
ment Fund of the Laymen’s As
sociation, and spoke as follows:
“When His Excellency, the Bi
shop of Savannah-Atlanta, extend
ed your invitation to me. to be with
you this afternoon, the occasion to
which he referred, your annual
convention, as well as the cordial
ity of his words, struck a strain
within me that was wholly respon
sive. This was so notwithstand
ing the fact that I had more or less
foresworn public speaking now ex-
cept when necessary in connection
with my work, which usually
means arguing in court. Notwith
standing this resolution my
thoughts turned to a long admira
tion for the work of your associa
tion here in Georgia. I recalled
too the deep interest of my moth
er and of other members of my
family as active members of this
organization. So I wanted to come,
to express to you personally as a
citizen my appreciation and re
spect for the contribution you
have made over the years and are
making today in the dissemination-
of truth, the correction of error,
and the careful chronicling and in
terpretation of events. The Bulle
tin I consider one of the very
finest publications. In my own
home it is awaited each month
with pleasant anticipation. The
Bulletin has always been well
edited and brimful of the kind of
news of events large and small,
and of persons the simple and the
exalted, that it is both helpful to
know about and difficult to find
in the better known and more
widely distributed press.
In your approach to the prob-
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GIRLS’ AND TOTS’— HIGH’S THIRD FLOOR
Iems of life as you find them each
day there is no bitterness or harsh
ness, but a strength that flows
from devotion to truth and char
ity, combined in a pure purpose to
inform, to help all with whom you
come in contact, and to injure no
one. There is inspiration that
flows to others from your method
as well as from the content of
your treatment. Current life and
its problems you see and deal with
in relation to life eternal. The long
years of your fruitful work are a
token not only of its own charac
ter but of the character of the peo
ple of this state among whom you
have lived and labored in mutual
friendship and esteem. You nelp
us and we need your help. We
need it always; certainly we need
it now, when the clashes of great
forces call for strength within us
drawn from the highest sources.
Please accept from me as one of
your admirers a profound appre
ciation and fond hope for a future
like unto your past.
“I have no other message. But
having come to Macon through a
desire to say this much, like law
yers generally in comparable cir
cumstances I find it difficult to
stop and sit down. As you know
one of the virtues of lawyers is to
talk, and one of their vices is to
talk too much. Without desiring
to indulge in the vice, perhaps
something more may appropriate
ly be attempted.
“Your Convention this year is
held in a truly critical period in
the history of our country and ol
the whole world. When men and
women gather, as we do this aft
ernoon, during a time of such
great moment, our thoughts turn
naturally to the new elements
brought into our lives by ihe war.
They are manifold and fruitful of
thought. The problem is one of
selection. As we go about our daily
tasks in all walks of life, our
minds are never altogether free of
the war, and will not be free of it
until we have won it and it is over;
and however long that may take,
we will win this war and one day
it will be over. When the news
came last December that we were
treacherously attacked, instinctive
ly we knew that we must and
would win it. This knowledge was
based on an understanding of the
meaning of that attack. Indeed, an
understanding of the issues of the
war had existed before that, and
had grown in clarity ever since the
time three years ago when the ag
gressors first launched their pre
pared might upon their weaker
neighbors. They sowed the seed
then that grew into a knowledge
that has spread throughout the
world that its peoples were being
subjected to a pagan attempt to
ule them by force, an attempt to
deflect the true course of the his
tory of mankind by establishing
over human beings a so-called
“new order” opposed to their very
nature. It is an attempt finally to
enthrone the false doctrine that
might is right if might can succeed
in conquest by force, without the
slightest regard to the motives
that animate might. This doctrine
is of course fundmentallv in con
flict with the teachings to which
wc may look for truth, and have
looked these last 2.000 years. Tt
is fundamentally at variance with
the inherent appreciation by nu-
man beings of their own nature
and dignity; for uoon the souls of
man is engraved the image of the
King whose feast we celebrate this
very day whom force cannot de
throne. and whose kingdom shall
have no end.
“We have thought of the war
also in terms of a war for freedom.
So it is without question. Freedom
lakes substance in many ways that
we are prone to forget until free
dom is everywhere threatened as it
is today. Freedom touches each
one of us in this country in famil
iar patterns—freedom of speech,
of press, of association in such oi-
ganizations as 1 Mis. for example,
and through freedom of conscience
and of thought, freedom of wor
ship as a recognized attribute of
man and not as a freedom to be
exercised in hiding and under op
pression. at the risk of liberty and
of life itself These freedoms and
alt their many branches. The ag
gressors would take them from us
and destroy. They would rob us
o! our human and Divine heritage.
They have alreaoy done this else
where wherever possible and to the
fullest extent of their ability
ibrough the use of force and fear
and persecution and privation and
terror. For those who have al
ready suffered these afflictions,
the millions of victims of aggres
sion, men, women and children, let
us keep a place in our hearts and
in our prayers. May they be sus
tained in their terrible trials until
the victory of the United Nations
will hand freedom to them again
and lift oppression from them. One
needs only a moment's leflection
upon what has occurred since 1939
to know that this is indeed a war
for freedom—to preserve it, to re
store it, to enlarge and to revivify
it.
“The war has also been called
one of survival. It is that, too, the
very survival of our nation and of
the integrity of the individual. It
is a war for the survival of the
right of the individual by reason
of his nature as a child of Uod to
walk erect through life. Tlys right
is utterly opposed to the delusion,
indulged in by the aggressors, of a
master race destined to conquer,
dominate and rule the world and
all its people. This delusion,
however, seems to have become
somewhat confused among the ag
gressors themselves. There appears
among them now' a necessary con
flict as to the master race. Is
there one or are there two, and if
but one, which is it? Is it com
posed of the followers of Hitler or
of the subjects of the War Lords
of Jaoan? Let them answer their
own strange dilemma. Mussolini
seems not to be considered. In
deed, he appears to have abandon
ed any contest of mastery in a
decline of hope, and the people of
Italy no doubt will find joy in the
defeat of their temporary master
from beyond the Alps.
“If this confusion as to the mas
ter race should cause this strange
and paradoxical doctrine to be
abandoned voluntarily, of which
there is as yet no evidence, there
W'ould be left a thesis no more ac
ceptable, a thesis of force alone.
The war is indeed a war for sur
vival, the survival of common
sense and sanity among men. the
survival of the fruits of the strug
gles and sufferings of the past
upon which to build a future, the
survival of the truth that force is
a thing far too weak to rule the
world and that right has the might
to survive.
“The war has also been tailed a
war of the people. Surely it is
that too. It bears repetition to
say that the people immediately
know, perhaps more unerringly
than in any war in the history of
the world, and some of them have
also been crucial, the fundamental
implications of the attack by the
aggressors upon their intended
victims. This understanding is evi
denced by the world-wide reaction
of the common people even before
our own entry into the war. The
people of none of the nations that
have been overwhelmed by force
of rams, combined with treachery,
have accepted their military con
querors as their r ulers. Eacli has
not only fought to the oest of its
ability, against overwhelming odds
at times, but eacli keeps its spirit
alive, and in hardihood and suf
fering works and prays for sur
cease of sorrow, for escape from
the conqueror that is ineed no true
conqueror at all. No conquest is
complete, because no people sub
mit. The temporar ily subdued |
countries, too weak in arms, how-1
ever valiant in spirit, have re -1
lained and strengthened, under
hardships almost unendurable, a
spir it that can not be hidden under
the attempt to black them out, to
cut them off from their fellows,
and to destroy their inherent free
dom and self-respect as individuals
and as a people. The devastation
and suffering wrought among
these countries stagger the imagi
nation and appeal to the noblest
determination on tire part of all
others of the world to leave noth
ing undone, as strength unexer
cised. no courage unused to bring
to an end this stupendous effort tc
undermine the foundations of all
decency and hope. The great and
small nations now under a cloud
remain united in their spirit of re
bellion against their common foes
The invisible link of their suffer
ing and endurance holds all to
gether in a determination to cast
off the chains that will one day
break against the stronger spirit
and energies of the United Na
tions. It is indeed a peoples war
and one for the people and bv the
people. .
“This is a peoples war. None of
us w ho remain behind the areas of
combat, away from the dangers of
the sea and the air and the lands
of conflict can equal the mangifi-
cent courage and sacrifice of the
fighting forces, or of those who
carry them to the areas of battle
or who there attended them. To
these our homage and' love, these
heroes from the families and
homes of the land. They are de
voted to those homes and those
homes are devoted to them. The
people tender them and they ten
der themselves to meet and over
come the invaders of the homes of
freedom.
“Our men are trained for the
task which only they can do for
their country. They are equipped
and supplied with the full mate
rial energy of a great and power
ful nation that knows the power of
the enemy. In order that this may
be done, and that we may fulfill
as well the needs common to the
United Nations against common
foes, all our resources and ener
gies are pledged. The full spirit
and effort of everyone is drafted
to support the spirit and courage
of the fighting forces, and of all
those who risk the dangers of the
land, the air and the waters of bat
tle, as combatants, as seamen, as
nurses, as ministers to their spirit
ual needs.
“We will do with iess of many
tilings, and I suspect that we shall
like it and find new and better
things in a larger interior life. If
we can thus enlarge our lives sure
ly W'e can do with a less expensive
material existence. After all, this
is the constant lesson of our Catho
lic faith, preparing to do further
by acceptance of needful legisla
tion and regulation, we will keep
a strong home front to sustain the
long reach of our power far away
from our own shores. We will pre
pare our hearts and wills for the
losses already suffered and thr-t
will continue to be suffered, be
cause we know the alternative is
more unendurable.
"We will continue to develop a
strong and stronger unity in un
selfishness and in the sharing of
sacrifice. We will use every pre
caution against enemies from
within.
“Out of tiie fullness of our lib
erties we will contribute during
these times, as one casts bread
upon the waters, in order that the
liberties themselves may be pre
served and icstored made more
precious by the suffering and sac
rifices of men and women. Out of
our sustenance and minds and
hearts wc will contribute, again
casting bread upon the waters, in
order that during our lives we may
help our nation and our world to
maintain a truer course and to
prevent it from being driven away
from the path of light that has
been given as our guide, if we will
only follow it.
“In this way, with no selfish
ness or bitterness, with no evil mo
tive or desire, we join with alt na
tions that have been attacked and
with men of good will everywhere
to defend and to reassert and to
re-establish a reign of law as op
posed ta a liiie of force and op
pression.
'While we are doing this, and
however, tong it may take, and
however infinite the details of its
accomplishment, we can, if we will,
keep in order the household of Our
individual lives. While protecting
the household from external ag
gression. we may even enlarge and
replenish it by opening wider its
doors to the King who is ready to
dwell therein if we will only per
mit Him to do so. ’He is always
upon the threshhold, however
dreary the day or stark the night.
“In this spirit we will overcome
the aggressors who have attacked
us, and in fighting with our united
allies we shall join them too in a
restoration of order and liberty,
with no defeatism with respect to
world peace, as we have no defeat
ism with respect to world war. The
war is a war for freedom, a war for
survival, a war of the people. It
is. finally, too. a war to reestab
lish peace by the complete over
throw of those who have brought
armed conflict. When we have
done that we shall be able to work
out in peace the means of pre
serving peace and justice and or
dered liberty. This is our duty. It
is also our opportunity.”
MAKE EYERY PAY DAY
BOND DAY