Newspaper Page Text
FOUR.
THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
OCTOBER 13, 1956.
utyf luilrtttt
The Soviet In Africa
THIS WORLD OF OURS
The Official Organ of the Catholic Laymen’s
Association of Georgia, Incorporated
JOHN MARK WALTER, Editor
416 Eighth Street, Augusta, Ga.
ASSOCIATION OFFICERS FOR 1955-1956
HOLST BEALL, Macon •. President
E. M. HEAGARTY, Waycross Honorary Vice-President
MRS. L. E. MOCK, Albany Vice-President
TOM GRIFFIN, Atlanta Vice-President
DAMON J. SWANN, Atlanta —— V. P., Publicity
GEORGE GINGELL, Columbus —— V. P., Activities
JOHN M. BRENNAN, Savannah _ Secretary
JOHN T. BUCKLEY, Augusta Treasurer
JOHN MARKWALTER, Augusta Executive Secretary
MISS CECILE FERRY, Augusta Financial Secretary
ALVIN M. McAULIFFE, Augusta Auditor
Vol. 37 Saturday, October 13, 1956 . No. 10
Entered as second class matter at the Post Office, Monroe, Georgia,
and accepted for mailing at special rate of postage provided by para
graph (e) of section 34.40, Postal Laws and Regulations.
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.
Published fortnightly by the Catholic Laymen’s Association of Geor
gia, Inc,, with the Approbation of the Most Reverend Archbishop-
Bishop of Savannah-Atlanta, and of the Right Reverend Abbot
Ordinary of Belmont.
41st Convention
The Convention Committee in Columbus has worked
hard to make the 41st Convention of the. Catholic Laymen’s
Association of Georgia both one of interest, and one of en
joyment.
Frank Sheed, internationally known Catholic author and
lecturer, will address the Sunday session at the Ralston Hotel.
Mr. Sheed has chosen as his subject “Religion on the Street
Corner,” a topic which should especially interest Georgia Lay
men, who are constantly being questioned concerning their
Catholic Faith.
The convention will open Saturday afternoon at 5 p. m.
with registration followed by a buffet supper for out-of-town
delegates and visitors. Plans call for interesting and lively
sessions both Saturday evening and- Sunday.
s
We urge your attendance at Columbus on October, 27tji
and 28th. Plan now to be there Saturday evening! Detailed
information may be found on page one of this issue. Don’t
miss the opportunity to take part in the Convention Sessions
and of hearing Frank Sheed, who is one of the world-s lead
ing Catholic speakers.
aid those in need overseas
If Soviet penetration of the
Middle East has been the most
spectacular step in Russian ex
pansionism since the conquest of
China, it is no less important
that the evidence is piling up of
the very con
siderable in
crease of Soviet
concern about,
and interest in,
the African con
tinent.
The daily
press h.a s
brought ac
counts of the
large Soviet delegation to the
inauguratiqfi of President Tub-
man of Liberia, and of the pre
cipitation with 'which the USSR
proposed the establishment of dip
lomatic relations with the newly
established North African coun
tries. Also, the Russians main
tain a large hospital in Addid
Abeba in Ethiopia.
These would seem to indicate
isolated cases and not precisely
a'pattern. Nevertheless, the num
ber of publications in which the
very real Soviet advance in Af
rica is stressed is becoming not
ably greater.
EFFORT TO ASSESS
In Britain, a colored writer and
keen observer of the African
scene, George Padmore, has pub
lished “Pan Africanism or Com
munism?” It is an effort to assess
the force and vitality behind
communism on' that continent
and the nationalism which fs'
purely African in inspiration and
not dependent on Moscow for its
motivation.
The volume is full of a great
A Justice Is Named.
THE
President Eisenhower’s a p-
pointment of a catholic to the
United States Supreme Court
ends the longest stretch of years
since 1894, during which Catho
lics have not been represented
on the Court.
Since the
death of Associ-
ate Justice
Frank P. Mur
phy in 1949, no
Catholic h a s
been a member
of the highest
tribunal. But in
the 55 years be
fore Murphy’s death, except for
one, there has been at least one
communicant of the Church
among the nine justices.
In "friew of the practice of Presi
dents during this century of main
taining a balance on the Court
with respect to political and re
ligious affiliations, the appoint
ment now of a Catholic to the
vacancy caused by the resignation
of Associate Justice Sherman T.
Minton did not come altogether,
as a surprise. «
It had been reported, in fact,
that President Eisenhower felt
that Catholics, unrepresented on.
the Court for the past seven years,
were entitled to representation.
In the long history of the Court
few Catholics have served on it.
The new appointee — William
Joseph Brennan, Jr., of New Jer
sey—will be only the, sixth to
have-been selected for the highest
judicial honor that can come to
an American jurist.
His appointment comes 16 years
after that of Justice Murphy, who
was the fifth of his faith to sit
on the Court. Only once before
had the appointment of one Cath-
many things that one might find
very difficult to swallow. On the
other hand, the author is vigor
ously anti-communist and having
spent a great many years in close
contact with the comrades, knows
apparently whereof he writes.
NATIONALISTS FLATTERED
The basis of the new Soviet
policy is plainly the full accept
ance of nationalism as a force that
canhot be controlled or stopped,
much less suppressed. For the
past two years the Soviet has
flattered nationalist movements
everywhere and very particular
ly in the countries where political
experience is meager or -actually
nil, and where a violent, impas
sioned nationalism is the pre
dominant emotion.
There is no longer anything
like the bitter denunciation in
Soviet circles of the Indian Con
gress as in 1948-50, or the national
government under Prime Min
ister Nkrumah in the Gold Coast
which—if we were to accept (he
classical Marxist attitude—are
nothing more than left-wing
bourgeois groups and as worthy
of communist condemnation as
the most vile tory. Ex-colonial
peoples, or peoples on the way
out of colonialism, are to be flat
tered and sustained even if their
leaders belong to nothing re
motely resembling the prolet
ariat. • i
IDEOLOGICAL TAILSPIN
The Bandung conference, in
spite of its strong anti-colonial
statement, did a considerable
service in making clear that there
is more than one alternative to
colonial rule—that one alternative
is not exhausted with commu
nism. Writers 1 who follow Soviet
scholarship are pointing out how
large the increase of publications
in the Soviet Union on matters
African—languages, history, geo
graphy, ethnology and current
affairs.
There is nothing quite as fas
cinating as the application of or
thodox Marxist doctrine to a new
or unusual situation. One can
imagine the ideological .tailspin
a Soviet writer must go through
to get the history of the Ghana,
Mali and Songhai empires in the
western Sudan of Africa into the
Marxist straight jacket. In the
Royal Institute ot International
Affairs bulletin for this month,
The World Today, there is an
interesting summary of the de
gree to which Russian publish
ing and scholarship is devoting
attention to Africa and its prob
lems.
PROFOUND MYSTERY
It is extraordinary that in June
1956, on International Children’s
Day in Moscow, there were dele
gates from Madagascar, the Ivory
Coast and the Senegal. As an old
reader of some of the popular
journals and picture magazines
from behind the Iron Curtain,
this seems familiar. For never a
week passes in the communist
dominated world that some gi
gantic congress is not held and,
invariably, among the pictures are
delegates from Uganda, Swazi
land or Cabinda.
Just how they got to Moscow is
always one of the. profound mys
teries to me—not from the ideo
logical point of view, but from
that of transportation and the
transfer ot funds.
BACKDROP
By JOHN C. O’BRIEN
olic followed that of anotner in a
shorter space of time. That was
around the close of the last cen-
tury when Associate Justice Jo
seph McKenna, of Pennsylvania,
was appointed four years after
Edward Douglass White, of Louis
iana, had become an Associate
Justice. The first two decades of
this century, it may be noted, was
the only' time that two Catholics
sat on the Court simultaneously.
Roger Brooke Taney, of Mary
land, was the first Catholic to be
named to the highest court. He
was appointed by President An
drew Jackson and served from
1836 to 1864. Fifty-eight years
were to elapse after Taney’s ap
pointment before another Catho
lic, Justice White, was nominated.
And after the appointment of Jus
tice McKenna four years later,
for 26 years no other Catholic
was selected. Then, in 1923, Pierce
Butler, of Minnesota, was appoint
ed. Another 17 years elapsed be
fore Justice Murphy became a
member.
That: only oik Catholic reached
the highest bench until close to
the beginning of the present cen
tury is not surprising, consider
ing the tact that the Catholic
population up to that time was
made up mostly of poor imi-
grants from Europe, who were
for the most part untrained in
law or any of the other profes
sions.
By 1909, however, Catholics
had become a sizeable and po
litically significant minority in
the country and from then on
Presidents, regardless of politi
cal affiliation, deemed it expedi
ent to see to it f that the Court
should have a Catholic member.
Save for one year after the death
of Justice Butler there has been
a Catholic on the Court since 1894;
except the seven years between
the death of Justice Murphy and
the appointment.of Brennan..
Also, since the appointment of
Justice Louis D. Brandbis, the
first of his race to sit on the
Court, there has been a? Justice
of the Jewish faith among the
nine.
Of the Catholics who have been
appointed to the Court two have
served as Chief Justices. Taney,
whose services spanned 28 years,
was Chief Justice of the brilliant
John Marshall, who ruled the
Court’s destinies for 34 years.
The other Catholic chief jus
tice was Justice White, who serv
ed six years as an . associate jus
tice before being elevated to the
highest post. A massive, square
faced man—the embodiment of
judicial dignity—be presided over
the Court for eleven years, until
his death in 1921.
Taney’s association with the so-
called Dred Scott t, ecision won
him a prominent niche in the his
tory of the country. He was the
author of the controlling opinion
in the case, one of the landmarks
in the ' long battle between the
upholders of slavery and the abo-'
litionists.
The President’s new appoint
ee, who, incidentally at the age
of 50, will be the youngest Jus
tice. on the Court, is a Demo
crat, although he has not been
politically active.
To have a Republican Presi
dent name a Democrat to the
high court is-not the novelty it
might seem at first glance-. Most
of the Catholics who have served
on the Court were Democrats. Yet
(Continued on Page 5)