Newspaper Page Text
Jeffersonian
Vol. 13, No. 39
ISN’T it about time that we Democrats were
becoming clear-eyed enough to see things
as they are, and to get acquainted with our
selves, politically?
What’s the use of always staying under the
influence of dope, handed out to us by the
daily papers?
Let's all get sober.
Let us take charge of our own minds, and
size up the situation for ourselves.
There isn't an independent daily paper in
any great Southern city. There isn't a single
one of them that can afford to tell you what
I am going to tell you.
They would lose the advertisements which
support them, and they would lose every
Catholic subscriber.
Nearly all of these daily papers are owned
by the Northern corporations which have
gobbled up our railroads, our power sites, and
the various other corporated companies which
unload their taxes upon the resident property
owners.
Consequently, you need not expect the daily
papers to give you the whole truth about any
thing affecting the Privileged Interests, the
leaders of the two old parties, and the
foreign church whose strangle-hold already
throttles the press.
Let me lay some undeniable facts before
IS THERE A NECESSITY FOR INSPECTION LAWS ?
The Literary Digest—pro-Catholic-—said,
June 3, 1916:
‘ For two years and a half,” says the Mayor, “I
have been endeavoring to secure humane treat
ment and proper care for the 22,000 homeless
and dependent children committed as city wards
to pinvate charitable institutions. I have been
endeavoring to secure proper administration of
of the. $5,000,000 of public funds annually dis
bursed to these institutions for the care of the
qity’s wards.” :“This,” notes the New York
Tinies, “is the heart and substance of the matter
out of which the wire-tapping controversy has
grown.’’ This Controversy has already resulted
in the indictment by a Brooklyn grand jury of
Charities Commissioner John A. Kingsbury and
his special counsel, William H. Hotchkiss, for
“wire-tapping,” and a promise by the Mayor of
criminal action against certain Catholic priests
and non-Catholic laymen whom he accuses of
perjury, criminal libel, conspiracy to pervert and
obstruct justice and prevent the due administra
tion of law. Mayor Mitchel is himself a Catholic.
He further stated that the police had obtained
evidence substantiating the charges of Conspiracy
by the “supervision” of certain telephones, called
“wire-tapping,” among them that of Father Far
rell, and he went on to say:
“Now, gentlemen of the committee, I stated
that there was a conspiracy, in my opinion, on
the part of certain clergymen and laymen to ob
struct the due administration of the laws to in
terfere with Government —in short, religious in
terference with the Government of this city, which
is a thing, I think, contrary to the genius of
American institutions, because if there is one
thing that is a fundamental of ours in American
life, it is that, just as we declare that Government
shall not lay its hand upon the altar o£ the
A FAIR SURVEY OF THE NATIONAL FIELD.
Thomson, Ga., Thursday, September 21, 1916
vou. and then vou do your own thinking.
Under recent Presidents, the extravagance
of the Government has grown so prodigiously
that European nations are amazed. The cold
figures show that our ‘Congress, which took
a recess a few days ago, was the most reck
lessly and shamelessly profligate legislative
assembly that the world has ever known.
There are *2O million families in this coun
try, allowing 5 members as an average: and
this Democratic Congress spent one hundred
dollars for every family!
If the taxes were laid directly, there would
be an insurrection: but. as the Federal taxes
are never seen, except in the higher prices
paid for all tariff-protected articles, the
people merely grumble at high prices, instead
of at high taxes.
The high price is the high tax: and its
collection is just as compulsory as the State
and County tax, because you have to buy stuff
to live, work, and stay clothed.
Our Democratic Congress therefore taxed
us SIOO. to each family, or S2O. a head, at one
session-. Add this to your other taxes, and
then realize, if you can, the extent to which
the Privileged Interests are confiscating our
property.
All taxation is confiscation: the law con
demns a part of what you own, and applies
Church, so the Church shall not lay its hand upon
the altar of Government.
“And let me say that while I am Mayor, it will
not.’’
Earlier in his statement the Mayor reviewed
the incidents leading up to the present trouble,
telling how his Administration had authorized an
investigation of private Charitable institutions in
New York, and how Commissioner Kingsbury had
safeguarded the fairness of this investigation by
appointing on the investigating committee repre
sentatives of the three principal religious denomi
nations of the city supporting private institutions
of this kind. Thus the Jews, the Catholics, and
the Protestants each had a representative on the
committee. Continuing the story, the Mayor
said:
“These men, as a committee, undertook to make
an examination of these institutions. What they
have found has been pretty thoroughly spread
upon the record made before Commissioner
Strong, the Governor’s Commissioner sitting un
der the Moreland Act.
“That in some of these institutions of all de
nominations children were found with their uair
knotted with lice, their scalps covered with itch
ing sores, their bodies covered with filthy clothes
that had not been changed for three weeks, their
bodies underfed and undernourished, deprived of
any reasonable opportunity for recreation, com
pelled to sit on backless wooden benches, some
of them Compelled to bathe, ten, fifteen, or
twenty-five standing in a trough of six inches of
water, many of them compelled to use the same
towel after bathing, and other kindred condi
tions.”
Screaming with rage, because Mayor Mit
chel had sought to improve the wretched con
dition of the orphans, for whose comfortable
it to the maintenance of governmental ma
chinery, upon the theory that you will get
the worth of your money in the administra
tion of your public affairs, the protection of
vour life. etc.
So long as your share of the confiscation
is equitably adjusted and wisely spent, you
are benefited by the confiscation: but the
moment an unfair assessment is laid upon
you, or your taxes wasted in extravagance,
then robbery takes the place of legitimate
taxation.
As the United States Supreme Court has
said —“The power to tax, is the power te
destroy.’'
Do you feel able to pay at the rate of S2O
per capita, and SIOO per family, in addition
to your State, County, and municipal taxes?
You are right up against that question.
The vast combinations of capital which
own the public service corporations and the
manufacturing industries, pay no taxes at all.
This seems incredible, but it is strictly true,
because of the court decisions which hold that,
unless a corporation is allowed to charge up
all expenses and then clear a reasonable net
profit, over and above these operating ex
penses, the corporate property will be con
fiscated.
(continued on page two.)
support the City was paying, the priests
compared the Catholic Mayor to Judas Iscar
iot betraying his Lord ’
Standing his ground, the Mayor made the
following bold appeal to public opinion:
HUMANE CARE OF CITY’S W.-JIDS.
The City Government must rnsist upon vajue
received in terms of care, nourishment, and
proper treatment, and proper living conditions in
return for the public funds appropriated to pri
vate’ charitable institutions. It is the moral as
well as the legal duty of the officers of tne City
Government to insist upon humane care of the
city’s w r ards. When men who are supposed to
stand in the community for the principles of right,
justice, religion, and obedience to the laws, out
of a mistaken institutional zeal, oand themselves
together to frustrate the due administration of
those law r s, going even to the lengths disclosed
by the evidence herewith presented to you, a very
serious situation is created. It transcends in the
importance of its effect and the significance of its
scope the mere breach by individuals of provisions
of the penal law. It touches a basic principle of
American life —the reciprocal noninterference of
Church and State.
WOODS SUBMITS EVIDENCE.
Police Commissioner Woods letter to the
Mayor, which was inclosed to Mr. Swann, was as
follows:
June 8, 1916.
Hon. John Purroy Mitchel, Mayor City of New-
York, City Hall, N. Y.
Sir: Putsuant to your request that I trans
mit to you as soon as complete all evidence ob
tained by the police Department "as to the com
mission of crime in connection with the investi
gation of the State Board of Charities before the
Price, Five Cents