Jeremiah J. Crowley (Ireland, Nov. 20, 1861 — Chicago, Aug. 10, 1927) was an American Catholic priest who left the Catholic Church and exposed Vatican influence in the American government. Crowley was accepted into the Chicago diocese by archbishop of Chicago Patrick Feehan in 1896, but fell out with him and opposed his successor, archbishop James Edward Quigley. He also wrote, “The Pope – Chief of White Slavers, High Priest of Intrigue”

This book is slightly condensed. I did not include all the pictures in the original, nor the paragraphs that refer to the pictures.

My favorite chapter is chapter 5, Archbishop Quigley Cowed by a Fearless Woman.. Quigley is the same guy who boasted in the Chicago Tribune that the Roman Catholic Church would someday rule the world through its agent, the USA!

Next to Charles Chiniquy, I consider Jeremiah Crowley is be a Martin Luther of America. Unfortunately Jesuit influence was already so strong in America that he is largely forgotten today. I’m hoping to make Jeremiah J. Crowley’s name more familiar so that Christians may know his message to America and the world.

By JEREMIAH J. CROWLEY
A ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST FOR TWENTY-ONE YEARS
Author of
” The Pope Chief of White Slavers, High Priest of Intrigue

COPYRIGHT
ENTERED ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS,
IN THE YEAR 1912, (Now in public domain)
BY JEREMIAH J. CROWLET,
IN THE OFFICE OF THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS AT WASHINGTON.

Challenge to Rome

I retired voluntarily, gladly, from the priesthood of Rome, after a vain attempt, in combination with other priests, to secure a reform of Humanistic abuses from within (see “Romanism A Menace to the Nation”). This failing, no other course was open but to quit the accursed System forever.

I will give TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS to any person who can prove that I was EXCOMMUNICATED and that the STATEMENTS and CHARGES against priests, prelates, and popes, in my books, “THE POPE-CHIEF OF WHITE SLAVERS, HIGH PRIEST OF INTRIGUE,” and “ROMANISM A MENACE TO THE NATION,” are untrue; and, furthermore, I will agree to hand over the plates of these books and stop their publication forever.

Will Rome accept this Challenge? If not, Why not?

JEREMIAH J. CROWLEY,
A ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST FOR TWENTY-ONE YEARS,
AUTHOR, LECTURER, AND PUBLICIST.

The obstinate refusal of Rome, for several years, to accept my challenge, is proof, positive and irrefutable, that its cowardly, wine-soaked, Venus-worshipping, and grafting prelates, priests and editors have no other reply for adversary, but vituperation and assassination.

PREFACE TO THIS VOLUME

Seven years ago I published my work entitled “The Parochial School, A Curse to the Church, A Menace to the Nation,” which now forms Part II. of this volume.

Four years later, in 1908, I voluntarily withdrew from the priesthood and the Roman Catholic Church. This step enabled me to say things which I could not say with propriety during my priesthood and while acting as a mere reformer within the Church.

The contents of Part I., which is a large addition of new matter, will be read eagerly by all who are familiar with my first work; because it is the key and explanation of what I had already said, and throws upon it the light necessary for its full and complete understanding and appreciation.

Part I. will give a clearer and more complete view and be a more graphic and exhaustive exposure of the intrigues and the corrupt practices of the Vatican system, both at Rome and throughout the world, than it was possible for me to state when I first undertook, together with other priests and prelates, to contribute what little I could to bring about a reform in the Roman Catholic priesthood.

“They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think.”

To every one who loves humanity it must be a thing of profoundest import to learn whether or not the laws and doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church are so framed as, of very necessity, to work injustice, to encourage vice, to punish the innocent, and to protect the guilty.

The questions raised in various forms in the ensuing volume concern the very perpetuity of free institutions. They are all questions which no liberty-loving soul can ignore.

That it should be possible in this enlightened age that such questions should be seriously raised is the wonder and the shame of it all.

It is in darkness, that evil men love rather than the light, that such things flourish.

I give this volume to the light of day to enlighten and aid the people, whose supreme right and duty it is to defend their liberties.

In the words of the Messenger in Antigone, I can say, in part, “I saw,” and in whole :

“I will speak and hold back
No syllable of truth. Why should we soothe
Your ears with stories, only to appear
Liars thereafter? Truth is always right.”
JEREMIAH J. CROWLEY.
CINCINNATI, O., June, 1912.

CHAPTER I. Why I withdrew from Romanism.

I was born and reared in the Roman Catholic Church; trained in her doctrines and polity; and ordained a priest in 1886. I was a priest in good standing up to 1907 (twenty-one years), when I retired voluntarily from the priesthood. For six years previous to my retirement I waged a crusade against the evils of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, and while thus engaged challenged publicly, in speech and print, this Hierarchy to disprove the charges in Part II. of this volume, and also to prove that I was not, during that time, a priest in good standing. A copy of the challenge appears at the very beginning of Part II. That challenge was never accepted.

I now reiterate the challenge made in former editions of Part II. and elsewhere, as to the truth of the facts there stated. If the additional facts stated in Part I. are also true, the Roman Catholic Hierarchy is doubly condemned and will be so judged and denounced by all right-minded men. If any of my alleged facts are proven false, I am ready to abide the consequences.

The Vatican method “the conspiracy of silence” should not be permitted to shield any one affected by the charges made in this book. Silence may sometimes be golden, but in this instance it indicates guilt.

I want my readers to understand that I am not assailing the plain Roman Catholic people. They are the victims of a religious system, foisted upon them by the accident of birth. They are living up to the light they have. God grant that the sunlight of truth may soon flood their pathway! I sympathize with them, I admire them, and I love them.

When I wrote Part II. I was a loyal son of the Roman Catholic Church. At that time I would gladly have died for her. I wrote it to save, if I could, the Roman Catholic Church and to protect the Public School. My facts were carefully weighed and my arguments were prayerfully presented. The protestations of fidelity to the Roman Catholic Church which are contained in Part II. and in my other writings were made in good faith. I now unreservedly withdraw them.

I wrote Part II. with the further object of inaugurating a crusade for the emancipation of the Roman Catholic people by purifying the Roman Catholic priesthood. I have reason to believe that my book has emancipated thousands of Roman Catholics. I know that it has emancipated me I am no longer a Roman Catholic. For its preparation I was compelled to study thoroughly the history of the Roman Catholic Church, a subject which is purposely neglected in Roman Catholic schools. An extensive reading of secular history naturally followed. The age-long story of papal, prelatical and priestly corruption astounded and confounded me. I began to see the papacy in a new light. The question of Dr. John Lord haunted me, “Was there ever such a mystery, so occult are its arts, so subtle its policy, so plausible its pretensions, so certain its shafts?” (Beacon Lights of History, Vol. V., p. 99.) I gradually awakened to the fact that I was believing in unscriptural doctrines and championing a religious system which was anything but the holy and true church of Jesus Christ.

THE PAPAL MEDAL.

This is a facsimile of both sides of the medal struck by Gregory XIII. in commemoration of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. On the obverse is the head of the Pope, with the Latin inscription reading, “Gregory XIII., Pontifex Maximus, the First Year.” On the reverse is a representation of the killing of heretics by an angel who holds in one hand a sword and in the other a crucifix. The Latin inscription reads, “The Slaughter of the Huguenots, 1572.”

Rome claims that she did not approve of the massacre of the seventy thousand Huguenots. Why, then, did the bells of the papal churches in Rome peal out joyfully when the news of the slaughter was received by Pope Gregory XIII.? Why did he have the above medal struck to commemorate the event, and why did he order Te Deums to be sung in the churches instead of Misereres or de Profundis? Why did not the Cardinal of Lorraine, who was at Catherine’s court, raise a voice of protest against the crime? No, Rome can not exculpate herself from this, one of the greatest crimes that ever stained the records of sinful humanity.

Fear not that the tyrants shall rule forever,
Or the priests of the bloody faith ;
They stand on the brink of the mighty river,
Whose waves they have tainted with death :
It is fed from the depths of a thousand dells,
Around them it foams, and rages, and swells,
And their swords and their scepters I floating see,
Like wrecks on the surge of eternity. Shelley.

The gruesome history of the Roman Catholic Church in general, and of the archdiocese of Chicago in particular, “the conspiracy of silence,” the threats of excommunication issued against Revs. Cashman, Hodnett and myself, threats and attempts to murder me, the continued neglect of the pope to answer my letter to him as set forth in the preface to Part II. (in which letter I asked for an opportunity to give names of clerical offenders and the proof of their misconduct), the refusal of the pope to pay any attention to the petitions and charges which had been sent to Rome by myself and a score of the prominent priests of the archdiocese of Chicago, touching the immoralities of the clergy all these combined to undermine my loyalty to the papacy, and were large factors in causing my ultimate utter loss of confidence in the integrity of the pope and his cabinet. It was only a step from loss of faith in the authorities of the Church to loss of faith in her unscriptural doctrines.

In the summer of 1907 I found myself in such a state of mind regarding the Vatican system, and so out of sympathy with the unscriptural doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, that there was nothing for me to do but to withdraw from my crusade and await the end of the revolution which was going on in my soul. Shortly thereafter I closed my office in Chicago and went to the Pacific Coast, where I engaged in business. In a few months my mind was at rest. Romanism had sloughed from me just as completely as it had from the Very Rev. Father Slattery and from the Caldwell sisters, founders of the Roman Catholic University, Washington, D. C.

During the past two years I have been urged to republish Part II. of this volume in the interests of patriotism and enlightenment. I now feel that the time is ripe to yield to this demand. I realize as never before the danger to which civil and religious liberties are exposed from Vatican machinations. That danger is not chimerical; it is actual and pressing. Among other things, the Hierarchy is determined to move aggressively to secure public money for the support of Roman Catholic schools. According to the press reports, the Rev. Thomas F. Coakley, secretary to Bishop Canevin, of Pittsburg, Pa., addressing two thousand delegates at the convention of the American Federation of Roman Catholic Societies, in August, 1910, demanded that the Roman Catholic Church be granted by the State the sum of thirty-six million dollars a year for the education of Roman Catholics.

Since I have abjured Romanism, it may seem to some that Part II. should be revised. But I deem it better to let it remain as it is, because in this shape the public will have the benefit of the work as it was written by a Roman Catholic priest in good standing, which I was at that time, and, indeed, up to the time of my voluntary retirement from the priesthood. And further, this present volume containing Parts I. and II. will give the public some conception of the successive stages of that mysterious, tumultuous and painful experience by which I have been led by Providence from Romanism to Christianity, from the prayer-book to the Bible, from the pope to Christ.

In the good providence of God I read very carefully the Gospels, and pondered prayerfully the words and the deeds of our Lord. I also studied that wonderful book of the New Testament, the Acts of the Apostles. I found that it contains the history of the first thirty years of the Christian church, that it is the only inspired church history which Christians have, and that the first Christians knew nothing of the sacrifice of the mass, the confessional, prayers to the Virgin and to the saints, purgatory, indulgences, priestly celibacy, or the primacy of St. Peter. Indeed, I learned in the Sacred Scriptures that whatever power and authority was given by our Lord to Peter was given equally to the other eleven Apostles, that Peter himself had a wife (Matthew viii. 14), and that even Paul asked if he had not the right to have a wife as did the other missionaries of the cross (I. Corinthians ix. 5) ; also that a bishop should have only one wife (I. Timothy iii. 2).

While I was engaged in the crusade against the corrupt Hierarchy alluded to in the opening paragraph, my friend, the Very Rev. John R. Slattery, President of St. Joseph’s Seminary for Colored Missions, Baltimore, Md., U. S. A., who had been chosen by Cardinal Satolli to edit his volume of sermons and addresses, and who had been most highly spoken of by Cardinal Gibbons, renounced his priesthood. He wrote an article entitled “How My Priesthood Dropped from Me,” which appeared in The Independent (a weekly magazine published in New York City) of September 6, 1906, p. 565. In it he said:

“In almost every case of a contested point between Catholics and Protestants, the latter are right and the former wrong.”

This article deeply affected me. Later, I had a number of interviews with Father Slattery in which I received corroborative evidence of the corruptions of the Hierarchy. I also received a number of important letters from him, one of which appears at the end of this volume. I became acquainted with the late Baroness von Zedtwitz, who, with her sister, the late Marquise des Monstiers- Meronville, had founded the Roman Catholic University at Washington, D. C. These ladies were born in the State of Kentucky. Their maiden name was Caldwell. They renounced Romanism during my crusade. On page 694 of this volume the reader will find a full account of the renunciation of the Roman Catholic faith by the Marquise. The Baroness published in 1906 a booklet entitled “The Double Doctrine of the Church of Rome.” In it she states:

“It is generally admitted that an ecclesiastical student when he leaves Rome [graduates at Rome], carries away with him little else than the papal banner, and has laid his primitive moral code at the feet of the infallible successor of St. Peter.”

This lady has been an honored visitor at the Vatican itself; and her words greatly impressed me. I had the honor qf meeting her in New York, and she astounded me with circumstantial accounts of prelatical duplicity and depravity which had come under her observation in the high places in the Hierarchy in Rome itself. From the Marquise I received the following withering letter concerning no less a personage than the Most Rev. John Lancaster Spalding, then Bishop of Peoria, 111., U. S. A., and now Titular Archbishop of Scitopolis, in partibus infidelium [in infidel parts], a warm friend of ex-President Roosevelt and President Taft, a Roman Catholic dignitary of international fame and an ecclesiastic for whom I had entertained profound respect when I first published Part II. :

“HOTEL SUISSE, ROME, “April 11, 1907.

“DEAR FATHER CROWLEY: I have just received your book [Part II.] and pamphlets, for which I thank you. I had seen and read the book last year in New York, and I shall have much pleasure in reading the brochures this summer. May Heaven reward you for your noble work in showing up the awful depravity of the Roman Church.

“If you ever have the opportunity to undeceive the world about that Svhited sepulchre,’ Spalding, of Peoria, I beg that you will do so in the sacred cause of truth. No greater liar and hypocrite walks the earth to-day. He is a very atheist and infidel, and I, who used to know him intimately, ASSERT IT. If today my sister and I are in open revolt against the Roman Church, it is chiefly due to the depravity of Bishop Spalding. Would that you could let his priests know that his asceticism is all bombast! A more sensual hypocrite never trod the earth. “A letter to this address will always reach me. “Yours sincerely, “[Signed] THE MARQUISE DES MONSTIERS.”

In the spring of 1907 the Baroness von Zedtwitz sent the following cablegram from Europe to Bishop Spalding:

“Bisaor SPALDING, “PEORIA, ILLINOIS, U. S. A. “Am aware of your efforts to shield yourself from exposure. When Catholics know the history of your hidden vices, as I do, you must flee Peoria. This I shall accomplish. “[Signed] BARONESS VON ZEDTWITZ.”

Rome, fearing exposure from the letters and charges of the Caldwell sisters, prevailed upon Bishop Spalding to resign the bishopric of Peoria, which he did in September, 1908. Rome, pursuing her usual policy in such cases, immediately promoted him to a nominal archbishopric which gives him the honor of the title without any subjects ; so that in case of exposure it could not be alleged that he is in actual charge of a diocese. However, he is still in politics, entertaining President Taft and ex-President Roosevelt at his home in Peoria, and belittling Governor Woodrow Wilson as a “schoolmaster” and therefore unfit to be President of the United States.

The abjuration of Roman Catholicism by these eminent women, and their charges against Archbishop Spalding, who had been their professed friend and trusted adviser, in whom they placed unbounded confidence, aroused my deepest horror and indignation. I kept saying to myself, “If such a prelate, the idol of American Catholicism and of liberal Protestantism, is an ‘atheist and infidel, a liar and sensual hypocrite/ is not the Vatican clerical system rotten, root and branch ?’

My reading, observation, meditation and experience gradually forced me to doubt the possibility of purifying the Roman Catholic priesthood, and ultimately led me to agree with the words written me by the Baroness von Zedtwitz :

“There is not, and never can be, modern Catholicism, and should ever the political necessity arise for purifying all religion, Catholicity would then and there be wiped off the face of the earth.”

During the crusade above mentioned, many priests of the Roman Catholic Church talked with me about the futility of ray efforts, saying in substance :

“Father Crowley, you are wasting your time and money in trying to purify the priesthood. The system stands for power and pelf. It can not be changed. Christ Himself, if there is a Christ, could not purify it.”

Rev. Thomas F. Cashman, the prominent pastor of St. Jarlath’s parish, Chicago, the bosom friend and confidential agent of Archbishop Ireland, said to me repeatedly:

“The more I see and read of monks, nuns, priests, bishops, archbishops, cardinals and popes the less am I a priest, and indeed the less am I a Roman Catholic.”

He also made this statement:

“While I believe the Roman Catholic Church will live forever, I believe the devil has his knee on its neck in this propaganda. I am prepared to prove all that I state, and if I can not prove it my proper home is the penitentiary.”

He frequently exclaimed :

“Oh, if the Roman Catholic Church would only uncover her scandals !”

Early in our crusade, in the first week of January, 1901, Revs. Cashman and Hodnett, representing a score or more of the prominent priests of Chicago, went to Washington, D. C., and personally filed charges of priestly corruption and crime against brother priests, including Rev. Peter J. Muldoon, with Papal Delegate Martinelli. Copies of charges had already been sent by registered mail to the Vatican. Rev. Cashman called to the attention of the Delegate several grave charges of clerical immorality. The pope’s representative shrugged his shoulders, smiled, and said: “The Vatican pays no attention whatever to such charges.” Rev. Hodnett staggered back in blank amazement, and, making the sign of the cross, said: “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, protect us! Mother of God, save the church!” Rev. Cashman then asked: “Should not the standard for a Christian bishop be at least the equal of that for Caesar’s wife, above suspicion?” His Excellency Martinelli replied, with a cynical shrug: “Not necessarily; by no means.” Rev. Hodnett then fairly screamed : “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, protect us! Mother of Purity, save the church! Tom [Rev. Cashman], get your hat, let us get out of here! They are going to burst the Catholic Church in America!”

The last word of Revs. Cashman and Hodnett to Monsignor Martinelli was this: “If Muldoon is foisted upon the archdiocese of Chicago, look out for scandal!” Monsignor Martinelli replied: “That is a threat.” Rev. Cashman responded: “It is simply telling you what is going to happen.” Monsignor Martinelli then asked: “Will you stand by the written charges?” Revs. Cashman and Hodnett answered in one voice: “Quod scripsi, scripsi.” [What I have written, I have written.]

Notwithstanding these charges, Cardinal Martinelli came to Chicago to consecrate Rev. Muldoon, and in an interview which appeared in The Chicago Tribune, July 20, 1901, he said in part as follows :

“Officially I have heard absolutely nothing of this opposition [to Rev. Muldoon]. I am told that the newspapers are much concerned about the matter. Am I right?’ And the Italian laughed softly and allowed his eyes to twinkle with subdued merriment.”

The charges were unheeded, and the candidate, Rev. Muldoon, was duly elevated and consecrated, the Papal Delegate, Cardinal Martinelli himself, acting as consecrator.

What induced the pope to override the protests? What caused Cardinal Martinelli to “laugh softly?” Was it “the cash in his fob?”

The death of Archbishop Feehan of Chicago, July 12, 1902, created an enviable vacancy controlling some fifty million dollars. During the latter years of Feehan’s reign, the Muldoonites had control of the archdiocese and its funds, owing to the disability of the Archbishop, which was caused by excessive drink. Instead of taking steps to keep the Archbishop in a normal state, his close “friends” among the Muldoonites actually encouraged him in his unfortunate weakness. Hence on his death they found themselves practically masters of the situation. Caucuses were held by day and night ; representatives were sent to Rome with unlimited funds some for the pope as “Peter’s pence,” and some for the cardinals as “honorariums” for masses for the living and the dead, not forgetting a special memento that the Holy Ghost might direct them in their selection of a successor to Archbishop Feehan. The pope and cardinals, in accordance with their usual custom, kept this profitable archdiocese vacant for several months in order to give other aspiring candidates a chance to “come and see them” also.

The only obstacle to the complete fulfillment of the sinister designs of the Muldoonites was the publicity given at home and abroad to the charges made and filed by some twenty pastors and myself against Muldoon and his clerical supporters, including Papal Delegate Martinelli, Cardinal Gibbons, and other members of the Sacred College of Cardinals. At this very time our charges were being aired in the public press. Typewritten copies of Cashman’s “poems” were freely circulated and mailed to the pope and his cabinet, the Sacred College of Cardinals, including “Slippery Jim” and “the Dago.” Rome knew full well that Cashman received his inspiration from Archbishop Ireland and his “gang” of ecclesiastics, who hoped to see Archbishop Ireland landed Archbishop of Chicago as the preliminary step to a “red hat.” She feared further exposures, and even a schism, of which, indeed, Archbishop Katzer, of Milwaukee, warned Leo XIII. if he dared promote Muldoon to the archbishopric of Chicago.

Under the circumstances, the pope and his cabinet, notwithstanding the liberal “honorariums” which they had received, did not dare to hand over a graft of some fifty million dollars to Muldoon and his supporters.

This is the story in brief on which the following “poems” of Revs. Cashman and O’Brien were based, and is the principal reason why Archbishop Ireland was not among the recent “American” cardinals. ‘

Rev. Hugh P. Smyth, Permanent Rector of St. Mary’s parish, Evanston, Illinois, and one of the treasurers of our crusade fund, wrote me, in part, as follows :

“Our great trouble in Chicago is that our archdiocese, the greatest in the world, is governed, not by an Archbishop, or Bishop, but by one [“Rev. No. 14, Celibacy Inexpedient”] who would like to be one or the other, or both ; one who has too many irons in th.e fire ; one who controls both Church and State ; one who suspends priests to-day and policemen tomorrow; one who alternately distributes parishes to aspiring pastors and boodle to hungry politicians ; one who can give Chicago a mayor or a bishop, and secures uniformity of action by holding both under his thumb. This is our Pooh-Bah, our factotum, our power behind the throne. No wonder, then, that City Hall methods dominate our ecclesiastical administration. In Chicago we have not one City Hall, but two, both adopting the same standard of morality, both applying the same system of rewarding friends and punishing enemies, and both holding in like contempt every principle of morality and justice.”

The suspension of policemen has particular reference to the summary dismissal of Officer Neilan from the Chicago police force, because he stated that he had frequently found priests in houses of prostitution, and that of the many he found there, “Rev. No. 14, Celibacy Inexpedient,” and his boon clerical companion, Rev. Flannigan, were the worst offenders. Concerning them Neilan exclaimed, “I know that they are a pair of pimps, and Father Crowley is telling the truth,” was not the only Catholic policeman who had honestly and openly expressed himself concerning the immorality of the priests, but an example must be made of some one, and he w6 the victim. The lecherous ecclesiastics of Chicago were compelled to have recourse to this summary method of punishment in order to warn and silence a large body of men, who, in the discharge of their duties, frequently found priests in brothels, and sometimes in such a state of drunkenness that they had to lock them up over night or send them home in carriages. Why were they not booked, tried and punished like other American citizens guilty of similar misconduct?

Some days after his dismissal Neilan was found dead with a gun beside him. He was supposed to have committed suicide brooding over his dismissal, and the priests declared it was a “visitation of Divine Providence” for his having dared to expose “Ambassadors of Christ.” Did he commit suicide, or was that fearless and outspoken officer of the peace murdered in order to seal his lips ? Officer Neilan is not the only person who met with sudden and mysterious death during the crusade.

A woman of Cashman’s parish was supposed to have poisoned herself. She had supplied Cashman with important information concerning the proposals made to her in the confessional. Rev. Cashman named the person by whom he said “her mysterious death could be explained;” and Bishop Muldoon in a recent interview named to me the person “to be blamed for her death.”

The Very Rev. Daniel M. J. Dowling, Vicar General of the archdiocese of Chicago, died suddenly and mysteriously June 26, 1900, a few hours after a reunion dinner with brother clergymen. His sudden but timely removal was strikingly in accordance with the murderous methods of Pope Alexander VI. [Rodrigo Borgia], and other “Vicars of Christ.” Dowling’s death removed a serious obstacle to the promotion of certain Chicago Borgias. The press said he “quietly passed away from heart disease.” Bishop Muldoon, in my interview with him, last referred to above, told me that Dowling died from diphtheria. Was he poisoned at that reunion dinner at the Holy Name Cathedral?

Why was there not a thorough post-mortem investigation of these sudden and mysterious deaths? Rome does not believe in ante or post mortem investigations.

Other deaths have been unaccounted for in the archdiocese of Chicago, and the history of the Catholic Church there is a blot on civilization and Christianity. Still Archbishop Quigley endeavors to placate the Catholic people of Chicago by declaring that the priests and prelates of New York are fifty per cent, worse than those of Chicago ! ! ! This high standard of priestly corruption and crime in the archdiocese of New York may explain Archbishop Farley’s recent promotion to the Cardinalate, ranking him with Princes and Kings, and consequently placing him above plebeian Prime Ministers and Presidents ! ! !

Among the many affidavits filed at Washington and Rome against Bishop Peter J. Muldoon and other members of the Hierarchy, was one by Rev. Daniel Croke, then Rector of St. Mary’s parish, Freeport, Illinois, and since promoted to St. Cecilia’s parish, Chicago, charging Bishop Muldoon with gross immorality. This affidavit was placed in the hands of the Right Rev. James Ryan, Bishop of Alton, Illinois, and mailed by him to the Vatican. The Vatican ignored it because moral delinquencies are no bar to ecclesiastical preferment in the Roman Catholic Church ; indeed, they are a necessity and an advantage.

During the crusade we also filed with the proper ecclesiastical authorities an expose consisting of 198 pages of printed matter, including Court Records and charges against Archbishop Feehan, Bishop Muldoon. and other Catholic Church dignitaries. This was but one installment of what was filed by the protesting priests. It was edited by Revs. Cashman, Hodnett, Galligan and Smyth, prominent pastors of the archdiocese of Chicago, and myself, and its cost was met by my Roman Catholic clerical supporters. Among those who cooperated are the following priests :

SOME OF MY ECCLESIASTICAL CO-OPERATORS IN THE CRUSADE,

Very Rev. Hugh P. Smyth, permanent rector, St. Mary’s parish, Evanston, Illinois.
Very Rev. Hugh McGuire, permanent rector, St. James’ parish, Chicago, and Consultor of the Archdiocese.
Very Rev. Michael O’Sullivan, permanent rector, St. Bridget’s parish, Chicago.
Very Rev. Thomas F. Galligan, permanent rector, St. Patrick’s parish, Chicago.
Rev. Thomas F. Cashman, rector, St. Jarlath’s parish, Chicago.
Rev. Thomas P. Hodnett, rector, Immaculate Conception parish, Chicago.
Rev. Michael Bonfield, rector, St. Agatha’s parish, Chicago.
Rev. Michael O’Brien, rector, St. Sylvester’s parish, Chicago.
Rev. William S. Hennessy, rector, St. Ailbe’s parish, Chicago.
Rev. John H. Crowe, rector, St. Ita’s parish, Chicago.
Rev. Andrew Croke, rector, St. Andrew’s parish, Chicago.
Rev. Daniel Croke, rector, St. Mary’s parish, Freeport, Illinois.
Rev. Michael Foley, rector, St. Patrick’s parish, Dixon, Illinois.
Rev. William J. McNamee, rector, St. Patrick’s parish, Joliet, Illinois.

One of the charges in the above-mentioned expose is as follows :

“Is Your Eminence aware that within the past few months [July 8-12, 1901], in this archdiocese [Chicago], there was held what in this country is denominated a spiritual Retreat, being an occasion especially set apart for the assembling of the priests of the Diocese for holy meditation, religious lectures, and acts of devotion; that these exercises were held in St. Viateur’s College (the only diocesan seminary), located at Bourbonnais’ Grove, Kankakee, Illinois, under the personal supervision of the Archbishop’s Vicar General and in the presence of Bishop-Elect Muldoon ; that all throughout the period of retreat, which lasted four days and nights, in the college building where the exercises were held, there were kept for sale, and sold, day and night, to the priests present, barrels of beer and whiskey, which in open and notorious fashion, to the scandal of all devout men, were served out in the same manner as I am told is common in ordinary bar-rooms, by the religious brothers of the college, some of whom were in training for the holy priesthood ; that shameful scenes of intemperance resulted, even to the point of intoxication among a number of those who were actually participating in the holy services. To such outrageous lengths did this unseemly conduct prevail that the temperate and devout were actually kept in fear of bodily injury and compelled to secure themselves at night behind bolted doors. Is the scandal thus wrought against God’s Church chargeable to him who exposes it or to those who, having the power and being charged with the duty of correcting it, nevertheless encourage and wink at the iniquity and make their choice of associates among the evil-doers? The like scenes have occurred repeatedly in previous years during the presence and supervision of the Archbishop himself. Is it conceivable, Your Eminence, that such things shall be permitted in silence and no voice raised in protest?

REV. WILLIAM J. McNAMEE.

Rev. McNamee, during our crusade, labored day and night procuring affidavits against lecherous priests and prelates and photographs of them when they were not saying their prayers. The picture of a prominent Chicago priest, “Rev. No. 13, A Ballad Singer,” with one of his best girls, on page 451, was obtained by McNamee. Among other incriminating documents procured by this clerical “Sherlock Holmes” were most shocking affidavits made by respectable Catholic women against Rev. C. P. Foster, “Rev. No. 23, A Debauchee.” These affidavits, together with others, were filed with the pope and Cardinals Martinelli and Gibbons. Rev. McNamee placed certified copies of same in the hands of Archbishop Quigley, soon after the latter’s promotion to the archbishopric of Chicago, with the result that the debauchee priest was promoted by Cardinal “in petto” Quigley.

Archbishop Quigley when recently promoting this Rev. “Sherlock Holmes,” says in his papal organ, The New World, of October 15, 1911 :

“We heartily congratulate Rev. Father McNamee on his appointment as memorable [ ?] rector of St. Patrick’s Church in this city [Chicago]. The magnificent farewell reception and presentation of a purse tendered to Father McNamee by the parishioners of St. Mary’s Church and the citizens of Joliet evidence the high esteem in which Father McNamee is held by the people of Joliet.”

Was this promotion of Rev. McNamee the price of his good (?) will and silence? Bishop Muldoon calls him the “sleuth of the Crowley crusade.”

Since their conversion to Muldoonism, Rev. McNamee and his ehum, Rev. Hugh P. Smyth, have been qualifying for mitres under the areful supervision !’ Archbishop Quigley.

“Since when, Your Eminence, has it become a crime against the Church to expose men who are violating her sanctuary ? By what authority has it been proclaimed an offense for a priest, a pastor of Christ’s flock, to employ all the strength that God has given him to protect that flock from ravening wolves ? Shall I see the priest’s gown cloak a lecherous drunkard and not seek to tear away that sacred garb, late, my ecclesiastical superior, charged with even graver responsibilities in that behalf than an humble priest, halts in duty, shall I shelter myself behind such excuse and hesitate to do my part in the cleansing work? When has the Church of the living God, the God of truth and justice and purity, ever suffered when her sons have spoken truth, wrought justice and denounced impurity? The blood of John the Baptist was surely shed in vain if a priest of God must keep silence when lust and intrigue find favor in high places, and when to the drunkard’s hands are left the ministrations of the Holy of Holies.”

A score or more of the prominent priests of the archdiocese of Chicago jointly and severally filed at Washington and Rome at least one hundred documents containing grave charges against many of the leading members of the Chicago Hierarchy. Some of these documents were sworn to, but the Vatican paid no attention to them. We filed grave charges our opponents filed great checks I mean bank checks.

This explains why Rome remained silent and why we felt constrained to gain publicity for our cause through the press; but in this we were sadly disappointed for the time being, as the press was muzzled on Saturday, July 20, 1901. We realized then that some extreme measure must be adopted in order to unmuzzle the press, and consequently we had recourse to the following fearless and open method, which proved quite effective in removing the papal muzzle.

In a few hours we had printed several thousand large placards on which appeared in large type the following words :

“The blasphemy of the twentieth century will be hurled in the face of God Almighty and the Catholic people of the archdiocese of Chicago when Muldoon is made bishop on next Thursday.

“Read Father J. J. Crowley’s letter of resignation and his exposure of Archbishop Feehan and his demoralized clergy.”

Professional bill posters rode around in open carriages putting up these placards on the outside walls of nearly every Catholic Church in the city of Chicago between the hours of three and six o’clock Sunday morning, July 21, 1901.

On the same morning a leaflet hurriedly set up, consisting of four printed pages, making specific charges, with names, against eighteen of the leading members of the Hierarchy of the archdiocese of Chicago, were scattered among the Catholic people, already stunned by the posters, as they were leaving their churches. Some of those who were not fortunate enough to secure a copy offered as high as five dollars for same. On Monday, July 22, 1901, the press of Chicago and of the country told the story in brief.

These posters and leaflets, while they appeared over my name, were prepared and dictated to me in Cashman’s home by Revs. Cashman and Hodnett in behalf of the score of priests. The expense of printing and posting was met by Rev. Cashman, who became one of the treasurers of the crusade fund.

Notwithstanding the political power of Rome over politicians and press, the latter is and will be insuppressible and ever ready to do its duty, if the people will only do theirs. But as long as the people remain indifferent and allow themselves to be muzzled by Rome, they should not expect the press to fight their battle.

Let the non-Catholic people awake and do their duty in defense of liberty, enlightenment and progress, and the press will be ready and willing to join in the battle against the common foe Romanism.

Rev. Thomas P. Hodnett said repeatedly:

“The charges we filed at the office of the Apostolic Delegate in Washington, and at the Vatican, I am prepared to swear, on my bended knees before the Blessed Sacrament, are true, and if our request for a canonical investigation is granted, we will prove them up to the hilt.”

I quote a few lines from a letter written me April 8, 1904, by a prominent Roman Catholic lawyer of New York City, a graduate of Georgetown (Jesuit) “University” at Washington, D. C. :

“Mv DEAR FATHER CROWLEY :

“Father Unan, of the Paulists, told me plainly you were not a bit out about the condition of the Archdiocese of Chicago; he says every one knows its condition. I fear you are much misinformed as to the attitude of a great many people towards you. You have more friends and believers in your cause than you imagine. The condition in the Church in your city [Chicago] is beyond description, more than one has told me.”

A prominent nun of the Convent of the Good (?) Shepherd, Chi’cago, said to a Roman Catholic lady :

“We have reason to know that Father Crowley is right. Many of the fallen women and wayward girls in this institution were led into sin and shame by priests.”

In passing, let me state that the Convents or Houses of the Good (?) Shepherd, numerous in non-Catholic countries, are Roman Catholic prisons, maintained partially by public tax, but without Federal or State supervision, where the Roman Catholic Hierarchy may confine their victims or other unfortunates, and where cruel punishments can be inflicted upon the inmates generally with impunity. In all so-called Religious Houses, male and female, there is no accounting for the sufferings of the inmates, their illness or their death. If not requested, no coroner’s inquest is held. The inmates are utterly shut out from light and life, and generally from the protection of the law. The masses of the people do not know that these things are taking place. If they did, there would be an awakening of indignation and action which would speedily put an end to such horrors.

Archbishop Quigley, of Chicago, said to me, in one of my interviews with him, substantially the following:

“Father Crowley, the Roman Catholic Church would never permit an investigation of its priests and bishops ; an honest investigation would burst the Church. The priesthood is so rotten we would knock the bottom out of the Church if we made the least effort to discipline the priests as you demand. I must admit that there are bad priests in Chicago, .but I can assure you that the priests in New York are fifty per cent, worse.”

Archbishop Quigley made similar admissions to Roman Catholic people who appealed to him for protection from bad priests and bishops; and yet with full knowledge of their villainy he has promoted many of. these wicked ecclesiastics, and, in order to do so with impunity, declared he would muzzle the secular press and intimidate the non-Catholic press.

During our crusade a strong Roman Catholic Laymen’s Association was established in Chicago for the protection of women from licentious priests ; but the Vatican refused pointblank to take any notice of their charges and appeals. (See pp. 390-394.) The Chicago Hierarchy also refused to heed a petition signed by fifteen hundred Roman Catholic women, praying for protection from drunken and lecherous priests. The following is a copy of their petition :

“CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, “JUNE, 1903. “THE MOST REV’D JAMES E. QUIGLEY, “Archbishop of Chicago.

“Most Rev’d Sir: We, the undersigned Catholic women, members of different parishes in this Archdiocese, respectfully call your attention to conditions prevailing in many of the parishes of which some of us are members, conditions so notorious that they have been the subject of newspaper comment and are still the subject of comment and criticism, both among Catholic and non-Catholic people. On your advent to your present high office in early March of this year the fervent hope was frequently expressed in public and private that you would rectify the flagrant abuses which are a scandal to our beloved Church.

“As one of our daily papers editorially expressed it : ‘It is idle to mince the matter, for, as every Catholic layman knows, the great trouble in the Chicago church has been caused by the clergy.’ [Quotation from an editorial in the Chicago Daily Journal, March u, 1903, the day after Archbishop Quigley assumed charge of the archdiocese of Chicago.]

“If this were known to Catholic laymen, surely the women of our Church could not be in ignorance.

“The priests who are evidently referred to in the above paragraph are still serving at our altars and performing all the sacred offices of our religion, unrebuked and undisciplined, so far as we know.

“We humbly and respectfully look to you for protection and redress. “Obediently yours.”

Archbishop Quigley has neither rebuked nor disciplined his priests, but, on the contrary, he has followed the policy of popes, cardinals and bishops in promoting some of the very worst among them: for examples, Revs. No. 9, 10, n, 12, 14, 17, 22, 23 and 24. Though affidavits and abundant proofs were placed in his hands, charging “Rev. Xo. 12, A Wolf in Priest’s Clothing,” with an unmentionable criminal assault on a thirteen- year-old motherless girl at the very time she was receiving instructions for First Confession and Holy Communion, yet he (Quigley) forthwith promoted, and has lately repromoted, this clerical monster. By thus condoning the crimes and sacrileges of his conscienceless clergy Archbishop Quigley may become the next American Cardinal.

The latest information is that the pope has created another cardinal “in pectorc” or “in petto;” that is. in secret. I would not be surprised if it were the Czar of the Middle West, Archbishop Quigley, who, by condoning the crimes and sacrileges of his conscienceless clergy, is fully qualified to become a “Prince of the Church.” a “member of the Roman Curia, the official family of the pope.”

The Continent, a leading Presbyterian paper published in Chicago, in its issue of August 24, 1911, corroborates my statements as to Quigley’s qualifications :

“American Catholics are saying that the longwaited second American cardinal will be Archbishop Quigley, of Chicago. If Quigley is really the selection of the Vatican for the honor, the choice throws another deep shadow on the religious honesty of the cardinals at Rome. If their zeal was in the least for spiritual religion, Quigley is about the last American that they would desire to have as their associate in what they are pleased to call the ‘Sacred College.’ How religious the Archbishop of Chicago may be in his private life, The Continent would by no means presume to judge. But the whole tone of his public activity is the tone of political bossism and ecclesiastical tyranny. His administration of his archdiocese has exhibited a minimum of care for either public or private righteousness, and a maximum of determination to grip his own power and the power of his satellites on the life of Chicago and its environs. The appointment of Quigley as a cardinal means what has long been suspected, that the Vatican does not want an American cardinal not even as moderate an one as Archbishop Ireland but wants simply a Roman cardinal in America. That Quigley will be to the finish.”

The political power of the Roman Catholic Church in America was proclaimed to the non-Catholic politicians, in a speech delivered by Archbishop Quigley, May 4th, 1903, at the Holy Name Roman Catholic school, Chicago, and which appeared in part in The Chicago Tribune, May 5th, 1903 :

“In fifty years Chicago will be exclusively Catholic. The same may be said of Greater New York, and the chain of big cities stretching across the continent to San Francisco. . . . Nothing can stand against the Church. I’d like to see the politician who would try to rule against the Church in Chicago. His reign would be short indeed.”

CARDINAL FALCONIO THE COMING “AMERICAN” POPE.

Cardinal Falconio, an Italian, Rome’s late chief secret service agent in the United States, has been recalled and rewarded for “signal service.” He is now Chief of the Secret Service Bureau at the Vatican, Dean of the “American” cardinals, and quasi American Ambassador to the Vatican. This Italian Franciscan monk claims American citizenship; and consequently Jesuitical expediency and hypocrisy not the Holy Ghost will inspire the Sacred College of Cardinals to elect Falconio the next pope an “American” pope ! ! ! This is a part of the plot and plan to capture America, and through America, to regain Temporal Power, not only in Italy, but throughout the world.

It is easy to see that we have a hard fight before us, and we should remember the advice : “The other fellow [the pope] is only a man, just as you are. Don’t let his spectacular displays and theatrical performances frighten you,”

This proclamation of Spiritual and Temporal Power by Archbishop Quigley, and his threat of political assassination, created a sensation throughout the country. The more Jesuitical members of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, considering his announcement premature, set telephone and telegraph wires in action to hush up the scare, fearing it might arouse and enlighten the sleeping non-Catholics.

Subjoined are photographs of Archbishop Quigley’s palace, conservatory and stable, the stable alone costing the archdiocese $80,000, according to Revs. Cashman, Smyth and Hodnett. It is rather more elaborate than the stable of Bethlehem in which the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was born.

Cardinal Martinelli, ex-papal delegate to the Roman Catholic Church in America, in 1902 said to me in substance, at the Apostolic Delegation Office, Washington, D. C. :

“We know there are many immoral priests and bishops, but still the laity have no right to interfere with the clergy; if the laity understand they have any rights, they will do in America as they once did in France during the Revolution, they will murder the clergy. In this independent country it would not be wise to let the laity understand they have any right to interfere in church matters ; and one of the principal things we have against you, Father Crowley, is that you are enlightening the Catholic laity of this country as to their rights ; the laity have no right to expose their clergy, no matter how immoral they may be ; the laity must be ignored; they must be crushed!”

Cardinal Falconio, late papal delegate, in 1903 said to me in the home of Archbishop Katzer at Milwaukee, Wisconsin:

“Father Crowley, the Roman Catholic Church is divine, notwithstanding the fact that there are bad priests, bishops, and popes, and I beseech you, for the sake of our Holy Mother Church, to sign that apology drawn up by Archbishop Quigley, whitewashing those whom you have exposed.”

Is it any wonder that I withdrew from Romanism?

CHAPTER II. Celibacy and Confessional.

Why this rank, rampant immorality among the Roman Catholic Hierarchy? Priestly Celibacy and Auricular Confession, I assert, are chiefly responsible. Priestly celibacy and auricular confession ever have been, and are now, prolific sources of crime and licentiousness. Pope Gregory VII., in the eleventh century, imposed the unnatural law of priestly celibacy, notwithstanding the vehement protests of the priests, the vast majority of whom had wives and legitimate children. This decree, making priestly marriage a wrong and priestly celibacy a virtue, has honeycombed the Roman Catholic Church with corruption. The advantage to the Vatican system of having all ecclesiastics wholly separated from all legitimate connections with their native soil and natural interests, and the fixture in every kingdom of large bodies of men wholly devoted to the objects of the papacy, overpowered the voices alike of nature and of God.

Pope Gregory VII., and his infallible successors, in imposing priestly celibacy, were actuated by political rather than virtuous motives. This was generally admitted. Pope Pius II., himself the father of several children (see pp. 315, 316), once wrote these words: “Marriage has been forbidden to priests for good reasons, but there are better ones for permitting it to them.” Pope Leo XIII. was the father of several children, one of them being the eminent Cardinal Satolli, a man of conspicuous immorality. Bishop O’Connell, of Richmond, Virginia, is considered a reliable authority on the pontifical paternity of Cardinal Satolli.

In 1907 three thousand French priests signed and sent a petition to Pope Pius X., praying for the abolition of priestly celibacy. All of these priests were past the marrying age themselves, but were speaking from the weight of responsibility thrust upon them by confessions. This appeal was consigned to the papal wastebasket.

Dr. Robert E. Speer, the noted secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Missions, recently wrote:

“The celibacy of the priesthood had seemed to me a monstrous and wicked theory, but I had believed that men who took that vow were true to it, and that, while the Church lost by it irreparably and infinitely more than she gained, she did gain, nevertheless, a pure and devoted, even if a narrow and impoverished, service. But the deadly evidence spread out all over South America, confronting one in every district to which he goes; evidence legally convincing, morally sickening, proves to him that, whatever may be the case in other lands, in South America the stream of the Church is polluted at its fountains.”

Rome is ever and everywhere the same. She prefers priestly celibacy with concubinage to priestly marriage. However, the day is near when the enlightenment of the people through the Public School and the advancement of womanhood, will sound the death-knell of priestly celibacy and auricular confession. Papal intriguing and Hierarchical plotting against the Public School and Woman’s Suffrage are not riddles to those who understand the power of liberal education and emancipated womanhood.

Auricular confession as an absolute essential for eternal salvation is inculcated in the minds of the pupils of the Roman Catholic schools. This doctrine actually increases crime and debauchery by freeing the mind of remorse and by substituting absolution for repentance. It was established, as a portion of the acknowledged system of Rome, scarcely before the thirteenth century; and history attests the fact that it originated in the licentiousness of the Roman clergy in the ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries, and assumed the form of canon law at the Fourth Council of Lateran under Pope Innocent III., A. D. 1215, being confirmed by the Council of Trent, Session XIV.

Moral Theology of the Roman Catholic Church, printed in Latin, a dead language, containing instructions for auricular confession, is so viciously obscene that it could not be transmitted through the mails were it printed in a living language; neither would priests and bishops dare to propound said obscene matter in the form of questions to female penitents if their fathers, husbands and brothers were cognizant of the Satanic evils lurking therein; in fact, they would cause the suppression of auricular confession by penal enactments.

The Supreme Court of Leipzig, Germany, has recently condemned as immoral the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church regarding auricular confession as taught in the writings of St. Alphonsus De Liguori; and the civil authorities of the city of Sienna, Italy, lately forbade within its jurisdiction the sale of his vile writings on the same subject.

The governments of the most Catholic countries are compelled to curb that license which the Court of Rome allows, and to put down those atrocities which have received the patronage and blessing of the most celebrated Pontiffs.

Why, then, do the governments of non-Catholic countries permit the wholesale transmission through the mails of the immoral theology of St. Liguori, Dens, Kenrick, and others, to be retailed by bachelor priests and prelates in live languages to young girls and women in lecherous whispers in the Confessional? By so doing these governments co-operate in the moral assassination of females from the time they prepare to make their first confession (which, according to a recent decree of Pope Pius X., “is about the seventh year, more or less”) till they enter the gates of Purgatory that inexhaustible Klondike of the Roman Catholic clergy.

Confessors search the secrets of the home, and so are worshiped there, and feared for what they know.

If it is the purpose of a state or government to prevent crime and eradicate its causes, the whole of this diabolical system called the Confessional, which is known to worm out the secrets of families, the weaknesses of public men, and thereby get them under control to either silence them or make them active agents in the Roman Catholic cause above all, the debauching of maids and matrons by means of vile interrogatories prescribed by Liguori, and sanctioned by the Church should be abrogated by a national law in every civilized country on the globe.

At the request of a score of prominent priests, associated with me in the crusade, I presented the facts and proofs against a prominent Muldoonite, “Rev. No. 12, A Wolf in Priest’s Clothing,” to the State’s Attorney of Illinois. He looked into some law-books and stated that said crime was a capital offense in the Carolinas, and in other States it was punishable by several years’ imprisonment. He spoke of the great political influence of the Catholic Church, and refused to prosecute, fearing, I presume, that the influence of the Jesuitical Hierarchy would interfere with his political prospects. Soon thereafter he became Governor of his State. Though this Jesuitical influence in politics protects thousands of guilty priests and prelates in America and other non-Catholic countries, yet some of them, through fear of bodily harm, are compelled to flee their dioceses, and resume elsewhere their “sacred labors,” or travel incognito on pension from the pope. Among those who have been compelled to flee to escape chastisement, or perhaps death, from outraged husbands, fathers, brothers, or lynching by the community at large, are:

The Most Rev. Bertram Orth, lately Archbishop of Victoria, British Columbia.
The Right Rev. Thomas F. Brennan, formerly Bishop of Dallas, Texas.
The Right Rev. Timothy O’Mahony, late Auxiliary Bishop of Toronto, Canada, formerly of Australia,
and Cork, Ireland.
The Right Rev. Monsignor Capel, formerly of England.
The Right Rev. Monsignor Fowler, formerly of Sioux City, Iowa, and Philippine Islands.
Rev. W. R. Thompson, formerly of Portland, Oregon.
Rev. Lawrence Erhardt, formerly of Chicago.
Rev. F. J. Knipper, formerly of Troy, Ohio.
Rev. Levis T. McGinn, formerly of Brooklyn, New York.

Some of these were guilty of the crime of sodomy a crime, alas! to which monks, priests, prelates, and even popes, the “Vicars of Christ,” are not strangers.

The number of similar offenders is legion, and no wonder! The vast majority of priests, prelates and other members of the Hierarchy are driven into immorality by priestly celibacy and auricular confession. This wholesale demoralization was one of the principal motives for instituting celibacy and auricular confession. The result accomplished is just what the Vatican machine wanted. This demoralization compels wicked priests, prelates and other members of the Hierarchy, of both sexes, to stand by each other and for the Vatican system, their axiom being “Standum est pro auctoritate per fas out nefas” (Stand by authority, right or wrong). It is the same principle as is found among corrupt politicians, who, for their own protection, are compelled to stand by each other and for their political machine.

Rome, thoroughly aware of its diabolical crimes, for its own protection promotes the shrewdest of her demoralized ecclesiastics to the very highest offices, as will be seen in Part II. She appoints them as members of her Boards of Education, and makes them Superintendents, Principals, Assistant Principals and Teachers of her schools. The nun teachers in the Roman Catholic schools are grossly incompetent, to say the least.

An honest, patriotic editor of a prominent Roman Catholic weekly paper in this country, recently exclaimed:

“Oh, for another Luther, another Savonarola! The time was never so ripe as the present for such an one. If only the true condition of affairs were known, he would not be long in coming to the front. The Roman Catholic school is a curse to the nation, and it is pitiable to think that the education of so many thousands of our boys and girls is in the hands of ignorant, bigoted, superstitious monks and nuns, the vast majority of whom are foreigners many of them driven from their own countries.”

Is it any wonder that Romanism is a menace to the nation?

CHAPTER III. Rome, rum, ruin.

Since the spirituous Retreat, above referred to, St Viateur’s College was destroyed by fire, and for its rebuilding $800,000 must be collected from Catholics and non-Catholics, particularly the latter, if they are in business or politics. Mr. Andrew Carnegie was “held up” for $32,000 toward the resuscitation of this noted spirituous seat of learning, which institution evidently is not in favor of Prohibition. As a rule, the Faculty of Roman Catholic schools, colleges and universities worships at the shrines of Plutus, Bacchus and Venus. Popes, prelates, priests and monks may preach temperance along with “poverty, chastity and obedience,” but rarely ever practice it.

Many distinguished priests and prelates have been and are directly or indirectly interested in the liquor traffic. The Rev. Francis E. Craig, S. T. B. (Bachelor of Sacred Theology), the bosom friend of Jesuits, Papal Delegates, and Cardinal Gibbons, Treasurer of St. John’s Ecclesiasical Seminary, Boston, Mass., before his ordination, was an active partner in the firm of Ray & Craig. They were engaged in retailing groceries, and they also held a wholesale liquor license, and their place of business was situated at the northeast corner of M and Potomac Streets, Georgetown, D. C. The first floor was used as a grocery store; on the second floor was a “speak-easy,” whose location and existence was known to the initiated. A “speak-easy” is a place where intoxicating liquors are sold in violation of law. The third floor served for a gambling-den. Craig boasted that his share of the profits was more than $50,000 a year. Owing to certain legal proceedings, business drooped and was running stale when Craig saw a new opening. There were certain relations between Craig and the Jesuits at Washington, D. C, which warranted a closer intimacy. To make a long story short, he entered St. Mary’s Ecclesiastical Seminary, Baltimore, Md., and studied for the priesthood. At this time he was about forty years of age. About ten years ago he was ordained a priest of the archdiocese of Baltimore, and officiated under Cardinal Gibbons. His financial capacity was justly appreciated by the Cardinal, who loaned him to St. John’s Seminary, Boston, Mass., to act as its Treasurer. He is now a member of the Faculty and Bachelor of Sacred Theology, which title imports that he is profoundly versed in Church History and Sacred Theology with the necessary accompanying accomplishments. He is on the high road to yet loftier promotion, and it is quite within the range of probability that he will succeed his friend and patron, Cardinal Gibbons. He will certainly reach this post if he lives and if the Papal Czar of New England, Cardinal O’Connell, lends his powerful influence with the pope.

Archbishop Quigley, of Chicago, a corporation sole, controls some fifty millions worth of property, some of which is used for questionable purposes. In one of his buildings, which covers 99.2×100 feet, in the heart of Chicago, there are three saloons. This is a five-story building; the upper four stories being used as a bunk-house, I5c, 2oc and 25 c a night. This property was leased by Archbishop Quigley for 99 years and 9 months, commencing August i, 1910; rental for the first nine months, $4,500; next 10 years at $17,000 per year; next 14 years at $22,000 per year; next 26 years at $24,000 per year, and balance of term at $26,000 per year.

To the knowledge of the Archbishop of Chicago these saloons were in existence under the old lease which expired August i, 1910, yet this great advocate of Total Abstinence and Roman Catholic Education re-leased the property at an increased rental varying from 300 per cent, to 433 1-3 per cent, on the rental under the old lease. Why this exorbitant increase in rent? Is it on account of the desirability of the location, for just such saloons and their upstairs adjuncts, together with the immunity which the building enjoys from any municipal, state or federal interference, through the political pull of its ecclesiastical landlord?

This building, which is located in the First Ward, through its pro tern, occupants, plays an important part in the famous First Ward elections of Chicago, and also in state and federal elections.

I have it on indisputable authority that this house had a most disreputable name until recently. At present the ground floor is used for a combination saloon and restaurant. As to the second floor the reader will have to inquire of the priests and prelates of Chicago.

This building is leased by the Archbishop of Chicago for fifteen years, commencing May i, 1901, at $210 per month for the first 5 years, $250 per month for the next 5 years, and $271 per month for balance of term, leasehold assigned for value received to Pabst Brewing Co., 354 North Desplaines Street, Chicago.

These buildings, located in the heart of Chicago, are in the Paulist Fathers’ parish, and convenient to the exquisite offices of the Roman Catholic Church Extension Society of America, whose motto is, “We come not to conquer, but to win. Our purpose is to make America dominantly Catholic.” While not engaged in running church fairs with their usual attachments of gambling, lottery, prize-fighting, fortune-telling, etc., the Paulist Fathers devote the remnant of their energies to giving missions to non-Catholics. The conversion of heretics non-Catholics is their specialty, and in 1908 at the “American Catholic Missionary Congress,” held at Chicago, they boasted 25,055 “converts.” Their church is located in the tenderloin or white-slave district of the South Side, Chicago. Gamblers, saloon-keepers and white-slave-keepers have been generous toward it, and particularly so as a result of the work of the Vice Commission recently held in that city. I have it on the very best authority authority that can not be disputed that this Commission was manipulated and controlled by the Roman priests. It serves to furnish them with most valuable information which they could not obtain through the Confessional or otherwise. Such information in the hands of the Roman Hierarchy affords a new and rich species of graft Vice Commission Graft. The Vatican system thrives on ignorance, vice and crime. No wonder the priests and prelates hope to establish similar Vice Commissions in the large cities throughout the country.

Why did the Post office Department hold up the report of that Commission for several weeks? Was it inspired by the Roman Hierarchy in order to establish a precedent for holding up and destroying “matter offensive to the Church?”

CHAPTER IV. The confession of a ‘convert’ to Romanism.

Attorney C. C. Copeland, of the archdiocese of Chicago, a prominent, wealthy “convert” to Romanism, protested against priestly crime and corruption in an appeal which he wrote and sent to The New World, the papal organ, for publication. This appeal was refused insertion and ignored.

“LlBERTYVJLLE, ILLINOIS,
“Oct. 19, ’01.
“REV. J. J. CROWLEY,

“DEAR SIR:
“Enclosed I send you that paper to read and be returned to me. If you may want to use it, I may revise it some, as I have thought of doing, and then let you have it. I could add a good supplement under head of “After Two Years,” or something of the kind. My intention is to revise it and put it in some unique shape and scatter it through the Hierarchy. I have some notes already on a revision.
“Yours very respectfully,
“[Signed] C. C. COPELAND.”

The following is the original confession:

“Rev. Dr. Dunne [now Bishop Dunne, of Peoria, Illinois], in closing his discourse on the life and character of Very Rev. Thomas Burke, which was no overdrawn picture of that great priest, as every one can testify who knew him well, said: ‘Learn, then, to respect the dignity of the priest, and to appreciate the good that he is called upon to perform in the exercise of his ministry. Allow no man or woman to wantonly assail his character in your presence, for, believe me, in proportion as his reputation is lessened in the eyes of the community, his influence for good is weakened. Respect the priest as the Ambassador of your Divine Redeemer. Honor him as the minister of God. Love him as a friend, as a brother, as a father, who has nothing so much at heart as your eternal welfare.’

All this will every good Catholic do, and love to do and more, to a priest who himself respects the dignity of the position he occupies among men and the obligation which he incurred when he accepted the sacred mission to ‘Go forth and teach all nations,’ and who appreciates himself the good he is called upon to perform and the life he ought to lead in the exercise of that mission; so that the estimation in which he is held, the amount of good he may do, the freedom from assault in which he may live, the influence for good he may exercise, the respect and honor he will receive, as the Ambassador of our Divine Redeemer, and the minister of God, the love and obedience that will go out to him as a friend, as a brother, as a father, who has nothing so much at heart as our eternal welfare, depend upon himself.

A Kempis says: ‘Great is the dignity of priests to whom that is given which is not granted to angels.’ ‘The priest indeed is the minister of God.’ ‘Take heed to thyself and see what kind of ministry has been delivered to thee by the imposition of the bishop’s hands.’ ‘Thou hast not lightened thy burdens, but art now bound with a stricter band of discipline, and art obliged to a greater perfection of sanctity.’ ‘A priest ought to be adorned with all virtues and to give example of a good life to others. His conversation should not be with the vulgar and common ways of men.’

Now, if, instead of being this kind of a man, or of attempting to lead this kind of a life, or of fulfilling this kind of a mission, one who accepts the office of priest is a miser, and puts forth all his energies and improves every opportunity to enrich himself and hoard money, or is a drunkard, or gives his life to the enjoyment of sensual, worldly things, or is otherwise decidedly self-indulgent, unpriestly, or grossly neglects the duties which that mission imposes upon him, and disregards that sacred office, can and ought a good Catholic to respect him or defend his character? He certainly can not respect him. Unworthy priests weaken the influence, to a greater or less extent, of the whole priesthood; dishearten zealous bishops, priests and laymen and drive large numbers of their fellow-Catholics into doubt and infidelity. It is largely to them we may attribute the loss of two or three times as many members of the Church as we claim to have now, and in a great measure because of them that the Church is being rapidly depleted at this time, and unless their baneful influence is removed, is there not reason to fear that it has reached its zenith in this country? It looks this way to any one who travels much and is very observing and deeply interested.

But are there many unworthy, self-indulgent, bad priests in the United States? Too many, far too many, everywhere. The harvest is just now full and ripe in this land which is ours by discovery and settlement, and by the libation of the blood of martyrs, but too many of the reapers are blind, or perverse, and are not only going about destroying the golden grain, but are preventing the good, zealous reapers from gathering it in.

Has the Church no discipline left? Can it not remove these scandals, this hindrance to the working of the Spirit of Truth; prevent further depletion, and bring back the lost sheep to the true fold?

Could not ( i ) more care be taken in sending young men to Seminaries, (2) in ordaining priests, (3) and in weeding out those who have been ordained and tried, and are found unworthy?

A mission once a year is far better than sending a disedifying, disorderly, scandalous priest to take charge of a parish. Is there not too much of the spirit of the world in some of our young men, who are being ordained and put in charge of parishes these days? Many of them seem to want a parish ‘for what there is in it for themselves.’ The people to whom they are sent are intelligent, observing, and becoming more enlightened, and when they see this lack of spirituality in the life of the priest, his influence for good is lost. It is the intelligent, well-to-do members who are leaving us. They cannot endure that they themselves or their families shall be led and directed by a man whose sensibility has been blunted and whose passions have been aroused by intoxicants, or who demeans himself in an unpriestly manner, more like a loafer, or a sport, or a dude, or a miser, than like a gentleman. They demand that their priest shall be priestly, and unless the Hierarchy in the United States manages to meet this demand, can it be expected that the Church will grow in numbers and improve in the character of its members? Can one born in the Church well imagine the shock an intelligent convert receives when he first meets a drunken priest, or sees one drinking in a saloon, or sitting on a beer-keg at its door, or sees one at the altar celebrating mass after a night’s carouse, or learns that the result of years of earnest appeals from the pulpit for the orphans and the hospitals and the schools and the Pope has been the accumulation of a large fortune by the pastor, or sees a priest smitten of a woman and running after her, to the amusement of Protestants and humiliation of Catholics, or sees him in the company of women of not known unblemished reputation in unseemly places, or learns of the drinking, carousing and gambling of priests at their places of rendezvous, and of other still more unpriestly conduct, all of which he may but too often see and know of a truth in this land consecrated to the One who was ‘full of grace?’ Will it suffice to say that there was one Judas among the twelve, or that the majority of the clergy are self-sacrificing, zealous men and rest there? If there is even one such, should he be let to remain to disgrace the whole order? If a Catholic travels much and observes closely, he will be disposed to shun priests whom he does not know to be priestly, rather than seek them out as most agreeable, proper, profitable company. This is the case with not only some converts, but some who were reared Catholics. Laymen want protection for themselves and their families.

An exemplary convert, who was cashier in a bank in one of our large cities, told the writer with an aching heart how mortified he had often been at seeing priests coming there under the influence of liquor where he was the only Catholic, and having the clerks looking sneeringly at him, and how many have told him of similar and much worse experiences. When fathers know those conditions exist, how can they urge their children, who know them also, to go to their religious duties? ‘When the man is gone, what becomes of the priest?’

And is this the condition and this the conduct and this the character of many of the priests in our country? Of far too many, and the proportion of such is not diminishing. Have not Catholics been told too often and too long to hide these things out of charity? Was it ever the proper use of charity to overlook or hide such conduct in a priest? Simply for the man, and were he only concerned and affected, it might do for awhile, a Kempis says: ‘Admonish thy neighbor twice or thrice.’ Here is a mature man, ordained of God, who, by the simple fact of ordination, is supposed to be intelligent, and to understand the duties of his sacred office, scandalizing whole communities. It is not the man we are considering, but the communities and the effects of his life on them and on the work the Church is trying to accomplish. Has not the mantle of charity for this purpose been stretched till it is all in shreds and hides no one? Under circumstances where some have said that a priest was sick or had fits, would it not be better not to tell a lie and to say that he was drunk? Is not the truth always best? Does not hiding such depravity only nourish and encourage it? If some of our priests are of a low, depraved order of men, which is a fact, would it not be wiser to expose them and silence them? Is not such recklessness and depravity contagious? and if not treated heroically and in season, will it not spread like blood poisoning from a scratch and direful consequences follow? Can there be too much vigilance and severity in discipline in this matter, since the abuse has gone so far already?

Should any priest who is worthy of that highest title which any man can bear on this earth a priest of the Catholic Church blame you, Mr. Editor, for publishing this letter, or me for writing it? Ought not he to thank us rather? It is in defense of the most holy priesthood and for the purpose of protecting it against its very worst enemies that it is written.

Observing, thinking laymen from the Atlantic to the Pacific are aroused at the number and increase of these burning, depleting scandals, and unless something is done soon to stop them, these laymen will make themselves heard at Rome. The Church was instituted for the people, and the bishops and priests are sent forth to instruct and elevate the people, and the people have a right to demand that they do it faithfully, and Rome will see to it that justice is done to the people.

Our grand ceremonies and towering cathedrals are well enough, but will they supply the needs and make converts and save souls in parishes that are much worse off than without a priest? If the outlook for the future of the Church in the United States in this respect were not so saddening, so heartbreaking, so discouraging, one might enjoy those ceremonies and grand churches, and such like things, more. Statistics have been taken in many parishes in the West of Catholics who do and those who do not attend Mass, and the figures are appalling. As are the priests who are sent out, so will be the greater number of the people. ‘By their fruits shall they be known.’ They are wonder-workers for good or wonder-workers for evil. The writer of this letter, who thought when he became a Catholic that all priests must be intelligent, good, self-sacrificing, humble, pious men, will die before he will be able to understand how they can be otherwise. Oh, how his heart has ached when he found any of them otherwise! And, oh! how discouraging and almost hopeless the effort to try to do good has been through all these long years when he will realize that just one unfit, unworthy priest was doing more harm than a hundred or more zealous, well-directed laymen could do good. Is it not better to seek the truth, to find the truth, to proclaim the truth, to stand by the truth, to trust in the truth? Is it not said that ‘The truth shall make us free?’

To save Christianity to the people of the United States of America, and save them for Christianity, and to build up a civilization worthy of the name, is the work of the Catholic Church through its priests. If they are indifferent, incompetent, self-indulgent, worldly men, the work will not be done. Where rests the responsibility right now for the present and for the future? May God have mercy on us; may the Blessed Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Saints pray for us; may the bishops and priests of the Church work for us!”

I expect Mr. Copeland’s revision and supplement of “After Two Years,” plus eleven years which have elapsed since the writing of his letter, would make a good-sized volume. Rome’s silent contempt for the appeals and charges made by the Laymen’s Association of the archdiocese of Chicago against the Hierarchy, no doubt enlightened Mr. Copeland as to Rome’s real attitude toward clerical crime and corruption, and he is now, I believe, a sadder but wiser man.

Of late years, Mr. Copeland has been devoting his time and means in an effort to convert priests and prelates by scattering broadcast among them copies of the “Imitation of Christ,” by a Kempis.

I wonder if he has succeeded in converting “Rev. No. 9. A Gospel Pitcher,” who was his pastor and spiritual director for several years.

CHAPTER V. Archbishop Quigley cowed by a fearless woman.

On the 1 5th of June, 1903, Archbishop Quigley, of Chicago, had an interview with a lady by appointment to hear her complaints about certain bad priests. He met her, holding in his hand a bundle of papers which included an affidavit she had made against “Rev. No. 23, A Debauchee” Rev. C. P. Foster, Rector, Sacred Heart parish, Joliet, Illinois. He looked savagely at her, seated himself at the table, laid the papers to one side and commenced to pound the table with his fists.

“Don’t you know,” he cried, “that it is excommunication for a lay person to make affidavit against a priest?”

“Why, no,” she said, “I do not.”

“Well,” he said, “I tell you it is,” and His Grace kept pounding the table.

The lady, not at all terrified, drew her chair up to the table, and began to beat time with her hands upon it, saying: “Archbishop, I did not come here to be bullied; I came by appointment to tell you certain things about your bad priests, and I am going to tell them to you! If you persist in pounding the table and yelling, I will pound the table too and scream! You shall listen to me, and you had better be a gentleman!”

The Archbishop subsided gracefully, and the good woman told him her tale of truth, made up of experiences with the Catholic priesthood of the Archdiocese of Chicago running through a period of thirty years.

She said: “Don’t think, Your Grace, that the Catholic people are to be scared by threats of excommunication; we have become too wise for that; the so-called excommunication of Father Crowley opened our eyes.”

He said, “Did Father Crowley get you to make this affidavit ?”

She said: “He did not; but so far as Father Crowley is concerned, I say, God bless Father Crowley! he is a credit to our Church, and the Catholic people are proud of him! he is not like a great many others of your clergy here; for instance, he is not like Leyden!” [See “Rev. No. 22, A Seductionist.”]

“O my God,” said the Archbishop, throwing up his hands, “don’t mention his name; I’ve Leyden on the brain!”

“Very well, then, Your Grace, I will put some more of them on your brain!” and the brave woman called the attention of her Archbishop to certain sinning priests by name.

The Archbishop said, “Oh, that is ancient history! give me something modern!”

She said: “Is it ancient history when priests are getting drunk in this city every day, misconducting themselves in every shape and form and going under assumed names dressed as laymen?”

“Well,” he said, “you may think things are bad here, but they are worse elsewhere; they are worse in Buffalo and many times worse in New York.”

She said: “If that is so, that is no justification for our putting up with bad priests in Chicago; we Catholic women have actually built the Catholic churches here, and we are entitled to protection.”

He said: “It is the bounden duty of good Catholics to cover up the guilt of their clergy, just as it is their duty to hide the guilt of their parents!”

She said: “What? do you tell me that if my parents got drunk every day and were dragged out of disreputable places, having their faces battered and heads broken so they needed surgical care, and taken to police stations and kept there several days and every one knowing it, it would be my duty to try to make people believe that my parents were saints?”

“Yes, it is,” he said. “You can’t make me believe that,” she answered. She said: “Don’t you know, Archbishop, that there are bad priests here?”

“Well, yes,” he said, counting upon his fingers, “there are five six seven bad priests!”

She said: “You have been here but three months and you have found out seven; when you have been here six months you will probably find out that there are seventy-seven, and more.”

She then asked him how he could reconcile his unkind and unjust treatment of Father Crowley with his treatment of those seven bad priests, leaving them in the enjoyment of their rich parishes with full power to offer up the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, to hear confessions, and to have the care of souls.

He said: “Well, we must all admit that Father Crowley is a good priest, morally and otherwise, but he has given scandal by exposing the guilt of his brother priests.”

She said: “I am positive he has not, because we knew all about those priests before ever Father Crowley came here; to my knowledge a few of the good priests, for many years back, tried to stop priestly misconduct in this archdiocese, but they failed, and nothing was done until Father Crowley joined them in their efforts.”

He said: “Well, I personally have nothing against Father Crowley! I am ready and willing to give him the very best parish in the archdiocese; his case is now in the hands of the Papal Delegate [Archbishop Falconio], and if the Papal Delegate writes me to appoint Father Crowley to the Holy Name Cathedral, I will do it with as little hesitation as if he were my own brother!”

He then complimented her upon her courage, saying, “You are the nerviest woman I have ever met in my life!”

She said: “I am speaking for at least one thousand Roman Catholic women, and when I come here again I will be speaking for at least five thousand.”

The Archbishop, with great gallantry, opened the door for her, and he bade her good-day with a cordial clasp of the hand. This lady was one of the best workers in the Catholic Church in Chicago, having labored day and night in its interests, spending her strength and her means without limit. She has especially endeared herself to the poor and to the suffering.

CHAPTER VI. New ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes.

The papal organ of the archdiocese of Chicago, The New World (now called Chicago Catholic), in its issue of March 9, 1912, over the signature of the Archbishop of Milwaukee, makes a two-column statement to the Catholic public, under the heading “The Catholic Colonization Society.” I give a few excerpts:

“The Catholic Colonization Society, U. S. A., is a properly chartered corporation under the laws of the State of Illinois, having been incorporated in July, 1911. It has succeeded to and taken the place of a former Illinois corporation of exactly the same name, which, having surrendered its charter, has no longer any legal existence. The present C. C. S. is truly national, inasmuch as its operations are not confined to any one section of the United States, and its membership comprises men representative of different races or nationalities: Belgian, Bohemian, German, Irish, Italian, Polish, though all American citizens. Among its members and directors it counts archbishops, bishops, priests and laymen. Being a Catholic organization established for the protection and promotion of Catholic interests through Catholic colonization, our society is naturally subject to the rules and laws of the Catholic Church, and will in all its dealings and undertakings seek the advice of the prelates of the hierarchy interested or concerned in the work of Catholic colonization.

“A special feature of the C. C. S. that we desire to develop on safe and expedient lines is the affiliation with it of other Catholic colonization societies. In view of the continuous influx of different races from the old country, the C. C. S. strongly encourages the formation of racial colonization societies, which may become affiliated with it and work under its guidance and with its assistance. This will facilitate the establishing of racial colonies for Bohemians, Italians, Polish, Slavs, etc. However much we may desire the quick and full amalgamation and merging of such races in the American nation, it can not possibly be denied that for a time racial settlement and colonies are necessary, if these newcomers to our shores are to keep the Catholic faith themselves and help to build up a glorious future of the Church in America. Where diocesan or state colonization societies are formed, these may also become affiliated with our society and thus profit by its larger experience and greater influence. Other Catholic colonization societies, although not affiliated with us, may yet work hand in hand with the C. C. S., where they will always find cordial and serious consideration. In this way the C. C. S. will become a great central bureau or agency where the work of Catholic colonization all over the United States can be concentrated and systematized so as to render it more successful and to offer the colonist more safety and security. Catholic colonization will then command the attention of all American citizens and do away with the old reproach that so much of this so-called Catholic colonization business is simply a fool’s play, if not downright swindle….

“The C. C. S. may be called another Church Extension Society which furnishes not money, altar and vestments, but the people, the priest and the church….

“It will arrange with the land company for the reservation of such tracts of land or such.a number of acres or farms as will be necessary to locate and develop thereon a well-sized colony; then it will settle and fix the most favorable prices and terms for which the land will be sold to Catholic settlers. Here it may be stated at once that our society does not look for the cheapest land. The cheapest is never the best. We look more for good and productive land at reasonable, although somewhat higher, prices. Besides all this the C. C. S. will arrange with the land company for the building of an appropriate church and school and parsonage to be erected within a certain time or as soon as a given number of Catholic families shall have settled there. The land company must, moreover, guarantee the salary of a priest for a certain time to be agreed upon. None of these arrangements will be made without the previous consent of the Bishop of the diocese in which the colony is located….

“In view of the great field lying before us with all its magnificent opportunities for a most useful, widely beneficial and, in fact, positively necessary Catholic colonization movement, it is to be hoped that the C. C. S. will find on the part of American Catholics all the support and help it deserves and a cordial co-operation all along the line. It is the only American national colonization society that enjoys the great honor of having received the hearty recommendation and encouragement of the Archbishops of America, assembled at their annual meeting. Friends of Catholic colonization can greatly help the C. C. S. by bringing its work to the attention of prospective Catholic colonists of their neighborhood or acquaintance, by sending useful and reliable information concerning large tracts of land available for farming settlements and obtainable at moderate prices, by warning us of fraudulent or suspicious colonization schemes, and in many other ways. Yet all this valuable help will not accomplish much without financial backing. In an undertaking of this kind it is money that counts. The future usefulness of the C. C. S. must depend largely on the financial support that it will get. Rich Catholics of noble hearts find here another splendid opportunity of showing their love for Holy Church and their brethren of the Faith. For Catholic colonization, as we propose it, is but another manifestation of the great missionary spirit that has, in our days, been wonderfully awakened in the Catholic Church of the United States.

“In conclusion I may say that the C. C. S. is controlled by a board of twelve directors, its operations are managed by an executive committee of five members, and its actual work is carried on by the following officers: Director general, Most Reverend Archbishop Glennon, St. Louis; president, Rev. J. De Vos, Chicago; vice president, Right Rev. Mgr. McMahon, New York; secretary, Very Rev. E. Vattmann, Wilmette, 111.; treasurer, Rev. A. Spetz, C. R., Chicago. The office of the C. C. S. is located in The Temple, Chicago, 111. S. G. MESSMER,
“Archbishop.
“MILWAUKEE, Wis., Feb. 26, 1912.”

It is evident that The Catholic Colonization Society is not advantageous to the general public, but detrimental to the public welfare.

Land owners, non-Catholic merchants, labor organizations and all other citizens, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, whose interests and rights are endangered by this Society, ought to wake up before it is too late. Congress of the United States ought to be called upon to investigate The Catholic Colonization Society, as well as the many Roman Catholic boycotting organizations, monopolies and trusts, which have been established in this country chiefly in the interests of a foreign potentate the pope of Rome.

PAPAL LIFE INSURANCE.

Another of Rome’s latest get-rich-quick schemes is the establishment of “The New World Life Insurance Co.” According to its prospectus, it is strictly a Roman Catholic organization, and its papal organizers have their eye on the “$78,000,000 of Catholic money in the shape of premium on policies, which is being paid annually to American life insurance companies.”

The prospectus of this Roman company explains why the “American life insurance companies” ought not to be patronized by Roman Catholics, and indirectly suggests a boycott of them. In the no distant future priests, prelates and lay leaders of the “American Federation of Catholic Societies” will find sufficient grounds for issuing a most severe boycott against “American life insurance companies” and thus corral the $78,000,000 or more annually.

This papal insurance company will afford a fruitful source of graft to the Roman Hierarchy and its lay agents. On the maturing of policies or on the death of policy holders, a large percentage of the moneys due will be expected for masses for the relief of the suffering souls of the deceased policy holders, as well as other large sums to “make America dominantly Catholic.”

The banking, colonization, loans and. insurance schemes of the Church of Rome in America and elsewhere, which are carried on under the guise of religion, have not been a “fool’s play,” but “downright swindle.” The papal land swindle in Minnesota is fresh in our memory. The many papal swindles in loans and insurance companies within recent years are not forgotten. The swindle in Archbishop Purcell’s bank in Cincinnati, which deprived several thousand people of their hard earnings, and other such swindles too numerous to mention, ought to be a warning not only to the Roman Catholic people, but also to tolerant, gullible non-Catholics.

One of the saddest scenes which I ever witnessed was while I was a member of the Roman Hierarchy that of an old maiden lady in Manchester, N. H., who died in 1886, cursing Archbishop Purcell and the pope of Rome for having swindled her out of her hard earnings-

Why are not these Roman clerical bankers, colonizers, etc., prosecuted and punished according to law?

American citizens, we are facing a crisis: Wholesale papal swindles, boycotts and persecutions are rapidly increasing a twentieth century papal inquisition will be the reward of our apathy, our cowardice.

CHAPTER VII. The popes and the Bible.

It would require a large volume to contain even part of the evidence manifested, both by declarations and by acts, of Rome’s persistent policy to suppress all knowledge of the Sacred Scriptures. In the early centuries, and long before printing was invented, all manuscripts containing any translation into the vernacular from the original tongues was prohibited under the severest penalties. As. early as 860 A. D. Pope Nicholas I. put Bible reading under the ban. Gregory VII., known in history as Hildebrand, in 1073 continued the ban, and Innocent III., in 1198, issued a decree that all who read the Bible should be put to death. In 1229 the great Council of Toulouse passed a decree forbidding either the possession or the reading of the Bible; and the famous Council of Trent, 1545-63, did the same. In England, in the fourteenth century, any one who was found with Wycliffe’s Bible, that “organ of the devil,” incurred the penalty of death. In the reign of the “Bloody Mary” tons of Bibles were used as fuel to burn the martyrs, and it was said that “no burnt offerings could be more pleasing to Almighty God.” Pius VII. in 1816 denounced Bibles as “pestilences;” and Leo XII. in 1825 as “traps and pitfalls.” Pius VIII. in 1830 declared printingpresses from which Bibles were struck as “centers of pestiferous infection;” Gregory XVI. in 1844 condemned Bible Societies, and ordered the priests to tear up all they could lay their hands on. Pius IX. surpassed all his predecessors in the employment of abusive language to vilify Bible Societies, and under his authority many were banished from Tuscany for reading the Bible. It was also during his pontificate that Francesco Madai and his wife were imprisoned for ten months and then sent to the galleys for reading the Bible.

Coming down to our own generation, Leo XIII., an astute politician, having to play the game in England and America, Italy being lost, was well aware that he could not afford to defy Protestant opinion openly and publicly. And so he issued an encyclical which seemed to reverse the policy of his predecessors by permitting the laity to read the Bible. But every one knew, who had the necessary means of information, that this encyclical was insincere and hypocritical. For immediately on its issue secret instructions were given to all the priests to do all in their power to prevent the sale and distribution of the Bible. And so all other decrees, edicts, statements and permissions to the same -effect which have been issued since have been equally treacherous and insincere. To sum it all up in one word, I may give the statement of a distinguished priest who said: “The day in which the priests and Catholic believers give themselves to the reading and study of the Bible, that day will be the last for the Roman Church, for the priests, for the monsignors and for the papacy.”

The Paulist Fathers is an Order well known in the United States. Its special mission is to convert Protestants to Romanism and they boast that they are making more than 35,000 converts a year.

The following letter will show who are the managers and directors of this Order; what are its aims and purposes; what it has already accomplished, and the final goal which the Order proposes as the object of its endeavors; namely, to “make America dominantly Catholic.” The letter reads as follows and certainly requires no comment. It speaks for itself; and speaks loudly and alarmingly. Here is the letter. Read it and ponder it:

DIRECTORS OF THE CATHOLIC MISSIONARY UNION.
MOST REV. J. M. FARLEY, D D., VERY REV. E. R. DYER, S. S.,
Archbishop of New York, President St. Mary’s Seminary,
[Cardinal] PRESIDENT. Baltimore.
MOST REV. JOHN IRELAND, REV. MATTHEW A. TAYLOR.
Archbishop of St. Paul.
RT. REV. MATTHEW HARKINS, REV. WALTER ELLIOTT,
Bishop of Providence, R. 1. of the Paulist Fathers.
VERY REV. A. P. DOYLE,
Secretary-Treasurer.
Represented by:^THE CATHOLIC= Under Its Auspices The
The Missionary MISSIONARY UNION Apostolic Mission House
Incorporated under the laws of the State of New York.

“WASHINGTON, BROOKLAND STATION, D. C, “Feb. 6, 1912.

“My DEAR FRIEND: How near at hand do you think is the time when America will be dominantly Catholic? Things move on with rapid strides these days, and the recent creation of three American Cardinals has brought the Church once more to the forefront. The dominant note in the address of the Holy Father as well as in the replies of the Cardinals is the hope of wonderful progress among English speaking peoples. They have all spoken of the ‘era of convert making.’ All this indicates a marvelous advance along the lines whereon the Missionaries of the Apostolic Mission House have been working these twenty years.

“If all the Priests and laity would turn their faces to this one goal, what a tremendous impetus the movement would get! One of our great leaders recently said: and there is a burning truth in it ‘We must labor to gain the confidence, love and respect of the American people. This once gained, the Catholic Church in Her way to claim the American heart, may carry a thousand dogmas on her back.’

“Last year our Missionaries gave hundreds of Missions, and the record of convert-making is now away beyond the Thirty-five Thousand mark each year. Just think what this means! This estimate says nothing of the thousands of fallen-away Catholics that have been brought back to a good life.

“Come with us and share the glories of this work!
Sincerely yours in Xto.,
“CATHOLIC MISSIONARY UNION.
“A. P. Doyle, Treasurer.”

Let us follow up these Paulist Fathers a little closer and see some of the other things which they have been doing.

It was a trifling matter that these Paulist Fathers had prize-fights in the Paulist Church, Chicago, as one of their Church Fair attractions. It is not of much importance to mention that Rev. Peter J. O’Callaghan, head of the Paulist Fathers in the Middle West, President of the Total Abstinence Association of America, delegate appointed by President Taft to the Anti-Alcohol Congress at The Hague in 1911, and Commander of the Boy Scouts, was arrested on a charge of running gambling machines in his Church in Chicago for commercial purposes.

Of vastly more importance and of deeper and far wider reaching significance is what was done by the Romish priests across the seas. In last January (1912) a letter was received by a distinguished American lady from a friend in Italy, which stated that in the Fall of 1911, in the town of Forano, in Sabina, forty miles from Rome, the Romish priests collected all the Bibles they could lay their hands upon, carried them to the Public Square, piled them in a heap, saturated them with coal oil, set fire to the pile and reduced the Bibles to ashes.

It may be mentioned here that while the Romish priests were burning Bibles in Forano, and converting and baptizing 35,000 Protestants a year in the United States, Roman Catholic priests in South America were baptizing dogs at forty cents a head.

To give a further idea of the attitude of priests and prelates toward the Bible, as well as their influence over our Government and its officials, even in the Philippine Islands, I quote from Circular No. 32, S. 1908, issued by the Bureau of Education, Manilla, March n, 1908, addressed to the Division Superintendents of Schools, under the heading “Religious Teaching Forbidden”:

“It is not for the teachers in public school in this Catholic country, either to encourage the study of the Bible especially of the Protestant Bible among their pupils, or to say to those pupils anything upon the subject…. In view of the intimate personal relation of a teacher to his pupils, no religious instruction of any nature should be given by him at any time, even outside the schoolroom.”…

At the close of this circular, David P. Barrows, Director of Bureau of Education, Manilla, P. I., says:

“It is not believed that anything further can be added to make more clear the attitude of the department and of the administration on this point.”

Why did not the President recall this order as he did that of Mr. Robert G. Valentine, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, forbidding Roman Catholic priests, monks, and nuns, employed in Government schools for Indian children, to wear their religious garb and insignia of their faith while engaged in their duties within the schoolroom and in the grounds of such institutions?

I would like to ask the Paulist Fathers why their distinguished Episcopalian convert, Rev. Dr. Lloyd, once Bishop elect for Oregon, and his wife, returned to Protestantism not long after their much heralded conversion to Romanism? Is it not a fact that when the Paulist Fathers realized that Dr. and Mrs. Lloyd were about to withdraw from Romanism, being thoroughly disgusted with it, he (Lloyd) was Jesuitically placed in the Detention Hospital in Chicago, pending an order from the court for his removal to the insane asylum at Elgin, 111. He would be there to-day were it not for the exposure threatened by his noble wife, who, like him, had been scandalously shocked by the actions of priests and prelates of the Roman Catholic Church. The story as told by Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Lloyd would startle the world and convince the public that Rome is ever and everywhere the same.

I would also like to ask the Paulist Fathers how many of their alleged thirty-five thousand converts a year return to their original faith as did Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Lloyd; how many Paulist Fathers and Seminarians leave their Religious (?) Congregation each year; also how many nuns, monks and priests, including the Jesuits, leave the Roman Catholic Hierarchy; and how many of the Catholic laity leave the Roman Catholic Church each year.

CHAPTER VIII. Papal despotism.

Nothing more startling has ever been put before the public than Rome’s recent resolutions of boycott of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Watson’s Magazine, the Protestant Magazine, the Menace, etc., and her attitude as Censor of the United States Mails. At the annual convention of the American Federation of Catholic Societies, held at New Orleans, November 13-16, 1910, resolutions were passed calling for the passage of Federal laws to prevent the transmission by the United States mails of matter offensive to the Roman Catholic Church. In these resolutions postoffice employes were boklly called upon to destroy, without any warrant of law, any such mail in transit. The leading ecclesiastic at this convention was Archbishop Falconio, Papal Delegate to the Roman Catholic Church in America.

Archbishop Falconio had good reasons for tendering his sincerest congratulations to the American Federation of Catholic Societies at its convention held at Columbus, Ohio, August 20-24, 1911, for its “rapid progress” and “the effective good work accomplished” by it. He was fully aware, I presume, of the destruction of much printed “matter offensive to the Church” in the postoffices of the United States of America since their last reunion at New Orleans.

I know that several large parcels of printed matter mailed at the General Postoffice in Chicago during the months of December, 1910, and January and February, 1911, never reached their destination. This destruction commenced immediately after their New Orleans convention. On receipt of numerous complaints from subscribers the sender called on the post-office authorities for an explanation, but received no satisfaction whatever. This party’s mail continued to be held up, and, surmising the cause, the sender threatened public exposure of such unlawful action on the part of the Postoffice Department. This threat of exposure scared Rome and her Jesuitical agents, and since then the mail of said party has been unmolested. Ah, Rome fears publicity!

Meanwhile, to divert attention from their own criminal acts, they are loudly inveighing against the circulation of obscene matter through the mails; and by obscene matter they mean all matter inimical to the Church of Rome. Non- Catholics think they mean indecent and licentious matter.

The inconsistency of the private lives of popes, cardinals, prelates, priests and monks as compared with the deference exacted by them in public from Catholics and non-Catholics alike, is, to say the least, ridiculous: for example, decollete gowns and peek-a-boo waists are out of order at formal receptions for male members of the Hierarchy. Any one who knows the kind of pictures and indecent realities that most delight the eyes of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy will not be faked by any pretended shock that they may profess to experience on contemplation of the nude in art, much less decollete gowns at formal functions.

As a satisfactory evidence of this fact it may be stated that the telephone companies in different cities have threatened to take away the phones from the residences of some priests because their conversation was at times so vile that the female operators refused to receive their messages and threatened to resign if required to do so.

The Roman Catholic Hierarchy should be indicted for illegally using the mails to operate confidence games, chainless letters, etc., in the alleged behalf of ”the poor homeless children,” “the poor orphans,” and “the poor suffering souls in purgatory.” No more shameless and outrageous system of fraud was ever perpetrated by men.

The American Federation of Catholic Societies, which embraces the numberless Associations, Societies, Clubs, Church Confraternities, etc., as well as their widespread military organizations, is a menace to our freedom and an injury to the Catholic people whom it pretends to serve. It is a mighty power for evil in the hands of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy.

At the Columbus convention, among other boycotts, a boycott was declared against the Encyclopedia Britannica, which boycott was soon after printed and circulated broadcast throughout the English-speaking world. The following additional proclamation of the same boycott was issued and circulated with the endorsement of the New York County Federation of Catholic Societies, of which Cardinal Farley is the principal under the pope.

“No Catholic should purchase the eleventh edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. No purchaser of it is bound to keep or pay for a work which falls so far short of the representation of the editors and publishers. It should be debarred from our public libraries, schools and other institutions. It should be denounced everywhere, in season and out of season, as a shameful attempt to perpetuate ignorance, bigotry and fanaticism in matters of religion.”

Mr. Samuel Byrne, editor of the Pittsburgh Observer (Roman Catholic), addressing the Catholic editors at the Columbus convention, said in part:

“I have come here for the purpose of very briefly suggesting one thing. It is, this: That the Catholic editors of the country, concertedly and persistently, urge their readers to notify the proprietors and managers of the daily papers that unless they use instead of the European dispatches of the Associated Press, those furnished by the newly established Catholic International United Telegraph Agency, they will withdraw their patronage from them, either as readers or as advertisers, and will, moreover, boycott both the offending newspapers and those who advertise in them.”

The boycott is the most powerful weapon and one in constant use by the Roman Hierarchy. By intimidation, threats and terror, they are able to suppress literature and destroy private business, and they do it most effectually. Few and far between are the newspapers who will dare to print anything which would fall under the adverse criticism of a priest.

The owners of newspapers, and especially of the great dailies which circulate in the large cities where there are many Catholics, are notified that there will be a sudden drop in their advertising patronage if they publish or refuse to publish certain matter condemned or approved by the Censor Bureau of the Roman Catholic Church, which has its representatives in numerous and extensive Catholic societies. Non-Catholics, too, who receive from some source or other information that the Roman Catholics are boycotting a particular paper, withdraw their advertisements to gratify and retain Catholic customers. The mere circulation of a city daily does not pay for the paper on which it is printed; the whole revenue is derived from their advertisements thus the press is at the mercy of the secret Roman boycott.

But the boycott is by no means confined to the press. It reaches out and extends universally in all directions. Business men and professional men of all kinds are at the mercy of the boycott. From some mysterious cause, which they can not comprehend, their patronage falls off, their receipts diminish, and if they do not make terms when informed of the cause of the falling off of business, bankruptcy stares them in the face. In many instances where the Roman Catholic Church possesses the influence, teachers, clerks, agents, and the ten thousand individuals of humbler rank, are absolutely at their disposal to be discharged from their places and turned out upon the world without means of support. These boycotts are rarely published as such. Sometimes, it is true, on special occasions when big interests are involved, they do not hesitate to have the boycott printed and circulated, but in the vast majority of instances the Roman boycott gets in its deadly work in the dark. And did anybody ever hear of an injunction being issued against a Roman boycotter, or any one of these said boycotters ever being put in contempt of court? So far does the influence of Rome extend that even the courts themselves, which are supposed to be the citadels of impartiality and justice, are prostituted to serve the interests of the Roman Hierarchy. The non-Catholic people should engrave it on their memories and keep it forever fresh in their minds that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

Why prosecute and punish non-Catholic clergymen and other citizens, while Roman Catholic priests and prelates foes of the nation commit similar crimes, and worse, with impunity?

Why waste time and money in sham efforts to curb the trusts, and at the same time permit, and even assist, that trust of trusts the Vatican system to continue the even tenor of its way?

If the governments of the United States and of the British Empire had done their duty toward Catholics and non- Catholics alike, whose interests have been injured, and sometimes wholly destroyed by Romanism, the majority of priests and prelates who are “operating” under the protection of the Stars and Stripes, and the Union Jack, would be behind the bars not a few of them would have been rewarded with the hempen tie or electric chair.

Furthermore, if the Government of the United States had done its plain duty in protecting my rights and interests as an American citizen during the past ten years, Cardinals Martinelli and Falconio, Archbishop Quigley, Bishop Muldoon, and many other Roman ecclesiastics, would now be wearing stripes in penitentiaries as the guests of Uncle Sam, instead of purple and gold in luxurious palaces as “Ambassadors of Christ.”

ONE ATTACK UPON MY LIFE.

I will give one illustration of an attempt upon my life. People who are powerful by position and means, but guilty of crimes and about to be exposed, have no conscience to bother them with scruples if they turn to violence to get out of the way the object of their fear. The murder of Dr. Cronin in Chicago a few years ago will illustrate vividly the truthfulness of this statement.

During the time which has elapsed since I entered into this crusade for purity, truth and justice, attempts have been made upon my life. I have frequently told my friends who have expressed concern for my life that nothing better for my cause could happen than my violent taking off; that it would be the supreme emphasis upon my side of this controversy and would be the final circumstance to overwhelmingly convict the unholy priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church. I put my life in the especial keeping of God at the beginning of this struggle. I have made my daily work the subject of daily prayer, and whatever happens to me I must take as God’s way of bringing to pass that for which I am devoting my time and for which I am willing to lay down my life. The Rev. Thomas F. Cashman, of St. Jarlath’s parish, Chicago, found out a plot to kill me, for which murderous work’ six men had been selected. Henchmen who were ready to take life for pay were constantly on my track.

Soon after I was served with Cardinal Martinelli’s threat of excommunication, I went on Sunday afternoon. October the 20th, 1901, to see Rev. Thomas P. Hodnett. I visited with him in his parochial residence until about six o’clock in the evening, and then left his home to take the Northwestern Elevated Railway car. When I left Father Hodnett’s door I noticed that I was being followed by a man who weighed over two hundred pounds, about five feet eight inches in height, a bullet-shaped head, clean shaven face which was very red. He was a typical thug. He was the same man who followed me to Evanston the night before when I went to confer with the Very Rev. Hugh P. Smyth. I made a pretense of getting aboard the elevated when it came, stepping on and then off. This man stepped on and then off. I then stepped back again, and he followed me. I stood on the car platform and this man stood near me. He gave me several jabs in the side with his elbow, trying to provoke retaliation on my part so he could have an excuse for assaulting me. I suspected at once what the design of the fellow was. I saw that he hoped to embroil me into an encounter and then he could stab or shoot me and plead self-defense in the event of prosecution for murder or assault to kill. I determined to go the limit of endurance to avoid getting into a struggle with him, as I saw that even if I came out of such an encounter without physical damage my enemies would have me heralded throughout the country as a common brawler. I made no reply to these rude attacks. As soon as I reached Clark and Lake Streets I darted from the car and rushed down the steps, my hotel being near. Just then a westbound Lake Street trolley-car came by and I boarded it to elude him. He followed me. The car was crowded and we both were on the foot-board, he in front and I behind. Suddenly I jumped off. He followed me. I hurried to my hotel (Sherman House) and he followed me. I stayed in my room about an hour and then went downstairs.

In the elevator I met a gentleman about fifty-five years of age. He saluted me. He wanted to know my name and I told him. Said he: “Are you the priest that is after these bad Chicago priests?” I said: “Yes.” When we left the elevator he drew me to one side and said, “Father, I am a Catholic,” and he gave me his name and address; “the Catholic people of the country are with you; they know you are right; they want this thing stopped; I have been in the railroad service for thirty-five years and the toughest class I meet is the Catholic clergy.” I then noticed the thug with two other suspicious-looking characters edging up towards us, and I said to the gentleman: “You had better be careful! you had better not be seen with me! Those three men are bent on dirty business from what I know of the conduct of one of them within the past twenty- four hours.” He said: “What do you mean, Father?” I replied: “I believe those men are hired to provoke a quarrel with me so they can have an excuse for taking my life.” He put his hand to his hip pocket and said: “I’m from Kentucky; I have a gun; I’ll blow their brains out.” I said: “For goodness’ sake, mister, don’t make any move; that is just what they want.” Just then a friend of this gentleman approached. We were introduced, and I then said “Good evening” and left the hotel. After walking a few yards I saw this thug on my trail. I turned back to the hotel, thinking I could enter and leave by some other door and thus throw him off the scent. I left by another door, but his accomplices evidently told him where I had gone and he at once appeared dogging me. I returned to the hotel forthwith and met the two gentlemen with whom I had been conversing, and they said: “Father, you had better look out; your life is in danger.” I left the hotel again and walked south on Clark to Washington Street to take a car. I was closely followed by the thug. My two friends followed me to see if I would need help. His accomplices went as far as the corner of Clark and Randolph Streets. I got onto a street-car and stood on the rear platform. This thug got onto the car and stood close to me and jabbed me in the side with his elbow. When we reached Van Buren Street I sprang onto a west-bound Van Buren Street car. He rushed after me, but missed the car, and I would have eluded him if the car had not stopped at the Rock Island Railway station. At this place he overtook the car, and, standing close to me on the rear platform, said, “I came very near losing you.” I replied, “Who is paying you for this blackguardism ?” He replied: “It is none of your damn business.” I said: “I should say it is my business to protect myself from violence.” He said: “I am earning my living, and it is none of your business how I earn it.” I said: “You remind me of the Irishman who came to this country and put up at a cheap hotel in New York City. In the morning his landlord asked him how he liked the place. He replied that the food was good enough, but the sleeping was bad; there was something the matter with his bed; he burned a box of matches to find out, but could not. The landlord told him that the cause of his sleeplessness was bugs. The Irishman had never heard of them. The landlord assured him that he would not mind them after awhile, that he would get accustomed to them, that they had to make their living the same as everybody else. The Irishman replied: ‘I don’t object to their making a living, but it is the d – way they make it that I object to.’ ” I continued: “This may apply to you.” He burst into a loud laugh. He then said: “Father, I won’t hurt you, though I expected to have your block off before night. There is something about you, Father, that has convinced me that you are O. K. and the Muldoon gang are stiffs.” I said: “What were your instructions ?” He said: “To follow you up and get you into a fight and shoot your head off.” I said: “If you had done that, you would hang.” He said: “They said that nothing would happen to me; they would employ the best lawyers and I would get off on a plea of self-defense.” I asked: “Who is paying you?” “Well,” he said, “the gang that you are after is putting up the stuff.” He finally said: “Father, I won’t do you any harm. I am going to throw up this job.”

I afterwards learned from the two gentlemen whom I had left at the hotel, that they followed me when I left the hotel as far as the street corner, and the two accomplices to whom I have referred turned upon them: “What are you doing here? You are interfering in business you have no right to; get off the sidewalk!” A policeman was called and he took the names of these toughs, who then were allowed to go. Soon after this occurrence this railroad man attended High Mass at the Holy Name Cathedral, Chicago, and as he was entering the church he saw these identical toughs standing in the vestibule.

How fortunate I am that I live in the twentieth century and not in the fifteenth. If this were that dreary time of clerical supremacy, no doubt my body would be burned and its ashes cast into the Chicago River as Savonarola’s body was burned and its ashes thrown into the Arno River, but that river ran to the sea, and so it came to pass that his ashes were carried to every shore; and now, wherever liberty is loved, Savonarola has a shrine.

CHAPTER IX. Rome the mother and mistress of crime.

The Roman Catholic Church has been, and is, the mightiest and most dangerous trust in the world. In fact, she is the mother of trusts, and influences many creeds and cults. In them her Jesuitical agents are high in council: for example, Eugene A. Philbin, ex-District Attorney of New York City, Papal Knight and Attorney for Cardinal Farley, is an active Director and Endowment Trustee of The Federation of [Protestant] Churches and [Protestant] Christian Organisations in New York City, and as such exercises an influence, to say the least, favorable to Rome. This I know from personal experience. Papal Knight Attorney Philbin, though an active Director and Trustee of The Federation of [Protestant] Churches and Christian Organizations in New York City is at the same time a leading light in the New York County Federation of [Roman] Catholic Societies, and the American Federation of Catholic Societies. Rome could not expediently recognize this quasi religious Federation of [Protestant] Churches, and [Protestant] Christian Organizations by publicly placing a “Prince of the Church,” John Maria Farley alias John Murphy Farley, or any other New York “alter Christus,” in a position so dangerous to “faith and morals,” as that assigned to heresy-and-immorality-proof Philbin. And, again, it would give grave scandal to “the faithful” if, forsooth, a cardinal, archbishop, bishop, priest or monk united publicly in a quasi religious work with heretics, clerical or lay, who are “illegitimate” by birth and living in “concubinage” if married by a Protestant minister.

Did any one ever hear of a Protestant being a Director or Endowment Trustee of the New York County Federation of [Roman] Catholic Societies or the American Federation of Catholic Societies?

Rome frequently and secretly places some of her ablest Jesuitical agents, of either sex, even in menial positions in non-Catholic homes and offices, both in church and state, in order to find out domestic, church or state secrets. A few years ago a prominent Jesuit in disguise took a position as valet in the home of the Marquis of Salisbury, Premier of England, and through his Jesuitical cunning so ingratiated himself with the Premier that he gained access to state papers, thus learning state secrets for his Church, which is ever on the alert to plot and plan as it deems expedient. Suspecting that his identity would become known through a lady guest who recognized him as the prominent Jesuit in Rome, who had once obtained for her a private audience with the pope, he disappeared during the night.

Through politics and the political appointment of Public School Boards, Superintendents, Principals and Teachers, the Roman Catholic Church has a powerful influence in controlling the Public Schools of the United States and Canada. A ruse well understood by priests and politicians is to use the public press to denounce alleged abuses and incompetencies in the Public School system for the purpose of bringing the system into general contempt. A notable instance of this is the systematic use of a large part of the press by prelates, priests and politicians to undermine the Public Schools under the false pretext of a kindly regard for their welfare.

The Public School is the basis and bulwark of our free Institutions. An enemy of these schools who would seek to destroy them, or even to impair their usefulness, is a public enemy, for he strikes at the very foundation of our system of republican government, which supposes intelligence as well as integrity in its citizens. Anarchists are not to be counted in it in comparison with the Roman Hierarchy, which is unceasingly working to subvert our Public Schools.

Rome’s Jesuitical emissaries, agents and missionaries are everywhere. They have no conscience but the pope’s dictation. They are allowed to assume whatever dress they please; for their better disguise, any occupations in church or state; they are in the highest and the lowest conditions, and have been known to appear as active and zealous members in non- Catholic associations and churches sometimes filling prominent Protestant pulpits. They are on the Public School Boards of Education; some of them are Superintendents, Principals and Teachers in the Public Schools; they occupy prominent positions in different societies and organizations. Their object is to engender strife, to influence party spirit, to produce faction, to counsel rebellion, to plot and plan assassinations : for examples, Bruno, Savonarola, Burke, Lord Cavendish, Dr. Cronin, Ferrer, Parnell, Ireland’s uncrowned king, and others. They avail themselves of every facility, right or wrong, to gain for the papacy, position and power. I need but instance Ireland, where Rome’s Jesuitical authority has borne its fruits in rebellions, and the sad, the continued degradation of the people. Is England at war with other nations? the pope’s aid may be solicited by them to create distractions in Ireland. There is a sore that is never allowed to heal: it has paralyzed, and still paralyzes, the power of England. Hence it has been the arena of political warfare.

History shows that the woes of Ireland and the cares of England began when Pope Adrian IV. sold Ireland to King Henry II. for a penny a household, “Peter’s pence,” and ever since then Rome has Jesuitically instigated ceaseless strife between Ireland and England, and she has an object in prolonging the agony. The honest and fearless Michael Davitt declared that in Ireland’s darkest hour Rome was her worst enemy. The fact is, Rome is really opposed to Home Rule or anything else that might benefit the Irish people and establish peace between Ireland and England. She knows that Home Rule would remove the bone of contention between these countries.

I have heard many prominent members of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, both in Ireland and America, declare that the pope, supported by bishops, priests and monks, would avail of every opportunity to thwart the ambitions of the Irish people and would fight to the last ditch to prevent Home Rule for Ireland. We can not forget how they planned the fall and brought about the sad death of that illustrious leader, Charles Stuart Parnell. Before his death, and afterward, prelates, priests and monks have been secretly enkindling strife, not only between Ireland and England, but between Catholics and non-Catholics, and even between the various factions which make up the Irish Party in order to prevent Home Rule, and thus retain the balance of power in the British Parliament for the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, which practically controls the said so-called Irish Parliamentary Party. The pope, bishops, priests and monks know that Home Rule would kill Rome rule in Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales; and, indeed, cripple the Vatican’s political power in non- Catholic countries, where she, for selfish motives, unites the so-called Irish Catholics into organizations, spiritual (?) and military, such as are to be found in the “American” Federation of Catholic Societies, which Rome uses as a balance of power in American and Canadian politics. The establishment of an Irish Parliament would necessarily give rise to at least two political parties inside of the Roman Catholic Church, where at present all are united in a solid phalanx against England, thus placing the balance of power in the hands of the heretics the non-Catholics. Furthermore, a powerful support of the Roman Catholic Church in England would be withdrawn by the retirement of the Irish Parliamentary Party, the present balance of power in the English Parliament.

What led Pope Leo XIII. to fall in line with Pope Adrian IV. and Pope Pius VII. in an effort to help England at the expense of Ireland, and thus keep up strife between both countries? Why did he issue Papal Rescripts against the Parnell Testimonial and the Plan of Campaign? Irishmen, let me ask you one question: Why has the Holy See never issued any documents denouncing the terrible persecution of the Irish people? I confidently expect that all honest Catholics, without regard to race, will sympathize with me in my effort to enlighten them on papal intrigue and priestly corruption. Naturally I turn to the Irish people for their unstinted sympathy and support. I am one of them. Ireland was my cradle, and her sacred soil shelters the dust of my ancestors. I feel that the sad treatment to which Ireland has been subjected by Popes Adrian IV., Pius VII., Leo XIII., and other popes, should open the eyes of the Irish people, and spur them to combat all forms of ecclesiastical tyranny and corruption. The Irish people alone have it in their power to overthrow the Vatican system, and emancipate not only their race, but humanity.

Consider the tremendous words of an eminent Roman Catholic representative of a Roman Catholic power, spoken directly to the Hon. Andrew D. White, former Ambassador to Germany, and the head of the American Delegation to the first Peace Congress at The Hague. The following is an extract from Ambassador White’s diary, August 5, 1899, giving the Catholic representative’s statement in opposition to the claim of the pope in a message to the representative of the Netherlands and read by him at the close of the Peace Congress, in which the pope claimed that he was a peacemaker on earth:

“This eminent diplomatist from one of the strongest Catholic countries, and himself a Catholic, spoke in substance as follows:

“‘The Vatican has always been, and is to-day, a storm-center. The pope and his advisers have never hesitated to urge on war, no matter how bloody, when the slightest of their ordinary worldly purposes could be served by it. The great religious wars of Europe were entirely stirred up and egged on by them; and, as everybody knows, the pope did everything to prevent the signing of the treaty of Munster, which put an end to the dreadful Thirty Years’ War, even going so far as to declare the oaths taken by the plenipotentiaries at that congress of no effect.

“‘All through the Middle Ages and at the Renaissance period the popes kept Italy in turmoil and bloodshed for their own family and territorial advantages, and they kept all Europe in turmoil, for two centuries after the Reformation, in fact, just as long as they could, in the wars of religion. They did everything they could to stir up a war between Austria and Prussia in 1866, thinking that Austria, a Catholic power, was sure to win; and then everything possible to stir up the war of France against Prussia in 1870 in order to accomplish the same purpose of checking German Protestantism; and now they are doing all they can to arouse hatred, even to deluge Italy in blood, in the vain attempt to recover the temporal power, though they must know they could not hold it for any length of time, even if they should obtain it.

“‘They pretend to be anxious to “save souls,” and especially to love Poland and Ireland; but they have for years used those countries as mere pawns in their game with Russia and Great Britain, and would sell every Catholic soul they contain to the Greek and English Churches if they should thereby secure the active aid of these two governments against Italy. They have obliged the Italian youth to choose between patriotism and Christianity, and the result is that the best of these have become atheists. Their whole policy is based on stirring up hatred and promoting conflicts from which they hope to draw worldly advantage.

“‘In view of all this, one stands amazed at the cool statement of the Vatican letter.'”: Pp. 350-351, Vol. II., Autobiography of Andrew D. White.

General Lafayette, reared and educated a Roman Catholic, uttered this prophecy:

“It is my opinion that if the liberties of this country the United States of America are destroyed, it will be by the subtlety of the Roman Catholic Jesuit priests, for they are the most crafty, dangerous enemies to civil and religious liberty. They have instigated most of the wars of Europe.”

Did not Rome instigate the present conspiracies and insurrections in Mexico and in Portugal; did she not inspire the Turko-Italian War- and all for furthering her own cause power and pelf? Her policies and practices are quite evident to any one who closely studies her crafty, cunning Jesuitical methods.

In relation to the Mexican Rebellion, The Neiv York Times, through information received from its special correspondent, in its issue of May 23, 1911, says:

“MEXICAN CATHOLICS PLAN TO RULE NATION.

“FORMIDABLE PARTY ORGANIZED TO CARRY ELECTION AND OVERTURN DIAZ’S ANTI-CHURCH POLICY.

“MEXICO CITY, MAY 22.

“CATHOLICS WORKING FOR CONTROL.

“The organization of the Catholic Party, of which Gen. Diaz always said he was afraid, is proceeding, and it is extending its ramifications to the most distant sections of the country. Gabriel Somellera, a wealthy capitalist, is the organizer of record and the nominal leader of the party. Directly behind him, however, are the prelates of the Church and the landed aristocracy in so far as they have not gone abroad and they have an immense following of willing or unwilling peons, who are under the influence of the bread-giver and the parish priest. Another fact is that the Catholic Church in Mexico has a capital of at least $200,000,000 a larger sum than the capitalization of all the Government banks which escaped confiscation in the days of Benito Juarez or has since been amassed. This, of course, would give the Church party a very strong position either in business or politics.

“While the Maderistas or Progressives, as their self-effacing leader would have the party called are not resting on their laurels, their campaign organization is still rudimentary as compared with that of the Catholics. Many keen observers of this new trend of affairs to-day expressed the opinion to me that any election held in the next few months under the broader franchise and the Australian ballot, would, if fair, result in the defeat of Madero and the justification of the judgment of Diaz, who always excused delay in the extension of the suffrage by saying that he could not hand the country over to the Church party which he had fought so long.

“CATHOLICS WORKING QUIETLY.

“An element in the campaign which the newspapers have already begun to discuss openly, working more quietly, but not a whit less ambitiously than any claimant for the throne of Diaz, is the Catholic Church. The only step in the open that it has been necessary to take has been accomplished in the formation of the Catholic party and the publication of a platform providing for the closer union of Church and State. Mexico offers a great field for such a party.”

The New York Herald says:

“Those who gibly talk of intervention in Mexico are requested to stop long enough to consider that intervention would mean–

“War with Mexico.

“Unification of all Mexicans against the United States.

“Employment of an American army of 200,000 men, mostly volunteers, to invade Mexico.

“Long and arduous campaigns in tropical climate.

“Suspension of $150,000,000 of annual trade.

“Jeopardizing lives and investments of Americans now in Mexico.

“Incalculable expenditure of life and treasure.

“Antagonizing of Mexico’s sister Latin-American States.”

All of this Rome has planned and hopes to accomplish in order to serve her worldly purposes. Her political success on this Continent depends largely on the international complications which she is ceaselessly striving to bring about, notwithstanding the pope’s claim as a “peacemaker on earth.”

It may be important to state here that Archbishop Ireland, of St. Paul, Minnesota, arrived at his political headquarters, which are located one block from the White House, on the very day that President Taft summarily ordered the United States troops to the Mexican border. As usual, he called on the President. The White House is one of the sights which priests, prelates and “Princes of the Church” never want to miss. President Taft’s Mexican War Map, which is brought up to date every day, has a great attraction for them at present.

Relative to the recent troubles in Portugal, The New York Herald says:

“BISHOPS TO FIGHT LISBON CABINET.

“EPISCOPATE EXPECTED TO ADVOCATE OPPOSITION TO GOVERNMENT ON ACCOUNT OF SEPARATION LAW.

“LISBON, WEDNESDAY. The bishops of Portugal will hold a meeting next week to protest against the law of separation of Church and State. It is reported that they will refuse to recognize the Government’s authority in ecclesiastical matters and instruct the lesser clergy of the provinces to decline to accept the stipends offered to them and make propaganda against the Government at the forthcoming elections.”

The New York Times, in its issue of Dec. 23, 1911, says:

“TO PROSECUTE PRELATE.

“PORTUGAL WILL CHARGE LISBON PATRIARCH WITH CONSPIRACY AGAINST REPUBLIC.

“LISBON, DEC. 22. The Government has decided to prosecute Mgr. Anthony Mendes Bello, Patriarch of Lisbon, on a charge of conspiring against the republic. It is considered certain that the prelate will be sentenced to the maximum of six years’ imprisonment and ten years’ deportation to Africa.”…

The public press of Jan. 5, 1912, says.

“As a sequel to the punishment of the Patriarch of Lisbon, Mgr. Anthony Mendes Bello, who was ordered into exile for two years by the Portuguese Government on Dec. 28, all the Portuguese bishops to-day proclaimed their independence from the Government.

“The minister of justice, in reply to a communication from them, notifying him of their decision, declared that if they persisted in their refusal to recognize the civil authority they would all be expelled from Portugal. At the same time he will hold them responsible for any disturbances.”

If the governments of non-Catholic countries would only administer such medicine to priests, prelates and “Princes of the Church,” their political and supposed religious power would rapidly disappear and the liberties of the people would be secure.

Relative to the present war between Italy and Turkey, The New York Times, in its issue of Sept. 29, 1911, says:

“POPE FAVORS THE STEP,

“BUT HOPES THAT BLOODSHED WILL BE AVOIDED. “POPE FAVORS ITALY’S PLANS.

“The Pope is showing great interest in the preparations for the expedition, and has ordered a propaganda for the purpose of instructing the missionaries to use their influence in favor of the Italian plans, considering these plans as offering advantages for the spread of Catholicism in North Africa, but he hopes that success will be attained by Italy without the shedding of blood.”…

Since the beginning of the Turko-Italian War, bloodshed and butchery, even of women and children, have been of frequent occurrence, and, notwithstanding the hypocritical hope expressed by the pope, is, no doubt, a source of great joy to that “storm-center” the Vatican, which is now eagerly awaiting similar slaughter between Americans and Mexicans.

Popes and their Jesuitical agents have been and are the instigators of wars, and while the world is having real pain, Rome is having champagne.

“For ways that are dark the heathen Chinee”
Is not in it with the Roman clergy.

CHAPTER X. Christopher Columbus a Jew.

THE NAVIGATOR, THE CHURCH AND THE KNIGHTS.

The Knights of Columbus is one of the strongest, if not the very strongest, of all the numerous organizations embraced within the American Federation of Catholic Societies.

One of the aims of this organization is to secure the recognition of Columbus Day for a national holiday, upon which day the Roman Church, with all the pomp, trappings and circumstances, with cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests and monks, together with all Catholic societies, congregations, confraternities and Roman Catholic military organizations, may parade the streets in all the gaudy robes and vestments and other insignia of the Roman Church in order to impress Americans with the sense of their power.

Among the methods which the Roman Catholic prelates, priests and politicians are using to “make America dominantly Catholic” is that of extolling those supposed to be of their own faith who were active in the discovery, colonization and settlement of America: and among these by far the most important stands Christopher Columbus.

Columbus was not a knight, though he lived near the close of the days of chivalry and was considerable of an errant on the seas, making four voyages to the land he thought to be India, besides others according to his own account, with which the reading world is less familiar.

As one of the discoverers of the New World leading to its settlement and colonization, he may deserve some praise, but the effort to make him a saint and advance agent of the “Holy Roman Catholic Church” on this continent, has no substantial basis in fact, since the latest investigations tend to support the view that he was a Jew at heart, as he certainly was half-Jewish in lineage, and that his representations to the Spanish sovereigns as to religion and even as to his birthplace, were made merely with a view of concealing his real origin and sentiments.

This is supported by such facts and considerations as the following:

1. The assertion of his illegitimate son and first biographer, Fernando, that his father did not desire his origin and fatherland to become known.

2. The answer of the same Fernando to the contemporary historian, Bishop Augustin Giustiniani, that the fatherland of his father was a “secret;” this circumstance at the same time reminding us that the writing of history in Spain as regards the New World, was restricted by law to the priestly orders.

3. The testimony of Pedro de Arana, brother of Beatriz Enriquez, the mother of Fernando and intimate friend of the Admiral, that “he had heard Columbus say he was a Genoese, but did not know where he was born.”

4. In a suit as to right of entail, the masculine line of the Admiral having become extinct in 1578, no Genoese Columbo appeared to claim the right; and of the two Italian Columbos who presented themselves, one from Cuccaro and the other from Cugureo, neither proved relationship.

5. Columbus never mentioned father or mother, and never used the Italian language. Of the ninety-seven distinct pieces of writing by his hand, which either exist or are known to have existed (sixty-four being preserved in their entirety), all, except a few monographs in Latin, werfe written in Spanish. Is it reasonable that a young man leaving his native land at the age of fifteen, should forget his own language? Or that a poor young man should be able to speak and write a foreign language fluently? In the preamble to his diary, speaking of the title “Khan,” he says: “Which title in our Romance tongue means King of kings.”

6. The name Columbus signed to his contract with the Spanish sovereigns was Cristoval Colon, which is not the Italian correlative of Columbus, as many suppose, but a distinct Spanish family name; though Columbo is more extensively Italian, by which name the Admiral called himself to suit his own purposes, afterwards going back to the name Colon. Thus as the Spanish writer and critic Fernando de Anton del Olmet says: “We have four periods in the life of Christopher Columbus: a Spaniard in Spain before going to Genoa, an Italian in Italy on finding out the advantage of being one, a Spaniard in Spain on returning thither and believing it more practical to be such, and an Italian in Spain on being convinced of the advantage that it would bring to him.”

7. Columbus said he was “from Genoa and was born there,” but when Oviedo wrote, not many years after the death of Columbus, it was regarded as so very doubtful where the great navigator was born, that Oviedo mentions five or six Italian towns claiming the honor of his birth; and beginning with Savona, we find each of the following Italian towns claiming the honor of having given Christopher Columbus to the world: Plaisance, Cuccaro, Cogleto, Pradello, Nervi, Albissoli, Bogliasco, Cosseria, Finale, Oneglia, Quinto, Novare, Chiavari, Milan and Modena.

These claims arose largely from the lack of definite data among Columbo families in Genoa, and lines of his ancestry existing there, and the further fact that families of the name Columbo existed in each of these several towns. Speaking of these claims, Justin Winsor, the historian, says: “The pretensions of some of them were so urgent that in 1812 the Academy of History at Genoa thought it worth while to present the proofs as regards their city to the world. The claims of Cuccaro were used in support of a suit by Balthazar Columbo, to obtain possession of the Admiral’s legal rights. The claim of Cogoleto seems to have been mixed up with the supposed birth of the corsairs, Columbos, in that town, who for a long time were confounded with the Admiral. There is left in favor of any of them, after their claims are critically examined, nothing but local pride and ambition.”

8. A later claimant for this honor was the town of Calvi, in Corsica, and their cause was particularly embraced by the French. As late as 1882, President Grevy, of the French Republic, undertook to give a national sanction to these claims by approving the erection there of a statue of Columbus. The assumption is based upon a tradition that the great discoverer was a native of the place. “The principal elucidator of that claim, the Abbe Martin Cassanova de Pioggiola,” says Justin Winsor, “seems to have a comfortable notion that tradition is the strongest kind of historical proof, though it is not certain that he would think so with respect to the twenty and more other places on the Italian coast where similar traditions exist or are said to be current.”

“Finally, in order to determine the value of the evidence serving as basis to the claim made by Genoa to be the birthplace of the renowned Admiral,” says del Olmet, “it suffices to know that four cities have dedicated four marble monuments to their son, Christopher Columbus; two possess the register of his baptism, and eight or ten which present divers title-deeds to consider themselves his cradle, and opinions are not wanting which attribute to him a Greek nationality.”

9. The explanation why Columbus made contradictory statements as to the date of his birth, his birthplace, and concealed his real sentiments on other questions, has only recently been made clear through the discovery of sixteen notarial documents ranging from 1428 to 1528, by a local historian of Potevedra in Galicia, Spain, Mr. Garcia de la Riga, these documents relating to the Colon and Fonterossa families, who also found other evidences that Christopher Columbus, whose natal name was Cristoval Colon, was born and passed his childhood in that city, his parents having been Domingo de Colon and Susana Fonterossa, a Jewess. And though they probably emigrated to Genoa about 1450, when the boy Cristoval was about fifteen, availing themselves of commercial relations which existed between the two ports, there is no reasonable doubt remaining that Cristoval Colon was obliged to conceal his maternal origin, rather than incur the dangers of the Inquisition and the prejudices of his time; since, had his birthplace and family connections been known, the fact that his mother was a Jewess would have been not merely an insuperable obstacle to his receiving the attention of Ferdinand and Isabella, but a cause for his execution, or at least expulsion from the land of his birth. For as he states in his journal, the Jews were expelled from the domains of both Ferdinand and Isabella in the very same month in which he was appointed Admiral.

10. That Columbus was quite capable of such subterfuge is revealed in his own accounts of himself and otherwise. He relates how, in an early expedition as captain of a vessel under King Reinier, he deceived his own frightened crew by secretly altering the point of the compass so as to get the vessel within the Cape of Carthagena. He employed a similar artifice, it will be remembered, in his alteration of the log-book on his first voyage to America, thus deceiving his crew as to the distance they had sailed from Palos.

His early voyages referred to by himself, and supported by new-found documents, show him quite capable of deceiving even their Catholic Majesties. “Of the early career of Columbus,” says Justin Winsor, “it is very certain that something may be gained at Simancas, for when Bergenroth, sent by the English Government, made search there to illustrate the relations of Spain with England, and published his results, with the assistance of Gayangos, in 1862-18/9, as a Calendar of Letters, Despatches and State Papers relating to negotiations between England and Spain, one of the earliest entries of his first printed volume, under 1485, was a complaint of Ferdinand and Isabella against a Columbus some have supposed it our Columbus for his participancy in the piratical service of the French.”

11. But, it may be asked, how does the nativity of Columbus at Pontevedra comport with his sending his title-deeds, despatches and documents to Genoa by Nicholas Oderigo, Ambassador from that city to the Court of the Catholic sovereigns? This is very reasonably answered by the discovery in the archives of Pontevedra of a document as follows:

“Order of the Archbishop of Santiago, Sire of Pontevedra, ordering the Council, on March 15, 1413, to pay to Mr. Nicholas de Oderigo de Janua, 15,000 maravedis old coin, in three sums of money.”

The parents of Columbus being members of the Colon and Fonterossa families residing in Pontevedra, who emigrated later on to Italy, it may be accepted that they availed themselves of some recommendation from or of, direct or indirect relation with the Oderigos. At all events, that the Ambassador Oderigo knew the true natal place of the Admiral, and knew how to keep the secret, may be deduced from the silence that he kept relative to the fatherland and origin of his friend, from the fact of having retained the copies entrusted to him, and which were not delivered to the authorities of Genoa until about two centuries later by Lorenzo Oderigo.

12. Cristoval Colon, known as Christopher Columbus, had a younger brother, Bartholomew, also a navigator, whom Columbus made Adelantado, or Governor General of the Indies, a man of importance. Two Genoese historians, Antonio Gallo, a native of Genoa, who knew the Colon family, and Bishop Giustiniani, also a contemporary of Columbus, each speaking of Bartholomew, say: “A minor, born in Lusitania ;” and Lusitania, in that time of the world, comprised Portugal and Gallicia, in which Pontevedra is located. So the probability of Cristoval’s having been born in the same country and of the same Hebrew parentage as his brother is rendered well-nigh certain.

13. Various historians, including Oviedo, state that the flag-ship of Columbus, the Santa Maria, and vulgarly known as the Gallician, was built at Pontevedra; and Mr. La Riega unearths a notarial contract executed at Pontevedra, July 5, 1487, freighting the vessel called Santa Maria, or La Gallega applying both names indiscriminately.

14. A plot of land appraised to the Colon family, half a kilometre from Pontevedra, was bounded by other lands in the cove of Portosanto in the parish of San Salvador, while a triangular space existed near the home of the elder Colon, adjacent to the Gate and Tower of Galea. In his first voyage Columbus named the first island discovered, San Salvador, and the fourth Portosanto; and in his third voyage, he gave the name Trinidad to the first land he saw, and called the first promitory, the Cape of la Galea.

15. The wily Hebrew character of Columbus is shown in the way he overcame the objection advanced by the sovereigns and the Church authorities, that his theory of the earth’s rotundity contradicts the Scriptures.

Cardinal Pedro Gonzales de Mendoza, Archbishop of Toledo, finally conceded that the theory was worthy of a trial, but the great body of churchmen stood firmly by the opinions of Lactantius and St. Augustine. Says the former, ridiculing the globular theory of the earth: “Is there any one so foolish as to believe that there are antipodes \vith their feet opposite to ours people who walk with their heels upward and their heads hanging down?” And St. Augustine declared it impossible that races on the opposite side of the earth could have descended from Adam and Eve, since there was no land passage, “and it was impossible for them to have passed the intervening ocean.”

Columbus contended merely that the plan was worthy of the experiment, while if successful the wealth of the Indies would reward the effort. “Gold,” he says in one of his letters, “is the most precious of all commodities; gold constitutes treasure, and he who possesses it has all he needs in this world, as also the means of rescuing souls from purgatory, and restoring them to the enjoyment of paradise.” This last clause must have been peculiarly touching to the sovereigns who are credited with establishing the Holy Inquisition, and who expelled seventy thousand families of Jews, not allowing them to carry away their gold or silver. During their administrations between nine and ten thousand Jews were buried alive, seven thousand in effigy, while about one hundred thousand were persecuted in other ways.

16. The fact that the funds defraying the expenses of the first voyage, as referred to in a speech in Congress by the Hon. Julius Kahn, in December, 1911, were supplied by Luis de Santangel, the king’s chancellor and a converted Jew, is significant. “In his original account books, extending from 1491 to 1493, preserved in the Archive de Indias in Seville, Santangel is credited with an item of 1,140,000 maravedis, which were given by him to the Bishop of Avila, who subsequently became the Bishop of Granada, for Columbus’ expedition.”

Just how many Jews there were in the fleet of Columbus is not known. One was Luis de Torres, a Marano, or converted Jew, learned in the languages, who acted as Columbus’ interpreter; others of Jewish extraction were Msestre Bernal, the ship’s physician, and Marco, the surgeon, the latter of whom had undergone penance for his faith in October, 1490, ai Valencia, at the same time that Adret and Isabel his wife were burned to death for not adopting Catholicism.

The interest of Columbus in Jews was finally shown by his legacy to “the Hebrew who dwelt at the gate of the Jewry,” and whom he did not otherwise name in his will, and whom certain historians believe to have been a maternal relative.

17. It has been repeatedly noted by historians that the writing of Columbus was tinctured with the style of the Old Testament. Some of his disquisitions and apostrophes would not be out of place in that revered volume, such for illustration as his “Vanquishing the Waterspout,” and his “Vision of the River of Bethlehem,” inserted in a letter addressed to the sovereigns.

The regaining of the ancient land of Judea seems to have been a fixed idea with Columbus, a project he urged upon the sovereigns, and even the pope, and concerning which he wrote in his own “Prophecies:” “The conquest of the Holy Sepulchre is the more urgent when everything foretells, according to the very exact calculations of Cardinal d’Ailly, the speedy conversion of all the sects, the arrival of Antichrist, and the destruction of the world.”

If one will study the writings of the fifteenth century, Christian and Jewish, as related to Antichrist, a new light may dawn upon him in regard to the character and real sentiments of Columbus; as there were many who regarded the papacy in its hideous perversions of morality as the real Antichrist. It was an era of dissimulation, when deceit seems to have been frequently necessary to the preservation of one’s life; and Columbus seems to have been an adept in the art of dissembling.

“The person who may suspect the fervor of Columbus was one of his tactics,” says del Olmet, “being acquainted with the prevailing ideas of his country, can not be charged with being suspicious. Columbus proposes to the Catholic sovereigns the discovery of a world, in order to conquer the Holy Land with its riches. He fortifies his project with the religious spirit of that kingdom, in which a standing was given to the Tribunal of the Inquisition and the expulsion of the Jews decreed. If the Admiral of the Indies, in lieu of this, had publicly declared himself a Jew, it is not venturesome to state that his project, opposed to a great part of the scientific ideas of his time, being examined by a board of theologians, would rapidly have led the renowned alleged Genoese to those autos in which the faith, turned to fanaticism, changed into sanguinary persecution the pious indulgence of Christ.”

18. The reticence of Columbus as to his ancestry and birthplace, his vacillation as to his name, and his duplicity on many occasions and involving various questions, are seen to be all clearly explained when we find that he was not only of Hebrew lineage, but possessed of strong Jewish proclivities, thus explaining his great anxiety to regain the land of Palestine, his fervid literary style akin to the Hebrew prophets, and withal, his love of gold and avaricious spirit which led him even to acts of cruelty, as in sending a shipload of the natives from Cuba to Spain to be sold into slavery.

And this explanation is being accepted by all who take the time and trouble to examine it along with all the collateral facts discovered by Mr. La Riega. Not only has a favorable criticism on this conclusion been published in “La Espana Moderna,” Madrid, by Fernando de Anton del Olmet, but the Spanish Encyclopedic Dictionary accepts this view in the Columbus biography. Eva Canel, in Buenos Ayres, has written articles sustaining it, as has Martin Hume in London; and it appeals so strongly to rational minds that it may be safely used to illustrate the ancient adage that truth is mighty and will prevail!

The Roman Catholic Church seems to be unfortunate in her claims as to distinguished personages, it being conclusively shown that St. Peter, upheld by the Church as “the first pope and bishop of Rome,” was never in that city; St. Patrick, claimed as “the Apostle and Patron Saint of Ireland,” has been quite positively identified as a Protestant; and Christopher Columbus, the uncanonized saint of the Roman Church on this continent, and the Exemplar of the Knights of Columbus, is now demonstrated to have been a Spanish Jew! And according to the writings of reputable scholars, among them Mr. Justin Winsor, librarian of Harvard University, and Professor Charles Kendall Adams, LL.D., president of the University of Wisconsin, Christopher Columbus was little better than a pirate, a betrayer of innocent girlhood, a wife deserter, a kidnapper, a slave trader, a tyrant, and man of boundless cupidity.

The Knights of Columbus, founded at New Haven, Connecticut, February 2, 1882, by Rev. M. J. McGivney, curate of St. Mary’s Church, and including as incorporators, M. C. O’Connor, M.D., James T. Mullen, John T. Kerrigan, Wm. M. Geary and C. T. Driscoll, had on January i, 1905, a total membership of 127,206 persons, 43,537 of whom were insured and 83,669 were associate members. They are now said to be over 300,000 strong.

The total net assets of the Knights on the above date were $1,290,196.31, of which $1,239,137.89 was deposited as a mortuary reserve fund, for protecting outstanding insurance contracts. It will thus be seen to be a fraternal and benevolent order. But an adroit feature of this organization, to which Roman Catholics only are eligible, is the initiative service of four degrees, calculated to impress upon candidates their sacred obligations to uphold the Church on this western continent discovered by the great Columbus.

The relations of the Knights and the Church are supposed to be mutual and reciprocal, the Church using the order to further its ends of capturing America, and the Knights using the Church to exalt the glory of Columbus, and more particularly for their own political preferment. But some of the far-seeing leaders of the Hierarchy think there has been a mistake made in permitting such a young and vigorous order to participate in Church affairs, and to take root within the very pale and under the fostering care of the Church.

Some few years ago, Bishop Janssen, of the diocese of Belleville, Illinois, forbade the establishment of a Council of Knights in his diocese. The late Bishop of Hartford, Connecticut, also opposed the policy of the Church in organizing and supporting the Knights in any way, on the ground that sooner or later they would operate after the manner of a cancer in the human body and prove stronger than the Church itself. Various other dignitaries, bishops and archbishops, even ostensibly ardent members of the organization, were so impressed with similar ideas that secret appeals were made to the Vatican, to withdraw its sanction from the organization.

But the Vatican, in view of the pecuniary grants made by the Knights in support of “the faith,” and the hope they have aroused as an aid to capturing America, has tnus far taken no action against them. The late Cardinal Satolli in his extraordinary visit to the United States in 1904, ostensibly to perform the marriage ceremony for the daughter of Martin Maloney, a Marquis of the Roman Catholic Church, and for which, incidentally, he received a fee of several thousand dollars, was instructed to investigate the ground of these appeals against the Knights filed at the Vatican. For reasons which need not be stated, his advice to the American branch of the Roman Hierarchy was that, in view of the strength of the organization numerically, financially and intellectually, it would be unwise to oppose them for the present at least. In that year the organization presented the Catholic University at Washington, D. C., the sum of $50,000 to establish a chair in History in that institution.

The Knights themselves, it may be truthfully said, are not in the organization entirely for the sake of their own health, or even for the glory of the Church, inasmuch as there are many ambitious men among their leaders, and some that have little or no use for the Church. However, they work in collusion with the Hierarchy, and are heart and soul in politics. This fact is well known to political machines and non- Catholic politicians, whose candidates must receive the approval of Rome and the Knights before they dare nominate them for either dog pound or presidency.

Knights of Columbus have assured me that their organization, with the Church of Rome, controls the Municipal, State and Federal Government, and also influences the business interests throughout the country. They have also assured me within the past few years that it is almost impossible for a man to secure a position or promotion in any business house or corporation, if a Knight of Columbus be a competitor.

Notwithstanding these facts, the innocent Knights, like their Jesuitical spiritual advisers, publicly declare that they are not in politics, as the rules of their organization forbid their being in such unholy environment it being considered dangerous to their “faith and morals;” and in order to wholly disabuse the minds of the guileless non-Catholics of any such suspicion they frequently protest against the union of Church and State.

In the first session of the Sixty-second Congress, Hoa, Ben Johnson, of the Fourth Kentucky District, himself a member of the Knights, denounced (?) Dr. Emil Scharf, a brother Knight, for having promised to deliver the “Catholic vote” in his (Johnson’s) district, as well as in other congressional districts. Why this stage-play to the public through the Press Gallery in the Capitol at Washington, D. C.? If the gallant and honorable member from Kentucky was sincere in his denunciation of Dr. Scharf, why has he not denounced Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop Ireland, et al., for similar conduct, and worse? For the purpose of hoodwinking the non-Catholics this stage-play was continued, Dr. Scharf was “tried” and “expelled” from this politico-religious organization. If the Knights of Columbus were sincere, why have they not expelled their spiritual leaders, brother Knights, whose principal business is politics, aye, Jesuitical politics, which has been the curse of Catholic countries, and is to-day a menace to non-Catholic countries?

The Knights of Columbus, together with the Church of Rome, have succeeded in making October 12, Columbus Day, a holiday in many States of the Union, and have caused to be placed in Congress a bill to create it a national holiday, as shown in accompanying illustration. A similar bill will undoubtedly be passed in the near future.

The Church and the Knights have been instrumental in setting up various busts and statues of Columbus in public places, and even in the White House and the end is not yet! A majestic statue of this remarkable personage, Columbus, is being erected on the Plaza in front of the Union Station at Washington, D. C., in full view of the approaches from Capitol and city. The plan for erecting this statue was started by the Church and the Knights, who secured an appropriation of $100,000 from Congress. The President of the United States, at the suggestion of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy and the Knights of Columbus, has fixed the date for this politico-religious celebration, as will be seen from the following item which appeared in The Catholic Telegraph, published in Cincinnati, Ohio:

“PRESIDENT FIXES DATE.
“President Taft has set Saturday, June 8, as the time for the unveiling and dedication of the Columbus memorial on Union Station Plaza, in Washington, D. C. The date was fixed following a conference on February 17, with James A. Flaherty, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus; Edward L. Hearn, commissioner on the part of the Supreme Council of the order, and Colonel K. Spencer Cusby, of the War Department. Preparations are being made in Washington to accommodate fifty thousand visitors.”

Messrs. Flaherty and Hearn, before attending this conference, received instructions from their spiritual “bosses” Gibbons, Farley and O’Connell the “American” Princes of the Church, who will control the ceremony and be the principal attraction on the above date, Taft and other prominent plebeian non-Catholic politicians being permitted within the show-ring to assist.

I would respectfully suggest that the Roman Catholic Hierarchy and Knights of Columbus place upon the proposed monument the following inscription proposed by Dr. Henry Brown, of Spokane, Washington, for a similar monument at Walla Walla in that State:

Dr. Brown, in proposing this inscription, writes:

“I do not forget that very many people, through lack of information, may be tempted to look upon the wording as slanderous and inappropriate. But, for the benefit of all such, I will simply say that these (quotations) are the exact words used by Professor Justin Winsor, Harvard librarian, in his great work on Christopher Columbus, page 312, fifth line from the top and first line on page 282.”

If any religious sect is to control the ceremony, which should be entirely national, and in which all classes without regard to creed should participate, it would seem more appropriate and more in accord with the truth of history that this ceremony be controlled by the Jews.

---

The foregoing sketch of the life of Columbus, obtained from the most trustworthy historians, was contributed by Mr. Hyland C. Kirk, Washington, D. C.

CHAPTER XI Rome ever and everywhere the same.

Cardinal Martinelli in 1902, at the Apostolic Delegation Office, Washington, D. C., made a most interesting statement to me. I said to him, “Your Eminence, if the Catholics in this country numbered about seventy million and if the Protestants numbered about ten million, what would you do to the Protestants?” His reply was this, “Oh, Christ, I’d crush ’em!” “To crush ’em” is the spirit and design of Romanism in all its attitudes toward “heretics.”

No wonder Rome boasts that she is ever and everywhere the same. Her real attitude toward non-Catholics is the same to-day everywhere as it was in the days of the Inquisition, and yet some people say “the Roman Catholic Church is not as it was fifty years ago it is more liberal.” Is it?

Few have any idea of the crafty efforts which Catholic ecclesiastics make to hoodwink non-Catholics. Priests, bishops and cardinals cultivate a spirit of seeming liberality on purpose to win the esteem of the very people whom they hate, so that these people will be made unwilling to countenance any opposition to the movements of Romanism. The greatest victory which has been won by the Roman Hierarchy in the British Empire and in the United States lies in the fact that it has succeeded in making it unpopular for any one to impugn its utterances or policies.

“What is the smooth game in all this that is going on between the Vatican and England? Simply this: England is the stronghold of obstinate heresy the citadel of Protestantism. Therefore the Church of Rome is using every means at her command caresses, cajolery, threats, flatteries to bring proud England back into subjection to her yoke. Listen to Rome’s own confession from the mouth of Cardinal Manning: ‘Surely, a soldier’s eye and a soldier’s heart would choose by intuition this field of England for the warfare of Faith…. It is the head of Protestantism, the center of its movements, and the stronghold of its powers. Weakened in England, it is paralyzed everywhere; conquered in England, it is conquered throughout the world. Once overthrown here, all is but a war of detail.’ ” The Heretic, Berkeley, California.

The keen eye of the Vatican has, for years, been turned toward the British Empire and the United States. She is working the same wiles and witcheries, playing the same smooth, oily, ball-bearing, noiseless game with both countries. Through one of her organs (The Tablet, London) she complains as follows:

“Prussia, not a Roman Catholic country, has an Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary; Russia, a minister Resident; England and the United States alone -among Great Powers remain without an accredited representative to the Holy See.”

Mark the word accredited. England always has a backstairs representative; for example, Sir George Errington filled that office at the Holy See, to the detriment of Ireland and the Irish race during the Parnell Movement; and for aught we know, the United States of America has a backstairs representative at the Vatican to-day. Her late secret clerical agent there is at present a prominent bishop in America. Rome’s secret representative at the Capitol at Washington, D. C., is none other than the Papal Delegate, who has been recently promoted to the Cardinalate, as due reward for his “signal services” to his Lord the Pope, King of Heaven, of Earth, and of Hell. Her chief Jesuitical agent at Ottawa, Canada, is the Papal Delegate to the Catholic Church in that country.

I know and assert without fear of successful contradiction that the Vatican system the Roman Catholic Hierarchy has a grip upon all the departments of our Government, from the President to Department Clerks, including Legislative, Judiciary and Executive Departments, both Federal and State and the accommodating politicians, Catholic and non-Catholic, particularly the latter, are to blame for it all.

Every trap is being laid to ensnare Germany, the British Empire, the United States, and other non-Catholic countries, in papal schemes. In fact, the plans of Pope Leo XIII. and, therefore, of the Papacy, with reference to America, were thus tersely expressed in a letter from the Vatican (see New York Sun, July n, 1892):

“What the Church has done in the past for others she will now do for the United States.”

In a recent pamphlet issued by the Roman Catholic University of America at Washington, D. C, under the title “The Roman Catholic Mission Movement in America,” they say: “Our motto is, We come not to conquer, but to win. Our purpose is to make America dominantly Catholic.”

The Very Rev. Francis C. Kelley, D.D., LL.D., President of the Roman Catholic Church Extension Society of America, uttered the following in a recent address on “Church Extension and Convert-making:”

“Without a doubt, if American Protestantism were blotted off the religious map of the world, the work of the so-called Reformers of the fifteenth [sixteenth?] century, within fifty years, might well be called dead. Protestantism in the United States is a great source of missionary activity in foreign countries. The different Protestant organizations in the United States spend seven millions of dollars per annum in foreign missions, or almost half the spendings of all the rest of the non-Catholic world. Protestantism, then, really may be said to stand or fall on American effort.

“From a strategic point of view, America the United States of America is our best missionary field.

“Again, how many are fond of calling this a Protestant country! Is it? We deny!

“We who hope for a Catholic America have as yet come only to the end of the desert…. Only has it been given to some among us to enter the land of Canaan and gather souls, grapes so sweet and beautiful as to fill us with hunger for other fruits that await the coming of our successors. They will go, Joshuas, to the Jordan, to Jericho, to Hai, and to Jerusalem, and then only will the details of the work become clear. The little chapels the Church Extension movement will build shall be their fortified camps, and the men whom you [Paulist] Fathers of the Apostolate will send shall be advance-guards to point the way to the new and fertile fields that abound in the Promised Land.”

The Very Rev. Kelley and his missionary gangs, including General Secretary, Field Secretary, and retinue, travel throughout the western, middle west, and southern States in two private Chapel Cars, which are carried at the expense of the stockholders of the roads over which they are hauled. A vast majority of these stockholders are non- Catholics, and they are defraying the transportation expenses of a propaganda which would blot American Protestantism off the religious map of the world.

The patriotic (?) Archbishop Ireland, in presence of Cardinal Gibbons and a large number of prelates, priests, monks and nuns at Baltimore, Md., said in part as follows:

“The Catholic Church is the sole living and enduring Christian authority. She has the power to speak; she has an organization by which her laws may be enforced…. Our work is to make America Catholic. Our cry shall be, ‘Gods wills it,’ and our hearts shall leap with crusader enthusiasm.”

To secure the good will of non-Catholic politicians, Democratic and Republican, in the ignoble work of making America Catholic, that noted American conjurer, Cardinal Gibbons, surpassed himself in a recent interview given at Philadelphia, while attending the Pallium celebration of Archbishop Prendergast, the champion poker player of Pennsylvania. A summary of the interview appears in The New York Evening Sun in its issue of Feb. 12, 1912:

“GIBBONS ON TAFT.

“CARDINAL BELIEVES THE PRESIDENT WILL BE RENOMINATED.

“PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 2. That President Taft probably will be renominated by the Republicans is the belief of Cardinal Gibbons, who made a statement to this effect this afternoon prior to leaving this city for Baltimore. The Cardinal characterized Theodore Roosevelt as the ‘most popular man in the country to-day,’ but said that Mr. Taft, ‘being in the saddle,’ would undoubtedly win the nomination.

“In a short interview his Eminence declared that Mr. Taft deserves recognition for what he termed his honest, sincere efforts to serve the country. He said that in considering the election the Democrats must be considered, as they have lots of available Presidential timber.”

I fancy I hear Cardinal Gibbons saying, “American citizens, find the P! Heads I win, tails you lose.”

Though every milestone along the historical pathway of the Roman Catholic Church has been marked by its curse to humanity, yet there are, unfortunately, some non-Catholic bishops, ministers, editors and others who, on the plea of toleration, Christian unity, or for business or political reasons, do not like to hear the Roman Catholic politico-religious abomination criticized. In fact, they publicly commend Romanism and its Hierarchy, while priests, prelates and popes condemn them and theirs as “heretics” doomed to eternal damnation. Rome regards non-Catholics as “heretics;” she teaches, both in her churches and schools, that they are destined for Hell.

Here is Rome’s doctrine of fraternity, of toleration, of Christian unity! In The Western Watchman, organ of the pope and Archbishop Glennon, published at St. Louis, Missouri, we find Rome’s real attitude toward Protestantism in the following expression of fiendish hatred:

“Protestantism We would draw and quarter it. We would impale it and hang it up for crows’ meat. We would tear it with pincers, and fire it with hot irons. We would fill it with molten lead, and sink it in a hundred fathoms of hell-fire.”

In another issue of the same paper, December 24, 1908, we find the following editorial by its Editor-in-chief, Rev. David S. Phelan, LL.D., Rector of Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish, St. Louis, Missouri, and designated by Cardinal Satolli, “the dean and senior of the Roman Catholic journalists of the United States:”

“Protestants were persecuted in France and Spain with the full approval of the Church authorities. The Church has persecuted. Only a tyro in church history will deny that…. We have always defended the persecution of the Huguenots, and the Spanish Inquisition…. When she thinks it good to use physical force, she will use it…. But will the Catholic Church give bond that she will not persecute at all? Will she guarantee absolute freedom and equality of all churches and all faiths? The Catholic Church gives no bonds for her good behavior.”

The same papal organ, The Western Watchman, in its issue of September 28, 1911, contains the following:

“Protestantism is simply ruffianism organized into a religion. The first Reformer, Martin Luther, was the vilest blackguard of all time, in comparison with whom the Greek Thersites was a polished gentleman. All his associates in the sacrilege of sanctuaries and sacking of religious houses, were almost to a man men of the lowest character and beastliest morals. But who cares for their private lives? It is their public acts and utterances that concern us. These are public property, and they brand their authors as blackguards of the first water.”

And in an editorial in its issue of October 12, 1911, The Western Watchman confirms the declaration made lately in Cardinal Farley’s Cathedral by that international “lady-turner,” Jesuit Vaughan, of England, that Protestantism is dead:

“Protestantism in the United States has fallen to pieces; but what is more astounding, the ministers look complacently out upon the ruins…. All the money in the world will not bring back the spirit that is fled…. Even hatred of Catholicity is dead, and nothing now remains but the sombre duty of burying the dead.”

While Rome everlastingly hates non-Catholics, she constantly seeks their financial aid, both private donations and public moneys, to be used for her sectarian institutions. With unblushing coolness The Western Watchman, in its issue of December 16, 1909, declares:

“We do not think the Church in this country is overburdening herself with charities. She is winning her way to the hearts of the American people by her Christ-like beneficence; and the way from the heart to the pocketbook is very short, compared with the long road from the lip to the seat of pity. More Protestant money is finding its way into our charitable institutions than ever before. The duty of supporting our asylums and refuges will soon be borne in great part by people who have no affiliation with the Catholic Church.”

Here let me state that these moneys are, as a rule, unaccounted for and misused, as is the case in Roman Catholic institutions of Greater New York, where the diversion of large sums of public money paid to said institutions by the city for the support of its charges, is now being investigated by the City Comptroller in spite of the objections raised by the Catholic Church authorities and their reluctance to permit the accounts of these institutions to be audited. Cardinal Farley, who controls $60,000,000 worth of property between the Battery and the Bronx alone, through his attorneys, among them Eugene A. Philbin, has even declared that these Roman Catholic institutions would decline to receive any more children and would turn out those already placed there by the city rather than submit to an accounting for the public funds received by them. How beneficent! How Christ-like!

Let me throw a little light on Rome’s real attitude toward marriage.

Popular opinion in the British Empire is just now being greatly stirred by the agitation caused by the “Ne Temere” decree of Pope Pius X., which is producing such havoc in homes where Protestants marry Roman Catholics. One of the unfortunate victims of this infamous decree, a heartbroken wife and mother, has made the following fruitless appeal to the Earl of Aberdeen, the Lord Lieutenant and Governor General of Ireland:

“MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY:
“I pray your Excellency’s assistance under the following circumstances: I am the daughter of a small farmer in County Antrim, and a Presbyterian. I was married in May, 1908, in a Presbyterian church by my own clergyman, to my husband, who was and is a Roman Catholic. Before our marriage he arranged with me that I should continue to attend my own place of worship and he his. After our marriage we lived together for some months at my mother’s house in County Antrim, but work called my husband to the west of Ireland, where I joined him, and we lived for some months there. Afterwards we came to Belfast; there my first child, a boy, was born in June, 1909. During all this time there never was any difference between us about religious matters, and our boy was baptized by my own clergyman. My husband, on Sundays, would take care of the baby when I was out at church. A short time before our second baby, a girl, was born in August last, my husband spoke to me about changing my faith; in consequence, he told me of the way the Roman Catholic priest was rating him, and I was visited on several occasions by this priest, who told me I was not married at all, but that I was living in open sin, and that my children were illegitimate, and he pressed me to come to chapel and be married properly. I told him I was legally married to my husband and that I would not do what he wished, and on one occasion my husband and I besought him to leave us alone that we had lived peaceably and agreeably before his interference, and would still continue to do so if he let us alone. He threatened me, if I would not comply with his request, that there would be no peace in the house, that my husband could not live with me, and that, if he did, his co-religionists would cease to speak to him or recognize him. When he found he could not persuade me he left in an angry and threatening mood.

“From this time on my husband’s attitude to me changed, and he made no secret to me of the way he was being influenced. Our second baby was taken out of the house by my husband without my leave and taken to chapel and there baptized. My husband also began to ill-treat me, and told me I was not his wife, and I was nothing to him but a common woman. I bore it all hoping that his old love for me would show him his error. But the power of the priests was supreme, and on returning to my home some weeks ago, after being out for a time, I found that both of my dear babies had been removed, and my husband refused to tell me where they were, beyond that they were in safe-keeping. I did everything a mother could think of to get at least to see my babies, but my husband told me he dared not give me any information, and that unless I changed my faith I could not get them. A day or two after this, on pretense of taking me to see my babies, he got me out of the house for about two hours, and on my return I found that everything had been taken out of the house, including my own wearing apparel and underclothing, and I was left homeless and without any means of clothing beyond what I was wearing. My husband left me and I could not find out where he went. I subsequently saw him at the place where he was working. He was very cross with me, refused to tell me where the children were or to do anything, and told me to go to the priest, in whose hands he stated the whole matter was; and also said that unless I was remarried in chapel I would never see the children. I subsequently saw the priest, who said he could give me no information, and treated me with scant courtesy. I have tried to find my husband, but have failed, and can not now get any information of his whereabouts, or of that of my babies, and I do not even know if they are alive. My heart is breaking. I am told the police can do nothing in the matter; although, if it were only a shilling that was stolen, they would be on the search for the thief; but my babies are worth more to me than one shilling. In my despair I am driven to apply to you, as the head of all authority in this country, for help. I am without money, and, but for the charity of kind friends, I would be starving. I want to get my children and to know if they are alive; and I have been told, kind sir, that if you directed your law officers to make inquiries, they could soon get me my rights. Will you please do so, and help a poor, heart-broken woman who will continue to pray for the Almighty’s blessing upon you and yours?
“MRS. McCANN.”

This is only one specimen of the havoc wrought by the “Ne Temere” decree of the present “Vicar of Christ.”

In order to give the reader an idea of what is taking place across the border in Western Canada, I quote from press reports of recent date as follows:

From the Pioneer, Vancouver, B. C., December 23, 1911:

“WINNIPEG, December 23. Rev. Father Comeau, resident priest of St. Mary’s Church here, has made the following statement to an evening paper in regard to the recent ‘Ne Temere’ case at St. Boniface, when he refused to permit a Catholic woman to see her Protestant husband unless they were remarried by the Church:

“‘Suppose a Roman Catholic and a Protestant wish to get married we will imagine the husband to be a Catholic. The parties are married by a Protestant minister. The moment the marriage is contracted the husband has forsaken the Catholic doctrine and can be no longer recognized as a true Catholic. The only way he can come back into the fold is by getting his legal wife to be married to him by a Catholic priest, according to the conditions of the Catholic Church; that is, that she will not interfere with the practice of the doctrine, and the children shall be brought up in the Catholic faith. ”

‘If the wife refuses and he insists on coming back to the Church, the husband must take a vow never to live with her ” again.’

‘If, when reinstated as a Catholic, the man wishes to marry another woman, the ceremony to be performed by a Catholic priest,’ asked the reporter, ‘may he do it?’

‘Well,’ was the reply, ‘we try and get the man to seek a divorce from the State first, because in the eyes of the law he is still married, and while the Church does not recognize it, we do not want to lay ourselves open to persecution. There is a way out and that is by having a secret marriage.’

” ‘Take this as an instance: I am sent away to a mission, a long way up in the country. When I arrive a man comes to me and says, “Father, I have committed a sin for which I am truly repentant. Three years ago I was married to a Protestant woman by a Protestant minister. Later we separated. We did not get a divorce, and now I am living with another woman. Will you marry us?”

‘I might say, “I will run the risk and marry you in the eyes of God.” I then get two witnesses whom I can trust never to reveal what has taken place, and I marry the parties in secret. After this they can never part, as there is no such thing as a divorce in the Roman Catholic Church. Then they are married in the eyes of God and the Church, although perhaps not according to the law of the State. If the former wife should get to know of the second marriage, I might be persecuted. One never knows.'”

The following editorial from the Weekly People, published in Western Canada, January 13, 1912, may help to enlighten the reader about the promotion of bigamy by the Roman Catholic Hierarchy:

“A CATHOLIC PRIEST PROMOTING BIGAMY.

“A cog must have slipped from the brains and the tongue of Father Comeau, the resident priest of Winnipeg, an interview with whom appears in the Vancouver Pioneer of last December 23. The interview is a ‘dead give-away.’

“Father Comeau’s explicit answer to the reporter for the Pioneer concerning the case of a Catholic who married a Protestant woman, and who, seeing his wife refuses to submit to the conditions of the Catholic Church, leaves her, and insists upon returning to his Church, and wishes to be married to another woman by a priest, Father Comeau’s explicit answer to the hypothetical case was that he would ‘get two witnesses, whom I can trust never to reveal what has taken place, and I marry the parties in secret,’ adding that he knew that if the former wife should get to know of the second marriage he ‘might be persecuted.’ Prosecution under the law the Father calls ‘persecution.’

“It is of no consequence to the issue whether the law is wise or not that defines bigamy, and enters the act in the criminal code. The only thing that concerns the issue is that a man, married under the law, and not legally, divorced, is, under the law, a bigamist and punishable as such if he marry again during his first wife’s life. Such is the law of the land in Winnipeg. All this notwithstanding. Father Comeau stands forth not only as a condoner, but as a promoter, of bigamy; and, not only that, he stands forth as an encourager of others to steep themselves in crime as witnesses who are to keep the secret.

“Again and again the Daily People has maintained, and proved the claim with facts, that the Roman Catholic Hierarchy is not the priesthood of a religion, but the agency of politics ambushed behind religion….

“Again and again the Daily People has pointed out that, differently from other political parties, all of whom, whatever the new policies that they may advocate, submit to the existing policies until overthrown, the Roman Catholic political party starts by disregarding the existing policies and violating them,”

In Eastern Canada, where very many of the French Canadians are driven like dumb cattle by the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, this infamous and ungodly decree is enforced, and happy homes are broken up by priests and prelates, Archbishop Eruschesi, of Montreal, the coming “Canadian” Cardinal, being the principal home and marriage breaker.

Let no one suppose that this “Ne Teinere” decree of Pope Pius X. is a dead letter in the United States the land of the free and the home of the brave; or that I have to confine myself to the British Empire for examples of its having been put into actual practice.

Archbishop Glennon, of St. Louis, Mo., U. S. A., the warm friend of President William H. Taft and ex-President Theodore Roosevelt, annulled the marriage of Mr. John A. Howland and Mrs. Helen O’Brien Howland because they were married by a Baptist minister, and he compelled Mrs. Howland to sign the following un-American and un-Christ-like apology, which was read in the churches and published in the press of America and other non-Catholic countries:

“St. Louis, MISSOURI,
“October 29, 1910.
“To THE REVEREND PETER J. O’RouRKE,
“Pastor of St. Mark’s Church,
“Page and Academy Avenues.

“Dear Father: In submission to the obligation laid on me by His Grace, the Reverend Archbishop, of publicly repairing the scandal I have given, as a requisite for absolution, I confess to the world as a Catholic I was married by a Baptist minister on August 26, 1910. I ask the pardon of God for my sin- and- the prayers of the -faithful for the grace of – ; sincere repentance: Sincerely, “HELEN O’BRIEN.”

Think of the awful crime of being married by a Protestant minister!

In the Metropolitan Province of New York, presided over by Cardinal Farley, the story of the following case in the diocese of Trenton, N. J., directly ruled by Bishop McFaul, a Krupp gun of the Hierarchy, should arouse the millions of people who were born outside the pale of Rome, and, consequently, “illegitimate,” according to her decrees and teaching, as’ well as those who are living in “concubinage” because they have been married by non-Catholic clergymen, Justices of the Peace, or Judges of the Superior Courts. The King and Queen of the British Empire, the Emperor and Empress of Germany, President and Mrs. William H. Taft, ex-President and Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Hon. Mr. and Mrs. William Jennings Bryan, Governor and Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, Mr. and Mrs. J. P. Morgan, Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Carnegie, Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Schiff, and their children, are among the millions who have been declared by the “Vicars of Christ” to be “illegitimate,” “heretics,” etc., whom the cardinals, old and new, have solemnly sworn “to combat with every effort.”

I can understand how sincere non-Catholic people treat with silent contempt the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that “outside of Rome there is no salvation,” but I can not understand how they can complacently suffer the insult from the pope of Rome, who, with the quintessence of audacity, decrees and teaches that all those who are born of marriages contracted outside the Roman Catholic Church the “One True Church” are “illegitimate,” and that all parties A MENACE TO THE NATION. 179 having contracted marriage as above stated are living in “concubinage.”

The case set forth in the following letter will serve as another example of Rome’s real attitude toward non-Catholic marriages:

“PERTH AMBOY, NEW JERSEY,
“February 3, 1912.
“MR. JEREMIAH J. CROWLEY, New York City.

“Gentleman: I respectfully ask for your advice in a very important matter. “Stephen Dagonya, a Roman Catholic Hungarian, married a Hungarian girl, a member of my parish. The ceremony was performed by me in our church. When a child was born from this wedlock it was taken to Rev. Francis Gross, priest of the local Hungarian Church, who said to the party that a marriage performed by a Protestant minister or Judge is entirely null; the father and mother have to remarry before him in order to get a lawful marriage. However, he baptized the child and he issued a certificate of baptism, in which he declared that the child was ‘illegitimate.’ He added also that ‘the parents are living in concubinage.’ He affixed to it his signature and the seal of the Church. The certificate with two other similar ones is now with Mr. Charles M. Snow, editor of ‘Liberty/ who wants to make photos of them.

“As the father of the child is very desperate on account of the behavior of his priest, will you kindly advise him what to do under these circumstances. Has any priest any right in this country to declare that a marriage, which is lawful in the eyes of the country and according to the conscience of the party, was concubinage and the fruit of such marriage was illegitimate?

“Thanking you in advance for your valuable information in this matter, I am
“Very truly yours,
“[Signed] L. NANASSY,
“Pastor of the Hungarian Reformed Church.”

My reply to the above letter was as follows:

“CINCINNATI, OHIO,
“March 29, 1912.
“REV. L. NANASSY,
“Pastor of the Hungarian Reformed Church,
“Perth Amboy, N. J.
“Rev. and Dear Sir: Your letter of Feb. 3, 1912, addressed to my late residence in New York City, has just reached me, and I hasten to reply.

“While in Washington, D. C, some weeks ago, I saw and read the certificates to which you refer in your letter; and now that you have asked me personally to advise the ‘desperate’ husband and father, Stephen Dagonya, as to what he should do under the circumstances, I would suggest that the Rev. Francis Gross be prosecuted for criminal libel, and that this be made a test case in the interests of humanity. However, knowing the powerful and iniquitous influence of Rome over the Civil Courts, particularly when the plaintiffs or defendants possess slender means, I would suggest that a public appeal be made for adequate funds to thoroughly prosecute the case, to the millions who have been and are now indirectly charged by Rome with living in ‘concubinage’ or with being ‘illegitimate.’

“In case of an adverse decision in the lower Courts, through the influence of Rome, the case should be appealed, and, if needs be, carried to the Supreme Court of the United States, over which Chief Justice White, a Jesuitical Roman Catholic, presides by the favor of President Taft. And in case of an adverse decision by that august body, through the influence of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, I would suggest that the case be brought before Congress without delay, and if necessary before the bar of public opinion, as Rome, through her Jesuitical decrees, policies and practices, is undermining the inviolability of the home and the peace of nations.

“Rome hopes to gain complete political control of our beloved country through the cunning political influence of her four ‘American’ Cardinals at the corning Presidential election. Therefore, immediate exposure must be made of her in the Civil Courts and otherwise, if the liberties of this country are to be preserved.

“I shall be able to take the matter up with you personally in the near future. Believe me, “Very sincerely yours,
“[Signed] JEREMIAH J. CROWLEY.”

Listen to the following story of what occurred quite recently in Washington, D. C.:

A young man of that city, a Protestant by birth and education, age, twenty-eight years, had been paying his honorable attentions to a young lady, age, twenty-two years. His courtship was successful and the pair agreed to be married. The young lady was a Roman Catholic. Her faith in that Church and its priests had been weakened by a number of circumstances, and especially by the fact that upon one occasion when she went to confession she was met in the Confessional box by her then pastor, who smelled very strongly of intoxicating drink. She went home and told her mother about it, adding that “his breath smelled perfectly awful.” However, she continued a member of the Church up to the time of her marriage to the young gentleman above referred to.

The marriage was performed in Washington, D. C., September 16, 1911, in a Protestant church and by a Baptist minister. Within a week, September 22, 1911, the young bride received a telephone message from her sister, asking her to come over to her parents’ home. She went, and her sister told ‘her that she had received a letter from her mother, who was- then at Colonial Beach, in which her mother expressed the desire that she go to see her late pastor, Rev. P. J. O’Connell, St. Vincent’s Church, South Capitol and N Streets, Washington, D. C. The young bride said that she had no desire to see Rev. O’Connell, but that she would call on him “to please mama.” Accordingly, she immediately went to see the priest.

After some preliminary and formal conversation about indifferent matters, the priest asked her:

“Have you yet had your vacation?”

“Yes,” replied the lady, “and during my vacation I was married.”

“Married! Married! And who married you?” asked the priest.

“A Baptist minister,” replied the lady.

“You are not married! Why did you not come and consult me about getting married?”

She said, “I did not care to.”

The priest then asked her, “Did you not hear the rules about marriage read from the altar about two years ago?”

She said, “I do not know whether I did or not.”

He said, “Why did you not come to me and find out?”

She replied, “I did not care to know.”

The priest then angrily exclaimed: “You are not married! You are the same as a woman who walks the streets,” and added, “You are the same as a woman that a man would take to a room in a hotel and live with; you are the same as a woman in the ‘Division.'” (The Division in Washington, D. C, means the same as is understood by the Red Light section in other cities.)

Here the lady burst into tears, and the priest, thinking he had her “going,” added in great anger and terrific tones, “You are not married, and if you should die to-morrow morning your body would not be allowed to be brought inside of a Catholic Church.”

The lady had now quite recovered herself, and replied defiantly, “I know that, and I do not care.”

The priest now opened another view of the subject. He remarked, “You could leave that man to-morrow morning and marry some one else, because you are not a married woman.”

The lady answered, “I will not leave my husband, and if I did I would have to go to the law for a divorce and not come to you.”

The priest, finding himself baffled in all his efforts, continued, exclaiming, “You are not married! You are not married! The idea of such a thing! You are not married!”

The young lady now told the priest that she was well aware that she was not married according to the rules of the Roman Catholic Church, but that she was legally married and that was sufficient for her, and defied the priest to deny that her marriage was lawful.

Thereupon the priest left the room in a rage and the young lady went to her home.

She was at first reluctant to relate this interview to her husband, because she did not want him to know that her late pastor would presume to talk to her in such a manner. A few days afterwards, however, she did tell him. Upon hearing the story, her husband said that if he had been present one of the two would have been taken to the hospital, adding, “He had not better meet me on the street.”

Let no one suppose for a moment that the views here expressed are only those of an individual priest acting on his own responsibility. This is not the case. Such views are not private views. The “Ne Temcre” decree declares that marriages under the law of the land are invalid and that a Catholic going through this ceremony has not contracted matrimony and may be married again. Under the law of the land such a second marriage, without a decree of divorce, is the crime of bigamy, and Catholic priests and prelates are justified and authorized by the Church not only to pronounce such marriages invalid and to inform any subject of the Church of his or her right to contract a new marriage, but the priest is further authorized to become a party to the crime of bigamy by performing the second marriage ceremony himself.

The thoughtful reader will lay it to heart that the event which the foregoing story records took place in the city of Washington the capital of this nation; where President Taft presides and who has declared that there is a perfect consistency between earnest devotion to the Church and perfect obedience to the laws of the land; and further, that the event occurred in the archdiocese of Cardinal Gibbons, who poses par excellence as the great defender of “law and order,” and as which he has been eulogized by Theodore Roosevelt.

The annulling of marriages by Rome is not a rare occurrence. While she sternly denounces divorce as one of the greatest evils of the age, she frequently annuls marriages for the graft that is in it, or to show her disregard for the civil laws and marriage ceremonies performed by non-Catholic clergymen.

Priests and prelates have wrecked many homes and families. We even find them co-respondents in divorce suits; yet they continue to minister at the altar and in the confessional. Baroness von Zedtwitz declared shortly before her mysterious death that she would expose some of the crimes of popes, prelates and priests, were it not for the fact that such exposure would most assuredly break up many prominent homes, both in America and Europe.

In order to avoid scandal, protect the Roman Catholic Hierarchy of both sexes, and show contempt for the civil law, Pope Pius X. issued a Bull, “Motu Proprio,” which excommunicates any person, lay or cleric, man or woman, who shall without the permission of ecclesiastical authorities, summon any Roman Catholic ecclesiastic before a lay tribunal, either in a civil or criminal case. The main part of this Bull reads as follows:

“In these evil days, when ecclesiastical immunities receive no consideration, and not only priests and clerics, but even bishops and cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, are cited before lay tribunals, this condition of things absolutely demands of us to restrain by severe penalty those who can not be otherwise deterred from the commission of so heinous a crime against the religious character. Therefore, by this Motu Proprio we determine and ordain that whatever private person, lay or cleric, man or woman, shall, without having obtained permission of ecclesiastical authorities, cite to a lay tribunal and compel to appear there publicly any ecclesiastical person, either in a criminal or civil case, will incur excommunication, ‘lat “Pius PP. X.”

This recent decree of Pope Pius X. is a gigantic bluff to intimidate not only his “Catholic subjects,” but also the rulers and governments of non-Catholic countries and their subjects.

To many it would seem incredible that such things could happen in the twentieth century and under constitutional governments.

Why do not the rulers and governments of all non-Catholic countries step in to protect the rights of the people from such dangerous and infamous invasion by the pope of Rome, as did the Government of Russia which recently prosecuted Bishop Casimir Ruszkiewiez, suffragan bishop to the Archbishop of Warsaw, and Father Cisplinski on the charge of declaring a legal marriage null, and thus infringing civil authority? The result was a sentence of sixteen months’ imprisonment for both priest and bishop. The term is to be passed in a fortress and the bishop is to be deposed from his diocese.

Russia knows Rome and therefore nips her in the bud in order to prevent her gaining supremacy over civil authority. If the other non-Catholic countries had only done likewise, or would even do it now, Romanism would not wield the powerful, iniquitous influence which it does.

Why do not the Governments of the British Empire and the United States prosecute and punish according to law priests and prelates guilty of similar, and far worse, crimes?

CHAPTER XII. Rome and America.

I have no sort of controversy, personal or otherwise, with President William H. Taft, ex-President Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, or any other politician, but in the interest of humanity I feel constrained to warn the people everywhere of the intrigues going on between the Roman Hierarchy and politicians. Having been a member of that Hierarchy for twenty-one years, I know whereof I speak.

Up to the present time Mr. Roosevelt has made no answer to the protest from millions of American citizens, whom he denounced as possessed and influenced by an “unwarranted bigotry” because of their earnest and conscientious protest in behalf of constitutional liberty against the unwarranted claims of the papal power.

The official attendance of President Taft and other high non-Catholic government officials at Solemn High Mass on Thanksgiving Day for the last three years in St. Patrick’s Church, Washington, D. C., has established a deplorable precedent for future presidents, as well as for non-Catholic people throughout the country, for whom he has set the example. The President of the United States and other high non-Catholic officials should not permit themselves, through selfish motives, to be used by the Roman Catholic Church for advertising purposes.

Mr. Taft, addressing the Knights of Columbus, a strong politico-religious organization, at Portland, Oregon, October 12, 1911, said in part as follows:

“Instead of being a reason why you can not be patriotic, loyal sons of the United States, willing to yield up your lives if occasion calls, the fact that you are members of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States is an assurance that you are such patriotic, loyal citizens.”

Can any one believe that President Taft is sincere when he makes this declaration? He surely knows the position of the Roman Catholic Church and its claim of the supremacy of the papal over the civil power. Here is what a great American papal organ, The Catholic World, says upon this subject, which statements are neither new nor original. The Catholic World says:

“The Roman Catholic is to wield his vote for the purpose of securing Catholic ascendency in this country. All legislation must be governed by the will of God unerringly indicated by the pope. Education must be controlled by the Catholic authorities, and under education the opinions of the individuals and the utterances of the press are included. Many opinions are to be forbidden by the secular arm, under the authority of the Church, even to war and bloodshed.”

Does not this savor of the Inquisition?

Who inspired Indian Commissioner Valentine’s order forbidding teachers to wear their religious garb (mask) in the Indian Schools, and why was it immediately revoked by President Taft pending future political developments? Was it a politico-religious “frame-up” favoring Romanism, with the understanding that the much sold “Catholic vote” would be given to him?

Priests and prelates realize that politicians who are reaching after office will do anything and everything to help Rome “make America dominantly Catholic,” in order to secure the “Catholic vote” for themselves and their party. Therefore, this presidential year is considered most opportune to force the issue and compel the Federal Administration to establish far-reaching precedents in favor of Romanism.

Another link in the chain between Washington and Rome is supplied by the following item which appeared in The Catholic Telegraph, Cincinnati, Ohio, in its issue of April 4, 1912:

“ROOSEVELT’S MISTAKE

“CAREFULLY AVOIDED BY MAJOR ARCHIBALD BUTT.

“ROME, March 30. It has become known that Major Archibald Butt, President Taft’s personal aide, besides bringing an autograph letter from the American Chief Executive to the Pope, brought credentials in the shape of three letters, addressed to Cardinal Merry del Val, the P&pal Secretary of State; Cardinal Rampolla, his predecessor in. that office, and an American prelate. All three were asked to arrange the audience with the Pope.

“The negotiations for the audience were conducted through ecclesiastical channels without the intervention of the American Embassy, lest the mistake which was committed when Colonel Roosevelt came to Rome on his return from Africa be repeated. Major Butt did not communicate with the Quirinal and did not see King Victor Emmanuel.

“The Pope was greatly pleased with the visit of Major Butt, which he subsequently contrasted with the failure of Colonel Roosevelt’s projected call. The letter which the Pope has sent to President Taft in care of Major Butt is merely complimentary.”

While it may be complimentary to President Taft, it is by no means complimentary or agreeable to patriotic American citizens that such a mission should be even thought of, let alone executed.

The press has informed the public that it was for the purpose of thanking the pope for the bestowal of three cardinals’ hats upon “Americans,” and asking information as to the proper rank of the various cardinals at great state functions.

Why should the President of this so-called free country thank the pope for having conferred papal titles on his agents, which titles, according to the regulations of the Church of Rome, give them precedence over the President himself? Why be SO solicitous of the “proper rank” of “Americans” who have sworn allegiance to a foreign potentate the pope?

This confidential and unpatriotic mission has already cost our country the life of one of its chivalrous sons.

“Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence,” said Washington, “the jealousy of a free people ought ever to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.”

We might inquire if this autograph letter and visit, preceding the presidential election, was for religious or political purposes. I wonder if the present political crisis led President Taft and Major Butt to that haven, or did they come under the spell of Jesuit Vaughan of England, who has recently been “performing” in Canada and the United States, and to whom credit is given for “turning” President Taft’s sisterin- law to the Roman Catholic Church.

Vaughan and his manager, the pope, feeling that he “knocked out” Protestantism in Canada and the United States during his short evangelistic mission in 1910, on his present extended tour is concentrating his Jesuitical energies on the demolition of Socialism, the abolition of divorce, and the “turning” of wealthy non-Catholic women.

Let us hope that Jesuit Vaughan will not follow in the footsteps of that eloquent libertine, the Right Rev. Monsignor Capel, also an Englishman, whom the pope sent to America some years ago to convert non-Catholic women of rank, wealth and fashion, but as generally happens, while “turning” them be fell from grace, and for several years lived in a luxuriously furnished home in California, devoting the latter years of an ill-spent life to the guardianship of another man’s wife.and her ranch. However, he, like the vast majority of priests and prelates, being thoroughly posted in Canon Law and Sacred Theology, took care not to violate the “Ne Tcmere” decree, and consequently when he died recently, the public was informed that he passed away in the odor of sanctity and was buried with high honors from the Roman Catholic Church.

The Right Rev. Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, English priest and author, son of the late Episcopal Archbishop of Canterbury and a “distinguished convert” to the Catholic faith, is now in this country. Speaking of the outlook for religion in England, he says:

“I think we shall have all the religion that there will be in fifty or sixty years’ time, but there will be an enormous amount of infidelity and agnosticism. The other forms of Christianity are tumbling downstairs as fast as they can go.”

Messrs. Benson, Vaughan and other “Ambassadors of Christ” should remember what a Kempis says in the “Imitation of Christ” “Those who travel much abroad seldom become holy.”

Many distinguished Jesuit stars, while engaged in similar missions, have fallen by the wayside, among them that “eminent convert,” Rev. Thomas Ewing Sherman, son of the late General Sherman, who lately attempted suicide and had to be confined in an asylum. Priests and prelates ought to follow St. Paul’s example and take care lest while preaching to others they themselves may become castaways.

Here it may not be out of place to give a brief description of the Jesuits, commonly called the “Society of Jesus.” This Order is under the absolute control of its General, the “Black Pope.” They have been expelled by many European governments, and Pope Clement XIII. was even compelled by public opinion to promise their suppression, but was murdered before the fulfillment of this promise. His successor, Pope Clement XIV., was compelled by like opinion to suppress them, but was poisoned soon thereafter. Pope Pius VII., for political reasons, restored them to power, and ever since the Jesuits are the power behind the papal throne. To-day they are stronger in the United States than they ever were in any of the countries of Europe which expelled them as a menace to.the government

Harper’s Weekly of May 21, 1870, says of the Jesuits:

“The operations of this powerful Society embrace every part of the world, and are carried on by means of the most intricate machinery ever contrived by man. The Society is divided in five classes: ist. Professed Members (Professi); 2nd. Spiritual Coadjutors; 3rd. Lay Coadjutors; 4. Approved Pupils; 5th. The Novices.

“From his residence in Rome the General directs the movements of the Society in every part of the world by means of a system in which the art of ‘espionage’ is brought to perfection. Every month or every quarter he receives reports from the heads of all the subordinate departments; and every third year the catalogues of every province, with detailed reports on the capacity and conduct of every member, are laid before him. Besides this, the most active correspondence is maintained with all parts of the world, in order to supply the offices of the Society with the information they require. In the central house at Rome are kept voluminous registers, in which are inscribed the names of all Jesuits, of their adherents, and of all the considerable persons, whether friends or enemies, with whom they have any connection. In these registers, we are told, ‘are reported without alteration, without* hatred, without passion, the facts relating to the life of each individual. It is the most gigantic biographical collection that has ever been formed. The frailties of a woman, the secret errors of a statesman, are chronicled in these books with the same cold impartiality. Drawn up for the purpose of being useful, these biographies are necessarily exact. When the Jesuits wish to influence an individual, they have but to turn to these volumes to know immediately his life, his character, his faults, his family, his friends, his most secret ties.’ By the use of such machinery the Order has attained its high position and widespread influence.”

The General is at the head of this black and mute militia, which thinks, wills, acts, obeys the passive instrument of his designs. Their whole life must have but one aim the advancement of the Order to which they are attached.

From the preceding paragraphs, we can. understand how Jesuitism or Romanism gets control of and “converts” women of rank, wealth and fashion; and also how politicians who are not saints, fearing exposure, are compelled to do Rome’s bidding, no matter how unpatriotic. The private lives of politicians are closely watched and recorded. Sometimes they are entrapped in order to get them in the power of Rome.

The present complications of the political factions, in both Democratic and Republican parties, have been brought about by Jesuitism in order to ccnfuse the public and compel the aspiring candidates or their supporters to “come and see” the ecclesiastical bosses, who are supposed to control the “Catholic vote.” The more dissensions in the parties, the more helpless the candidates are in the hands of Rome, and the more she will demand in lieu of her alleged support for nomination and, eventually, election. Rome has played both parties “to a frazzle” in the present campaign, 1912.

During the first “American Mission” to the Vatican in 1902, Extraordinary Ambassador Taft made a deal with the pope involving several million dollars for the Friars’ lands in the Philippine Islands. And as a quid pro quo the pope of Rome granted to the Chief Executive at Washington the power of veto of bishops and archbishops in the Philippine Islands, a right which he will hardly ever dare exercise.

How long shall the Roman Catholic Hierarchy play the people for fools?

Shall the government be of the people, for the people, and by the people, or by the pope?

Let’s not let the pope of Rome name our President for us.

Lovers of your country, beware of Jesuitical intrigues, the political power of Romanism, and the honeyed words of politicians reaching after the presidency!

CHAPTER XIII. Romanizing Non-Catholic countries.

The Roman Catholic Hierarchy has taken advantage of the press agency age in which we live. The trans-Atlantic cable has lately been kept busy flashing the most trivial details concerning the so-called honors done America, “the youngest but richest daughter of the Church,” in elevating to the rank of princes and kings three of her wiliest Jesuitical emissaries, who claim to be American citizens. They can not be loyal American citizens and at the same time loyal “Princes of the Church.” Their very oath of allegiance to the pope, a foreign potentate, whose spiritual and temporal power they have solemnly sworn to promote and defend, “even to the shedding of blood,” precludes this possibility. The despotic dogmas of the Church of Rome are diametrically opposed to the Constitutions of all countries, and, therefore, cardinals, arch-;- bishops, bishops, monsignors, priests and monks, having sworrt allegiance to a foreign potentate, have so far renounced their allegiance to their lawful sovereigns or governments, and, consequently, should be considered as aliens with respect to citizenship.

If any one has the least doubt in the world that the cardinals’ first allegiance is due to the pope of Rome, and only their secondary allegiance, when not in conflict with their obedience due the pope, is given to their respective countries, let such an one read the oath taken by a cardinal when he enters upon his office, and all possible doubts will be dispelled.

The following is the oath which these three “American” cardinals, as well as all other cardinals, must take on becoming ‘Princes of the Church.” This translation of the oath was printed in the Daily Telegraph (London), Dec. i, 1911, and accepted as genuine by Monsignor Canon Moyes in a letter published in the Tablet of London (Roman Catholic), Dec. 16, 1911:

“I,,…. of the Holy Roman Church, cardinal of……., promise and swear, from this hour forward, as long as I shall live, to be faithful and obedient to the blessed Peter and the Holy Roman Apostolic Church, and our Most Holy Lord Pius X., and his canonically elected successor;

“To give no counsel nor to concur in anything nor aid in any way against the pontifical majesty or person;

“Never to disclose affairs entrusted to me by them personally, by their nuncios, or by letters, willingly or knowingly, to their detriment or dishonor;

“To be ever ready to aid them to retain, defend and recover their rights against all, to fight with all zeal, and all my forces, for their honor and dignity;

“To direct and defend honorably and kindly legates and nuncios of the apostolic see in all places under my jurisdiction, to provide for their safe journey, and treat them honorably going, during their stay, and during their return, and to resist even to the shedding of blood whosoever would attempt anything against them;

“To try in every way to assert, uphold, preserve, increase and promote the rights, even temporal, especially those of the civil principality, the liberty, the honor, privileges and authority of the Holy Roman Church, of our lord the Pope, and the aforesaid successors;

“When it shall come to my knowledge that some machination, prejudicial to those rights, which I can not prevent, is taking place, immediately to make it known to the Pope, his successor, or to some one qualified to convey the knowledge to them;

“To observe and fulfill, and see that others observe and fulfill the regulations, the decrees and the ordinances, the dispensations and preservation of provisions and apostolic mandates, the constitutions of Pope Sixtus V., of happy memory, concerning visits ‘Ad limina Apostolorum’ at the prescribed times, according to the tenor of said constitution;

“To combat with every effort heretics, schismatics, and those rebelling against our lord the Pope and his successors;

“When summoned for any reason whatsoever by the Holy Father or his successor, to come to them, or when detained by a just cause to send one to present my excuses, and to show them due reverence and obedience;

“Never to sell or to give away, mortgage, or alienate without consent of the Roman Pontiff, even though the consent of said chapters or convents or churches or monasteries or their benefices be had, the possessions belonging to the ‘mensa’ of the church, monasteries, or other benefices committed to me;

“Likewise to observe inviolably the constitution of the Supreme Pontiff Pius X., which begins Vacante Sede Apostolica, given at Rome the twenty-fifth day of December, in the year 1904, concerning the vacancy of the Holy See and the election of the Roman Pontiff ; and to lend no help nor countenance to any intervention of the civil power in the election of the Pope; likewise,

“To observe minutely each and all of the decrees, especially those which have emanated from the sacred – congregation of the ceremonies, or those to come from it, relative to the sublime dignity of the cardinalate, nor to do anything which would be repugnant to the honor and dignity of it, and to pay the rights of the cardinal’s ring conceded by Gregory XV. to the Sancta Congrcgatio de Propaganda Fide.

“So help me God and these holy gospels.”

Many of the same obligations are imposed in the oath administered to archbishops and bishops, including that part referring to action against heretics and schismatics (Protestants).

It is simply impossible for a cardinal, or any member of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, to be a loyal son of the Church and at the same time a loyal citizen of the United States, or of any country, no matter what Taft, Roosevelt and others, for political purposes, may allege to the contrary.

The Duke of Norfolk (Roman Catholic), Premier Duke of England, writing to Lord Beaumont (Roman Catholic), Nov. 28, 1850, says in part:

“I should think that many must feel as we do, that ultramontane [papal] opinions are totally incompatible with the allegiance to our Sovereign and with our Constitution.”

In passing, I may state that the appointment of a bishop or archbishop to a wealthy diocese in the United States costs the aspiring candidates and their supporters, clerical and lay, several million dollars. To the uninitiated this amount may appear extravagant, but when we consider the fifty million dollars’ worth of property, more or less, which comes directly under the control of the successful candidate appointed by the pope and his cabinet inspired, of course, by the Holy Ghost the sum total of the bribes to the Vatican is by no means excessive. Catholic and non-Catholic friends of aspiring candidates for papal honors are permitted and encouraged to “chip in” and use their political influence with the pope. And as for the price paid for “red hats,” the amount is inconceivable, and the intrigues connected therewith are sometimes international: for example, the Bellamy Storer-Roosevelt-Ireland episode.

The press has recently given us Rome and “red hats” usque ad nauseam, telling us of the pope’s admiration and love for America, Americans, their wealth and generosity.

Papal blessings and honors are frequently cabled* but we may well bear in mind the story of the great wooden horse of Troy and the enemy concealed within it remembering the motto: “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentcs.” [I fear the Greeks even bearing gifts.] Wake up, non-Catholics!

I am convinced that the non-Catholic people are blind to their vital interests. On every side they are saying: “Oh, the Roman Catholic Church is not as it was fifty years ago; it is more liberal.” But the Roman Catholic Church is ever and everywhere the same. As she was fifty years ago so she is to-day, except that she is playing politics more astutely now than she was then.

I know by varied and bitter experiences the spirit of bigotry, bribery, hypocrisy, superstition, intrigue, persecution, treason and murder which actuates the Roman Catholic Hierarchy ; and I feel that an imperative duty calls me to resume my efforts to enlighten the Roman Catholic people everywhere as to the abominable priestcraft which is being practised upon them. For them I have only the deepest sympathy. Born, reared and trained in their faith, I know how naturally they are held in bondage and how easily they are deluded, degraded and despoiled in the sacred name of religion. And I also feel that it is my duty to awaken the non- Catholic people of all nations to a realization of the imminent dangers which confront them.

It is the verdict of history, says Mr. Mangasarian, that

“Where the priests are free, the people are slaves!
Where the priests are rich, the people are poor!.
Where the priests teach, the people are ignorant!
Where the priests prosper, progress is paralyzed!
Where the priests lead, they lead into misery,
bondage, poverty, superstition, persecution ruin!”

Lord Macaulay truthfully described the Vatican system when he said:

“It is impossible to deny that the polity of the Church of Rome is the very masterpiece of human wisdom. In truth, nothing but such a polity could, against such assaults, have borne up such doctrines. The experience of twelve hundred eventful years, the ingenuity and patient care of forty generations of statesmen, have improved the polity to such perfection that, among the contrivances that have been devised for deceiving and oppressing mankind, it occupies the highest place.”

There was affixed to a column at the corner of the Orsini Palace in Rome at the beginning of the sixteenth century the following comparison between Christ and the pope:

“Christ said: My kingdom is not of this world.
The pope conquers cities by force.

Christ had a crown of thorns.
The pope wears a triple diadem.

Christ washed the feet of His disciples.
The pope has his kissed by Kings.

Christ paid tribute.
The pope takes it.

Christ fed the sheep.
The pope shears them for his own profit.

Christ was poor.
The pope wishes to be master of the world.

Christ carried on his shoulders the cross.
The pope is carried on the shoulders of his servants in liveries of gold.

Christ despised riches.
The pope has no other passion than for gold.

Christ drove out the merchants from the temple.
The pope welcomes them.

Christ preached peace.
The pope is the torch of war.

Christ was meekness.
The pope is pride personified.

Christ promulgated the laws that the pope tramples underfoot.”

Notwithstanding the wealth, political power, and the extraordinary increase claimed by the Roman Catholic Church, investigation will prove that she is losing ground everywhere as a religion: in fact, Romanism is not a religion: Romanism is first and last political. According to the most trustworthy statistics, eighty million followers have left the Roman Catholic Church during the past seventy-five years. The Roman Catholic Hierarchy has been exposed and dethroned by the despoiled Catholic people in Italy, France and Portugal. It is being exposed and dethroned by the Catholic people in Spain, Austria, Belgium, Poland, Ireland and other so-called Catholic countries, where it is trembling, tottering, falling.

Strange as it may seem to the casual observer, it is true, nevertheless, that in many Catholic countries the papal policy of power and pelf has been repudiated as a curse by the Catholic people and their representatives, while in non-Catholic countries the papal policy is embraced for the graft that is in it, by non-Catholic politicians elected to office by the credulous non-Catholic people; and this is especially true in the English speaking countries England, Canada and the United States. These unscrupulous politicians, high and low, are only too willing to serve the pope in his ungodly efforts to regain temporal power.

The political influence of the papacy is making rapid progress in non-Catholic countries, owing solely to the apathy of the people and the traitorous conduct of non-Catholic politicians, including Presidents and Prime Ministers, who, as a rule, are pledged to Rome by their corrupt political machines, in order to secure the supposed “Catholic vote,” which the pope pretends to control, but which he does not.

Non-Catholics are possessed by the false impression that the Catholic laity vote as a unit as they are directed by the Hierarchy. This is not true. There is a division in the Catholic laity upon political matters, and an independence of action of which non-Catholics have no conception. For the purpose of inducing non-Catholics to court the support of the Roman Catholic clergy and accede to their demands, they are made to believe by the representations of crafty, cunning priests and prelates that the pope controls the “Catholic vote.” Previous to political elections, priests, prelates and “Princes of the Church” promise the supposed “Catholic vote” to both political parties, Republican and Democratic of course, they could not conscientiously and consistently promise it to either the Prohibition or Socialist party. At the close of an election the pope is represented by his clerical, as well as lay, agents at the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic parties, and even in the very homes of the candidates. They are there to congratulate the victor and assure him that his election is due to the “Catholic vote,” and also to remind him that the pope and his representatives are entitled to the greater share of the appointments to be made by him. This papal political trick “heads I win, tails you lose” is successfully played at elections in all non-Catholic countries.

ARCHBISHOP GIOVANNI BONZANO PAPAL NUNCIO.

The new head of the Papal Secret Service Bureau in the U. S. A., being asked, on his arrival in New York harbor, if he had any formal message for the people of this country, replied:

“I am very glad and feel greatly honored to have been sent to represent the ancient Church before the great American people, and where, in spite of your busy life and ways, you have so much time for religion and doing good work.”

Notwithstanding this declaration, Archbishop Bonzano knows or ought to know that the Roman Catholic Hierarchy is responsible for the alliance between crooked politics and crooked business, which has been responsible for nine-tenths of the corruption in American politics.

The Roman Catholic Hierarchy is the breeder of anarchy. In its efforts to prostitute the people’s schools to politics, it is an enemy of the most dangerous character and is more to be condemned than the anarchist.

Bonzano is the plenopotentiary representative of the pope of Rome, who, with the quintessence of audacity, claims to be “Our Lord God the Pope, Vicar of Jesus Christ, King of Heaven, of Earth, and of Hell, and servant of the servants of God.” Was there ever such a contradiction?

The mass of the Catholic vote can not be corralled for the support of any man. If non-Catholics would only take a bold stand in defense of civil and religious liberty against Rome, they would find thousands yea, hundreds of thousands of nominal Catholics rallying to their camp. But these independent- thinking Catholics, seeing the obsequiousness and servility of non-Catholics in their obedience to the suggestions of the Roman Hierarchy, naturally decline to take the initiative in the defense of civil and religious liberty.

Yea, more than this. If the game of every man for himself was to be played in earnest, why should independent Catholics give up advantages and benefits which they might receive themselves through Roman influence in American and English politics for the use and behoof of non-Catholics who are cringing before Rome for the sake of business success and political preferment expected to be derived from her favoring influence?

Why, then, do the liberty-loving people of non-Catholic countries permit themselves to be deceived and enslaved by that debauched, liberty-destroying Hierarchy?

Those who are indifferent on this subject should note Lord Beaconsfield’s words of warning:

“We are sinking beneath a power before which the proudest conquerors have grown pale, and by which the nations most devoted to freedom have become enslaved the power of a foreign priesthood.”

There is urgent need of a wide publicity of the truth concerning Romanism! In the words of William Ewart Gladstone, uttered against the Vatican system, I would warn the lovers of liberty everywhere “against the velvet paw and smooth exterior of a system which is dangerous to the foundation of civil order…. Never was there invented a greater conspiracy against the liberty, virtue and happiness of the people, than that represented by Romanism.” And with the illustrious Gladstone, I say:

“I am confident that if a system so radically bad is to be made or kept innocuous, the first condition for attaining such a result is that its movements should be carefully watched, and above all that the basis on which they work should be faithfully and unflinchingly exposed.”

Protestantism is asleep! Romanism, the sleepless and tireless foe of liberty, enlightenment and progress, is awake! Shall we permit it to enslave us, or shall we follow the wise and patriotic example of Italy, France and Portugal?

TO THE PUBLIC

I am a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago, and I am in good standing. I am also a citizen of the United States of America.

I am engaged in the threefold work of (i) purifying my beloved Church from existing evils, (2) protecting the public school from Catholic clerical machinations, and (3) promoting a sympathetic understanding between Catholics and non-Catholics. I am prosecuting my threefold work by publishing, lecturing and preaching.

Priests and Prelates accuse me covertly of making false accusations in my book entitled ”The Parochial School, a Curse to the Church, a Menace to the Nation”: I now state that if my opponents can disprove the charges in my book, I will hand over to them all the plates of my book, and I will agree to stop its publication forever. Since these accusations were published, nearly two years have elapsed, and the Church officials have not arraigned me, nor taken any step looking to the disproof of my charges.

I will give Five Thousand Dollars ($5,000.00) to any one who can prove that I am not in possession of the “faculties” of a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago.
JEREMIAH J. CROWLEY.
Chicago, November, 1906.

ENDORSEMENT BY A GREAT CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP

I am convinced that Almighty God brought Father Crowley to America to save the Catholic Church, and that the present scandal in Chicago the most terrible that has ever occurred in America was permitted by Providence to bring to a climax the reign of rottenness, that it might be unearthed, exposed and wiped out.
THE MOST REV, FRANCIS XAVIER KATZER, D. D.,
Late Catholic Archbishop of Milwaukee.

COMMENDATION OF PROMINENT CLERGYMEN

To ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
In view of the fact that the Rev. Jeremiah J. Crowley, a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago, and an American citizen, feels that he has been providentially called into what he terms the threefold work of (i) purifying his Church from existing evils, (2) protecting the public school from Catholic clerical machinations, and (3) promoting a sympathetic understanding between Catholics and non-Catholics,

We, the undersigned, being personally acquainted with Father Crowley, hereby certify to our firm confidence in him as a Christian gentleman, to o-ur conviction as to the wisdom of his methods, and to our belief in the great importance and the pressing necessity of his work.

We bid him Godspeed in his preaching, lecturing and publishing. We feel that pulpits and pJatforms everywhere should be open to him, and that his book entitled ”The Parochial School, A Curse to the Church, A Menace to the Nation,” should be read by every thoughtful person, regardless of race or creed.

COMMENDATION OF PROMINENT CLERGYMEN

We most cordially commend him to all the people of America, earnestly bespeaking for him their hearty sympathy and generous support.

REV. J. WILBUR CHAPMAN, D, D.,
The Evangelistic Leader of the Presbyterian Church.

REV. WILBERT W. WHITE, D. D.,
President, Bible Teachers Training School, New York City.

REV. HUNTER CORBETT, D. D.,
Moderator, Presbyterian Church, U. S. A.

REV. S. PARKES CADMAN, D. D.,
Pastor of the Central Congregational Church, Brooklyn, N. Y.

REV. CORNELIUS WOELFKIN, D. D.,
Professor in the Baptist Theological Seminary, Rochester, N. Y.

REV. JNO. J. TIGERT, D. D.,
Bishop, Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

REV. CHARLES C. McCABE, D. D.,
Bishop, Methodist Episcopal Church.

REV. O. P. GIFFORD, D. D.,
Pastor of the Delaware Ave. Baptist Church, Buffalo, N. Y.

REV. HENRY C. MABIE, D. D.,
Boston, Mass.

REV. C. H. WOOLSTON, D. D.,
Pastor of the East Baptist Church, Philadelphia, Pa.

REV. IRA LANDRITH, D. D.,
President of the Belmont College, Nashville, Tenn.

REV. J. D. MOFFAT, D. D.,
President of Washington and Jefferson College, Washington, Pa.