The Pope – Chief of White Slavers, High Priest of Intrigue
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Rome’s latest attempt to murder me.
Contents
Surprised, perhaps, at the title of this book, the reader may have at the outset questioned the author’s ability to sustain the work’s main proposition. I charge the Pope of Rome with a heinous crime, indeed, a crime continuous and bloodthirsty against God and against humanity at large, a crime that covers centuries in its operation, and drenches both hemispheres with blood, in cruelty most appalling.
The Roman tiger is, always and everywhere, out for the blood of any man questioning the papacy’s blasphemous claim of sole ownership of earth, of purgatory, of hell, and of heaven; the pope’s repeated assertion of dominion, absolute and complete, over human soul, body, mind, and estate.
I am now in position to charge the pope with murder. What his bishops, priests, and sworn Knights of Columbus do, is done by the Chief of White Slavers, the High Priest of Intrigue, himself. He is the sovereign; they are his liegemen. The pope’s approved books of theology ( ?) all agree that to take life, in the service of “Holy Church,” or in defense of the “Holy Father’s” supreme lordship over mankind, is not only lawful but laudable.
Popery has, in Europe, written her story in fire and blood from the Danube to the Thames, and from the Baltic to the Adriatic. But European public opinion has, ever since the French Revolution, borne her claims with impatience, and, in recent years, cast off forever her civil and political mastery in several countries. In no European country, to-day, has the papacy the same dominating power in politics that it enjoys in the United States of America. To no European king, emperor, president, or parliament does popery offer dictation, like unto that which it deals out in cold blood, to American Presidents, Congresses, Governors, and Legislatures. No large urban community in Europe does the pope literally own, as he owns New York, metropolis of all three Americas. Other American cities fall into the same category of Romish ownership, but the case of New York is so conspicuously typical, that its mention here is sufficient to illustrate my argument.
Curbed, checked, humiliated, because reduced to impotence in Europe, popery works in America, with a shameless abandon and an inhuman greed, that refuses cover or excuse. America she claims as her very own, as if neither Cavalier, nor Puritan, nor Huguenot, had ever wrested the fairest and richest portions of the New World from savagery and darkness.
The man in America who dares question this monstrous claim, is marked for ruin and for death. He may remind popish apologists of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and Ulysses S. Grant, none of whom bent knee to the “infallible” despot of the seven-hilled city; and each of whom benefited mankind more than all the popes from the invention of popery till Pius X himself. He may point to the American Constitution, with its immortal guarantees of freedom of conscience, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and human equality, but Roman apologist shakes Jesuitical head, and, by the tongue of its Phelans, et al. y shouts, in bacchanalian fury: ” To hell with America, to hell with the American flag, when Pope of Rome, “Christ’s vicar on earth,” so demands or commands!”
The American citizen, courageous enough to question popish supremacy over flag, Constitution, and country, is face to face with death, that may be, at any time, decreed by some secret junta of Romanist henchmen, whether belted knights or purpled prelates or boodling bosses, acting under advice of some wily Jesuit or selfish hierarch.
No Catholic bishop may take possession of his see, before swearing that he will make every effort to extirpate heretics and heresy. Extirpate is a very strong word. It means more than the mere killing of a man. It signifies the uprooting, the total blotting out of the man and the thing banned by the oath. The Inquisition of Spain burned its victims and consigned their ashes to the meanest and most repellent of refuse heaps. The Inquisition in America would murder its victims and consign their names to infamy, perpetual and overwhelming.
When free American citizens elect a Roman Catholic to a judicial office, they think very naturally that the man so honored will, first of all, seek to execute the laws of the State and Nation. Not so, however, may the Romanist judge think. The pope, through his Jesuitical emissaries and representatives, does the Catholic judge’s thinking. The American Catholic magistrate’s first duty is to enforce papal decrees and ordinances, and to administer all American statutes by the light of Jesuitical interpretation.
Rome has three cardinals, fourteen archbishops, and nearly one hundred bishops in the United States of America, headed by a Delegate Apostolic, who is direct representative of the pope himself. All of these cardinals, archbishops, and bishops are sworn to extirpate heretics and heresy. The more than fifteen thousand priests have sworn obedience, absolute and unquestioning, to their prelatical masters and despots. The millions of Catholic laity are bound to follow priest and prelate, or be refused the sacraments while living and Christian burial when dead!
To sum up: the prelate and priest-led millions of Catholics, in the American Republic, are leagued together to extirpate and utterly destroy the Baptists, the Methodists, the Disciples, the Presbyterians, and all others outside the popish pale, and to this work of destruction they give impetus by assassination of such men as myself.
Rome’s hands are crimsoned with blood. But neither the torrents of blood that she has already shed, nor the flames of persecution that she has so frequently kindled have stayed the world’s progress to light and liberty. The individual resister of Rome’s blasphemous claims and pretenses is of small account, indeed, compared with the cause he represents.
Paul rejoiced in whippings, in scourgings, in imprisonments, and in shipwrecks for the faith of Jesus Christ. For the sacred truth, to him confided, he finally gave up life itself. Animated with the spirit of Paul, Luther faced repeated danger, and finally, worn by labor and trial for the truth of Christ, as against Romish despotism and idolatry, sank in manhood’s r>rime into a premature grave.
Singularly favored, in truth, is any Christian, sought out, as was Luther, for Romish aggression and persecution. “Not to us, Lord, not to us,” may I be permitted to cry out with the Psalmist, “but to Thy name give glory.” I entered the arena against Rome well knowing the risks I faced, the dangers I incurred, the murderous assaults I invited. Whether I live or die, the seed I have sown, having already taken firm root, and begun to yield rich harvests of conscientious deliverance, shall soon present products an hundredfold greater than any we now dream of.
No concealment has Rome made of fixed purpose to remove me from the ranks of living men. Warnings frequent have I received, by letter and by word of mouth, of bloodthirsty desire to eliminate me from all the activities of life.
The letters I have received are in many cases, of blood-curdling ferocity. The postal laws forbid, under severest penalty, the misuse of the mails. Yet vile, bloodthirsty Romish agents are permitted to make free use thereof, to threaten me with violent death. Insulted by postal employees, when I go to postoffices to deposit my mail, subjected to the most atrocious menaces by letters handled by United States postal officials who seem to have a particular care that every such inquisition-stamped letter duly reaches me, my lot, as an American citizen, is more trying than that of American citizens in Mexico. My life is in more jeopardy than is that of any American to-day in Latin America’s most lawless section.
When bloodthirsty men feel that it is safe to use the Nation’s mails to threaten murder, their very next step is usually, to apply knife, or gun, or bludgeon to selected victim.
The bloody attack on me at Oelwein follows logically the Hurney brutal verbal assault on me in Cincinnati ‘s general postoffice, and bears direct relation to the sanguinary missives, which I receive from day to day, from popish agents, as merciless as those who took the life of Abraham Lincoln, or William McKinley.
The murderous assault on me at Oehreim Iowa, June 12, 1913, is, let me repeat, in exact line with the threats that have for years caught my eye and ear. Familiar with Kome’s history of merciless repressiveness from the cruel Dominick, the heartless Torquemada, and the lascivious Louis XIV to present times, I can not be surprised at any deadly attempt made either on myself or on others, engaged in the glorious work of America’s emancipation from popish darkness and cruelty. But the Government of my country owes me protection!
The Oelwein murderous assault shows, in every one of its details, in the preparations evidently made by Romanist principals and agents to take my life ; in the formation and the generalship of the mob of assassins ; in the language and threats, the falseness and the lies of the fomenters and guides of the whole bloodthirsty movement, a carefully studied attempt to remove, by lawless un-American and un-Christian methods, a free-spoken opponent of the most gigantic lie that has ever cursed this earth.
I was invited by the Guardians of Liberty, an organization of patriotic Americans, to deliver two lectures in Oelwein. The Guardians had a legal right to invite me: I had an equally legal right to accept the invitation* I did not, as Romanist apologists of thuggery declare, thrust myself on the people of Oelwein. Having received an invitation, in proper form, to lecture, I wired acceptance.
The Guardians then wrote me: “We are delighted at the prospect of your coming. . . . The Opera House will seat about eight hundred. The front doors may be thrown open and large numbers can hear from the street. We are going ahead with the advertising. . . . Father O’Connor has been holding special Masses to counteract what is coming.”
“Father” Pat’s brother, “Judge Eugene” O’Connor, of the Superior Court, was of course, early in the play for violent suppression of freedom of speech and assassination, if it could be had, of my humble self. “Judge Eugene” is, by grace of his brother Pat’s influence over the Romanist voters, a political boss in Northeast Iowa, a Knight of Columbus, and ready doer of all dirty work called for in that section by popish interests. Several days before my arrival in Oelwein, young Catholic girls were heard about town saying: “We can kill him and not be hurt,” ” ‘Gene says we can kill him,” etc., etc.
Here it may be remarked that about fifteen years ago, “Father Pat” met in Chicago a tramp-relative from Ireland, in other words the present “Judge Eugene,” whom he was desirous of clothing decently and bringing to Iowa. “Rev. Pat” appealed to me for a loan of fifty dollars to enable him to carry out this philanthropic design. Poor as I was at the time, I cheerfully handed over the fifty, which “Father Pat” soon forgot. I was obliged, in order to secure its return, to employ some very plain language to the pope’s present-day representative in Oelwein.
“Father Pat” and his knightly brother “Gene” had recourse, just before my arrival in Iowa, to a characteristic Jesuit trick to keep me from coming. They and their agents induced one Morris Loeb, a Jewish merchant of Oelwein, to hawk about a petition among non-Catholics, asking that “undesirable citizen Crowley” be kept out of Oelwein. Loeb met, on all sides, with repulse. He was told by Oelwein ‘s patriotic American citizens to go back to his store, and leave the keeping of Oelwein ‘s peace and good name to people who knew how to preserve both.
The Loeb effort to keep me out of Oelwein failing ludicrously, it was then attempted to close the Opera House against the Guardians of Liberty and myself. Mr. G. H. Phillips, owner of the Opera House, a sterling American patriot, refused submission to Romish threat. The Romanists hissed their anger in the cowardly menace: “We’ll burn your Opera House!” To which, Phillips, a man of means, influence, and independence, replied: ” If you burn my Opera House, I have money enough to build another.”
Unable to prevent the meeting, Rome took another tack. The very title of my proposed lecture, “Rome’s Real Attitude Toward the Public School,” called forth into fullest activity all the latent hatred of “Father Pat,” “Judge ‘Gene,” and the Knights of Columbus for the most American of all American institutions, the Public School.
The designs of Rome upon America’s Public School are very clear to the observant. The Papal System first insists on the establishment, everywhere it may be done, of parochial schools to counteract the “poison” of American patriotism, inculated by the Public School, and to provide means of support for thousands of nuns, slaves in mind and body to the priest, who is in every parish the principal of the parochial school. Not content with its own system of parochial schools, the Roman machine foists Romanist teachers upon the public schools in every city of any size all over the country.
May it not be asked, in view of priestly and prelatic hostility to public schools, if many of the Catholic teachers must not be at heart hostile, in work alien to, and even inimical to the spirit of the institution, and, therefore, unfit to instruct pupils in the American Public School?
The Romanistic game is to build up nunneries and monkeries by means of parochial school funds ; to destroy the public schools by employing teachers, sworn as Knights of Columbus, or members of other orders of Catholic men, or as members of various women’s church leagues to obey “Holy Church” first, last, and all the time; ready, like Priest Editor Phelan, to say: “To hell with the flag,” when papal interests demand its assignment to hot quarters.
Not content with seizing, wherever they may, on the Public Schools’ teaching equipment, the Romanist leaders try everywhere there is a Public library to control its influence for enlightenment. The shelves of the library are, by Romish agents, filled with trashy, lying, popish works, and Protestant books of highest literary and historical value, cast into the discard. Some of Rome’s most willing and most efficient agents, in the work of muzzling public school and neutralizing public library, are professing Protestants, timid preachers for instance, greedy ward politicians and id omne genus.
The papal grip on Public Libraries is illustrated forcibly in the case of my work, ” Romanism— A Menace to the Nation.” For instance, the Cincinnati Public Library. Seven or eight copies of the work were purchased for circulation through the Public Library here.
Yet, when a prominent citizen recently called for the book at the Public Library, not a copy of it could be found. No sooner had the book been purchased for the library and deposited there, than it should have been entered, with the name of the author, in the index. But neither book nor name of author so appears.
One of the library officials, notwithstanding, admitted to the caller in one of his several visits to the library, seeking for my book: “Yes, that book is in the restricted department, and we have had a great many calls for it within the past few weeks. It seems that a great many people want to read the book, and there are requests on file weeks ahead. Do you wish to leave a request?”
Seeing no prospect of getting the book in that way for several months to come, the gentleman went to the office of the Chief Librarian. He was turned over to an assistant, who finally admitted that the book was not even in the restricted department , but had disappeared altogether from the library.
The librarian’s assistant, referring to the statement that the book had been placed in the restricted department, finally confessed: “Yes, that is what we have been instructed to tell the people, but to tell the truth we do not know what has become of the book. For some reason, it has disappeared from our shelves altogether, and we have no way of tracing it.”
The visitor thereupon said: “Do you mean to say that some one has deliberately removed that book from the shelves of the library with the view of stopping its circulation ?” The reply was: “We don’t know, but it looks that way.”
Similar treatment has been, in other Public Libraries throughout the country, accorded my book by agents of the Papal System, busy, like those of Cincinnati, in holding back the light from people’s heart, mind, and conscience.
Is the Inquisition dead? No, in truth, as such incidents powerfully prove. When it dares destroy books, it will not hestitate to destroy, in due course, authors of books obnoxious to the System!
There are thousands of professing Catholics, who believe in a truly American system of public schools, who believe also in free public libraries, free from all sectarian trammels. With these, of course, no man like myself, opposed to the Roman machine as a machine, social, educational, and political, odious in every form of operation, may have any quarrel. I admire the honest Roman Catholic, struggling helplessly but hopefully against the machine. To him, I say merely one word: “Get out of the System. It is irreformable from within.”
Going to Oelwein with the best of good wishes for the Catholic people, I had not the remotest intention or purpose of setting denomination against denomination, or to incite a Protestant majority to assail a Catholic minority. My motives and purposes were to set forth dispassionately and clearly the merits of America’s Public School System, to warn my hearers of the dangers threatening it, and to point out, as moderately as it might be, the design of one particular foreign politico-religious System, un-American and anti-American, in its origin, purposes and activities, to destroy it, as soon and as completely as possible.
Catholic prelates, priests, and papers are, every day, denouncing the public schools, lyingly stating that these schools are ” godless,” “immoral,” “breeders of crime,” etc., but no Protestant or Public School supporter of any denomination thinks of invoking mob law or assassination to controvert these offensive statements. Rome can not bear to be discussed in any one of its many unpatriotic and indefensible attitudes to American institutions, without flaming into anger and calling for the critic ‘s blood.
Feeling that I have a right to so declare anywhere, I declared at Oelwein my belief in the American Public School, my conviction that it is the palladium of our liberties, and my persuasion that with it are identified the future greatness and glory of our Nation. Had I not right undeniable to declare, at Oelwein, or anywhere else, that the American people should set themselves like wall of granite against even the shadow of sectarian interference with the bulwark of their liberties, the Public School? Had I not right unquestionable to advise that they should treat as public foe any sect attempting to undermine the Public School, or seeking to obtain public funds for the support of a rival system of education, whose success means the death of the American Public School?
Who will deny me the right of saying, plainly and inoffensively, that I disbelieve in the Roman Catholic parochial school? Catholic prelate, priest, and publicist, every day denounce the Public School as ” godless,’ 9 and a menace to sound, clean national life. Have I not equal right to state, as I did at Oelwein, that the parochial school is, to my mind, a menace to our free institutions, a black shadow on our future greatness and glory?
No sooner, however, did I so affirm at Oelwein, than an organized band of disturbers in the Opera House started a season of confusion. Their interruptions, frequent and brutal, were by me met with coolness and firmness, as the press reports very clearly demonstrate. These reports show that I held “interested hearers spellbound, and succeeded in keeping the opposition in abeyance until the close of the address.”
It was, however, during my address made very clear to myself, as well as to other observers, that trouble had been organized and might assume serious form as soon as the lecture ended. The meeting having closed, friendly greetings were exchanged. The law-abiding element moved towards home, but the organized hoodlums of the papacy refused to think of home till they had immersed hands in the blood of the lecturer.
This lawless gang, numbering several hundred men and women, boys and girls, filled the street in front of the Opera House and lined the sidewalk to the hotel of which I was guest, just one block away. With a small party of friends, I took the middle of the street, the sidewalks leading to the hotel being packed with shouting hoodlums, armed with bricks, two large stacks of which had been placed at a convenient point “to smash Crowley.” No sooner had I appeared on the street than the mob grew furious. When the misguided people began to close in, I remonstrated kindly but firmly, telling them not to be led into lawlessness by the advice of “Pat and his brother the Judge.”
The policeman escorting myself and party to the hotel was powerless before several hundred Romish hyenas. The mob soon lost every semblance of humanity, thirsting for my blood and the blood of Public School supporters.
The ferocity of that mob is simply indescribable. Women, losing every sense of dignity and even decency, cried out: “Kill him!” “Cut out his heart!” “Send a dagger through him!” etc. When my party had gotten within a few feet of the hotel, the frantic crowd closed in for a final attack. The yelling and hooting became diabolically furious. My hat was, first knocked off, that my head might be easy mark for the assailants’ weapons. My bare head was, indeed, conspicuously so, because of my tallness.
One notorious tough, at one time a Protestant, who very properly forsook even the empty profession of Protestant Christianity for Militant Romanism when he decided to devote his life’s energies to the high calling of a bartender, struck a fierce blow at my face, blackening one of my eyes. So ferocious and brutal this blow, that had I not removed my glasses before leaving the Opera House, I were to-day a blind man! Surrounded in such manner that movement was, for a time, completely prevented and my friends made powerless to help, blows, from all sides, rained in upon me.
Mr. George W. Weaver, the considerate proprietor of the Hotel Mealey, watching the mob from his door, thought that there might be a possibility of my reaching the doorway alive, and had the screen door set back, but before I could reach the threshold I was stricken over the head with an instrument, supposed to be a heavy clock weight, or something of the sort, in the hands of one of the leaders of the mob. Severe, as was the blow, I kept my feet, getting into the hotel, covered with blood.
After I was ushered to my room, the Romish hoodlums, angered beyond measure, that their plan of murder had failed, became frantic. They surrounded Mr. Weaver, demanding savagely that I be put out of the hotel, threatening: “If you will not turn him out, we will drag him out.” To which Mr. Weaver, true son of Iowa, made noble answer: “If you do it, it will be over my corpse.”
No sooner had I reached my room in the Hotel Mealey, than physicians were summoned. Dr. D. W. Ward, assisted by his father, a prominent physician of another city, after dressing the wound, issued the following professional statement of the injury: “Contusion of scalp, lacerated incised wound about one inch in length, slightly to left of vertex of skull. Incision extends down to the periosteum. Three stitches applied, to be removed in about ten days. D. W. Ward, M. D., Oelwein, Iowa.”
A little later, at Aurora, Missouri, the following professional certificate was issued:
“Aurora, Missouri,
“June 19, 1913.
“This is to certify that I, W. F. Ament, M. D., dressed a scalp wound on the scalp of Jeremiah J. Crowley, June 16, 1913, and on June 19, 1913, I removed from the same two stitches, there having been three stitches originally, one of which pulled out. And again I dressed the same wound. On the first occasion he (Crowley) was suffering from a blackened eye, the tissues about the eye were much bruised, and June 19, 1913, the eye was still blackened. W. F. Ament, M. D.”
In the face of these well attested facts, The Western Catholic, a typical Romanist paper, published at Quincy, Illinois, has the hardihood to say: “Now if the flames of fanaticism were fanned to a fury, it was done by the Guardians of Liberty, and their sympathizers, and their doughty champion Crowley, as I proceed to show. In fact it is now evident to a large percentage of the people of this city that riot and disorder was their avowed purpose.’ ‘ The Western Catholic claims this prize paragraph as the work of a special correspondent at Oelwein.
Not to be outdone by a papal organ, “Father Pat” O’Connor himself rises to remark: “The arms we use are Truth, as taught by the Son of God, justice and right as enumerated by Him. These we don’t conceal in church basements, but in obedience to our Master, we let them shine before the world, and the prayers that we utt t are the crystallized wisdom of ages, the voice
Eight Sessions at Nixon Theater Attract
30,000 People in Aggregate.
Two Meetings Sunday.
The series of lectures delivered by Rev. Dr. Jeremiah J. Crowley, a former Catholic priest, at the Nixon Theater, closed yesterday afternoon with two monster sessions. People began gathering in Sixth Avenue in front of the theater as early as 11 o’clock in the morning, although the doors did not open until 1.30 in the afternoon. Lines were formed from the front and side entrances of the theater, which extended to Grant and Smithfield Streets. By 1 o’clock, it was estimated, 10,000 persons were waiting to enter the theater.
The committee of arrangements decided finally to hold two sessions. The theater was filled to its capacity, which, with standing room and the stage, is about 3,500, and at 2.15 the first session opened. Rev. Dr. Wallace Tharp of the Central Christian Church, Northside, Attorney R. H. Jackson, Rev. Dr. E. E. Clark, and others made short talks. The audience sang several selections, and Walter Cummings, aged 12, played a violin solo. The meetings were for men only. The enthusiasm of his auditors was so great at times that his lecture was interrupted often for several minutes.
At 3.45 the first audience was dismissed by the side exits. All the time the first meeting was in session the waiting lines on the outside were kept intact, and when the front doors of the theater opened for the second session, more than 2,000 persons swarmed in. Many who had been denied admission to the first meeting had gone away. The second audience, however, although not so large as the first, was just as enthusiastic. At both meetings he urged voters to support principles and not men at the elections.
It is estimated that 30,000 persons in the aggregate attended the eight lectures delivered by Dr. Crowley in the Nixon Theater. His auditors were not alone from Pittsburgh. They came from Wheeling, Steubenville, Beaver, Butler, Tarentum, and more distant points, a number being from Morgantown, W. Va. — The Pittsburgh Dispatch, Monday, July 28, 1913.
America must not be Rome ruled. Its Executives, National and State, must not be dominated by foreign-ruled bodies, such as the Roman Hierarchy, and the Knights of Columbus. The one avowed purpose of the latter organization is to transform the United States of America into a papal satrapy. This papal Order is busy in self-aggrandizement. In one year it has added 19,326 to its membership, and forty-seven new councils to its jurisdictions. It has now fifty-two States and three Territorial jurisdictions, with 1,630 subordinate councils.
Its activity in politics, everywhere, is very noticeable. It dictates to all political leaders, Democrat, Republican, and Progressive. Its aim—the Romanization of America—is blessed by “Holy Father,’ ‘ promoted by all the “Holy Father’s” hierarchs, and helped on by time-serving politicians, both Catholic and Protestant. The Knights of Columbus and the Roman mischief- makers generally would Mexicanize the United States. What the American Nation wants is not Romanist anarchy, but the Christian brotherhood of the open Bible, and of the loving Redeemer, Jesus Christ.
Deeply impressed with these convictions, I addressed, August 14, 1913, the following letter to Governor Clarke, of Iowa:
To His Excellency the Honorable Geo. W. Clarke, Governor of Iowa:
Sir,—
You were elected Chief Magistrate of a State, holding front rank in the Nation for devotion to decency, respect for law, reverence for authority, veneration for the American Constitution, and worship of American citizenship. Iowa has been, at all times, conspicuous for aversion to lawlessness, repugnance for violence, and antipathy to mob law in every form.
Iowa had never risen to its present prominence and prosperity, but for these splendid characteristics of genuine American citizenship. The Iowa citizen could, till recently, walk with head erect, both at home and abroad, proudly conscious that lie belonged to a State whose citizenry were, throughout the length and breadth of the foremost Nation on earth, known and respected for high ideals of clean individual living, Christian good neighborhood, and true American civic endeavor.
A recent outbreak of cowardly violence, at Oelwein, a city of unvarying good repute, till that unfortunate manifestation of lawlessness, planned and promoted by an anarchical foreign Church, its priesthood, and followers, has, however, cast shadow, profound and repellent, on Iowa’s once proud name and stainless fame.
Any crime, befouling the escutcheon of an American State is offense, signal and unpardonable, against the Nation itself. Impossible to inflict grievous wound on one member of the body without all the other members thereof suffering from that injury. The higher any State stands in public estimation, for rigid enforcement of law and unswerving protection of citizens within its gates, the deeper the injury inflicted on State itself and on Nation, especially if the lawless endeavor be either condoned or promoted by lawfully constituted authority.
You are, sir, Governor of all the people of Iowa. You are an American Governor. You are, in conscience bound, to maintain Iowa’s good name ; to suffer no stain to affix itself on America’s good name. You owe no allegiance whatever to a foreign, anti-American Church organization, whose teachings and practices are diametrically opposed to American organic law and civic standards. Romanism is essentially hostile to Americanism. It is sworn foe of liberty, civil and religious. It places foreign pope above native American President.
That pope claims the right, to him divinely ( ?) given, to dethrone kings, unseat presidents, annul laws passed by parliaments and congresses. Romanism is anarchical, anti-American, and destructive of civilization itself.
Its priestly celibacy, whereby its clergy become deadly menace to womanhood everywhere; its Confessional, dire promoter of White Slavery ; its divorce system, endangering the peace and permanency of thousands of homes, are all active instruments of its war upon civilization, particularly the civilization, like that of America and Britain, resting on popular education, the open Bible, and,, the free ballot. Romanism’s bases are ignorance, the closed Bible, and the despotism of one man, impiously claiming ” infallibility.”
You are not, sir, Governor of Iowa’s Romanists only. You are not Governor, by the grace of Pope Pius X, or Cardinal Merry del Val. You are Governor by virtue of an enlightened non- Romanist community’s free choice at the polls. You had never been Governor of Iowa, could Rome have prevented your election. Your election over a Knight of Columbus the papacy had, indeed, prevented through its well organized political agencies, had not The Menace, peerless organ of American liberty, civil and religious, aroused its five million readers to the conditions that Romanist machinations were seeking to impose on Iowa. Papalism did not want you, Sir, elevated to the Governorship of Iowa, for it feared that Iowa would, in you, have a Chief Magistrate to hold up the Flag, which Romish priests curse, and defame; to maintain Iowa in permanent high place as a law-respecting and lawenforcing State; to repress sectionalism and promote united civic effort.
Amazed, then, are the tens of thousands of honest, patriotic Iowans who, against Rome’s fixed purposes and well-laid plans, voted you into the Governorship of their State, to see you stand idly by and suffer the fair name of Iowa to be blotted and besoiled by the Romanist originators and promoters of, actors and participators, in the Oelwein attempt to assassinate me.
That foul, inhuman attempt at assassination was a Romanist plot, blessed by Hierarchy, fostered by priest, executed by Knights of Columbus and other devoted agents of the Papal System of blood and brutality.
All Iowa, nay more, all of free America had heartily applauded your assertion of gubernatorial dignity; your maintenance of Iowa’s proud distinction among America’s Commonwealths, had you, in the Oelwein case, shown the courage befitting a real American Governor. What an enduringly noble place in American history have, for example, the fearless War Governors of Lincoln’s day! What honor upon States and Nation have not conferred such Governors, as Cleveland and Morton, of New York; Johnson, of Tennessee; Allen, of Ohio; McClellan, of New Jersey; Hogg, of Texas; Johnson, of Minnesota!
No American Chief Magistrate may suffer lawlessness to triumph, and expect to hand down to family, to State, and to country a name, spotless and undefiled. The name of any Governor, unequal to the discharge of duty, unwilling to defy all lawless elements and organizations, must, on the contrary, go down to history, blackened and dishonored.
Nor can the State itself, which he misgoverns, escape the censure of the Nation at large, for having elected a creature so pusillanimous to highest office in its gift. The permanent disgrace of one individual is lamentable enough, the permanent disgrace of a State is truly deplorable. When that disgrace arises from alliance between the Governor of the State and a foreign-ruled, anarchic, and murderous Church organization, whose merciless hands are stained with the blood of thousands of Waldensian martyrs in Italy, with hosts of Inquisitional victims in Spain, and legions of Huguenots in France, time, indeed, is it, for Americans to protest, earnestly and emphatically, against a Governor, guilty of such malfeasance, and demand his summary impeachment and removal.
When subordinate officials know that their State is in the hands of a pusillanimous Chief Magistrate; when they have reason to believe that that Chief Magistrate is himself in the hands of agents of a foreign, despotic Church body, they, too, find it convenient to imitate their Governor’s timidity, and contract profitable alliance with the conscienceless prelacy and priesthood of Rome, always promising to pay with ballots for service rendered their cause, by weak-kneed Protestant American officials.
The conduct of Prosecuting Attorney Hughes, and of Sheriff Clark, of Fayette County, Iowa, on the occasion of the Oelwein outrage, shows indubitably that there was collusion between these officials and the agents of Rome’s band of assassins in Oelwein. A cursory examination of the facts connected with the attempted murder of me, at Oelwein, discloses, beyond contradiction, that the local officials knew, several days before my arrival there, that plans were under formation for my assassination; that several hundred men and boys had banded together to murder me; that the proposed outrage was talked of publicly on the streets of Oelwein, the would-be assassins and their abettors attempting no concealment of their conviction that Judge Eugene O’Connor, the Romanist brother of the Romanist priest of Oelwein, had pledged immunity to those who might take my life.
The sheriff, Edward F. Clark, in fact, told me after the riot, in my own apartment in the hotel, in the presence of several witnesses, that he knew for several days of the planned and purposed riot. And yet he remained studiously away at his home, seventeen miles from Oelwein, during all the time of the disturbance.
Is it not reasonable, sir, to suppose that the county authorities of Fayette felt safe in contracting alliance, offensive and defensive, with Judge O’Connor and Priest O’Connor, with the Knights of Columbus and their satellites, because some assurance was given that the Governor of Iowa would keep ” hands off” in xhe matter of my proposed murder?
Why did they feel safe in neglecting preparations for the suppression of an outbreak, which they well knew was certain to occur? Did they not, perhaps, consult you as to having troops in readiness for the maintenance of peace and order, and find you, unwilling to do your part in protecting life and upholding law? They certainly did act, throughout, as if aware of a definite alliance between yourself and the paper agents, particularly, your friends ‘?) the Knights of Columbus.
Did not the latter promise a safe delivery of the Romanist vote of Iowa to you. Sir, if you and your Fayette County officials delivered Crowley into the hands of the assassins? The Guardians of Liberty are not an organization, carrying about the votes of their members in breeches pockets, ready for delivery to the highest bidder : the Knights of Columbus, the very priesthood of Rome, profess to deal precisely, in that nefarious way, with the votes of followers and dupes!
Catholics, whether Knights of Columbus or not, are nowhere distinguished for bravery. The servitude, spiritual and intellectual, imposed by the Church, robs men of manfulness. Brave only are Romanists, when they feel that, in any proposed lawless effort, they have back of them the machinery of law and Government.
So convinced were people in Oelwein of administrative connivance at their proposed murder of me, that Catholic school girls went about the streets openly boasting that ” Judge Eugene’ ‘ would stand by and safeguard any one undertaking to kill me.
Would Judge Eugene O’Connor have dared promise any such protection, without first fixing his forces at the Executive Mansion in Des Moines, and at Payette’s County Court House?
Not till I had, at Pittsburgh, called the attention of all the American people to Iowa’s failure, through you and your subordinates, to assert the supremacy of the law, was anything, in so far as I know, done to bring the Oelwein malefactors to justice. I said, sir, before the thousands gathered to hear me in Pittsburgh: “If I am murdered in the future, I want the patriotic American people to hold the civil authorities of the State of Iowa, especially the Governor, responsible for my murder, for their criminal negligence, so far as I know, in refusing to prosecute to the full extent of the law the members of the mob which attempted to take my life in Oelwein on June 12th. And furthermore, if I am murdered in any part of this country, I shall expect the American people to hold the Federal authorities, including Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, responsible. I am an American citizen and have a right to demand that the State and Federal authorities furnish me protection.”
The whole Nation is aroused at the disgrace you have permitted to be inflicted on Iowa. I am in receipt of protests against the Oelwein outrage from all over the Union. Let me cite the following from amongst many. I begin, sir, with your own State
Adopted by Fearless Court, Guardians of Liberty, Oelwein, Iowa, August 8, 1913.
“Whereas, Fearless Court, No. 11, of Oelwein, Iowa, extended to the Eev. J. J. Crowley an invitation to deliver two lectures in the city of Oelwein, Iowa, June 12, 13, 1913, and that, after filling the first night of the engagement, Mr. Crowley was set upon and cruelly mobbed by a large number of Roman Catholics ; and,
“Whereas, The officials have moved in the matter of prosecuting those engaged in the riot of June 12, yet we are not satisfied with the progress made looking to the punishment of the guilty parties; therefore, be it
“Resolved, That we condemn in the strongest terms the effort made by the enemies of good government to prevent by intimidation and violence the said Eev. J. J. Crowley from delivering his lectures according to arrangement. We brand this assault as an insult to the Constitution of the United States and a menace to the right of free speech. Be it further resolved, that we urge the constituted authorities to seek out and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law all who engaged in the above mentioned riot.
“Resolved, That this Court is highly pleased with the most able lectures delivered by Mr. Crowley, resulting as they have in the awakening of the Protestants of this and other communities to a sense of the danger that threatens their liberties. We wish to commend him to the Patriots everywhere as an example of the highest type of American citizen, fearless in his denunciation of Romish aggression, logical in his presentation of the principles of good government, and worthy the confidence of all good men. We bespeak for him an attentive hearing in all parts of our beloved country.
“(Signed) C. J. Wegner,
“V. W. Potter,
“A. H. Nickell,
“Committee”
That the great State of Illinois is profoundly moved at the Oelwein manifestation of Romanistic lawlessness and official unfitness, the following from the flourishing city of Elgin demonstrates :
“Copy of Resolutions.
“Elgin, 111., June 18, 1913.
“Mr. Jeremiah J. Crowley,
“Cincinnati, Ohio.
“Dear Sir,—Elgin Court, No. 21, Guardians of Liberty, in regular meeting, June 17, 1913, instructed its Committee on Resolutions to extend to you our sympathy in the recent attack made upon you in Oelwein, Iowa, by Romanist thugs. Further, that we protest against such unwarranted attacks as opposed to the principles of free speech in this country. Respectfully yours,
“(Signed) Heney Shellgeove,
“Geoege D. Bull,
“Committee on Resolutions.”
Ohio, the State of my residence, one of the leading Commonwealths of this great Nation, is not less profoundly affected than Illinois. See what Cincinnati declares :
“Copy of Resolutions.
“Cincinnati, Ohio, July 1, 1913,
“Rev. Jeeemiah J. Ceowley,
“Cincinnati, Ohio.
“Dear Sir and Brother,—We, your fellowcitizens and members of the several Courts, Guardians of Liberty, in regular meetings, instructed our Committee on Resolutions, to extend to you our earnest sympathy in the recent attack made upon you in Oelwein, Iowa, by Romanist thugs, and assure you of our confidence and support as a leader in this grand, patriotic crusade.
“Further, That we vigorously protest against such unwarranted attacks as opposed to the principles of free speech in this country. “That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the Honorable George W. Clarke, Governor of Iowa; The Menace, Aurora, Mo.; The American Citizen, East Orange, N. J., and that a copy be spread on the minutes of the several Courts.
“Menace Court, No. 16, W. W. Bybee, M. G.;
“Union Court, No. 8, Edw. Schmidt, M. G.;
“Armory Court, No. 23, Wm. Schroeder, M. G.;
“Harmonv Court, No. 11, Findly Stewart;
“Armory Court, No. 23, J. C. Bellman, M. G.;
“Lincoln Court, No. 20, C. Owens;
” Anthony Wayne Court, No. 12, Chas. Solger, M. G.;
“Fairmount Court, No. 31, Frank Theil, M. G.;
“Eureka Court, No. 4, Chas. Giesenberg, M. G.”
You can not, Sir, plead ignorance of the real conditions at Oelwein, induced by the disgraceful riot of June 12, 1913. The Menace, the paper which helped so materially to elect you; a paper having a reading constituency of five millions, has thousands of subscribers in Iowa, many hundreds of whom reside in Des Moines, your own present place of residence. The Menace of June 13, 1913, published the following, which could not have escaped your eye:
EXTRA BY TELEGRAPH TO THE MENACE EXTRA
“Oelwein, Iowa, June 13, 1913.
“The Menace, Aurora, Mo.
“Jeremiah J. Crowley, of Cincinnati, spoke here last evening to packed house of leading citizens on the public school question, and was mobbed by Roman Catholics on his way to the hotel after the lecture. Doctors state that injuries are severe ; but, characteristic of his usual nerve and courage, Mr. Crowley will speak this evening as previously arranged.
“Fearless Court, No. 11,
“Guardians of Liberty.” ‘ “The above telegram was received just as The Menace went to press with this edition. “We hope to be able to give details next week. This assault upon FREE SPEECH is doubtless part of the National conspiracy against free institutions by the Roman Catholic hierarchy. The threat of the Catholic Federated Societies of Philadelphia is answered by this papal mob in Iowa.
“We meet the challenge of brutal Rome, and declare with renewed emphasis that the sacrifice upon the altar of liberty is not in vain, and this Nation must and shall be free! ‘ ‘
A distinguished and cultured lady visiting in Oelwein wrote you, sir, and the Attorney-General, without delay:
“Oelwein, Iowa, June 23, 1913.
“To His Excellency Governor Clarke and Hon. George Cosson, Attorney-General, State or Iowa, Des Moines, Iowa:
Sirs,—A great crime against the people of the State of Iowa, and against the Constitution of the United States was committed in Oelwein, Iowa, on the evening of June 12th, when an attempt was made to murder, at the entrance to the Mealey Hotel, one Rev. Jeremiah J. Crowley, a resident of Cincinnati, who, exercising his rights as an American citizen, gave a patriotic lecture on the value of the public school.
“After the lecture was over he was attacked by a gang of Roman Catholic ruffians, who attempted to murder him. One hoodlum in particular, by the name of Edward Murray, of 18 Frederick Street, Oelwein, struck the Rev. Crowley over the head with a heavy iron instrument, inflicting a serious injury. The names of the other thugs are known also.
“As the local authorities seem unable to bring the criminals to justice, will you not use your good offices, in the interest of law and order, and see that this matter is probed by properly constituted authority and the guilty parties punished! i ‘ (Signed) ” Yours truly, “Mrs. Elizabeth Armstrong.”
A leading minister of the Gospel wrote :
” Guthrie Centre, Iowa, June 27, 1913. “To the Honorable George W. Clarke,
“Governor of Iowa :
“My Dear Sir,—I greet you this morning of the 27th day of June, 1913, as first of all a patriotic American citizen of this United States of America and of the State of Iowa, and as a regularly ordained minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord, ‘King of kings and Lord of lords.’ I assure you, Honored Sir, that it is not with a trivial or inconsiderable feeling that I would dare to address you, one whose time and energy is supposed to be employed with matters of the deepest concern and well-being of our beloved State and people, but on the contrary, I believe and feel that what I am to say in this message to you is of very vital and profound interest. I feel that you would in every case regard as perilous and alarming every concerted attempt at the threatening of our State and National liberties, and believing steadfastly in your unswerving attitude toward any and all such encroachments, I would, as a citizen, remonstrate and give you an account of my feelings in this respect and call to your attention, if it has not already been, and even if it has, would add these words, citing you to the mob violence resorted to by a bloodthirsty gang of Roman Catholics upon an honored citizen of this Republic, at Oelwein, Iowa, Thursday evening, June 12, 1913—the Rev. Jeremiah J. Crowley, author, lecturer, and public servant of liberty and freedom of speech, press, and educative institutions. This honored citizen and son of liberty was maltreated and cruelly beaten for maintaining our liberties in this beloved State, and as an honest, sympathetic servant of the public good, I ask that you immediately investigate this matter and as a wise judiciary cause to be made such arrest and conviction of said participants in this bold and unpatriotic and inhuman assault, for I feel that this should be dealt strenuously with, as a wise and advance precaution against further criminal patronage. I should be very glad to have a short note of reply.
” Thanking you in advance for the same, and believing in your sincerity, honesty, and loyalty, I remain, “Yours respectfully,
“John F. Hiner,
“Pastor Wesleyan Methodist Church,
Guthrie Center, Iowa.”
I charge you, sir, with gross malfeasance in office.
I charge you with complicity, after the fact at least, in a foul, cowardly attempt to murder an American citizen. I charge you with alliance, unquestionable, with papalism and its agents in America.
I charge you with the violating of your oath of office to execute the laws of Iowa.
I charge you with bringing discredit and dishonor on a Commonwealth, whose name, till you had discredited it, was synonymous with American civilization’s highest and best effort.
I charge you with submitting to foreign Romeruled organizations, by hesitating to rebuke assault on American freedom of speech.
I charge you with grave unfitness for the high office of Governor of the great State of Iowa, which will have no alliance, direct or indirect, with papalistic perversity.
Iowa’s manifest duty is to remove you, Sir, by impeachment from the office your presence tarnishes and disgraces.
I am, sir, Very truly yours,
Jeremiah J. Crowley.
The Roman scheme for the suppression of free speech, embraces not alone incitements to murder, plots involving physical violence with destruction of life and property ; it includes not only the muzzling of Federal, State, and County officials, it lays criminal hand on the telegraph and postal equipments of American civilization.
On the morning of Saturday, June 28, 1913, I received an important letter from Pittsburgh, asking for immediate information of great value to the Committee, in charge of my proposed series of lectures in their city.
Soon after I had read the letter of the Chairman of the Lecture Committee, Rev. Wilson G. Cole, I went personally to the main office of the Western Union Telegraph Company, in Cincinnati, and wrote a telegram, covering the main points in the letter of the Committee. Handing it to the receiving clerk in the presence of Mr. R. C. Bliss, manager of the Cincinnati office, I requested that it be stamped “Rush,” and sent immediately to Pittsburgh.
That message, duly prepaid, and stamped, “Rush,” was dispatched from the Cincinnati office, as the records show, six minutes after my handing it in. It should have gotten to Pittsburgh early that same afternoon.
The Pittsburgh Committee awaiting my telegram anxiously, had to wait in vain. The telegram was held back for twenty-five hours ! The Rev. Wilson G. Cole, a prominent clergyman of the locality, is my authority for the statement that the message was, through some one’s neglect, held up for five and twenty hours. Rev. Mr. Cole had, in fact, received a special delivery letter, which I had addressed to him, six hours after sending the telegram, before that telegram was presented to him. Having, from the special delivery letter, obtained the information, which should have reached him, by wire, the day before, Mr. Cole very properly refused to accept the belated telegram.
Going to the head office of the Western Union in Cincinnati, after I had heard of my telegram’s ” hold-up ” in Pittsburgh, I demanded an explanation. Mr. R. C. Bliss, the courteous manager of the Cincinnati main office, wired the Pittsburgh manager, who refused him an answer. A second wire from Mr. Bliss to the Pittsburgh manager, met with like fate.
Mr. Bliss, in the temporary absence of Superintendent Miller, wired the Pittsburgh Superintendent, Mr. A. C. Terry. No reply. Mr. Bliss then, in due course, placed the whole matter in the hands of Mr. I. N, Miller, the Cincinnati Superintendent, who communicated with Terry in Pittsburgh. Terry’s explanation was, however, of such a character, that Mr. Miller sent it back to Pittsburgh for repairs, without suffering me to see it.
Arrived in Pittsburgh, I called attention in my first lecture, July 21, 1913, to the detention of my telegraphic message.
Holding up my book, ” Romanism—A Menace to the Nation,” at page 67, 1 drew the attention of the vast and representative audience before me to the photographic copy of a cablegram stolen from the files of the Western Union Telegraph Company in Chicago.
I recalled to my audience the fact that this cablegram sent to Rome, June 6, 1901, addressed to Cardinal Ledochowski, Prefect of Propaganda, had been, by a Romish agent, stolen, soon after it had been filed with the Western Union, and given to the Roman Hierarchy. The cablegram, bearing my own and the signature of another protesting priest, sent, however, at the instance and expense of a large committee of Chicago protesting priests, was, once in the hands of the enemy, photographed and used to the injury of myself and friends, and to the furtherance of corrupt Hierarchical interests and misrule. The Romish agent, who perpetrated the theft of that Chicago cablegram, defied a fine of $1,000 and a seven year term in penitentiary. The Pittsburgh Romanist agent, backed by the plethoric treasure of Roman prelacy and priesthood, was evidently just as temerarious.
Is the Western Union—I may, surely, ask, after such a barefaced theft—really honeycombed with Romanists, or Jesuitized Protestants, all ready to render service to the old whore of Babylon, by feloniously invading private and individual right?
Having failed from the early days of July to obtain any satisfactory explanation, the Cincinnati main office of the Western Union sent, on August 10, 1913, all the papers in the case to Superintendent Terry of Pittsburgh, insisting on an explanation. On August 12 wire was sent Pittsburgh, at my request, asking for copy of my original telegram. It took three urgent telegrams to Superintendent Terry, of Pittsburgh, to secure copy of that original message. Here it is:
Cincinnati, Ohio,
June 28, 1913.
Rev. W. G. Cole,
Spencer Methodist Episcopal Church,
118 Stewart Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Your letter received this morning. God willing, I will be with you and patriotic people of Pittsburgh July 20 to 26. My sixth subject is Esoteric Romanism. Letter follows. God save the World and Humanity from Rome and things Roman!
Jeremiah J. Cbowley.
Does it not look as if this message was held up, for the purpose of putting the Committee and myself at cross purposes? It may have been hoped, in this way, to prevent, at all events for a time, my series of lectures in Pittsburgh. No trick that Rome is not equal to in the suppression of free speech !
Told in New York City that Bishop Muldoon, of Rockford, Illinois, and his Hierarchical associates had planned to prevent the publication of my book, “Romanism—A Menace to the Nation/ p then in a publisher’s hands, I called on that prelate at his Rockford home, October 7, 1911, on a Sherlock Holmes mission of inquiry, as to the schemes of, and the means and methods to be invoked by Muldoon and his Hierarchical associates to corral my publisher. I got all the light I wanted. I started Muldoon talking; the rest was easy. I wanted to draw him out. No great difficulty in getting him started. The mere mention of his deadly clerical foes, “His Grace,’ ‘ Ireland of St. Paul, “Father” Cashman, of Chicago, et at., gave him a brainstorm. He stated to me openly, among many other things, that he knew who stole our cablegram to Rome in 1901. Of course he did; for Muldoon was head and front of the machine that cablegram had so forcibly hit. He added that he also knew its present whereabouts. Of course he does.
From the information previously received, and from the whole tenor of my conversation with “Bishop Muldoon,” I realized that there was a fixed and definite design to prevent the publication of my book, “Romanism—A Menace to the Nation.” I, then and there, resolved, in consequence, to become my own publisher, and within a week had completed arrangements in Cincinnati to carry out that purpose.
I may here mention that, to discredit myself and my anti-Romanist campaign, it has been insinuated that I went to Rockford secretly to “sell out” to Muldoon. This insinuation was not even whispered till one year after my visit to Rockford, and six months after the publication of my book, in which I stated specifically that I had called on Muldoon, October 7, 1911. (See “Romanism—A Menace to the Nation,’ ‘ p. 677.) My visit to Rockford was not secret. I registered in my own name, without slightest attempt at concealment, at hotels both in Chicago and Rockford.
If my visit to Rockford was one of blackmailing, would Muldoon have hesitated to place me at once under arrest?
Muldoon has not money enough, nor has all the Hierarchy of Rome, to buy me into silence. Muldoon, on the occasion referred to, denounced archbishops, bishops, and priests, at one time associated with me, as criminals of deepest dye, fit only to be jailed, shot or hanged. These criminals are now, however, his ecclesiastical bedfellows, but they are not, thank heaven, mine! None such shall ever be!
Shortly after Archbishop Quigley’s arrival in Chicago in 1903, I called on him, March 13, 1903, at his own urgent invitation, at his “palace” in Chicago. Born, like other children of poor folk in a log cabin of very modest dimensions, near Oshawa, in Canada, Quigley’s rise in favor with the popes of Rome has, in a few years, made him denizen of semi-regal ” palaces.’ ‘
When I made mention to “His Grace’ * Quigley of my suit against the Western Union Telegraph Company, in re the stolen cablegram, he protested vigorously against such a course, exclaiming: “We can not, for the Church’s sake, permit that action to go on. Such an action would at once confirm the public mind in the belief, now all too general, that Rome is ready to rob not only the files of the telegraph companies, and other corporations, but even government offices, to carry out any of its cherished schemes. Why, we are now even accused of getting hold of Presidential messages before they are given to Congress or the public!” [Quite easy now, would be the purloining by Rome of Presidential documents.] “No! No! the Church is under shadow, deep and dark enough, without putting on her before the American public the garb of a telegraph thief. That suit must be dropped and the question of damages for you otherwise dealt with. To damages you are entitled; but the Church must be spared the ignominy of exposure.”
In other words, the individual, in the Papal System, is nothing, the machine everything. To this policy, cruel and unfeeling, the prelacy and priesthood of Rome live up, with the utmost fidelity.
Pope Adrian IV sold Ireland to King Henry II of England, for a guarantee of “Peter’s Pence.’ ‘ Every pope, since Adrian’s time, has sacrificed men in scores, several in hundreds, and many more in thousands, to save or to strengthen the infamous Papal System. Men’s lives have been, throughout the ages, bartered by the Vatican for filthy lucre. The individual Christian is, I repeat, nothing, the blood-stained machine everything.
It is, apropos of Rome’s conscienceless disregard of individual right and defiance of law, my duty to state that on Thursday morning, August 14, 1913, I received at the Cincinnati Postoffice, a registered letter from a prominent, patriotic citizen of Oelwein, Iowa. The letter was in bad order, as certified to by Postoffice clerks, Charles Keck, and Leon Pangburn. The letter had been opened before it reached Cincinnati. Where was it opened? Was it opened at Oelwein? Has Rome an agent in the Postoffice there? Is the Postmaster or Assistant Postmaster such agent? Is either a Romanist or Knight of Columbus ?
This latest postoffice outrage on me was perpetrated that the name of my correspondent and the names of other prominent Oelwein men might be handed to the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, Knights of Columbus, and other Romanist agencies, which shall surely visit their anger on my correspondent, and on the gentlemen named in his enclosure. They will be, not only, denied what business patronage Rome may control ; their persons, property, and their very lives are jeopardized. They are surely men, marked out for Romanist vengeance.
My correspondent writes, in part :
I regret the dilatory manner in which the authorities [civil] have gone about the prosecution of the offenders of June 12. It is true that thirteen have been called to account, but there are others against whom there is the best evidence that have not been arrested. The woman who struck you the second night ought to be taught a lesson, whether she should get full extent of the law or not. Your statement made in Pittsburgh that, in the event that you are murdered in the future, you would hold the Iowa officials responsible, is all right. It is a terrific fact for the authorities to face. I trust they will feel the weight of it.
I congratulate you on the great meetings in Pittsburgh. The country is slowly arising to a sense of the danger. The day of final conflict is postponed. But how shall we keep the people awake? If I can be of service to you and the cause at any future time I am at your service. May the Lord keep and use you in this mighty conflict !
Most sincerely yours,
Profoundly moved and aroused to indignation, by the latest postoffice infamy visited on me, fitting sequel to the utterly unprecedented iniquities, Federal, State, and Municipal, I denounced recently at Pittsburgh, Pa., before representative and enlightened American audiences, I dispatched, on August 14, 1913, telegrams to Washington, which exactly expressing my feelings, as an American citizen, determined that his rights should be respected, I cheerfully submit to my readers :
The Honorable Albert S. Burleson,
Postmaster General,
Washington, D. C.
Postoffice outrages on me still continuing. Received to-day very important registered letter from Oelwein, Iowa. Letter was broken open shamefully, and contents rifled. Crime evidently perpetrated in the interest of my would-be murderers at Oelwein, Iowa, June 12, 1913. What is your Department going to do about it?
Jeremiah J. Crowley,
Author, Lecturer, and Publicist,
619 Johnston Building,
Cincinnati, Ohio.
The Honorable Woodrow Wilson,
President of the United States,
Washington, D. C.
The American Postoffice system has been and is used to my grievous injury. Letters threatening my murder received for ten years, also scurrilous letters. Registered and other letters broken open. Grossly insulted personally by postoffice employees. Murderously assaulted recently in Iowa. What is your administration going to do to protect my life and rights against the Mexican methods of Rome and Romanism here in the United States?
Jeremiah J. Crowley,
Author, Lecturer, and Publicist,
619 Johnston Building,
Cincinnati, Ohio.
To these messages, which my American citizenship entitled me to forward, no acknowledgment or reply has been vouchsafed. Is Washington prepared to ignore, at Rome’s dictation, robbery of mails, and murderous assaults? Are we in Naples, Mexico, or the United States?
With the Postoffice system of the United States so largely under Roman dictation and the Western Union Telegraph Company paying the Vatican beast ready homage, what rights have individuals, distasteful to the papacy, that postal or telegraph officials shall respect?
Americans must take action, or neither the Postoffice, nor the telegraph office, nor any other agency or equipment of society or business in this country, shall be safe from Romanist rapacity, greed and lust!
Are we, I repeat, in free America? Or, are we in an America, Romanized and enslaved by the Inquisition’s hierarchs? Torrents of blood were, in the war between the States, poured out freely to efface negro slavery from American soil. But there is in fullest activity, at tins moment, a slavery fouler and more sanguinary, darkening and debasing all this land from Atlantic to Pacific. It mobs the individual citizen claiming freedom of speech: it robs the Postoffice and pillages telegraphic files. It holds thousands of women in the most atrocious White Slavery; it keeps youth and age in ignorance, and by its Confessional, and its vow of counterfeit clerical celibacy, makes itself menace, most appalling, to pure home life.
