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Who’sWho
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"Any political movement directed against any body of our

fellow citizens because of their religious creed is a grave of-

fense against American principles and American institutions

• • » Political movements directed against men because of their

religious belief have never accomplished anything but harm,

and are directly in contradiction of the Constitution itself. Base

and unlovely in any civilization, sectarian intolerance is utter-

ly revolting among a free people."

President Theodore Roosevelt

quoted by the New York Herald

,

October 13, 1915





Who’s Who

in the

P.O.A.U.?

Published in the U. S. A.

March 28, 1951

by

Our Sunday Visitor Press

Huntington, Ind.



TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 3

Some Light on Past Crusades 5

The POAU 13

Dr. Edwin McNeill Poteat 19

Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam 21

Dr. Charles Clayton Morrison 36

Dr. John A. Mackay 46

E. H. DeGroot, Jr 49

Dr.
J.

M. Dawson 56

Dr. Glenn L. Archer 66

Dr. Louie D. Newton 72

E. H. Rogers 77

Willard E. Givens 84

Paul Blanshard 95

Church and State 114

Intolerance 121

Democracy 130

The Kind of People Who Make Capital of

Anti-Catholic Movements 137

Think It Over 156

Second Edition 40,000 copies — June 7, 1951

Dsac-®wi



Introduction

If we would obtain a true view of Catholicism, we must

begin by making a clean sweep of all the views that, as out-

siders, we have been taught to entertain about it. Let honest

inquirers do this to the best of their power.—William H. Mal-
lock, 1919, author of "The Reconstruction of Belief."

It is not because this is the day of “Exposures” that the

contents of this booklet are presented to you for serious peru-

sal, but rather because the compiler believes that he is render-

ing a real service to the nation. That his judgment is correct

can be supported by hundreds of our nation s biggest men

who lived during the five different periods in which anti-

Catholic crusades were waged.

You have heard of the “Knownothing” movement, of

which President Lincoln took notice, and which he denounced

more vehemently than he did any other thing, including

slavery.

Another such epidemic broke out in the nineties of the

last century under the name “American Protective Associa-

tion” (A.P.A.). It was short-lived because truly American edi-

tors and clergymen so revealed its real purposes that respect-

able persons were ashamed to countenance it.

Still another, longer-lived campaign, was that launched

by the Socialist Party from the year 1905 to 1935. For several

years it presented itself to the nation as a purely economic

movement, but being built on the same philosophy as Com-

munism, it advertised for sale in its many papers and maga-

zines the works of Marx, Engels, and other atheistic writers.

When both Protestants and Catholics reacted to it

unfavorably, the Party cleverly notified the sectarian press

that its philosophy had only an anti-Catholic application. To

deceive them—and it deceived thousands—its most widely cir-

culated organ “The Appeal to Reason” founded at Aurora,

Mo., in 1911 a vicious anti-Catholic sheet named “The

Menace.”

The patriotism of Catholics during World War I having



given the lie to The Menace attacks on their Church, this

paper, after 10 years, was forced to die an ignominious death,

A new wave of bigotry swept the country when the Ku

Klux Klan was reorganized in the year 1921. But its founder,

many head organizers and leading promoters throughout the

country got in trouble with the law, and many were sentenced

to prison for various sorts of crimes including murder, for-

gery, embezzlement, etc. You will find names and unsavory

records of such persons in 20 pages of this book, beginning on

page 137?

The next organized outburst of religious prejudice took

place after the nomination of A1 Smith, a Catholic, as candi-

date for the Presidency. At the forefront of this organized

movement were several Protestant bishops and many clergy-

men who were bitterly criticized by leading newspaper and

magazine editors for associating politics with their religion,

yet blaming the Catholic Church for political activity.

Somewhat over two years ago, prominent churchmen of

various denominations themselves organized a new anti-Cath-

olic crusade in which the identical stock charges circulated

from Knownothing days on, are reiterated.

This book has to do with the officers and some co-

workers of "Protestants and Other Americans United for

Separation of Church and State” (POAU). What the writer

has to say about them is well documented, and you will note

that most of them had a pronounced Pink past record. Only

recently, when it is unpopular to express sympathy for

Communism directly, are they helping the cause in another

way.

These men are giving great encouragement to Stalin by

dividing our citizenry and by their political activity against

the only Church that has been arrayed against Bolshevism

from the time it was born in 1918. They imitate the Maliks

and Vishinskys in denouncing others, but are themselves

guilty of the charges they make. All observations made in this

book are well authenticated and challenge successful refuta-

tion. They were lifted from the files of

Our Sunday Visitor Press,

Huntington, Indiana



SOME LIGHT ON PAST CRUSADES

To be good and to be called wicked; to do good and to

suffer ill; these are the marks and seals of the people of the

crucified Jesus; and these marks are now, as ever, upon the

Catholic Church — Henry William Wilberforce (from "Reasons
for Submitting to the Catholic Church.")

Writing in 1855 to Joshua F. Speed, an old friend, Lin-

coln said (“Recollections of Abraham Lincoln,” by Ward Hill

Lamon):

“Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty

rapid. As a nation we began by declaring that 'All men are

created equal/ We now practically read it: 'All men are

created equal except negroes/ When the Knownothings get

control it will read, 'All men are created equal except negroes

and foreigners and Catholics/ When it comes to this, I

should prefer emigrating to some country where they make

no pretense of loving liberty, where despotism can be taken

pure and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”

A Brave Virginian.

Henry A. Wise, in the Richmond, Va., “Inquirer” No-

vember, 1855, wrote:

“I am a native Virginian, ‘intus et in cute’ a Virginian; my

ancestors on both sides for two hundred years were citizens

of this country and this state—half English, half Scotch. I am

a Protestant by birth, by baptism, by education, and by

adoption. I am an American; yet in every character, in every

relation, in every sense, with all my head, and all my heart,

and with all my might, I protest against this secret organiza-

tion of native Americans and of Protestants, to proscribe

Roman Catholics and naturalized citizens.

“Down, down with any organization which denounces

a separation between Protestant Virginia and Catholic Mary-

land, between the children of Catholic Carroll and of Prot-

estant George Wythe. There the names stand together among



6 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

the ‘signatures’, and I will redeem their ‘mutual’ pledges with

my ‘life’, my ‘fortune,’ and my ‘sacred honor’, so far as in me

lies—so help me God!”

Read This 100 Year Old Item.

“Of the new members elected to the Massachusetts

Legislature, sixty are clergymen. Forty-eight of this number

are Methodists, four are Presbyterians, four are Baptists, two

are Universalists. Here is a Jesuitism for you, with a ven-

geance!—over one-fourth of the Legislature of Massachusetts

composed of clergymen! What means all this? Why is it, we

ask, that in nearly every State in the Union we see ministers

forsaking the sacred desk to mingle in politics and seek for

office? These sixty clergymen of the Massachusetts Legisla-

ture are all Knownothings, of course, and they left their pas-

toral duties to obtain office. Protestant as we are, in feeling,

education and sympathy, we ask, is it not time for every sin-

cere clergyman, and all who feel an interest in the great cause

of religion to take the alarm, and nip this alliance of politics

and religion in the bud? If our halls of Congress and our State

Legislature are to be turned into missionary schools to carry

out the proscriptive and bigoted views of Knownothingism,

and the scheme for uniting Church and State is to be made

the order of the day, let the fact be promulgated to the

country at once, so that every man may act understanding^

when he again deposits his vote in the ballot box.”—The

“Carlyle Volunteer” January, 1855.

The real effect of Knownothingism came out in a trial

reported by the New York Herald, in January, 1855, which

noted the following:

“The Methodists, Presbyterians, etc., who have any re-

ligion left, will gradually find out that they have been killing

off their own sects in their blind hatred of Catholicity.”

The A. P. A’s.

About 1891 the “American Protective Association” warned

the country of the “menacing encroachment of the Church,”

and wickedly strove to substantiate statements with forged



SOME LIGHT ON PAST CRUSADES 7

letters from eight Catholic Bishops instructing Catholics to

persecute Protestants; and also with forged decrees from the

Pope calling upon the Catholics to massacre their fellow

countrymen around the feast of St. Ignatius, 1892. Like their

predecessors, these “Protectives” lied too much. In 1894 there

were seventy anti-Catholic weeklies in circulation, because

bigotry made it financially profitable for their publishers.

Then one by one, in quick succession, they slipped out of

existence.

The late Pres. Theodore Roosevelt attacked the chief ac-

tivity of the A.P.A. in an address delivered on Nov. 4, 1908,

as follows:

"So much for your objections to Mr. Taft because he is

a Unitarian. Now, for your objections to him because you

think his wife and brother to be Roman Catholics. As it

happens they are not; but if they were, or if he were a Roman

Catholic himself, it ought not to effect in the slightest degree

any man’s supporting him for the position of President. You

say 'the mass of voters that are not Catholic will not support

a man for any office, especially for President of the United

States, who is a Roman Catholic/ I believe that when you

say this you foully slander your fellow countrymen. I do

not for one moment believe that the mass of our fellow citi-

zens can be influenced by such narrow bigotry as to refuse

to vote for any thoroughly upright and fit man because he

happens to have a particular religious creed. Such a consid-

eration should never be treated as reason for either supporting

or opposing a candidate for political office. Are you aware

that there are several states in this union where the majority

of the people are now Catholics? I should reprobate in the

severest terms the Catholics who in those states (or in any

other states) refused to vote for the most fit man because he

happened to be a Protestant; and my condemnation would

be exactly as severe for Protestants who, under reversed

circumstances, refused to vote for a Catholic .... I believe

that this Republic will endure for many centuries. If so, there

will doubtless be among its presidents Protestants and Cath-



8 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU ?

olics, and very probably at some time Jews. I have consist-

ently tried while President to act in relation to my fellow

Americans of Catholic faith as I hope that any future Presi-

dent who happens to be a Catholic will act towards his fellow

Americans of Protestant faith. Had I followed any other course

I should have felt that I was unfit to represent the American

people.
7’

The Socialist-Menace Days.

The late Senator Mark Hanna, McKinley’s campaign

manager, whose best years were spent during the time we had

vigorous anti-Catholic agitation in the United States, be-

lieved that only the Catholic Church could save our nation

and its Constitution. He said in an address at Cleveland in

1900 :

I will go farther now and say that I believe that the
best friend and protector the people and the flag shall

have in its hour of trial will be the Roman Church, always

conservative, and fair and loyal. This is the power that

shall save us!

About the same time Max Pam, a Jewish lawyer, es-

tablished a Chair of Christian philosophy both at Notre Dame

University and at the Catholic University of America, whose

purpose would be to combat Socialism by teaching sound

social principles. He, too, believed that the Catholic Church

was the one great safeguard of the American way of life, as

most unprejudiced intellectuals believe is also true now, in

the face of the Communist threat.

Writes Reuben J. Markham, in his Let Us Protestants

Awake:

“Wherever Communists have seized power they have

fought the Church more bitterly than any other type of gov-

ernment has fought Christianity since the early Roman Em-

porers . . . They (Protestants) dislike certain other Christians

so much that they let themselves be used as Communist tools.

Thus Christians become the instrument in a Communist plot

against Christ . . . Combating Catholics became a major activ-

ity for many Protestants. We burned a Catholic nunnery; we



SOME LIGHT ON PAST CRUSADES 9

burned Catholic churches, we poured out torrents of vituper-

ation against Catholics; we considered these Christians of an-

other type our chief enemies ... Many of us wallowed in

lewdness in order to smear Catholics. Preachers peddled

dirty stories by the ream. We opened sideshows featuring

‘fallen Catholic women ... We allowed ourselves to be

filled with hatred. We told a fair number of untruths and

half truths. We became barkers for impurity in the name

of purity, and we painted a rather sorry picture of Christian-

ity for non-Christians.

“And we did not stop the Catholics! On the contrary

they acquired a very strong position in most of our large

cities.”

Markham might have said: “We have distributed fake

oaths attributed to the Knights of Columbus, the Jesuits and

other Catholic societies after it had been widely publicized

that these things were ‘bogus’ and conceived by agents of

the devil.”

Ute might have said: “We are still circulating stories writ-

ten one hundred years ago by Maria Monk and Margaret

Shepherd—as though they were still alive—and do not tell our

people that both of them, posing as ex-nuns, were exposed

while living as imposters

Presidents Annoyed Then as Now

The following “Resolutions” were drafted by the Min-

isterial Association of Waukegan, Illinois, in February, 1913,

and sent to President-elect Wilson:

WHEREAS, The Roman hierarchy has maintained a

Papal Legate at Washington during several recent adminis-

trations presumably for the purpose of influencing legislation

and the distribution of federal patronage for the benefit of

the Roman Catholic Church: and

Whereas, The official secretary of the President’s Cabinet

is a Romanist, thus making it possible for his foreign master

to be advised of the secret counsels of the President and his

associates in the government before they have reached such



10 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

definite conclusions as they may wish to give to the world,

therefore

Resolved, (1) That the Ministers’ Association of Wau-

kegan, 111., representing all the leading Protestant denomina-

tions of America, hereby respectfully protests against any

and all official recognition of the aforesaid Legate of the

Pope by the government at Washington, either formal or in-

formal, public or private.

Resolved, (2) That we respectfully petition the Hon.

Woodrow Wilson, President-elect of the U.S., to make such

change in the personnel of the official secretary-ship of the

Cabinet when he comes into office as will remove all grounds

for suspicion of the secret revelation of the plans and policies

of his administration to the representatives of this foreign

hierarchy, and thus eliminate a condition which, in our judg-

ment, endangers the success of any administration.

Resolved, (3) That in our opinion such action would

meet with the hearty approval of more than three-fourths of

the good citizens of America.

President Wilson Defends His Secretary

Washington, Feb. 18, 1914—In a letter to W. W. Prescott,

editor of the Protestant Magazine
,
published here, President

Wilson has denied emphatically that his correspondence is

handled with religious prejudice by his Secretary, Joseph P.

Tumulty.

The President’s reply:

“My Dear Sir:

“Allow me to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of

January 15 and to thank you for your candor in writing me.

“I beg leave to assure you that the impressions that any

part of my correspondence is withheld from me in any cir-

cumstances by my secretary on account of religious predilec-

tions on his part is absurdly and utterly false. I venture to

say that no President ever had more frank and satisfactory

relations with his secretary than I have with mine.



SOME LIGHT ON PAST CRUSADES 11

“The whole of my correspondence is constantly open to

me. Mr. Tumulty is more prompt, perhaps, to call my atten-

tion to matters in which his prejudice is supposed to be

engaged than to other matters of relative indifference.

“Of course, I need hardly add I am not speaking from

an impression, but from knowledge of just how my corre-

spondence is handled.

“Sincerely yours,

“WOODROW WILSON/’

Churctis Enemies Most to be Feared

“To the average American Catholic the Stars and Stripes,

the American flag, is next in sacredness to the Cross of Christ.

“If American institutions are ever destroyed, if the Stars

and Stripes should ever meet the fate of the Stars and Bars,

there will be no hearts more sincerely sad when that awful

catastrophe takes place than Catholic hearts; and in that dark

hour, if a requiem to the Flag must be written, some other

Father Ryan will touch with untold tenderness the strings of

some harp, and the world will receive another heart-song

like 'The Conquered Banner/

“If American institutions were as sacred in the hands of

those who, in books and newspapers, seek to arouse Protest-

ant prejudice against Catholicism as they are in the hands

of American Catholics, but little harm would befall the most

sacred safeguards which our fathers threw around the re-

ligious and political liberties which we enjoy.”—Th# Texas

Democrat
,
Tyler, April 14, 1914.

Many Churchmen Backed the Campaigns

“Protestantism and Protestant ministers must bear the

burden of having put these wretches over on the people. You

Knights of Malta (a Protestant organization) took advantage

of a political campaign to force them on the ministers and on

Protestantism. It was done in a furore that blinded many good

citizens to a consideration of other things. I want you to

apologize to the public for what you have done. I have done



12 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU ?

so, and am doing all I can to make amends by shaming these

recreant officials into doing their duty. I call these officials

to repentance for their pestilential political sins.” —Rev.

George W. Shelton, 1917.

The Catholic Church has gained, and Protestant church-

es have suffered, from everyone of the above mentioned anti-

Catholic campaigns. During the Socialist period Tom

Watson, of Georgia, published two virulent anti-Catholic

periodicals; the Ku Klux Klan was spawned in that state; and

the dishonest crusades waged by both led to the conversion of

two of Georgia’s greatest journalists, Joel Chandler Harris

and Thomas W. Loyless. Men of their calibre became dis-

gusted with the campaign and made an investigation of their

own of the charges leveled against the Catholic Church—

with the result that they embraced the Catholic faith, unpopu-

lar as that action was in their state.

The Macon, Georgia, News characterized Mr. Loyless as

"one of the most brilliant editors the state has ever produced,”

and then includes him among three of Georgia’s greatest edi-

tors of whom the other two were Joel Chandler Harris and

Henry Grady.

NOTE: If some readers of this little book should wonder why we
quote so copiously from statesmen, editors and ministers of thirty

and more years ago, the answer is that we have done this design-
edly. ..The newly organized movement against the Church is not
different in its spirit, nor in its accusations from the two rather
long-lived movements which preceded it, namely, that sponsored
by the Socialist Party and of the Ku Klux Klan. Hence we quote
from newspapers and Protestant pulpit denunciations of that time.
They fit perfectly today. The same kind of people follow all anti-
Catholic movements.



THE POAU

I do not love thee. Dr. Fell,

The reason why I cannot tell;

But this alone I know full well,

I do not love thee. Dr. Fell.

Dr. Henry Grey Graham, a Scottish minister who be-

came a Catholic, probably wrote about the best work we

have dealing with the subject of prejudice and its effects. He

tells us that he was for a long time one of those who, like

the Scotchman generally, dislikes a priest about as much as

an Irishman loves him. He could not tell why, he observed,

but it was a state of mind which was formed in him from

early infancy.

So it is with many clergymen of various denominations

throughout the country. They inherited an ill-feeling to-

wards Catholics and their Church, and this prejudice was

nurtured by all their reading. The more prominent they be-

come in their respective denominations the more they believe

it to be their duty to check the growth and influence of the

thing they hate.

Of such clergymen is the organization known as “Protes-

tants and Other Americans United” comprised. Not only

have they been obsessed with anti-Catholicism all their lives,

but, for the most part, they have had un-American connec-

tions. If that had not been true they certainly would not

have chosen the time they did for the formation of the POAU

—a time when national unity was so badly needed, when any

effort to divide our citizenry delighted the heart of God's

and our nation's arch-enemy, Stalin.

On October 19, 1947, five days after the conference

which led to the formation of the POAU, President Truman

urged “national unity” against the common enemy, irreligion.

The President had previously been annoyed considerably by

men, who are now officers of the POAU, demanding that he

withdraw Myron C. Taylor from his Vatican post, and falsely

charging Cordell Hull and the State Department with denying



14 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

visas to Protestant ministers who wished to go as missionaries

to South America.

The place chosen for "work-shop” discussions and for

mass meetings by the POAU was as unpardonable as the
time selected for the formation of the organization itself. The

annual meetings have been held in "Constitution Hair—of

all places.

Communism has not worried these gentlemen, nor seem-

ingly does the Korean War. They see only one alleged evil

to be combated, namely, the Mother Church, which has

been in this country longer than any of theirs, and which has

done far more both during peace and war to foster the ideals

of the Founding Fathers.

The office with which the compiler is connected has had

information concerning the formers of the POAU, of its pres-

ent officers and the chief speakers at its mass meetings, for

some time, but hesitated to publicize it lest he be charged

with harboring the same sort of animosity with which he

knows their hearts to be filled. But since numerous persons

have written us for information about the Protestant church-

men and "the other Americans united” to wage an anti-

Catholic campaign, we feel obligated to supply the informa-

tion. It will be served without venom, and will consist of

data which have already appeared in the public press.

Different From Fast Campaigns

Past campaigns against the Catholic Church, such as

those conducted by the Socialists through The Menace and

fifty other sister publications from 1911 until 1920, and later

by the Ku Klux Klan, were conceived and promoted chiefly

by those who saw an opportunity to become rich by capital-

izing on bigotry. They, it is true, received a great deal of

cooperation from ministers of the gospel and from the sec-

tarian press—but they were not started and organized by

Protestant churchmen.

The POAU was bom at a Conference of leading Protes-
tant ministers of many denominations (October 14, 1947)«who



THE POAU 15

invited "other organizations” to join them, to check, as they

say, the political activity of the Catholic Hierarchy, to forestall

co-operation, if not union, of this nation with the Catholic

Church, to keep the Catholic Church from capturing the

public schools as they had allegedly done at North College

Hill in Cincinnati; to have Catholic Sisters removed from

the teaching staff of public schools; to see to it that no feder-

al or state aid would be paid even indirectly for the support

of parochial schools, and to have the laws in the seventeen

states, which allowed public school children to receive relig-

ious instruction on released time, recalled—as well as those

laws which allowed bus transportation to children attending

non-public schools.

Credit quite universally given to the Catholic Church as

the one strong bulwark against Communism, the reaction of

the non-Communist world to the treatment of Cardinal

Mindzsenty, the inclusion of so many intellectuals among

converts to the Catholic faith, the crowded Catholic churches

on Sunday as against the empty Protestant churches—all

these seemingly created a worry among Protestant leaders.

But instead of conferring and planning to build up their

own organizations, they decided to invite the Protestant mem-

bership of all denominations as well as of anti-Catholic and

irreligious groups to join into one strong opposition body.

The POAU established its headquarters in Washington,
whence circular letters and much printed matter has been

sent to preachers and to members of Congress and the Senate,

in order to direct their attention to the dangers of organized

"political” Catholicism.

In January, 1949, the first large meeting in Washington

was held, with Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam as its chief speaker.

He addressed more than 3,000 clergymen, teachers and pro-

fessional leaders, social service workers, etc. He was chosen,

as other speakers have been chosen, chiefly because of his

anti-Catholic record. He had toured the country from Cali-

fornia to New England denouncing the Catholic Hierarchy

and blaming the Catholic Church for the "tensions” which, he



16 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

observed, were growing between Catholicism and Protes-

tantism.

The next meeting (January, 1950) was addressed by Dr.

Charles Clayton Morrison, long editor of The Christian Cen-

tury which, once a dignified weekly periodical, a few years

ago, became more anti-Catholic than pro-Protestant. Some

2,500 persons of the same professions attended that meeting.

This year, on February 1, 1951, Paul Blanshard, whose

anti-Catholicism was first noted through the articles he pub-

lished in The Nation and later through his work “American

Freedom and Catholic Power” (which, he told his audience of

2,000, has reached a circulation of 160,000 copies) was selected

as the chief speaker—also because of his anti-Catholic writings

alone.

As an example of Blanshard’s blasts note the fol-

lowing: He observed that “the dollars which American

Catholics put in the collection box every Sunday are being

used to build a Vatican imperialism that is so powerful that

the Pope can destroy any of the Catholic parties in Europe in

forty-eight horns.” He had just said that many of the coun-

tries of Europe were dominated by Catholic Parties.

The Catholic Hierarchy in this country, he said, is “an

agent of a foreign power,” as is every Catholic church and

school. Reuben H. Markham must have had this charge by

Blanshard in mind when he wrote in Let Us Protestants

Awake:

“For a church to become a fringe or satellite of a Com-

munist Party means that it has committed suicide—and that is

what is happening to sections of Protestantism . . . Some Pro-

testants considered world Communism a grand ally in their

sectarian fight against the Vatican. The Kremlin was ex-

pected to run interference for us Protestants through the

Catholic lines. This alliance constitutes a very sad chapter

in the history of Protestantism.”

Blanshard blamed the Church for preventing the Fed-

eral Aid Bill from passing, not telling his audience that there



THE POAU 17

would have been no Catholic “flood of letters” to their rep-

resentatives in Washington had not the very POAU previously

sent out a gleeful letter to the Protestant clergy of the coun-

try to say that it had licked the Catholic Hierarchy, and that

the Barden Bill, backed by this organization, would pass.

Later we shall deal with Paul Blanshard and his book.

POAU’s Declared Objectives

In a circular letter announcing the third annual conven-

tion of the POAU, at Constitution Hall, February 1, 1951,

the following were listed as the objectives of “Protestants

and Other Americans United”:

(1) To mobilize public opinion in support of religious

liberty.

(2) To resist every attempt to break down the wall of

separation of Church and State.

(3) To oppose the appointment of an envoy to the

Vatican.

(4) To work for the repeal of any law which sanctions

the granting of aid to church schools from the public

school treasury.

(5) To invoke the aid of the courts in maintaining the

integrity of the Constitution with respect to the sep-

aration of Church and State.

(6) To unite all patriotic citizens in a concerted effort

to prevent the proposal of any bill by Congress which

allots to church schools any portion of a Federal

appropriation for education.

(7) To give all possible aid to the citizens of any State

who are seeking to protect their public schools from

sectarian domination.

In the same circular the following reverend gentlemen

are listed as officers of the POAU:

President: Dr. Edwin McNeill Poteat, ex-president of

Colgate—Rochester Divinity School;

Vice-Presidents: Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam of the Meth-



18 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

odist Church; Dr. Charles Clayton Morrison (former editor of

“The Christian Century"), and Dr. John A. Mackay, President

of the Princeton Theological Seminary.

Treasurer: E. H. DeGroot, Jr.,

Recording Secretary: Dr.
J.

M. Dawson, Baptist church

official.

Will you now take a glance at the picture we present of

each of these present officers, and their colleagues.

What if Catholics Did the Same?

An army Chaplain recently observed that if Catholics

organized a counter movement and called it "Catholics and

Other Americans United for the Extinction of Racial and Re-

ligious Bigotry in our Midst” (a COAU), 80% of the American

people would rally behind it.

We fully agree with him, but it is not likely that such

a counter movement will be organized by Catholics. Few

Americans have any fear of a union of Church and State in

this country, but they do fear that our Republic is endangered

by organizations at work to divide our citizenry, and thus

"give encouragement to the common enemy” of all religions

and races.

"One of the great inducing causes for the closer union

of Catholics and Protestants in the future will be the neces-

sity for combating irreligion, atheism and anarchy.”—The

Westfield (N. J.) Leader, June 23, 1915.

NOTE: Anyone is permitted to reprint any portion of the
contents of this book to offset locally the un-American influence

of propagandists for the POAU. They are either badly mis-
informed or not honest in their treatment of the Catholic

position.



DR. EDWIN McNEILL poteat

Without religious freedom other freedoms ore in danger.

Religious freedom means that the Church shall have its full chance

to work and worship and teach; it means that believers are to have

freedom to educate their children in schools that will at least

not impair their faith.—Dr. Luther A. Weigle, dean emeritus
of Yale Divinity School, August, 1950.

Dr. Edwin McNeill Poteat, now President of “Protestants

and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and

State,” labored in China as missionary, and as teacher at the

University of Shanghai from 1917 to 1929. Ordained for the

Southern Baptist Convention, he served as pastor of a Baptist

Church at Raleigh, North Carolina, and of the Euclid Avenue

Church, Cleveland. From there he went to Colgate-Roches-

ter Divinity School as President in 1944.

During the Spanish Civil War his open animosity to-

wards the Catholic Church was first revealed. He lent his

name to a pamphlet defending the Reds in that war.

He was a member of the initiating committee of the

Communist-front “Civil Rights Congress,” which put up bond

for Red leaders indicted in September, 1948.

His name also appears in a report (number 1115) issued

by the House Committee on un-American Activities, and pub-

lished by the Government Printing Office, in which the Civil

Rights Congress was officially denounced as a Communist-

front.

The Civil Rights Congress was set up by the Communist

Party according to the House Committee “for the purpose

of protecting those of its members who run afoul of the law.”

Rev. Dr. Poteat has been charged with having been a

backer of “The Protestant” magazine as well as its predeces-

sor “The Protestant Digest,” neither of which was ever Prot-

estant, but pro-Communist and anti-Catholic. The gentleman

is also listed by the House Committee on un-American activi-

ties as an affiliate of “The National Council of American



20 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

Soviet-Friendship,” "The People’s Institute of Applied Re-

ligion,” and "The National Federation for Constitutional Lib-

erties.”

He is charged with having been a signer of a Communist-

inspired letter urging the abolition of the Committee on Un-

American Activities, and with having supported a Committee

defending Morris Schappes, a New York College teacher, ex-

posed through the Rapp-Coudert Committee as a member of

the Communist Party.

A Similar Organization in 1922

Back in 1922 "a number of prominent clergymen and

laymen of New York Protestant churches, including Metho-

dists, Baptists and Presbyterians, organized a militant asso-

ciation, under the name of the "Evangelical Protestant So-

ciety,” to fight "Roman Catholic encroachments upon Ameri-

can institutions.”

"When one considers the growing activity of a large por-

tion of the Protestant churches in politics, and their zealous

pursuit of law as an aid in compelling universal conformity

to their views of personal conduct, the New York movement

need cause no surprise. It is but the enlarging circle of the

wave of intolerance that characterizes the times.

The Constitution forbids the passage of any act abridging

the freedom of religious worship, yet the "Evangelical Prot-

estant Society” proposes to "use political methods along the

lines employed by the Anti-Saloon League” to stamp out

Catholicism.”

"So-called Christians who can lend themselves to such

a movement are not only in dire need of evangelization

themselves but likewise stand in need of instruction in Ameri-

can citizenship.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 30, 1922.



G. BROMLEY OXNAM, Vice-Pres.

Those who, haying magnified into serious evils by injud-

icious opposition heresies in themselves insignificant, yet appeal

to the magnitude of those evils to prove that their opposition was

called for, act like unskillful physicians, who, when by violent

remedies, they have aggravated a trifling disease into a danger-

ous one, urge the violence of the symptoms which they them-

selves have produced in justification of their practice.—Whately.

This description of intolerant people is quite applicable

to Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam, the chief speaker at the Janu-

ary, 1949, convention of the POAU.

Bishop Oxnam was one of the founders of POAU. Until

quite recently he saw no menace to the world in Commun-

ism. He visited atheistic Russia as a friend some years

ago; distributed a book laudatory of Soviet Russia by Jerome

Davis, the pro-Red former President of the American Federa-

tion of Teachers; was associated with the Protestant Digest
,

later the vigorous pro-Communist and anti-Catholic Protes-

tant
,
cited by the Congress of the United States as a “Com-

munist-front” publication. One of Oxnam’s friends on that

publication, was Rev. Claude Williams, who has admitted

that he carried a Communist Party membership card under an

alias. Oxnam defended in a letter “The National Federation

for Constitutional Liberty” also cited as a Communist-front

organization by the United States Department of Justice; he

was associated with Langston Hughes who, in a poem, asked

“Christ to make room for some real guys like Marx, Engels,

Lenin and Stalin.”

Dr. Rembert
J.

Smith, of Emery, Okla., Methodist Col-

lege, declared in August, 1937, “Four Methodist Bishops head

a ‘Socialist Bloc/ among them Bishop Oxnam.

The Rev. F. Dean Banta, Buffalo, a Baptist clergyman

and President of the “Western New York Regional American

Council of Christian Churches”, called upon the Christian

people of Buffalo to oppose the coming of Bishop Oxnam to

their city on October 26, 1947. Of Oxnam he told his congre-



22 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

gation: "At various times he has been a member or sponsor of

a number of pro-Communist organizations. They include such

groups as the ‘People’s Educational League’, the ‘Federal

Farmer-Labor Party’, the ‘Committee on Militarism in Ed-

ucation’, the ‘League for Organization of Progress’, the ‘Na-

tional Religion and Labor Foundation’, the ‘Fellowship of

Reconciliation’, the ‘American League Against War and

Fascism,’ ‘The Friends of Democracy,’ ‘The National Council

of American Soviet Friendship’.” In August, 1946, the ‘‘East

Tennessee Education Association” launched a movement for

the formation of ‘‘Keep Oxnam Out of Town Clubs”, because

of his cooperation with radical organizations.

In Indianapolis on October 23, 1947, Bishop Oxnam crit-

icized the investigation of Communism in Hollywood by the

‘‘Committee on Un-American Activities”, claiming it ‘‘does

little but spread a fear-psychosis across the nation.”

Jimmie Fidler, writing from Hollywood the very next

day (October 24) said: ‘‘I can think of only two or three pic-

tures in the last couple of years that have made a sincere effort

to sell American democracy.”

John Clarence Petrie, pastor of the First Unitarian

Church, Houston, Texas, in a letter to the Houston Press,

(October 20, 1947) told the public that he believed Bishop

Oxnam was helping the Communist cause "by his consistent

anti-Catholic tirades on the staunchest enemy Communism

has in the religious world.”

A week later (October 26, 1947) Oxnam was introduced

at Buffalo for a ‘‘Reformation Day” service, as ‘‘one of Pro-

testantism’s first churchmen.”

As late as November 6, 1950, speaking at Trenton, New

Jersey, Bishop Oxnam, before 5,000 people in a Reformation

Day Rally sermon, called for an ‘‘end to the political, social

and religious disability suffered by Protestants in Spain, Italy,

Latin American countries and other areas.” He charged that

the ‘‘efforts to obtain the use of public funds for the support of

parochial education are a part of a carefully calculated plan



G. BROMLEY OXNAM, VICE-PRES. 23

to break down the American doctrine of separation of Church

and State.”

He declared that “human liberties are greatest where

Protestantism has been dominant,” and said it was “a striking

and significant fact that Communism has not been able suc-

cessfully to infiltrate Protestant countries.”

Later we shall let a number of non-Catholic scholars

answer the foolish charges of this Socialist-minded prelate.

G. Bromley Oxnam, Methodist Bishop of the New York

area, was long an admirer of Fabian Socialism in England. He

speaks of it as the “famous Fabian Society,” (Personalities in

Social Reform
, p. 20.)

Chapter II of that work is entitled “The Minister as So-

cial Reformer,” and he signals out Walter Rausenbusch, a

German Baptist minister, born in Rochester, in 1861, professor

of Church history at Rochester Theological Seminary, and

author of “Christian and Social Crisis;” “Christianizing the

Social Order;” and “Social Principles of Jesus.” This gentle-

man died July 25, 1918. He was a good, sincere man, but,

like many others who are not theologians, (and he himself

tells us he was not one) he found that the pagan Social Order

often socializes the Christian reformer. This minister tells us

that he was an admirer of Henry George, the advocate of

“Single Tax;” and also was the admirer of John Spargo who,

writing in The Comrade
,
May, 1903, said:

“How often do we see quoted in our own press, from
the Encyclopedia Britannica, the familiar fallacy that

'the ethics of Christianity and Socialism are identical/

It is not true. We do not ourselves, in most cases, believe
it. We repeat it because it appeals to the slave-mind of
the world. It is easier so to act, than to affirm, what in

our very souls we feel to be true, that Socialism, as an
ethical interpretation of life, is far removed from Chris-

tianity and of infinitely greater beauty and worth.
* * *

Socialism Christianized would be Socialism emasculated

and destroyed.”

In that same work Oxnam has a chapter entitled “The

Missionary Social Reformer.” There is no doubt that the



24 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

missionary can do much social reforming in the backward

countries such as China and India; but, we have learned

very recently that a powerful Socialistic leadership drifts to-

wards Communism and expels the missionaries.

Dr. A. W. Beaven, President of Colgate Divinity School,

at Rochester, addressing the student body as a sponsor of the

Rochester “League for Industrial Democracy” said: “Capital-

ism is un-Christian and unethical and must give way to Social-

ism and Communism, for the missionaries of the future will

be social revolutionists.” Is that why Oxnam distributed Jer-

ome Davis’ book among foreign missionaries, as he is charged

doing by Rembert Gilman Smith, of Houston, Texas.

Harry Ward, one of these social reformers, and Secretary

of the “Methodist Federation for Social Service,” claimed the

support of two thousand ministers.

Harry Ward drafted the “Social Creed” which he had

adopted by the General Confederation of Methodist Churches

in 1908, and which was later adopted, with additions, by the

Federal Council of Churches.

The November, 1936, issue of Soviet Russia Today sang

the praises of Dr. Harry Ward and Jerome Davis.

Displayed on the cover of a pamphlet issued by the

“American Friends of Spanish Democracy” appeared the

names of Rev. Samuel McCrea Cavert, executive Secretary of

the Federal Council of Churches and the Council’s contact

man with POAU; the Rev. Edwin McNeill Poteat, presently

President of POAU; the Rev. Guy Emery Shipler, editor of

“The Churchman.” The latter was recently removed from his

parish for Communist leanings.

As chief speaker at the January 1949 Washington meeting

of POAU, defending the Supreme Court’s decision of Mar.

8, 1948, in favor of Mrs. McCollum, daughter of the President

of the “American Society of Freethinkers,” Bishop Oxnam

called the pastoral letter of the Catholic Bishops on “Secular-

ism” a “smoke screen behind which the Hierarchy forms its

forces to secure public funds for the support of parochial



G. BROMLEY OXNAM, VICE-PRES. 25

schools.” The fact is that at the very meeting from which that

statement emanated, it was emphasized that Catholics would

not ask for any direct support for their schools.

Oxnam also told the Washington meeting, “Protestants

believe in the separation of Church and State in America;

Catholics do not.” The Bishop was wrong in both assertions.

Twrenty-four nationally known Protestant bishops, ministers,

and theologians, including tw
T

o Methodist bishops, and one a

predecessor of Oxnam as President of the Federal Council of

Churches, signed a protest against the McCollum decision.

Nearly every Catholic bishop of the United States has em-

phatically declared that he does not favor the union of

Church and State in our nation. The principle of “Union of

Church and State” is far more evident in Protestant countries

than in Catholic, and it is much closer than any such union

prevailing in Catholic countries. It is only in Protestant

countries—several of them—that the heads of the States

were long also the Popes of national established churches.

Another charge made by Oxnam is, “The Roman Catholic

Church is opposed to our system of public education.” Of

course, this is absolutely false. Catholics believe whole-

heartedly in popular education and realize that when children

of twenty different religions sit in the same classroom, defi-

nite religious instruction cannot be given in the public

schools.

While it is not true that any Catholic Bishop—much less

all of them—has pleaded for all-out support of parochial

schools, it might be noted that in practically every other

country the State does support all schools which meet its reg-

ular curriculum requirements. When Catholics speak of the

unfairness of making them support two systems of schools,

they merely emphasize the principle on which our Revolu-

tionary War was fought “Taxation without representation.”

They not only do not demand State support, but their spirit-

ual leaders would probably not accept it.

The request for bus transportation for their children is



26 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

made in behalf of the child’s safety, and not for the benefit of

the parochial school.

We have noted that State support of both Protestant and
Catholic schools, as well as of the public schools, prevails

in most countries. Even in Scotland, where Catholics consti-

tute a very small minority, their schools are supported and

the State even pays interest on the investment made by the

Catholic group in their school. In predominantly Catholic Ire-

land the Protestant schools are supported by the State; in Prot-

estant Ontario Catholic schools are supported, as in Catholic

Quebec Protestant schools are. The same situation has pre-

vailed over the years in England, Germany, Austria. In these

nations the State does not support religion
,
but shows her ap-

preciation for the efficient teaching of the State curriculum.

The State feels that no harm is done by the super-addition of

religious instruction, but rather that it supplies a healthy bal-

ance to the instruction on matters secular.

Reuben H. Markham, who says of himself: ‘1 am a Pro-

testant, the son of a Protestant preacher, whose father was a

Protestant preacher,” in his Let Us Protestants Awake, ob-

served that Rev. Louis D. Newton had written a book en-

titled “An American Churchman in the Soviet Union,” the

introduction for which was written by Bishop Oxnam, who

strongly recommends the pamphlet. Of Oxnam Rueben Mark-

ham, in his Let Us Protestants Awake, writes:

“Bishop Oxnam is close to the organized American Prot-

estant crusaders who tell us that all religious liberty is en-

dangered here, if the United States takes a little girl to a

Roman Catholic school in a state bus. If such State interven-

tion in such matters goes on, we are told, the Vatican will

soon have us in its grasp and all liberty will fly away . . .

But I want to ask: ‘What kind of a Christian leader is he

who tells us that a State bus for private schools would lead to

enslavement, yet cooperates in an attempt to make us be-

lieve there is complete religious liberty in the USSR, where

the State controls every form of thought expression, every

school, every church building, every publishing concern,



G. BROMLEY OXNAM, VICE-PRES. 27

every youth organization, and where the State with every in-

strument at its disposal grimly attempts to convert every one

from four years old up into a new Soviet man?’

“What do you think of the leadership of Protestants who

tell us that a dictatorship of absolute and total State control

leaves religion completely free, while a State that merely

provided transportation of private school pupils would en-

slave us?”

This “Protestant of Protestants” calls the Methodist

Church’s attention to the “resident Bishop of Geneva,” of

whom he writes:

“This Bishop,” Markham says, “flew to Bulgaria, was

well received by the Communists, and flattered by their big

shots.” Of course the Bulgarian government wanted a state-

ment from him to be published both in Bulgarian and for-

eign languages, and here was the statement:

I congratulate and thank the officials of the Bulgar-

ian Government for their championship of religious free-

dom . . . complete religious freedom is given to the

Methodist and to all other small churches ... I am there-
fore proud that the Bulgarian Government has adopted

such a liberal and tolerant attitude toward all religious

groups in Bulgaria ... A new spirit can be seen in Bul-
garia . . . The desire for education by the Bulgarian

youth is symbolic of the new Bulgaria which on Septem-

ber 9, 1944, overthrew the reactionary Nazi regime and

established a new democratic order.

But in less than a month after this Bishop left Bulgaria

the Communist Party, through its official paper in Sofia, de-

clared that all private schools of Bulgaria had to be closed as

reactionary, Fascistic, imperialistic agencies, and hurled spe-

cial invectives against the Methodist Girl School at Lovech,

Bulgaria, a missionary institution which had been function-

ing for sixty-eight years.

Several United States Protestant churchmen, after visit-

ing Marshal Tito, of Yugoslavia, at his own request and at his

government’s expense, issued a similar statement, and these

clergymen are active under the POAU.



28 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

Markham observes: “Protestants who think the present

terrific fight between a materialistic conception of the uni-

verse, with its degradation of mankind, and the spiritual con-

ception, that alone gives meaning to existence, is primarily a

duel between the Roman Catholic Church and imperial Bol-

shevism, or between Russia and the United States — such

Protestants have disqualified themselves for the Christian

struggle/'

Bishop Oxnam is a former President of the Federal Coun-

cil of Churches of Christ in America. He passed imme-

diately from that presidency to the presidency of the

Planned Parenthood Federation, a high-sounding name for the

Birth Control movement through contraceptive devices,

which has Communist backing in every country which Russia

would like to have become more depopulated.

AS HEAD OF PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION

Thou art the only comfort of my age

;

Like an old tree
,
I stand amongst the storms

;

Thou art the only limb that I have left me,

My dear-green branch! and how I prize thee, child

Heaven only knows. Lee

We should like to ask any clerical believer in “Birth Con-

trol" induced by artificial means whether he could find a

single text in Holy Scripture that favors it. Isn’t the Bible

Oxnam’s “only rule of faith?" The Bible contains many texts

which would cover the Catholic position on birth control. We

would refer the reader to Genesis 38:9-10; Romans 8:12-13;

Galations 5:24, 1, Peter 4:2; Thessalonians 4:4-5.

What St. Paul (Rom. 1:24-27) denounced in the pagans

has certainly a stronger application to the Christian.

There seem to be many today who do not quite compre-

hend what the natural law is. It is nothing more than the ex-

pression of God’s own laws through nature. One of the great-

est jurists of the past century, Sir William Blackstone speaks

as follows on the natural law:



G* BROMLEY OXNAM, VICE-PRES. 29

As man depends absolutely upon his Maker in all

things, it is necessary that he should in all points conform

to the Maker’s will . . This will of his Maker is called the

law of nature. . . These are the eternal, immutable laws

of good and evil. . . for the conduct of human action. . .

This law of nature is binding all over the globe, in all

countries, and at all times; no human laws are of any val-

idity if contrary to this.

Private indulgence, known as masturbation, has always

been regarded as a sin against nature—and the fact of mar-

riage does not make mutual masturbation right.

When a minister of the gospel actually defends the prac-

tice of child-spacing through artificial, unnatural means, he

belies his faith in the glorious eternal destiny of the child.

“Created a little less than the angels”, his destiny is to live

with the angels in the glory of God forever and ever. That

is what preachers teach. For them to recommend, for econ-

omic reasons or any other, that God’s law and nature’s law

be violated and a potential candidate for heaven be denied

existence, is quite contradictory. It is a defense of the Socialist

and Communist doctrine that man is to have all his heaven

here below.

If being on the side of nature and nature’s God be wrong,

then the Catholic Church is wrong.

If the defense of principles which tend to curb the looser

morality be wrong, then the Catholic Church is wrong.

If opposition to a movement which is calculated to min-

imize the spirituality and to exaggerate the animality in man

is wrong, then the Catholic Church is wrong.

If being on the side of marital chastity, on the side of

virtue and morality generally be wrong, then the Catholic

Church is wrong.

If Christ was right when He taught that only those who

do violence to themselves will carry away the Kingdom of

Heaven, then the Catholic Church is right.



30 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

If “our bodies should be presented as a living sacrifice”

(Rom. 12:1); if “our bodies are members of Christ”; if they are

“temples of the Holy Ghost” (1 Cor. 6:15-16), then surely the

things recommended by Birth Control advocates are very

wrong.

If St. Paul was right when he observed that “they that are

Christ’s have crucified their flesh with its vices and concup-

iscences” (Gal. 5:25), then the Catholic Church is right.

If St. Paul was right when he taught: “If you live accord-

ing to the flesh you shall die; but if by the spirit you mortify

the deeds of the flesh, you shall live” (Rom. 8-13), then the

Catholic Church is right.

If the will of God in relation to us can be summed up in

the two words “your sanctification” (1 Thess. 4:3); if our sanc-

tification can result only from the cooperation of a strong will

with the grace of God, then will-weakening recommendations

cannot be countenanced.

If Christ was right when He pronounced the clean of

heart “blessed”, and promised them the certain vision of God,

then the Pope is right in opposing a movement calculated to

create a “sex” state of mind in the minds and hearts of the

young children.

Whose Standards Are Higher?

Whose standards are higher and make for better morality,

the Pope’s or the Federal Council of churches?

POPE PIUS XI

“First consideration is due

to the offspring, which many

have the boldness to call the

disagreeable burden of matri-

mony and which, they say, is

to be carefully avoided by

married people not through

virtuous continence (which

Christian law permits in mat-

FEDERAL COUNCIL

“A majority of the com-

mittee holds that the careful

and restrained use of contra-

ceptives by married people is

valid and moral. They take

this position because they be-

lieve that it is important to

provide for the proper spac-

ing of children, the control



G. BROMLEY OXNAM, VICE-PRES. 31

rimony, when both parties

consent) but by frustrating

the marriage act. Some jus-

tify this criminal abuse on the

ground that they are weary

of children and wish to grat-

ify their desires without their

consequent burden. Others

say that they cannot on the

one hand remain continent

nor, on the other, can they

have children because of the

difficulties, whether on the

part of the mother or on the

part of family circumstances.

"But no reason, however

grave, may be put forward by

which anything intrinsically

against nature may become

conformable to nature and

morally good. Since, there-

fore, the conjugal act is de-

stined primarily by nature for

the begetting of children,

those who in exercising it de-

liberately frustrate its natural

power and purpose sin

against nature and commit

a deed which is shameful and

intrinsically vicious.

of the size of the family, and

the protection of mothers and

children: and because inter-

course between the mates,

when an expression of their

spiritual union and affection,

is right in itself. They are of

the opinion that abstinence

within marriage, except for

the few, cannot be relied up-

on to meet these problems,

and under ordinary condi-

tions is not desirable in it-

self,—that serious evils, such

as extra-marital sex relations,

may be increased by a gen-

eral knowledge of contracep-

tives must be recognized.

Such knowledge, however, is

already widely disseminated,

often in unfortunate ways,

and will soon be universally

known.

"Guided by the past ex-

perience of the race as to the

effects of scientific discovery

upon human welfare, we

should expect that so revolu-

tionary a discovery as control

of conception would carry

dangers as well as benefits.

Dr. William G. Morgan, President of the American Med-

ical Association at the time the Federal Council of Churches

spoke on Birth Control, expressed himself as follows:

I read in this morning’s press with surprise and regret

the action taken by the Council of Churches on birth con-

trol. I cannot believe any considerable proportion of the



32 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

23,000,000 individuals making up the membership of the

twenty-seven American Protestant churches will endorse

the findings of that council.

The question of birth control is of vital importance

to the future of our country, since it affects directly the

survival of the white races and its dominance in world

progress.

If this social practice were to be universally endorsed

and adopted it would open the door to unbridled dom-

inance of the basest passions, and give license to the most

widespread physical abuses.

To establish the habit of thwarting nature, is, in the

long run, a dangerous practice, and invariably leads to

moral degradation and disaster. It would strike a death

blow to self-control and to the dominance of the home.

The arguments in favor of birth control are subtle and

seductively given to self indulgence and selfishness.

I trust that the voice of the leading and thinking men

and women of our country will be promptly raised in pro-

test.

When the Federal Council report was issued the Wash-

ington Post
,
March 22, 1931, carried this scathing editorial

in denunciation of it:

Carried to its logical conclusion, the Committee’s re-

port, if carried into effect, would sound the death-knell of

marriage as a holy institution, by establishing degrading

practices which would encourage indiscriminate immor-

ality. The suggestion that the use of legalized contracep-

tives would be “careful and restrained” is preposterous.

It is the misfortune of the churches that they are

too often misused by visionaries for the promotion of “re-

forms” in fields foreign to religion. The departures from

Christian teachings are astounding in many cases, leaving

the beholder aghast at the willingness of some churches

to discard the ancient injunction to teach “Christ and Him

crucified.” If the churches are to become organizations



G. BROMLEY OXNAM, VICE-PRES. 33

for political and scientific propaganda they should be

honest and reject the Bible, scoff at Christ as an obsolete

and unscientific teacher, and strike out boldly as champ-

ions of politics and science as modern substituted for the

old-time religion.

The Catholic Church does not oppose “planned parent-

hood” in the one way which is worthy of a human being,

namely by “self-control.” Nature itself, and that means God

Himself, provided for a short period of sterility in the woman

each month, and the Christian who is supposed to “keep his

body under subjection,” to mortify the flesh,” can, with the

grace of God, easily practice that amount of self-control

needed for the spacing of children. The person who has a

living faith in a blessed hereafter wants to be responsible

for many others achieving that everlasting privilege.

No matter who you are who read this, or whether you

believe in the Catholic position or not, you must needs grant

that it represents a higher moral standard.

Self-control has been defined as “the power to compel

one’s self to do what is required at the right time and in the

right way.”

We were greatly surprised when we read this report of a
speech by Bishop Oxnam in ‘Chicago on October 21, 1947: “If

a mother adhered to the Catholic opposition to contraceptives,

she may be called upon to bear twenty children.” The only

inference could be that the Church requires Catholic mothers

to have as many children as possible. We have already re-

marked that Catholics may space their children according to

the manner which is alone worthy of Christians, and con-

formable to the teaching of St. Paul, that the spirit and not the

flesh should direct one’s life.

But Oxnam is also quoted as having said: “The refusal to

use contraceptives to limit the size of families is sinful.” This is

the first time we have ever heard any one, much less a min-

ister of the gospel, call “continence” sinful. Christ recommend-

ed it and so did St. Paul.



34 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

It is something that was glorified even in pagan nations,

and writing to Timothy (1 Tim. 2:15) St. Paul observed:

“Women will be saved by childbearing if they continue in

faith and love and holiness with modesty Is the use of con-

traceptives in keeping with modesty?

No words of Shakespeare are more frequently quoted

than, “It is better to be than not to be,” and we wonder

whether Oxnam would heartily wish that his mother had used

devices to prevent his birth.

Dr. Herbert A. Ratner, a medical professor of Loyola

University, pointed out to Oxnam: “In the seventeenth cen-

tury America, long before the advent of organized birth con-

trol propaganda, the average family had less than seven child-

ren; in the eighteenth century, a bit over six children; in the

early nineteenth century, four to five children; in the late

nineteenth, well below four children; and in the twentieth,

under three.”

Quoting a specialist in the field of population statistics.

Dr. Ratner noted: “The marvel is not how fertile, but how

sterile, is humanity. Sterility, not contraception, is the biggest

problem of the gynecologist.”

He observed that the American family is in more

need of propaganda, now employed even in hungry countries

of Europe, for at least one more child per family than one less,

because the American family is not reproducing itself in this

twentieth century.

In the year 1918 our government encouraged a gentleman

to speak throughout the country to organizations of men, such

as the Rotary Clubs, on the physical benefits of continence

and on the evils of over-indulgence. Our government had,

only a year before, called a conference of eminent physicians

to assist it to arrive at a policy to govern the morals of the sol-

diers, and the policy suggested by this deliberative body was

“continence.” They declared that “continence” conduces to

health. Professor Emeritus of Gynecology of Johns Hopkins

University, Dr. Howard Kelly, who, despite his name, is not



G. BROMLEY OXNAM, VICE-PRES. 35

a Catholic, declared: “All meddling with sex relations to se-

cure facultative sterility degrades the wife to the level of a

prostitute. There is no right or decent way of controlling

births than by total abstinence.”

If the Bishop should observe that the sentiments of peo-

ple have changed since that time, he surely will not hold that

the moral law has changed, or that the conclusions of sound

medical science have changed. The only change has been

among those churchmen and others who believe that a ma-

jority vote, no matter how selfish it might be, determines the

right or wrong of things.

Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam, Methodist Bishop of the New York
area, pursued some studies in Japan, China, India and London,
labored as a minister in California from 1916 to 1927; taught Social
Ethics in the University of Southern California; taught in the

Boston University School of Theology; served as President of the

DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana, 1928 to 1936; was elected
a Methodist Bishop in 1936, and served in the Omaha Area from
1936 to 1939, in the Boston Area from 1939 to 1944; and was trans-
fered to the New York Area in 1944. He was sent as an American
delegate to Russia in 1936; became President of the Federal Coun-

cil of the Churches of Christ in America; and immediately upon his

retirement from that position assumed the Presidency of the

Planned Parenthood Association.

Oxnam has written a number of books, through all of which
may be noted his sympathy with and approval of Fabian Socialism.
During recent years he has devoted much of his time to speaking
engagements from coast to coast on matters emphasized by the

POAU, which means on Catholicism, as intolerant, un-American.



CHARLES C. MORRISON, Vice-Pres.

The mere sharpening of the wits, the bore training of the

intellect, the naked acquisition of science, while they would

greatly increase the power for good, likewise would increase the

power for evil. An intellectual growth will only add to our

confusion unless it is accompc^ied by a moral growth. I do

not know of any source of moral power other than that which

comes from religion—President Coolidge before the National Coun-
cil of The Congregational Churches, Oct. 20, 1925.

How different the Morrison of 35 years ago!

Our one-time friend, now leading enemy, Dr. Charles

Clayton Morrison, carried the following editorial in his

Christian Century” on April 23, 1914:

"I once knew a city of one hundred thousand inhab-

itants, the municipal administration of which included a

mayor, a treasurer, a superintendent of public schools and

a chief of the fire department—all of whom were members

of the single Church of the Disciples of that place. And yet

there was no alarm raised over a Disciple menace.

"Why this perennial alarm over "a Roman Catholic

menace?’ Is it merely the misfortune of being numerous and

successful? Or is it a racial rather than a religious phenom-

enon that so many Catholics are in public office in our great

cities?

"Is it the Irishman who is politically ambitious, clever

and successful, and a mere coincidence that it is a Catholic

who happens to hold office at the same time?

"Much capital is made out of the fears and prejudices of

many Protestants by fanatical Protestant editors and lec-

turers.

"The cruelties of medieval Catholic inquisitors are told

in all of their realism, just as if Protestants had not been guilty

of the banishment and hanging of Puritans and Quakers and

Ana-baptists. All these cruelties are credited to the religion

of Rome, and none to the passions of human nature; and



CHARLES C. MORRISON, VICE-PRES. 37

they are transferred to the program of Roman Catholicism

in the twentieth century, as if there had been no change in

human nature or in civilization since the thirteenth or the

sixteenth century.

"It is entirely forgotten or else deliberately overlooked

by Protestant agitators that Protestantism has been as in-

tolerant as Romanism?

"All other things being equal, if the historic fact that

Catholic powers persecuted in the thirteenth century proves

that they would persecute today, then the historic fact that

Protestant powers persecuted in the sixteenth century proves

that they would persecute today.

"The surest way to consolidate the Catholic people and

to create a solid Catholic vote, is the plan of the Protestant

agitator, who goes about the country telling fabulous tales

of Catholic immorality or tyranny drawn from other times

or other lands; or sends out these same groundless alarms in

the blurred type of cheap incendiary newspapers.

"Persecution and misrepresentation have seldom failed

to promote the cause persecuted/’

Dr. Charles Clayton Morrison, once at the forefront in

accentuating the need of religion in education and an ad-

vocate of denominational parochial schools, has become the

chief foe of religious instruction for public school children,

in the school or under the released time arrangement which

prevailed in several thousand communities before the recent

decision of the Supreme Court on the McCollum appeal. This

appeal was supported staunchly by Morrison. He once work-

ed for religious instruction under "released” or "dismissed”

truce.

This observation would apply to the gentleman of whom

we now speak:

"Many Protestants vigorously applauded when an atheist

succeeded in preventing the teaching of religious beliefs on

school time in school buildings in 1948. We chose an atheist
for a heroine. Although we shouted that our state should feed

us, clothe us, amuse us, doctor us, we fell into a panic when



38 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

some Christians tried to get the state to allow us to use public

buildings to teach a couple of whiffs of Christianity. We
joyfully burnt the quilt of Christianity to kill the particular

flea of a neighbor’s form of Christianity.”—Reuben H. Mark-

ham, in his Let Us Protestants Awake.

Dr. Morrison served as editor of the Christian Century

for forty years. Something has altered his former mentality

because in his periodical, he denounced previously formed

anti-Catholic organizations, claiming they injured the Protest-

ant cause.

A few years back he would probably have endorsed

this statement of Dr. S. Parkes Cadman, who in January,

1924 said:

"If religion is excluded from the public schools I will

send my children to the parochial schools. I will not give

up the Cross of Calvary notwithstanding the constitution of

the United States.

"Let the Ku Klux Klan learn a lesson from the Roman

Catholics. The first colony in America in which religious

tolerance was issued was founded by the Catholics.”—Dr. S.

Parkes Cadman, quoted in The Detroit Free Press, Jan. 24,

1924.

Hon. Amasa Thornton, of New York, writing in the North

American Review
, Jan. 1898, observed:

"Any careful observer in the city of New York can see

that the only people, as a class, who are teaching the chil-

dren in the way that will secure the future of the best civili-

zation are the Catholics; and I believe the time has come to

recognize this fact, and for us to lay aside prejudices and pa-

triotically meet this question.”

How Children of God Must Be Reared

The Catholic Church believes that, through Baptism, the

child of parents is actually adopted as "a child of God.” If

that be true, then both the Church and the parents are

obligated to make available knowledge of God, of His laws,

of His terms of salvation, to that child. This explains why the



CHARLES C. MORRISON, VICE-PRES. 39

Church has been the educator of youth from the time she

was liberated from the Catacombs in the fourth century,

and why Catholics continued to provide religious schools after

the many sects, although believing the same way, gave them

up. Christian schools were established wherever pagans were

converted even though children could have a book only by

transcribing or having transcribed for them another’s book.

The Benedictine Order has been teaching in this world

for fourteen centuries, and some of our most noted school-

men today hold that the education imparted during the

Middle Ages was more thorough and more practical than it

is today. Some, like ex-President Hutchins and Mortimer

Adler, of the University of Chicago, believe that our schools

would be much benefited by a return to the Middle Age

curriculum. Conditions, of course, were entirely different.

Students did not know of radio nor movies, nor could they

read daily papers or weekly magazines simply because there

were no printing presses with which to publish them.

But those Protestant historians who have made a special

study of the Middle Ages, such as Maitland, Cutts, Gardiner,

Kemble, Rogers, Canon Farrar, William Lecky, Putnam,

Leibnitz, give the monks of monasteries credit for practically

everything we prize most today. They were the ones who

copied manuscript Bibles, the manuscripts of the classical

writers of pagan times, of whatever books have come down

to us through history.

Maitland, in his preface to The Dark Ages says of

monasteries: "They were repositories of the learning which

then was, and well-springs of the learning which was to be—

as nurseries of art and science, giving the stimulus, the means

and the reward to invention.”

Cutts, in his Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages,

writes: "Nearly all the literature and art and science of the

period was to be found in their body. They were good land-

lords to their tenants, good cultivators of their demenses;

great patrons of architecture and sculpture and painting;

educators of the people in their schools; healers of the sick



40 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

in their hospitals; great almsgivers to the poor; freely hos-

pitable to travelers.”

James Gardiner, reviewing Gasquet’s Henry VIII and

the English Monasteries
,

writes: “The old scandals, uni-

versally discredited at the time and believed in later genera-

tions only through prejudice and ignorance, are now dispelled

forever.”

Thorold Rogers writes: “The monks were the men of

letters in the Middle Ages. The historians, the jurists, the

philosophers, the physicians, the students of nature, the

founders of schools, authors of chronicles, teachers of ag-

riculture.”

Religious Schools First

Quotations from the other historians mentioned are

equally interesting and would be enlightening to Americans,

who entertain the notion that the parochial school system

came into being as a sort of competitor of the public school

system. The religious school was first in every land as well

as in our own. None of our Presidents from Washington down

to Lincoln, inclusive, ever attended a public school; neither

did the two President Roosevelts.

In the colonies all the denominations had their own

schools, and they continued to have them in the states until

a century ago. Other religious organizations gave them up,

but Catholics kept theirs, continuing a tradition extending

over a period of fourteen centuries. Theirs is not an antag-

onistic school system, but rather one which merely supple-

ments the public school curriculum by teaching the children

the higher things, the things without which education cannot

guarantee a religious or spiritual life. The child of God must

be treated as a child of God and reared as one.

Blanshard said in one of his Washington addresses that

3,000,000 Catholic parents refuse to send their children to

the parochial schools, insinuating that they are not believers

in them. The truth is that the vast majority wish they could

send their children to the religious schools, but they chance

to live where they do not have the opportunity.



CHARLES C. MORRISON, VICE-PRES. 41

In this age of growing juvenile delinquency Catholic

parents, who live where there are no parochial schools, are

clamoring for them. But every POAU officer would like to

see these schools closed, entertaining the notion that if they

could have the children who patronize them denied free bus

transportation many thousands would be forced to attend

the public schools. As a matter of fact, more than eighty

per cent of all Catholic children live in the cities and towns

of the United States where there is no need of bus trans-

portation.

Some six years ago Harold Fey, who is also connected

with The Christian Century
,
wrote a series of six articles for

that journal designed to prove that the National Catholic

Welfare Conference has so organized Catholics that, lest

Protestantism wake up, America will ultimately be won for the

Catholic Church. These articles were later published in

pamphlet form and sent to Protestant ministers and Sunday

School teachers in the hope that this “fear of Rome” might

catch roots in the minds and hearts of Protestants. After

Morrison “found” Blanshard, the writer of anti-Catholic

articles for The Nation
,
he invited him to write similar articles

for The Christian Century.

Speaking in Cleveland not long ago Dr. Morrison was

quoted in the press as saying: “Unless Protestantism finds a

way of imposing its underlying unity in an organized, vis-

ible and effective medium, the fate of this country is destined

to be either secular or Roman Catholic, with the odds in

favor of the Roman Church.” One must wonder what “un-

derlying unity” there is in Protestantism, unless it be unity

against Catholicism.

Speaking in Buffalo on July 31, 1947, Dr. Morrison saw

a violation of the principle of “separation of Church and

State” in the continuance of Myron C. Taylor's mission to the

Vatican; also in the use of public money for textbooks and

bus transportation of parochial school pupils. Taylor was not

the first U. S. envoy to the Vatican. Moreover Catholics did

not ask the President for any of them.



42 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

It is difficult to believe that he was honest when he

said: “The Roman Church wants to shift to the public trea-

sury the entire burden of financing its parochial schools, while

the Hierarchy retains absolute control of the educational

processes in them/' Continuing his remarks he said: “While

Protestantism was asleep the Roman Church has been mak-

ing well-nigh incredible progress in the line of this strategy.”

In an address delivered at the “National Conference on

Church and State” held under the auspices of “Protestants

and Other Americans United”, January 26-27, 1949, Dr. Mor-

rison spoke of one matter on which Protestants are united,

namely, against “every attempt to breach the wall of sep-

aration between Church and State.” Of course those attempts,

in his mind, were made by the Catholic Hierarchy, even if

every member of that Hierarchy is ignorant of any such a

thing. We could adduce many utterances, like the one we

quote herewith, pointing out that even now this is their coun-

try; that even now they regard the public schools as
“
Protest-

ant schools”; that even now leading Protestant churchmen are

very busy in politics; that, in other words, Protestant organ-

izations are doing the very thing of which they falsely accuse

the Catholic Church.

America Needs The Religious Schools

“We have sown to the winds of secularism in public

education and are now reaping hells whirlwind of anarchy

and crime. The crimes and anarchy rampant in the land is

but a standing demonstration of the failure of our public

school system, which finds no place for the word of God in

the training of the young citizens.” —Dr. James S. Martin,

Pittsburgh, Pa., Supt. Natl. Reform Assn., 1922.

In his Washington speech Mr. Morrison dwelt at length

on what he called “the Catholic Church's strategy” to effect a

union of Church and State by securing tax support for its

parochial schools, noting that that strategy has been radically

changed since “Protestants and Other Americans United” came

into existence.



CHARLES C. MORRISON, VICE-PRES. 43

The “radical change,” according to Morrison, consists

in a switch from a profession of loyalty to the separation of

Church and State idea, to a “bold avowal of opposition to it.”

He said: “It serves notice that it is out to eradicate this con-

cept from the American tradition if it can”; that “in a for-

midable document, issued only two months ago, extensive

space was devoted to a labored and ingenious attempt to

prove that the separation principle is unconstitutional.”

The good doctor is as adept in his misinterpretation of

the document as he and his brethren are in the misinterpreta-

tion of the Bible.

He criticizes Protestants in the south for continuing their

“released time instruction” program, reminding them that in

doing this they weaken the case of the POAU in its defense

of the separation of Church and State against the “overt

attacks by the Roman Catholic Church.”

Morrison seems not to realize that he and his confreres

in the POAU have been cooperating with the “American

Association for the Advancement of Atheism” (the 4A’s) and

“The Society of Freethinkers,” both of which have some iden-

tical aims. Demand eight of the former anti-God organization

calls for “suppression of the bootlegging of religion through

dismissed pupils for religious instruction.” The latter Society

calls itself “a militant organization which is working to accom-

plish and maintain the separation of Church and State,”

which means the “separation of the Church from God.”

Surely Morrison does not want that.

The reader will probably be interested in knowing how

the English have solved the school question.

Until the year 1870 about one-half of the total children

of school age in England were not in any school; less than

one-third were in schools receiving a state grant; less than a

quarter were in private schools. It was only then that Eng-

land began to think of a “compulsory universal education.”

But in devising a school system, its government determined on

an entirely different kind. There was first of all the Estab-

lished Church, which held a preferred position, and insisted



44 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

on having religion run through the entire curriculum. Then

there were the Nonconformists, which, over here, we would

call the Protestant religious, which wanted nothing to do with

the religious schools of the Established Church. Then there

were the Catholics constituting less than five per cent of the

country’s population who wanted a religious system much

like that of the Established Church.

A Mr. Forster was assigned to the task of suiting the

different groups. He formulated a plan which met with the

hearty approval of William Gladstone, then Prime Minister,

who said of it:

I am not friendly to the idea of constraining by law
either the total or partial suppression of conscientious dif-

ferences in religion with a view to the fusion of different

sects whether in church or school. I believe that the free

development of conviction is upon the whole the system

most in favor both in truth and charity. Consequently,

you may well believe that I contemplate with satisfaction

the state of feeling that prevails in England, and that has

led all governments to adopt the system of separate and

independent subsidies to the various religious denomina-

tions.

The system whereby the government granted aid to all

schools, which met the requirements of the Board of Edu-

cation as to the curriculum, was quite satisfactory until there

came into being an anti-religious party, much as we are com-

bating over here, even though, in this country, the chief

spokesmen are churchmen following the will of the atheist

and Freethinker organizations. In England this anti-religious

party joined the Nonconformists in fighting against the con-

tinuance of religious instruction in the schools operated by

the Church of England.

Every voter was regarded on an equal plane with all

others, both as a “parent and taxpayer.” Of course, there

could not be a hundred different kinds of schools to meet the

ideas of a hundred different kinds of parents, but there could

be a few classifications at least. The parents who wanted def-

inite religious instruction, like the Anglicans and the Catholics,

were allowed to have the same.



CHARLES C. MORRISON, VICE-PRES. 45

Of course, it would have been no more expensive to ed-

ucate a Christian child than to educate an agnostic or an

atheist, and Christian ideals as the basis of education, will

produce a culture at least as good as materialism.

Disraeli, Gladstone's predecessor as Prime Minister ex-

posed the duplicity of the secularists by telling them that their

own secularism was a religion. He said much in these few

words: "A religion without formularies is a new religion.”

The English mind reasons a little more logically than the

American mind. Over here people say “if Catholics want their

own system of schools, let them pay for it.” Over there they

say “if a certain segment of the population wants a non-re-

ligious education let them pay for it.” In other words, they be-

lieve that the state should let parents, to whom the child be-

longs first, provide the kind of education they want for their

children.

This is not a plea for a similar arrangement over here.

It is not likely that the Catholic Church would accept all-

out support of their schools in this country, but that does not

alter the principle that whatever system of schools meets the

full requirements of the State in handling the secular curri-

culum, deserves support from the State. Justice and fairness

call for that, but it could not be expected that the State would

pay for the religious education according to the wishes of 200

different sects in 200 different kinds of schools.

“The Catholic Church is leagues ahead of us in the

Protestant churches in the matter of religious education. I

say all honor to the Catholics for the principle they have laid

down in regard to religious education. I am in favor of a

program worked out to give our boys and girls a better chance

to know God.”—Dr. Edward S. Boyer of Chicago, quoted in

the Indianapolis Star
, July 23, 1923.

Despite the efforts of the POAU to take religion out of

the child's school education, there never was such a wide-

spread demand to restore it. The latest to speak out was

UNESCO, an affiliate of the United Nations.



JOHN A. MACKAY, Vice-Pres.

I wish to say that Catholics swear allegiance to no one

but the land of their birth or adoption, a fact which is borne out

by every battlefield or danger that has threatened this country

end by the great names that adorn our history.—Geo. R. Stone,
Baltimore, March 24, 1917.

This Vice-President of the POAU, President of the

Princeton Theological Seminary, if quoted correctly in the

press, rates Communism as the second greatest enemy of our

nation and Catholicism third. That’s poor logic, for if

Catholicism is admittedly the foremost antagonist and enemy

of Communism, it must be our nation’s greatest friend.

It is anti-Catholicism which creates treasonable citizens.

Benedict Arnold, the traitor, was bitterly anti-Catholic; and

all the Protestant ministers who visited Yugoslavia at the in-

vitation of Tito as well as the Louie Newton of the POAU

who visited Russia with Stalin’s consent, and praised the

religious liberty prevailing there, have very long anti-Cath-

olic records.

The Guardians of Liberty of Menace days, denounced by

leading Protestant churchmen and editors, were anti-Catholic

and socialistic; the Ku Klux Klan was also openly anti-Cath-

olic, and its promoters were anti-American as well.

But you could scour the entire United States and not

discover a Catholic clergyman, a practicing Catholic layman,

who has played with Communists, who has engaged in sub-

versive activities, or who would lend his name to an anti-

Protestant movement.

We have reason to suspect the Americanism of those who
chose this time of the world’s great political crisis to sow and

spread the seeds of hatred against any group of Americans.

Particularly is it unpardonable when those who organize to do

this thing profess to represent the all-loving Christ in His

ministry.

What these ministers are doing today, and try to have



JOHN A. MACKAY, VICE-PRES. 47

others do with them, was done a hundred years ago with

great vehemence, with the same stock charges. But nothing

happened to our schools during these hundred years; noth-

ing has brought about a closer union of Church and State;

no harm has come to our country from the sending of a

presidential envoy to the Vatican. The anti-Catholic campaign

of forty years ago did much to help the Catholic Church and

did immeasurable harm to Protestantism. The older among

the officers of the POAU will remember Rev. Washington

Gladden, of Columbus, Ohio. Speaking several times during

1913 and 1914 he expressed worry for Protestantism because

of the anti-Catholic tirades delivered in Protestant churches

which were "sickening the people.” That campaign led many

a Protestant minister to investigate the claims of the Catholic

Church and to give up their Protestant pulpit, among them

the Rev. C. L. Harbord, of Kansas City, and the Rev. W.

Farmer, of Atlanta, Georgia.

Writing in Harpers Weekly during those days Rev.

Washington Gladden called on Protestants to shy from

listening to "these harrowing tales about the sinister plots of

the Roman Catholics. Insist that the narrator give his author-

ities and furnish his evidence. . . Instead of listening to hor-

rible tales of what
t

Catholics are doing in distant places, sit

down and makes out a list of all the Catholic men and women

you know in business, in professional life, in the philanthro-

pies, in society, in the shops and factories, in the kitchens;

put down their names and think them over, and see whether

you will be able to convince yourselves that these men and

women are capable of doing the kind of thing which these

tales attribute to them.”

What Rev. Charles Edward Stowe, son of the noted

Harriett Beecher Stowe, wrote in the Boston Herald
,
Decem-

ber 15, 1905, has special application to organized anti-Cath-

olicism under Protestant auspices. He writes in part: "The

full, rich, glorious Christ of Catholic Christianity has been

dragged from His throne by these advanced thinkers (God

save the mark!) and reduced to beggery. . . A pale bloodless



48 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

emaciated Syrian ghost, He still dimly haunts the icy corri-

dors of this twentieth century Protestantism. . . They tell us

that there is no middle ground between their own vague and

sterile rationalism and the Roman Catholic Church. If this

be so, then for me most gratefully and lovingly I turn to the

Church of Rome as a homeless, houseless wanderer to a home

in a continuing city.”

The promoters of the POAU probably have the fears of

Bishop Sellew (Methodist), who, in September, 1910, ob-

served: “The spirit of Protestantism is declining in America

with the progress of Catholicism. It is dying, and will soon

be a thing of the past.” Hence these modern clergymen are

applying the wrong remedy, namely, attempting to build up

Protestantism by fighting Catholicism.

We wonder whether the Presbyterian Mackay has not
read what the Presbyterian William Jennings Bryan, four

times a candidate for the Presidency of the United States,

wrote in The Commoner
,
August 1915; “Those who have come

into intimate acquaintance with representative Catholics did

not need to be informed that they do not concede to the

Church authorities the right to direct their course in political

matters, but many Protestants, lacking this knowledge which

comes with personal acquaintance, have been misled.” Bryan

was in position to know.

Dr. John A. Mackay, President of Princeton Theological Semi-
nary, born in Scotland, is now a Vice-President of the POAU. He
assisted Kenneth Leslie circulate Communist and anti-Catholic
propaganda through the magazine The Protestant, which, as we
have noted, was in no sense a Protestant magazine, but a Pro-
Communist and anti-Catholic one.

Mackay supported the “Russian War Relief,” and was also
active in the organization known as “The American Friends of
Spanish Democracy.”

We see the old adage verified in the POAU: “Birds of a
feather flock together.”

Bishop Oxnam quotes Dr. John A. Mackay as defining clerical-
ism as “the pursuit of power, especially political power, by a re-

ligious hierarchy, and carried on by secular methods and for pur-

poses of social domination.” That definition could not possibly

apply to the Catholic Church.



E. H. DeGROOT, Jr., Treasurer

How strange it is for me, with my early prejudice against

the denominational schools, to he constrained by the facts of life

to turn to the denominational schools as the hope of the Am-

erican people. I have found in the parochial schools the saying

principle which has been eliminated in the public school system,

I found a secular education which in every recent test has shown

superior efficiency over the public school education.-—Bird S.
Coler, of New York, in the Newark Evening Star, June 30, 1916.

Treasurer of the POAU, E. H. DeGroot, Jr., directed an

“Open Letter” to the National Catholic Welfare Conference

in 1949 in which he says of the Catholic Hierarchy: “The

Roman Catholic Hierarchy has entered the political arena to

secure for its Church a union with the State and public treas-

ury.

Those two charges have been denied many times, but

DeGroot expresses surprise that the truth of his statements

should even be questioned; he declares that the denial of his

charges is itself an untruth.

Referring to the Taft Federal Education Bill, he says:

“The Hierarchy, in whose name your organizations speak

officially, has not denied that it both inspires and supports

this legislation.”

Why should it deny something of which it had not

known it was accused? He continues: “Nor has it denied that,

in one form or another, it hopes eventually to shift the entire

support of the parochial schools on the public treasury.”

That charge has been denied with the utmost sincerity, and

those who repeat it are the ones who are not to be believed.

DeGroot also attacks the Supreme Court for approving

legislation which allows bus transportation to non-public

school children, and threatens: “Protestants and Other Amer-

icans United are determined to bring to bear whatever

strength they can rally to secure the repeal of this legislation

in these eighteen states, and also by appropriate constitutional

means to secure a reconsideration by the Supreme Court.”



50 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

But the POAU had denounced the very idea of Catholics

appealing to the Supreme Court for a reconsideration of its

interpretation of Jefferson’s words, construed to be out of

keeping with the continuance of released time for religious

instruction, which Protestant churches first advocated.

In his “Open Letter,” DeGroot singled out three school

cases which were supposed to offer proof that the Catholic

Church seeks to obtain control over the public schools:

They are (1) North College Hill, a suburb of Cincinnati;

(2) Dixon, New Mexico; and (3) a few schools in North

Dakota.

Until these cases were brought to the attention of Cath-

olics, 99% of them, including the Catholic Hierarchy had

known nothing about them.

North College Hill

About the North College Hill, he writes:

“The (School) Board proceeded to incorporate a paro-

chial school into the public school system. It paid the

Archbishop (of Cincinnati) $6,000.00 out of public school

funds for ten months’ rental of the building. The Nuns

teaching in that school were placed on the public pay roll.”

Evidently the services of the teachers—even if Nuns—

would be paid, as other teachers would have been paid if

these same children were in the public school.

We wrote to the Archbishop of Cincinnati at the time
for an explanation, and in reply he sent us four articles which

had appeared in the Telegraph-Register, representing his side

but also told us: “We shall gladly terminate all contracts with

the public School Board if they want it.”

He apprised us that the Times-Star dealt with the situa-

tion very fairly; that the Cincinnati Post treated it unfairly;

that the Cincinnati Enquirer reported the matter only in a

fragmentary manner.

The Director of the Department of Education of the State

of Ohio saw the situation in a very different light than the



E. H. DeGROOT, JR., TREASURER 51

ministers of the area, who, on principle, voiced their opposi-

tion. Recourse was had to the Court, and its decision sup-

ported the action of the School Board. It was proposed that

the conflict be settled at the ballot box, but aroused prejudice

would not have that. It resorted to social pressure and dug

into the general stock charges against the Catholic Church.

The Archbishop was charged with having urged Cath-

olics to move into North College Hill and to other suburbs in

order that they might get control of the schools. To this

charge he answered: “We categorically deny that the Catholic

Church, or any division of it, or any official or any lay mem-

ber of it, have, in any movement whatsoever, encouraged

Catholics to move to North College Hill. We also deny, with-

out any reservations whatsoever, that the Archdiocese of

Cincinnati had any strategic planning in the school affairs of

North College Hill”

Some of these charges had appeared in an article written

for The Christian Century by Harold E. Fey.

The Archbishop further observed: "It is absolutely untrue

that the Catholic Church is making money on this arrange-

ment. The School Board of North College Hill and the

village itself are benefiting.”

This was due to the fact that, according to the School

Foundation which functions in Ohio, a part of the education

of each child is paid for by that Foundation. Hence as far

as the parents of the children attending the school were con-

cerned it was to their advantage to have that arrangement.

The National Education Association, which is also rep-

resented in the POAU, injected itself into the North College

Hill controversy without any warrant.

But the Chancellor of the Archdiocese wrote: "The

authorities of the Archdiocese took no initiative, direct or in-

direct, to bring St. Margaret Mary School into the Public

School System. They were never enthusiastic about it; they

merely tolerated it. They only consented in the hope of

working harmoniously with the Public School System and



52 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

with the School Board, and with the non-Catholic people of

North College Hill.”

If the majority of the North College Hill School Board

was Catholic, it is because Catholics constitute the majority

of the town’s 5,000 population. It did not result from any

"Church strategy.” If the School Board personnel had been

non-Catholic, it is likely that no fuss would have been made

over the arrangement effected.

The actual truth is that a religious issue was made of

this case, even if it was only a local affair and had no con-

nection whatsoever with a "plan of the Catholic Hierarchy.”

The State of Ohio dispenses considerable money to several

Protestant educational institutions, but no one. Catholic or

Protestant, has paid any attention to that.

In his "Open Letter” DeGroot observes: "The Hierarchy

has committed itself to a policy plainly subversive of religious

liberty as guaranteed by the Constitution; the Catholic Church

seeks a position of special privilege in relation to the State;

the strategy of the Church is to fracture the constitutional

principle of separation of Church and State at one point after

another.” Each charge in that statement is absolutely false.

Dixon
,
New Mexico

For a number of years Catholic Sisters had been em-

ployed in thirty small schools in the State of New Mexico

where the Catholic population was predominant, where it

was almost impossible to procure lay school teachers because

of the isolated character of the towns or villages, and because

the schools, in most instances, had been parish schools, and

continued to be the property of the Sisters.

Some non-Catholic parents might not have been com-

pletely satisfied with this arrangement, but they preferred it

to the taxation which would be levied on the community for

a new public school patronized by so few children. The first

opposition arose in September, 1947, and it was due to agita-

tion from the outside. During 1946, private subscriptions

were gathered by some of the Protestant people in the com-



E. H. DeGROOT, JR., TREASURER 53

munity for the purpose of building a new public school en-

tirely free from religious influence. In September, 1947,

a five room school was finished, and a mistake was probably

made by the County School Superintendent when he gave

a contract to the Sisters to operate that school.

But because of these complaints, the Archbishop of Santa

Fe, who inherited the situation and never gave any thought

in either direction concerning the legality of the practice,

sent a letter to all the Sisters teaching in public schools for-

bidding them to teach religion during school hours, forbid-

ding them to bring the children by bus before the public

school day opened, and asking them to remove from the

walls any religious emblem.

That the people of New Mexico wanted the Sisters to

teach in these schools is clear from the fact that Governor

Mabry, the State School Superintendent, Charles L. Rose, and

the State School Budget Auditor, R. H. Grissolm, applied to

District Judge E. T. Hensley, of Santa Fe, to dismiss the suit

which would bar Catholic Nuns from teaching in the state

schools. The people generally would have been in favor of

this, but the Baptist Joint Conference Committee on Public

Relations had an attorney from Washington, D.C., on the

ground to see that the Sisters who had been teaching relig-

ion in the schools would be dismissed.

The State Superintendent of School had said repeatedly

that Nuns teaching in the public schools were there at the

behest of the local population; that lay teachers would be

very hard to procure for such schools situated in out-of-the-

way places.

The POAU is out to make a case against the Church for
violating a statute which forbids religious instruction in the

school. We could not conceive of any Catholic agitation
against Baptists for teaching the Baptist religion in com-

munities predominantly Baptist. Such a situation would be

legally subject to criticism, but no Catholic would organize a

group to stop it.

We know that hundreds of ministers are serving as



54 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

school teachers in the south, yet there are no protests from

the few Catholic parents who have children in their schools.

Even if they do not actually teach religion they are known

to be representatives of a Protestant sect just as much as a

Sister is known to be a representative of the Catholic Church.

Let us suppose there were twice as many schools in New

Mexico taught by Sisters, the Catholic Hierarchy, for which

the POAU blames everything, would have had nothing to

do with it, and probably all but two or three would have

known nothing about it. The situation simply grew out of

local conditions, and people had to come from outside the

state to tell the public that it was wrong.

DeGroot, who finds fault with Nuns teaching in New

Mexico schools in places so uninviting that it has hitherto been

almost impossible to procure lay teachers, probably never

read the following editorial which appeared in an El Paso

daily back in 1924:

In refutation of the charge that Catholics are the

enemies of the public school the El Paso papers could

point to the fact that every public school building erected

in New Mexico was made possible by Catholic votes. We
have had to rely on the Catholics of the state to carry all

of our public school bond elections. The Catholics are in

the majority in New Mexico, and could have defeated our
schools had they been opposed to the public school sys-

tem.

Nor he certainly did not read this item in the Western

American, November 10, 1923:

The first public school established in El Paso was

erected by the sale of bonds voted by the Catholics of

this city. Twenty years ago the voting population of El

Paso was overwhelmingly Catholic, and Prof. G. Put-

nam, who, with A. Courchesne, C. F. Morehead, W. J.
Fewel, Judge Magoffin, Dr. F. W. Gallagher, E. C. Pew

and Dr. Howard Thompson, were active agencies in the

upbuilding of this city’s public school system, will testify

that he always relied on the Catholic vote to help carry

school bonds. Opposition to school bonds in those days

came from non-Catholic sources. The vote against Ysleta’s



E. H. DeGROOT, JR., TREASURER 55

last $50,000 bond issue, for its public school, was cast by

non-Catholics.

Even though the Archbishop of Santa Fe has withdrawn

the Sisters POAU wants the agitation to continue.

North Dakota

A couple of years ago, a campaign was started in North

Dakota to rid some schools there of teaching Sisters, and it

was proposed that a law be enacted preventing any teacher

in the public school from wearing a religious garb. The

“abuse” would then be removed.

It was decided to let the people of the State vote on the

question and, although North Dakota is less than 15% Cath-

olic, 48% of the people voted for the retention of the Sisters

wearing their religious garb. If Catholics had presented the

Sisters’ case a little earlier, it is very likely that the majority

would have voted as 48% had done. The enemies were or-

ganized early, and organized well, with the support of preach-

ers and ministerial associations.

This should be the best answer to DeGroot’s claim that

five-sixths of the American people (of which he evidently

meant all non-Catholics) backs the POAU.

Why should Catholic Sisters wish to teach in the public

schools? Where they had been invited to teach in the past,

the call came from the Catholic community, not from a

Bishop, much less from the entire Catholic Hierarchy.

If the officers and followers of the POAU only knew
that there is no such thing as “Catholic Hierarchy” in the

sense that all Bishops unite for unified action, they

would not be so troubled. Each Bishop is supreme in his

own diocese. Even a Cardinal has no jurisdiction outside his

diocese, and none is ever delegated to speak for the entire

body of Bishops.

It is natural for Protestants who are organized politically

to surmise that Catholics are also. As a matter of fact, poli-

ticians know Catholics to be unorganized politically.



JOSEPH M. DAWSON, Recording Sec'y-

As regards the Catholics, moreover, let us not forget that

they well-nigh constitute the backbone of our fighting forces on

sea and land and the upholders of law and order in our cities

end villages. It is an open truth that the Catholics furnish the

largest proportion of blue-coats, blue-jackets and boys in khaki.

—American Israelite, Dec. 24, 1914.

If Catholics had been "Conscientious objectors" the United

States army in the two past wars would have been smaller by

30% the navy, by nearly 40%, and the marines by nearly 50%.

Joseph Dawson has been an executive director of the

Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, and was mentioned

by The Christian Advocate (Meth.) as “the only Baptist any-

where in the United States who can speak for 16,000,000

American Baptists on all matters pertaining to public ques-

tions and be anything mildly approaching ‘authoritative
5

. . ,

55

“Mr. Dawson can, and does, plead the cause of the typi-

cal Baptist both in the halls of congress, and in the large forum

which is the public of the United States.
55

The reader of the

above must wonder if Dawson, therefore, doesn't represent

the Baptist in politics.

Dawson was a former editor of the Baptist Standard
,

published in Dallas, Texas, and owned by the Baptist General

Convention of Texas. His name appears on the Board of

directors of that publication as late as 1946. As we write this,

we have before us two copies of the Baptist Standard
,
in one

of which an article and two out of three editorials deal with

the Catholic Church. Both editorials are written by the ve-

nomous pen of an anti-Catholic.

In the other appears an equally bitter blast at the Cath-

olic Church concluding with these words: “Baptists are

eternally set against the subversive efforts of both Commu-

nism and Romanism. Both are foreign ideologies to true

Americanism and, therefore, threats to our religious liberty

and constitutional form of government.
55

Another editorial, dealing with the circulation of the



JOSEPH M. DAWSON, RECORDING SECT. 57

Bible, makes this observation: “Roman Catholic Popes for

more than one hundred years have opposed all efforts to give

the common people the Bible. Pope Pius VII denounced the

movement as a ‘crafty device of the Protestants/ and Pope

Pius IX pronounced his curse upon printing the Scriptures

in the language of the people as ‘an old device of heretics/
”

And lest people might surmise that the attitude of more re-

cent Popes or the attitude of Catholics may have changed

towards Bible reading, it reminds them “Rome never changes.”

Only for the reader’s sake do we digress to refute this

slander. If the Catholic Church had cared to do away with

the Bible, she had plenty of time to do it, having had it all to

herself from the day she declared what was the real Canon

of the Bible in the fourth century down to the time of the

Reformation in the sixteenth century. Instead of destroying

that precious book, she guarded it, had monks in monasteries

everywhere throughout Europe occupied copying it from

other manuscript copies in order that the treasure might be

possessed by posterity. In fact Protestants would not know

that there was such a thing as the New Testament Scripture

if the Catholic Church had not preserved and protected it.

Understand that the New Testament was written in Greek

with the exception of the gospel of St. Matthew, which was

written in Hebrew; but as soon as the Canon of the Bible was

definitely decided Pope Damascus ordered a new and com-

plete translation into the vernacular which then was the Latin

language.

When they speak about the Bible existing only in the

Latin language until the late Middle Ages, they do not seem

to know that that was the one language which everybody

who could read understood. The English and the German

and the French and other languages were only in the process

of formation 500 years after the Bible was translated into

Latin

The fable about Luther discovering a Bible and having

been converted by it, is contradicted by himself in his Table

Talk, Edition of 1568, page 16, when he writes: “In my youth



58 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

I accustomed myself to read the Bible and I read it often, and

became so familiar with the text that I knew where to find

every single statement/' We have a transcription of this in

Luther’s own handwriting. This was before Luther, the Cath-

olic boy, began to study for the priesthood. His words are

confirmed by Dr. McGilfort, in his volume "Martin Luther and

His Works,” page 273, where he observes: "If Luther was

ignorant of the Bible, it was his own fault. The notion that

Bible reading was frowned upon by ecclesiastical authorities

of that age is quite unfounded.”

Dr. Preserve Smith, in his work "Life and Letters of

Martin Luther,” page 14, notes: "The young monk was chief-

ly illumined by the perusal of the Bible. The book was a very

common one, there having been no less than one hundred

editions of the Latin Vulgate (which means vernacular) pub-

lished before 1500, as well as a number of German transla-

tions.”

We ourselves have a manuscript Bible, which was writ-
ten on vellum more than one hundred years before Luther

was born.

One of the best historians of the Middle Ages is the

non-Catholic English clergyman, Rev. E. Cutts. He writes in

his "Turning Point of English History” (pp. 200-201): "Some

people think that the Bible was little read even by the clergy,

whereas the fact is that the sermons of medieval preachers

are more full of Scripture quotations and illustrations than

any sermons in these days.” Every Catholic priest must peruse

the entire Bible once a year.

Professor Vedder of the Crozer Theological Seminary

(Protestant) writes in his biography (pp. 5-6): "Most recent

writers are inclined to discredit the story of Luther finding the

Bible as inherently incredible.”

Rev. Charles Buck (Protestant) in his work on the Bible

writes: "While the Roman Empire subsisted in Europe, the

reading of the Scriptures in the Latin tongue, which was the

universal language of that Empire, prevailed everywhere.”



JOSEPH M. DAWSON, RECORDING SEC’Y. 59

Where the writer of the editorial in the Baptist Standard

got his quotation from Pope Pius VII we cannot fathom, be-

cause, writing to the English Bishops in 1820, he said: “Noth-

ing can be more useful, more consolatory, more animating be-

cause the Holy Scriptures serve to confirm the faith, sup-

port the hope and inflame the charity of the true Christian”

His predecessor Pope Pius VI urged that the “faithful be

assisted to the reading of the Bible; for this is the most

abundant source which ought to be left open to everyone to

draw from the purity of morals and of doctrine.”

Leo XIII, who succeeded Pope Pius IX found a society

for the advancement of Bible study, and addressed a letter to

the entire Church on the subject of reading and studying of

the Holy Scriptures, granting special blessings to those who

would devoutly read it every day.

His successor, Pius X, wrote to the Society of St. Jerome

for the Distribution of the Scriptures: “The more the gospel

is read, the more faith is revived. . . You are endeavoring to

spread abroad the book of the gospel and it is indeed well. . .

There are many books of spiritual exercises, but there is

nothing better than the gospel, the book of meditation, of

spiritual reading. . . I bless you willingly with both hands.”

His successor, Benedict XV, wrote: “We should like to

see the Holy Book in the possession of every Christian family,

carefully treasured and diligently read every day so that all

the faithful may thus learn to live holy lives in every way in

conformity to the divine will.”

We who have an opportunity to read sectarian papers
are filled with the conviction that Protestantism builds its

cause chiefly on legends, legends originally fabricated for the

one purpose of injuring, or shying people away from, the

Catholic Church.

No Pope ever forbade the reading of the version of the

Bible which was truly the “word of God” by being correctly

translated from the original. We hardly need to tell the editor
that the original writings of the Gospels and Epistles are no



€0 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

longer in existence. Faulty versions of the true Bible are not

the word of God.

What Dawsons Fellow-Townsman Thinks

The Rev. Luther C. Peak, pastor of the Central Baptist

Church, Dallas, Texas, the very city in which the Baptist

Standard
,
of which Dawson was for a long time editor, is

published, on January 16, 1948, got after the POAU, calling

it a movement "dragging the red herring across the trail”;

an "effort to raise a pseudo issue of the Union of Church and

State in order to throw the American people off the track

in their thinking as to the menace of Russia and of Commu-

nism, to the peace of the world.”

He goes so far as to say: "Communistic philosophy has

long been infiltrating American Protestantism. It has been

taught in sociological studies in the majority of Protestant

colleges and universities, and in theological seminaries for the

last quarter of a century.”

He goes much further and says: "Not only has this alien,

un-American and un-Christian philosophy been taught in our

Protestant schools, it has also been taught and is now being

taught in the Sunday school literature and study courses of

the churches. The five clergymen who have formed this or-

ganization are on record again and again as having strong

leanings towards this philosophy. Not one of them has ever

been outspoken against the enforced slave labor of the Soviet

Union, or against the ruthless slaughter of millions of Chris-

tians by the Communist regime of Russia.”

He continues: "Their organization is for propaganda

purposes and is highly deceptive.”

Pointing to an instance of Communist infiltration into

American Protestantism, Rev. Luther C. Peak cites a recent

meeting of the "Methodist Federation for Social Action” held

at Kansas City, Missouri. The Scripps-Howard newspapers

assigned a special investigator and reporter to cover this

meeting and carried a series of articles "exposing its Red

character.” The New York World Telegram called this Prot-



JOSEPH M. DAWSON, RECORDING SEC’Y. 61

estant meeting “an all-out attack on America's foreign policies

and a glowing defense of the Soviet Union in both her foreign

policies and domestic affairs.”

The minister notes further: “The action of these five

clergymen, in attacking the Catholic Church on the issue of

union of Chure*h and State, is part and parcel of the over-all

program of the Communistic ultra-liberal leadership of

American Protestantism to propagandize for the Communistic

system on the one hand, and to strike at all opposers of the

Red program on the other, and in this instance, the Roman

Catholic Church."

The minister concludes his indictment with these words:

“The United States Government does not have an ambassa-

dor at the Vatican, as asserted by these clergymen. President

Truman has a personal representative there. The American

people will not be deceived by these preachers crying ‘Wolf!

Wolf!' and pointing at Rome. The wolf is not in Rome. The

wolf is in Moscow."

In an article written by J. M. Dawson as “Public Re-

lations Secretary for Baptists of the United States," for the

Western Recorder
,
March 13, 1947, it is made clearly mani-

fest that he has a state of mind which jumps at most un-

warranted conclusions. He is worried about the growth of the

Catholic Church, claiming that it has a membership “exceed-

ing that of any non-Catholic body," and attributes this growth

to “the strong Catholic purpose to win America” through “the

vast astute organization which has been set in motion to

achieve this purpose." He says that while Catholics “have a

powerful hand in government affairs," their will is accom-

plished through far spread agencies of social control which

operate with mighty force on the whole people throughout

the nation."

He resents the idea that the Catholic Church claims to

be the only true Church and maintains that it poses as “the

only real authority on morals." He accuses it of “doctrinal

intolerance," while it wants others to “maintain a broad tol-

erance towards them." He charges it with having a great



62 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

power over the press of the nation, a power over the produc-

tion of motion pictures, the purpose being to “gain immense

concessions, observable in the marked favor shown them in the

films.” He does not even approve of the Catholic position

towards marriage and divorce which is, of course, the Bible

position. He observes that it established in Washington,

Georgetown University “reputed to offer the best training in

government foreign service to be found anywhere in the

world/
5

Georgetown is not an institution of the Catholic Church,

but is owned and controlled completely by a Religious Society.

It was founded at the very same time that the United States

Government was founded in 1789, and the Catholic Hierarchy

as such has nothing whatsoever to do with its management.

He refers to the Catholic National Welfare building, situat-

ed not far from the official residence of the Apostolic

Delegate to the United States.” In his estimation the

“Catholic Welfare Conference exists for the fundamental

purpose of establishing control over the entire social life of the

people of this country.” It would certainly be news to the

Catholics of the United States to learn that the Press De-

partment of the National Catholic Welfare Conference has

“experts who conduct annual retreats for newspaper men

with a view to instructing them in treating news agreeable

to the Church.” He says the Catholic Church has “famous

columnists, like Mark Sullivan and Paul Mallon.” Then he

speaks of the difficulty our State Department has in deal-

ing with Latin countries because they have “overwhelming

Catholic majorities.”

Most of these charges are not worth noticing, but we

shall touch on a few of them briefly.

There is no movement in the United States to “win

America for the Catholic faith,” even if Catholics would like

to see that accomplished just as the Baptists would like to

have America become Baptist.

A few years ago the editor of The Christian Century be-

gan a series of articles under the general caption “Can Prot-



JOSEPH M. DAWSON, RECORDING SECY. 63

estantism Win America?”, and promised that that subject

would be "discussed for months to come.” There is every

reason to believe, as Luther C. Peak (Baptist) has averred,

that the founders and promoters of the POAU are either

wittingly or untwittingly serving the Communist cause. Their

program does not differ much from that of the Communist

declared program.

About the Catholic power in government, although one-

fifth of the population of the United States is Catholic (if all

were counted the Church would claim over 35,000,000), we

have not ten per cent of the members of the Senate or Con-

gress. In most states which are from thirty to sixty per cent

Catholic there are very few Catholic governors. Catholics

never let religion dictate their vote, as many Protestants have

been led to believe.

There would be hardly any reason for the Catholic

Church, or for any other church, to exist if it did not believe

itself to be "the one true Church.”

As to the "impact on the press of the nation,” it does not

exist. Some years ago when the Socialists made the charge

that "Rome Controls the Press,” the editor of the Commercial

Appeal of Memphis, Tennessee, wrote in refutation (August

12, 1923):

There are fifteen directors in the Associated Press.

They are elected by the members after public nomina-

tion of two or three candidates for each position. All of

the directors are Protestants except one. That one is a

Jew. The southern directors are Clark W. Howell, editor
of the Atlanta Constitution and Fred I. Thompson, editor

of the Mobile Register and the Birmingham Age-Herald

;

some of the directors are Presbyterians, some are Episco-

palians, some are Methodists and some are Baptists.

We don’t know how hard any of them practice their
religion, but there is not a finer body of Americans in

this country. Just now we recall that Mr. E. H. Baker,
editor of the Plain Dealer

,
Cleveland, is one of the most

active YMCA workers in this country.

We can’t imagine that Mr. Clark Howell or Mr. Fred



64 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

Thompson would permit the Pope to take over the Asso-

ciation Press without a public protest.

Melville E. Stone, for many years general manager of

the Associated Press, is a Methodist and a son of a Metho-

dist preacher. Frank B. Noyes, President of the Associ-

ated Press, is a Protestant, and has been at the head of

the organization for twenty years. He is the editor of the
Washington Star.

Frederick Ray Martin, general manager of the Asso-

ciation Press, is a Harvard graduate and a New England
Congregationalist. Mr. U. L. McCall, superintendent of

all the Association Press operations in the South, is a

member of the Baptist Church.

Considerable free lying has been done about the

Commercial Appeal in the carrying on of this propaganda.

We never paid any attention to the religious affilia-
tions of anybody on this paper until people who didn't

know said what they were and said the Commercial

Appeal was what it was not.

As to the '"Legion of Decency/’ it was formed at the re-

quest of the nine largest producers of motion pictures. The

Bishops of the United States have never asked Hollywood to

produce anything, and the Catholic pictures which were

produced, all of which were "firsts” by the rating of experts,

were done independently, without any knowledge of, let alone

pressure from, the Catholic hierarchy.

Harold E. Fey was the one who, six years ago, in articles

written in the Christian Century
,

first falsified the work of

the NCWC. Its Press Department deals only with the Cath-

olic Press. The Catholic Press Association, in its very Consti-

tution, declares that its purpose is to serve the Catholic and

not the secular press. Why shouldn't there be Catholic col-

umnists by their own merit? Several not mentioned by Dawson

have become converts to the Catholic faith through their

sincere study.

Because there is a National Organization for Catholic

Men, a National Organization for Catholic Women, and a

Youth Department in the Welfare Conference Building, Har-

old Fey concluded that every Catholic man must belong to



JOSEPH M. DAWSON, RECORDING SEC’Y. 65

one, and every Catholic woman and every Catholic youth

to the others. No one must join any of these organizations,

and two of them are extremely weak. Dawson attributed to

this Conference the ability of starting parochial schools and

furnishing teachers, of establishing Catholic hospitals and

furnishing the Sisters to staff them. We wish that that charge

were only one per cent true.

As to Latin America, the Hierarchy of each country is

not only entirely independent of all the others, but few

have any acquaintance with Bishops outside of their own na-

tion. The governments of many of these countries certainly

would not have been anti-Catholic if the Catholic Church

were in control. The last two Presidents of Chile, the most

Catholic country in South America, have been Freemasons

of the Grand Orient brand. A large percentage of Catholics

of these nations are poorly instructed because they lack

clergy. Forty thousand more priests are needed in Latin

America, even if 4,000 persons were allocated to each. As it is,

millions are untouched entirely by the Catholic clergy, be-

cause there are few in the territory in which they live.

How Some Missionaries Falsify

The Christian Advocate only recently carried a story

which represented The Maryknoll Fathers with having opened

a hospital next door to an Adventist hospital in Bolivia “to

drive out The Adventists.” The fact is that the two hospitals

are fifty miles apart even the way the crow flies. Both sites

were selected jointly by the U.S. government and the Bolivian

Ministry of Health. Both were offered to the Maryknoll

Fathers, but they could take over only one of them.



GLENN L. ARCHER, Exec. Director

A notion which acknowledges its Christian origins, and
even proclaims to the world that it is in some sense a Christian

nation, is so ordering its educational enterprises that the children

ore trained in what amounts to practical atheism/
1—Dr. Truman

6. Douglas, at a meeting of the Department of Christian Education

of the National Council of Churches, Feb., 1951.

In an article written for the Baptist Leader (Feb. 1950),

Glenn L. Archer called the officers of the POAU the "most

eloquent and devout clergymen in America.”

We have already shown that, almost without exception,
these reverend gentlemen have been very Pink in their lean-

ings, and that they have all taken turns at falsifying by

claiming that the Catholic Hierarchy is seeking to get control

over public schools, to obtain all-out support for parochial

schools, that it advocates union of Church and State in this

country, etc.

Just as Archer praises the other members of his organi-

zation, so do Edwin McNeill Poteat, the President, and

Charles Clayton Morrison, Vice President, praise him on the

inside cover of a folder sent out by the POAU, and containing

an address by Archer entitled "The Battle for Freedom,”

which was delivered at the January 31, 1950, meeting of the

POAU in Washington.

It is in this address that Archer reiterates the charges we

have already noticed and confuted. He charges that the

Catholic Church defames the public schools by calling them

"godless” and "secular.” For every such label attached to the

public schools by a Catholic, we could produce twenty from

non-Catholic educators, ministers, editors, and even states-

men.

Archer goes back half a century to find Catholic criticisms

and, probably unknowingly, borrows names used by The

Menace
, 40 years ago. He pretends to quote from the Chicago

Tablet
,
which never existed; from a Monsignor Cappell, who



GLENN L. ARCHER, EXEC. DIRECTOR 67

never lived; from Bishop McQuade, whose name is misspelt.

Back in 1919—32 years ago—we exposed those same bogus

quotartions. At that time we also offered $1000 for proof of

the genuineness of the utterances attributed to several Cath-

olic clergymen or prelates. Even The Menace was unable to

identify the persons quoted, misspelling the names of Mc-

Closkey and McQuaid, both of whom had died long before.

Other quotations it applied to “priest'
7

Hecker and “priest”

Shaner without any better identification.

Archer follows the same practice. He speaks of the

“editor of a leading Catholic magazine;
77

of “a Roman Cath-

olic leader of distinction in Richmond.
77

After blundering as he

did with his quotations, which he calls “declarations of a

foreign State,” he asks, “What lies behind these attacks?” He

then gives his own answer as follows: “The Roman Church

regards itself as the sole agency empowered by God to edu-

cate all youth.” He further states: “These attacks are a smoke-

screen behind which the Hierarchy seeks public support for

its vast parochial system.”

Now, of course, the Catholic Church concerns itself only

with the education of her own children whom she regards

as “children of God
77

and, therefore, entitled to be taught

about God. The Catholic Church never hides any of her

ideas behind “smoke-screens,” but she always speaks out very

plainly—and has plainly stated a hundred times that she does

not “seek public support
77

for her schools.

Archer cites Father McManus, who appeared before the

House Committee on Education and Labor. Father McManus

did not represent the Catholic Hierarchy at that meeting.

He may have expressed views of the Department of Educa-

tion, to whose conclusions none of the Bishops is bound.

There was nothing wrong in Father observing “public and

parochial schools are both eligible claimants to Federal Aid.”

If both teach the identical curriculum and meet the require-

ments of the State, why should not both be theoretically

“claimants to such aid?” If both schools do the same work,

why should one receive support and not the other? We are



68 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

now enunciating a principle. But the fact remains that the

Catholic Bishops have never asked for full parochial school

support. •

The Catholic Church would be "un-American,” as Archer

labels it, if, to use his language, it "fastened upon us a public

supported and church-controlled system of education.” The

only groups charged more generally with a desire to control

public school education are Protestant and atheistic organi-

zations, and the Southern Jurisdiction of Scottish-Rite Free-

masons. We could fill a big book with the evidence we have
for this assertion.

Archer charges Catholics with "vilifying congressmen

who proposed Federal Aid bills for public schools.” Most

opposition to Federal Aid Bills, which were offered a dozen

times during the past 30 years, has come from politicians,

schoolmen, governors of many States, and numerous others

who feared that Federal Aid would result in Federal control

of education in the several States. Catholics had a greater

reason to oppose it than others, because they would have

had to foot about one fifth of the new taxation without re-

ceiving any Federal Aid for their own schools—but they of-

fered no organized opposition.

Archer blames the Catholic Church for censoring maga-

zines, books, and movies, and for banning them from public

schools. As a matter of fact, it was the big producers of movies

in Hollywood who asked Catholic prelates to launch the Le-

gion of Decency. Will Hays, then the motion-picture czar,

sent two representatives to a Cincinnati meeting at which

the Legion was launched. The reason he gave was that the

Catholic code to which pictures were to be related, was the

sanest.

As to magaines, the Church opposes only the filthy ones,

those that are calculated, and in many cases designed, to de-

stroy the moral sense of youth. We know of only one maga-
zine whose placement in public schools was locally opposed.

That contained, during twelve issues, bitter anti-Catholic

articles by Paul Blanshard. If those articles had been anti-



GLENN L. ARCHER, EXEC. DIRECTOR 69

Methodist, anti-Baptist or anti-Jewish, even a stronger move-

ment would have ensued to keep them out of all schools.

Archer falsely accuses the Roman Catholics of receiving

“tax-free public funds” in communities of many States. If

Catholic teachers received such funds, they would not go to

their Church.

In his article in the Baptist Leader
,
Archer had said: “If

under the circumstances, the POAU’S mission has seemed to

involve an almost constant struggle with the Hierarchy of

the Roman Catholic Church, that has been the natural con-

sequence of the Hierarchy’s unceasing quest for political

power and cultural domination in this country.”

The Catholic Hierarchy has not observed any struggle

between itself and the POAU. It has ignored the POAU.

Let us say, incidentally, that none of its members will know

anything about this exposure until a copy will have been sent

to them.

We challenge anyone to produce evidence of “the Hier-
archy’s unceasing quest for political power and cultural dom-

ination in this country.”

Some Advice For Archer

Nearly 40 years ago our country was infected with self-

appointed “guardians,” and note what editors of leading

papers said of them—all during the same month:

The Editor of the New York World on October 22, 1914,

spoke for the majority of Americans when he wrote:

“There is no more contemptibly un-American issue

than the religious issue. Just why certain anti-Catholic
organizations regard themselves as the special custodian

of the American public school system, we have never
been able to understand.”

The Philadelphia Public Ledger
,
on October 20, 1914,

stated:

“The bond of citizenship is violated the moment a
citizen acts in conjunction with his fellow church mem-
bers to discriminate against other citizens because they

are members of another church.”



70 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

The New York Times
,
on October 23, 1914, had this to

say:

“Opposition to a candidate for political office on the

ground of his religion is one of those unaccountable sur-

vivals from the Know-Nothing days that always excites

the wonder as well as the disgust of the fair-minded men/’

The Editor of the Cincinnati Times-Star
,
on November 7,

1913, wrote:

“It is about time that somebody uttered a solemn pro-

test against the increasing part religious prejudice is com-

ing to play in American politics. This lugging in of relig-

ion into politics is a bad and dangerous business. It is

un-American and contrary to the spirit of our free insti-

tutions. A newspaper or an individual does not have to be
a partisan of any church to believe that the growing in-

fluence of religious prejudice in our politics is a real men-

ace to the nation.”

At that same time a Chicago minister praised the

Church for the very things POAU blames her. It was the

Rev. Chas. B. Mitchell (Methodist), on April 6, 1913, who

said;

“I like the Roman Catholic Church because it stands

so immovably in its allegiance to Jesus Christ as very

God. None of its leaders ever question the diety of Jesus.

“I also like it because it believes in the religious

training of its children, and, at great sacrifice of time and

money, does it.

“I like it because it stands for the purity of the home

life and the sanctity of the marriage vows. Thank God

for that Church’s strong and clear protest against the

cheap divorce mills which disgrace our American civiliza-

tion. I honor that Church for what it is doing in the

building and maintenance of hospitals and asylums. I

honor it for its defense of the Bible, and am almost ready
to condone its futile battle against ‘modernism/ for it is

so tremendously in earnest to stem the tide of a godless

materialism.

“I especially thank God for the stand that Church

takes in this land against anarchy on the one hand and

an impossible Socialism on the other. When I think of
the seething masses of foreigners of a certain type in our

cities, which we Protestants never produced, and thus



GLENN L. ARCHER, EXEC. DIRECTOR 71

far, at least, have been unable to touch, I thank God for

a Christian Church which does touch them, and exerts

its potent influence over them in such ways as to keep

them from the wild vagaries of the impractical Socialist,

and also from the destructive tendencies of the wild-eyed

anarchist. I go to sleep every night with a firmer feeling

of security, because we have in this city a branch of the

Christian Church known as the Roman Catholic Church.”

A French Scholar Explains

Brunetiere was a member of the French Academy. In

1896 he became a convert to the Catholic Church, and during

the last ten years of his life he made numerous speeches in all

parts of France to defend the Faith against the assaults of

Freethinkers. We reproduce his pointed and pithy charac-
terization of the kinds of people who go to make up the main

body of the critics and accusers of the Church.

Who, then, are they who reproach the Church for exact-

ing faith in her revealed doctrines? Those who believe in the

worst fooleries and are in disagreement with one another.

Who are they who reproach the Church for not recog-

nizing the dignity of man? Those who claim the monkey for

their father, chance for their master, pleasure for their law,

annihilation for their end.

Who are they who upbraid the Church with being a re-

ligion of money? Those who despoil her of her goods with the

utmost cynicism.

Who are they who accuse the Church of being intolerant?

Those who cannot allow any one to hold an opinion differing

from their own.

Who are they who charge the Church with being an
enemy of light? Those who, despising liberty, have closed

Catholic schools and driven out the nuns and the religious

teachers.

Who are they who reproach the Church with being the
enemy of the people? Those who, ignorant of history, are

persecuting the charitable institutions established by religion

—hospitals, creches, workshops, etc.



DR. L. D. NEWTON, A Founder
It is just os true today. There is ground for thinking that

the disposition of civilized mankind to desire the upholding of

Catholicism as a force conducive to the commonweal is likely

to wax rather than to wane. From both a religious and an ec-

onomic point of view the Catholic Church is coming to be regarded

as a sheet-anchor of society.—Editorial in Harper's Weekly, 1912.
America today stands in peculiar need of that contribution which

the Roman Catholic Church is peculiarly fitted to furnish."—The
Outlook, 1912.

Louie D. Newton, President of the “Southern Baptist

Convention,” was one of the founders of POAU. He visited

Russia three years ago and came back with a glowing ac-

count of the wonderful religious liberty accorded to the Rus-

sian people. He saw, he said, an unmolested crowded Baptist

church. That observation was made (1) because Stalin ex-

pected him to make it and (2) because it might take the minds

of Protestant leaders away from Communism and direct them

to the greater menace
,
the Catholic Church.

A few years back, Stalin and Tito had a flair for inviting

anti-Catholic ministers to their respective countries not be-

cause of any liking for them or their churches, but because,

upon their return home, they would, it was assumed, be better

disposed to do favorable propaganda work for them. To make

a good impression on them no interference with Protestant

services is shown during the time of their presence.

The Communists of Mexico, Central and South America,

have invited Protestant missionaries into their respective

countries in order—to use the words of America’s leading

Communist, Toiedano—“to confuse the people,” to start

wrangling and quarreling among discordantly teaching re-

ligious bodies.

Four days after the announcement of the plan to form

the POAU American papers quoted “Komsomol Pravda,” the

newspaper of the “Communist Youth League” as follows:



DR. L. D. NEWTON, A FOUNDER 73

“A young person cannot be a member of Komsomol if he is

not free from religious convictions.”

It also quoted Prime Minister Stalin himself as having

called for the “expulsion from the Communist Party of per-

sons hindering the broad development of anti-religious prop-

aganda.”

Dr. L. D. Newton had, more than any other, pro-

tested against the continuation of the Myron Taylor mission

at the Vatican, and is said to have declined an invitation ex-

tended to him to meet Myron C. Taylor for “informal conver-

sations.” He also refused to accept the State Department’s

assurance that it had refused no visas to Protestant mission-

aries who desired to go to South America. More recently New-

ton became active in the POAU campaign to have Sisters

ousted from the schools of New Mexico.

Not All Baptists Agree

Read the account of an incident reported from Fort

Worth after Newton returned from Russia. When Dr. New-

ton was introduced as speaker at the Baptist convention held

in Amarillo, Texas, in mid-November, 1947, Rev. William

Fraser, a pastor of Dr. Frank Norris’ Fundamentalist Church

at Fort Worth, got to his feet.

“I would like to challenge Dr. Newton and ask him—,”

Fraser began.

He was stopped by Dr. Wallace Bassett, Dallas, presi-

dent of the general convention, who waved his gavel at the

pastor.

During the time Fraser was trying to get to the floor he

shouted several times:

“I want to know why Dr. Newton feels we should be an

ally of Russia?”

Barrett, still waving his gavel, told Fraser “You’re not

going to ask Dr. Newton anything.”

“I want to raise a protest high as heaven—,” Fraser in-

sisted.



74 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

Amid booing and feet-stomping by others in the audience,

several Baptist laymen and pastors closed in on Fraser.

“You going peacefully?” one of them asked.

Fraser continued shouting until he was picked up and

carried bodily from the convention hall.

While the flareup was at its height, some one in the

audience began singing hymns.

That sounds like interference with “free speech” by

those who are loudest in demanding it.

Not long ago a group of Baptist ministers called on the

Pope and told him that some Baptist leaders over here would

rather see the world go Communist than Catholic. They were

probably thinking chiefly of Newton.

Dr. L. D. Newton, President of the Southern Baptist

Convention, admitted on March 8, 1948, that the “Protestants

and other Americans United” had filed a Brief before the

Supreme Court in support of the professed atheist’s (Mrs. Mc-

Collum) appeal for the denial of the right of the schools to

release public school children for religious instruction.

It was admitted in the Atlanta Constitution on March 9,

that the “Atlanta Baptist Ministers’ Associaion” was about to

place speakers in the high schools of that city (Newton’s

home) to propagandize for a city-wide Protestant revival.

While Newton, head of the Southern Baptist Convention,

was opposed to released time instruction, the “Division of

Education of the Northern Baptist Convention” favored it.

Its spokesman gave out this statement:

“It is unfortunate that Northern Baptists were made to

appear as being aligned with those forces that are seeking to

do away with weekday religious education on released time

. . . Northern Baptists were among the first to see the possi-

bilities of weekday religious education and have been pro-

moting the idea for more than thirty years.”

The “Detroit Baptist Missionary Society” declared about

the same time: “We believe that the released time plan is the



DR. L. D. NEWTON, A FOUNDER 75

most effective plan offered to date which will give the mass

of our children needed Christian education and at the same

time preserve the principle of religious liberty. We would

remind the committee which asked the Supreme Court to

outlaw this plan that they give the impression to the public

that 14,000,000 Baptists are standing with the alleged atheist

mother of Champaign and other secularists whose aim is to

destroy all religion.”

It is clear, therefore, that “Baptists and Other Protestants

are not united” on this, any more than<©n the Myron Taylor

mission or other matters which those heading the movement,

analyzed in this booklet, advocate or oppose.

They Run The Schools

It has been quite common for Protestant ministers to

deliver Baccalaureate addresses to graduating classes con-

sisting of Catholics, Jews and people of no faith, as well as

Protestants.

For years there has been operating in the city public

schools a Hi-Y which, according to its Constitution, is “Prot-

estant.”

Yes, Protestantism has hitherto regarded the public

schools as their own, as also have the atheists and other or-

ganizations. It is a rare thing for a Catholic organization or a

Catholic clergyman to invade the public schools for any pur-

pose.

“The public schools are a Protestant proposition. If they

are growing to be anything but that, it is our own fault. We re
going to correct it.”—Bishop W. O. Shephard (Methodist) be-

fore the Columbia River Conference, quoted in the Spokes-

man-Review
,
(Sept. 3, 1921).

Dr. Newton has admitted that he cooperated with

enemies of Christianity to remove all Christian influence

from the Schools. Will that save America?

Some years ago, an Englishman, Raymond Blathwayt,

visited the United States to ascertain whether there was any

truth to the claims made by Socialist-minded ministers that



76 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

the spirit of Catholicism was hostile to progress. We reprint

his conclusions contained in an article written for the Pall

Mall Magazine in 1918:

“There is a common idea, no less absurd than it is wide-

spread, that the spirit of Roman Catholicism is hostile to all

progress; that it is a monarchical and reactionary spirit utterly

opposed to freedom of thought or opinion in matters of re-

ligion, education, or politics. It is this idea which animates

the enemies of the Church of Rome the world over, and which

is strikingly prevalent among non-Roman Catholic thinkers

in the United States of America.

These many worthy, but somewhat short-sighted and pre-

judiced individuals, see in the establishment and increase of

Roman Catholicism in their minds, nothing but the ultimate

destruction of the unity of their Republic, the hindrance to all

progress, the deathblow to all freedom. . . Yet, if that Church

but carries out her highest aims, acts up to her loftiest ideals,

she will in the end be a source of safety , and not of peril, to

the great Republic, in whose midst she has taken so firm a

root. This is a bold assertion; but it is not made without good

grounds, and without a well-founded belief in its sincerity and

truth.

“I may here state that, although myself a staunch adher-

ent of the Anglican Church, I went recently to the United

States in order that I might make a careful study of this

question on the spot. I trust, therefore, that I am fairly well

qualified to express a duly thought-out opinion on the sub-

ject"

This charge of “political Catholicism" made by all officers

of the POAU is seldom argued by Catholics, not because it

bears any semblance of truth, but because they know it does

not exist. As a universal organization they know their Church

to be “above politics." In their own respective lands they

would not stand for any meddling in “partisan" politics on the

part of their clergy and their Bishops, much less on the part of

the entire “Catholic Hierarchy" of the nation.



E. E. ROGERS
(Southern Jurisdiction Scottish Rite Freemasonry)

The cornerstone of Scottish Rite Mosonry is supposed (?) to

be Toleration and freedom from religious bigotry, but when any

one mentions 'Roman Catholic/ The New Age froths at the

mouth. How much of this is sincere, and how much is propa-

ganda I will not attempt to determine, but, to say the least, it has

greatly the appearance of a 'smoke-screen/—Square and Com-
pass, Masonic Journal published at Denver, February, 1922.

We are not surprised to find the Southern Jurisdiction

of Scottish-Rite Freemasonry accepting an invitation to work

with the POAU, because that Jurisdiction has been playing

with enemies of the Church for 150 years. It supported every

campaign launched against the Catholic Church, no matter

how unscrupulous or how un-American their promoters. Like

all organizations which emphasize “tolerance,” it has been

habitually intolerant of everything Catholic. It has openly

admitted in its columns that it has worked with the ICu Klux

Klan, and particularly in Oregon, Washington and Michigan,

to have laws enacted making attendance at the public schools

compulsory on all children. It got behind the Fellowship

Forum a Klan paper, in Washington, whose first issue carried

the sub-head, “Freemasonry’s Representative at the National

Capital/
,

It claimed then to have the endorsement of Presi-

dent Harding and Senator Underwood, both of whom wrote

us that they had been deceived by the founders of that sheet.

Menace Counts Then As Friends

Read this letter addressed by an editor of The Menace

to Thirty-Second Degree Freemasons.

It may seem a far cry from rabid socialism to so solid

and respectable a body of men as the Masonic Fraternity. Yet

The Menace of May 13, 1913, took a “connecting link” for

granted.

I have a personal, private message which I wish to

convey to every Thirty-second Degree Mason in the

United States, who is a subscriber to The Menace at the



78 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

present time. The information which I propose to furnish

will be registered to you free of charge, and it involves

nothing that will put you under any obligation to me
whatever, but it may prove fortunate for you. I must be
convinced that you are a Thirty-second Degree Mason

before the information will be given, and it will be

necessary for you to enclose in your letter your last dues

receipt or other information satisfactory to convince me.

Your credentials will be returned with the information,

registered. Address me personally.—Marvin Brown,
Thirty-second Degree, Box 243, Aurora, Mo., Associate

Editor The Menace
.
(May 13, 1913.)

This may have been but the indiscretion of a single

Mason, but it is by no means the only bridge between the

anti-Catholic forces and Masonry.

The principle behind the Catholic position is not only re-

ligious, but American. Some years ago the papers carried

the word that Theodore Roosevelt had become a Freemason,

and a great admirer of this President who lived in Ohio sent

a letter to him expressing his surprise that the Supreme Ruler

over the whole United States should take an oath to obey

orders which might be imposed on him by some organization

within the nation. We saw both that letter and the answer
of President Roosevelt, who declared that he had not taken

any oath, that he was received as an honorary member, and

the President upheld the idea of the Ohio gentleman that it

would be entirely un-American for a Governor of a state or

the President of the United States to take an oath to obey

blindly any orders that might be issued to members by an

organization within the country.

The Church distinguishes between such an organization

and the members who are affiliated with it. Catholics are

never taught to discriminate in business or in politics or in

social life against such people.

Religion encounters very little open opposition from the

Northern Jurisdiction of Scottish Rite Freemasonry, from

members of the Blue Lodges. Most of the latter never got be-

yond the third degree, and outside of taking an oath, they

would not sense opposition by Freemasonry to the Catholic



E. E. ROGERS 79

Church or any other religious organization in the ritual or

ceremonies of the first three degrees. But the Scottish Rite

begins with the fourth degree, and carries members, carefully

selected, through twenty-eight more degrees. The thirty-

third, of which we read frequently, is only honorary, and is

bestowed on those who will have "given outstanding service

to Freemasonry as thirty-second degree members.”

The Southern Jurisdiction claims to be the "Mother Council

of the World,” and has admitted that it cooperates with the

Grand Orient, which is an atheistic form of Freemasonry in

France and other Latin countries.

It has carried articles in which Freemasonry is repre-

sented as a religion, and others which disclaim that conten-

tion. It requires of candidates that they profess belief in

"the Supreme Architect of the Universe,” but in articles

carried by this official organ, a very vague interpretation of

that is represented as satisfactory belief. One may have any

concept he cares to about God. He may regard Him as merely

a force in the universe.

The Christian religion is fundamentally "supernatural,”

but an organization founded by man could not possibly be-

come more than a "natural” religion.

The New Age is the one periodical in the nation which,

over a number of years, has been as reprehensibly anti-Cath-

olic as The Menace was forty years ago. In the April, 1946,

number of that magazine, there appeared an article under the

caption "The Smear Campaign against Freemasonry Contin-

ues,” which opens with the words, "The smear campaign of

the Roman Catholic Church against Freemasonry continues

apace in the United States and Great Britain, the two great

Protestant countries.”

We should like to ask the Catholic readers of this pam-
phlet whether they have observed in any periodical a "smear

campaign” against Freemasonry.

In proof of his charge, the New Age instances a single

pamphlet published in London and entitled "Despotism in

Disguise”



80 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

To counteract this pamphlet, The New Age article recom-

mends thirteen books, two by ex-priests and three by Gilbert

O. Nations, once editor of The Menace .

Protestantism in the United States, over a period of sev-

eral decades, and the public of our country generally, were

more openly hostile to Freemasonry than is the Catholic

Church. It often became a religious issue in politics, but this

issue was never injected into the campaign by Catholics.

We hold photostatic copies of four lengthy letters written
by ex-President John Quincy Adams in 1832 to a George A.

Stone, of New York, and printed in the Lancastor, Pa.,

Examiner .

They are far more denunciatory than anything we have

ever read from a Catholic source.

Their Grand Historian Writes:

To indicate the disfavor in which Freemasonry has been

held in practically all countries outside of England and the

United States in recent years, we quote from R. W. Ossian

Lang, Grand Historian
,
who published a pamphlet whose

contents were gathered from the proceedings of the Grand

Lodge of New York in 1927. In this report it is observed:

* Opponents (of Freemasonry) have arisen in unexpected

quarters. It has been put under the ban in Soviet Russia, in

Oligarchic Hungary, and in Fascist Italy; and in Republican

Germany (that was before World War II), it has been and

is yet harassed and being contended against with implacable

fury.”

He says that in America and under the British Empire,

the “Craft
5

has been left unmolested, but almost everywhere

it h^s been put on the defensive.

He calls the reader's attention to the fact that “just one

hundred years ago there was started under way in our own

State of New York a commotion which in its whirlwind course

all but swept out of existence the Masonic Fraternity here and

in other parts of the United States.”

The fight was not launched nor carried on by the Cath-



E. E. ROGERS 81

olic Church, which had an insignificant membership in this

country at that time. That opposition continued for many

years, led by non-Catholics in high positions, even in the gov-

ernment, to such an extent that a candidate for the presi-

dency was defeated on the sole score of his Freemasonry

affiliation.

Lang, the Grand Historian, writes (page 5 of his report):

“The Craft in Germany has been subjected by hordes of ultra-

Nationalists and Protestant fanatics”

In his report Lang gives some advice to the Lodges over

here. One of his suggestions is that “Freemasonry will not

tolerate religious disputes and is resolved against all politics”

But the “Mother Council of the World” of the Scottish Rite

participates with the enemy in every religious dispute in

which the Catholic Church is concerned. This “Mother Coun-

cil of the World” has also engaged in partisan politics not

only in this country but in Mexico, Central America and in

some countries of South America.

In violation of its profession, the Grand Historian, Ossian

Lang mentions politics (page 12 of his report) as one of the

reasons why Freemasonry was dissolved in Hungary. As

another reason he mentions: “There was unmistakable evi-

dence that at least one master of the Lodge, whose name

figured largely in the Revolution, had conducted a corres-

pondence with Freemasons in other countries that could not

be considered anything but treasonable.”

Still another reason he presents as follows: “Other evi-

dence there was which would appear to show that material-

istic, anti-clerical tendencies had come to the surface in some

localities, and that many, if not most, of the leading mem-

bers of the Fraternity, had voiced their displeasure with the

Government more or less publicly and laid themselves open to

suspicion of actual disloyalty”

The reason for the suppression of Freemasonry in Italy

is also furnished by Lang when he writes: “We must bear in

mind that Italian Masonry, before Domizio Torrigiana be-



82 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

came Grand Master, had acquired, at home and abroad, the

reputation of being essentially an anti-clerical secret political

organization.” Again: “So far as the general public was con-

cerned, so far as the overwhelming majority of right think-

ing persons in the land, the fathers and mothers of families,

had been able to form an opinion, Italian masonry functioned

chiefly, if not altogether, as an oath-bound secret anti-clerical

political party.”

Lang concedes that the Grand Orient, Latin brand of

Freemasonry, is professedly atheistic, and therefore, anti-

religious. (Page 15 of his report).

He observes (page 16): “Masonic jurisdiction, especially

in France and Belgium and a few other Latin countries, led

in protestations and criticism of the Italian Government.”

We would not have our readers understand us to imply
that all Masonic papers are of the same intolerant and anti-

Catholic character as is The New Age
,

“official organ of

Scottish Rite, 33°, Southern Jurisdiction.” The Masons of

the Northern Jurisdiction seem not to lend themselves to pol-

itics, and their periodicals seldom carry anti-Catholic tirades.

Members in the north are friendly business partners and social

companions of Catholics and, therefore, knowing Catholics

to be good citizens, would resent any cooperation with anti-

Catholic organizations or movements, even if the spirit of all

Freemasonry be unfriendly to Catholicism.

The Southern Jurisdiction embraces all States west of

the Mississippi, besides eastern states south of the Mason and

Dixon line.

The February, 1922, number of the Square and Compass

paid its respects to The New Age in these words:

The country is full of Masonic journals and the re-

markable monotone evoked from these harps of one

string is wonderful in this sameness: I said “one string”—

but in that I overstepped the mark—because they have

two. The first is devoted to the wonderful sky-blue-pink

perfection of everything and everybody to whom the
name “Mason” or “Masonry” is attached; and the other

string is devoted to telling what a hell of an outrage the



E. E. ROGERS 83

Roman Catholic religion is, and what a blot it is on the

world in general—and Masonry in particular.

Take the best known and widest distributed one of

them all (because free), “The New Age,” as an example.
The January and February issues “scream” with anti-

Catholicism. It out-menaces The Menace. It’s a severe

case of Catholic-fobia, and I wouldn’t be surprised but

some one will finally have to shoot the poor pup in self-

defense. . .

The Rite is slowly and insidiously educating the Craft

to believe that the end and aim of Masonry is to fight

the Catholic Church.

Converted By His Investigation

The Marquis of Ripon, at the time Grand Master of the

English Freemasons, was given the task of writing a book,

against Catholicism, to counteract the influence of the Ox-

ford or Tractarian Movement, which was then at its height.

In order to acquaint himself with “the enemy” the Mar-

quis undertook an extensive course of reading on the Church

for the purpose of finding out its weakness. After ten months

of reading, instead of writing the book he was expected to

write, he went to the Oratorian Fathers and asked to be re-

ceived into the Church. His fellow-Masons demanded an

explanation which the Marquis gave in the following words:

I came upon three things in the Catholic Church

whereby every unbiased person must perceive that this

Church, and only this one, is the Church of Jesus Christ.

In the Catholic Church is the Rock, the Confessional, and

the Tabernacle.



WILLARD E. GIVENS
(Pres. National Education Association)

It is o mockery and an insult to common sense to main-

tain that a school for the instruction of youth, from which Chris-

tian instruction by Christian teachers is sedulously and rigorously

shut out, is not deistic and infidel both in its purpose and its ten-

dency.—Daniel Webster, speaking on the Girard Will case.
Mr. Willard E. Givens, President of the National Educa-

tion Association is working with the POAU. We feel that
that cooperation is un-American, and a manifestation of hos-

tility to schools whose status has been recognized as legal by

a unanimous decision of the Supreme Court; schools which,

grade for grade, are at least equal to
,

if not, in most cases,

superior to the public school; schools which cannot be classed

un-American or un-democratic because the subject of religion

is superadded to the curriculum which the State enforces,

and which the parochial school accepts and teaches with

efficiency.

The National Education Association has not only altered

its disposition greatly towards non-public school education,

but its present head has joined the POAU to oppose it. For

instance, in the year 1924 it issued this statement:

The National Education Association, while recog-

nizing the American public school as the great nursery

of broad and tolerant citizenship and of a democratic

brotherhood, acknowledges also the contributions made

to education by private institutions and enterprises, and

recognizes that citizens have the right to educate their

children in either public or private schools when the edu-

cational standards of both are approved by the State

educational authorities.

In the report that year of the Secretary of the Association

even stronger language was used. He wrote:

There is no fight directed toward the private or

religious schools. There should be none. These institutions

have their place and receive the encouragement of this

Association. There are thousands of teachers in private



WILLARD E. GIVENS, N.E.A. 85

schools in the membership of this Association. These

schools should have the respect of public-school author-

ities. Great contributions to human betterment are made

by both religious and secular private schools, as well as

by our great system of public education. Our children

and youth need these schools and many more.

Along with the above fear there is found here and

there among teachers the fear lest they be considered

unscientific and somewhat religious if they should carry

on any religious or moral work among students.

But a more disquieting note is sounded in that report in

these words:

Since the great majority of our students of today

are not receiving religious and moral instruction, there

is growing up a generation lacking in the religious and

moral qualities, which we deem necessary as qualifica-

tions for teachers. Our teachers are for the most part

products of our public schools, and from the present

student body, untaught and untrained in religion and

morals, must come a large proportion of our future teach-

ers. Unless we inaugurate a more universal program of

character education in the public schools, the situation

as to properly qualified teachers will continue to grow

worse.

From the statistics and general statements given in

the body of this study, we must conclude that the major-

ity of the children and youth of the United States are

today receiving only a modicum of that moral and re-

ligious preparation for living to which every child has

a right. . . .

In the face of this situation which to many seems

rather discouraging, there are many writers, educational

leaders, and teachers who are quite optimistic and are

determined that new efforts shall be made to meet the

problems of character education through religious and

moral instruction. The authors themselves are convinced

that wisdom and courage are necessary for this work and

that under proper leadership a much more extensive and

effective work is possible in this important field.

On January 11, 1935, the late Nicholas Murray Butler,

President of Columbia University, said in his annual report

to the trustees of the institution:



86 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

One need not himself be religious, or indeed have
any great concern for religion, to grasp the fact that

religion has had a very large, often a preponderant, in-

fluence in shaping our contemporary civilization and in

laying the foundations of our present-day social, economic

and political institutions. Until within a reasonably short

time, the process of education itself was dominated by

religion. . . . During the half century just past, this con-

dition has changed entirely, and religious knowledge,

together with religious interest, in passing, all too rapidly,

out of the educational process.

On July 23, 1923, Dr. Edward S. Boyer, of Chicago, an

instructor of the Chicago Training School, speaking at Indi-

anapolis, observed:

Protestant churches must follow the basic principle

laid down by the Catholic Church in a definite develop-

ment of a program of religious and moral education if

they are to function efficiently in the future. . .

What you would have in the life of the church, you

must put in your schools. This will not come through

your preaching methods.

The Catholic Church is often represented to be very

critical of the public schools. The fact is that for every Cath-

olic critic there are twenty non-Catholic critics, and among

them a dozen Protestant ministers for each Catholic priest. It

would fill too much space to quote from even a small portion

of them, which we have in our files. They are from leading

churchmen of the various faiths.

Writing on “Religion in the Public Schools,” Dr. F. E.

Johnson, of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ

in American, said in November, 1939:

The great souls who won for us the right to religious

liberty were men and women who tremendously wanted
to exercise it. Today very many of those who have re-

course to the old slogan are using it primarily for the pur-

pose of promoting, not religion, but secularism.

The only reason why the whole nation does not go

completely secular in a single generation is that other

cultural influences, such as the church, the home—to some

extent, but not characteristically, I fear—and volunteer



WILLARD E. GIVENS, N.E.A. 87

agencies of various sorts slow the secularizing process.

But it is only a slowing down. Unless I am quite mis-

taken, the inevitable result of our present education pol-

icy will be an increasing isolation of religion from life.

Walter A. Squire, in his work “Educational Movements

of Today,” observes:

Religion and education were so intimately related in

their day that a secularized system of education was a

conception which they hardly entertained. This was true

in American life for a long time. It was only little by little

that the American people came to realize that a full di-

vorce between education and religion was possible. When
the people of early America thought of education, they

thought of a type of education in which religion had a

place, (p. 74)

The attitude of our Founding Fathers of this nation is

well expressed in the Ordinance of 1787 which provided for

the cultural development of the northwest territory. This Or-

dinary contained this mandate:

Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to

good government and the happiness of mankind, schools

and the means of education shall be forever encouraged.

According to the New York Times
,

February 2, 1926,

Greater New York Federation of Churches held a meeting to

protest against the efforts of Freethinkers to prevent the

reading of the Ten Commandments during “released time”

instruction of the public school children, and Dr. F.
J.

Millar,

General Secretary, told the audience:

If there is any of the real blood of Revolutionary days

in our veins we will not let any small minority of free-
thinkers rob our children of their birthright. They have

thrown down the gauntlet and we stand ready to pick it
up. It is not a question of religious teaching in the

schools; its importance lies much deeper than that, involv-
ing the entire welfare of our youth. We are ready to
fight, and if the courts decide that the freethinkers must

be upheld under the present law, then by all that is right

and holy we will have to change the law.

Today the POAU is following the Freethinkers. It was
the President of the Freethinkers, who is the father of Mrs.



88 WHO ?S WHO IN THE POAU?

McCollum, who incurred Supreme Court action on her pro-

test against released time instruction, and all the clergymen

connected with the POAU supported this organization.

In the February, 1951, number of the NEA Journal, the

editor, Joy Elmer Morgan, reiterates the charge made by

the POAU, and so often denied, that the Catholic Church is

demanding tax money to support her school system in the

United States. He writes: “With the increase in our Roman

Catholic population and the founding of extensive parochial

schools, a new demand has arisen for public funds, for chil-

dren who attend such schools.”

Most Catholic Bishops, the entire Catholic press, men and

women connected with the secular press and radio, who have

noticed that charge, have denied it.

George Sokolsky said that he went into the matter very

thoroughly and discovered, “I have never heard of such

schools requesting State subventions either from the State

or Federal Government. What they have said is that when

social, extra-curricular benefits are given to American chil-

dren, like bus rides to school, or a glass of milk or orange

juice, or medical or dental supervision, such should be given

to all children

Dorothy Thompson, in her column “On the Record”

(August 3, 1949) wrote: “Catholic schools receive no State

or Federal funds, nor are they asking for any. That is the

first thing every reader must get clear .... The Federal aid

involved, which Mr. Barden and Mrs. Roosevelt would pro-

hibit to all except public school children, has nothing to do

with education. It has to do with child welfare ... A bus is

neither Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, nor atheist. The services

are given to school children and the parents of school chil-

dren . . . Furthermore they are paid for by all parents,

whether they send their children to public, parochial or pri-

vate schools. And if these services, primarily concerned with

safety and health, are refused some children on the ground

of the separation of church and state, then, in all conscience,

parents of such children should be exempt from taxation to



WILLARD E. GIVENS, N.E.A. 89

pay for them . . . The Barden Bill says in effect, ‘you have a

constitutional right to give your children a religiously-guided

education, but if you exercise it, youll get no free milk or

health check-ups/ And in this sense it is anti-Catholic in

effect, if not intention.”

About the same time (August 15, 1949) the New York

Times observed editorially:

“A law appropriating Federal funds to be used for the

general purpose of private schools would not, on the record,

be sustained by the Supreme Court. On the other hand a

law allowing such funds to be used for the direct benefit of

school children’s health or safety, no matter what kind of

school each attends, seems both reasonable and proper.”

The editor of the Jackson (Miss.) Daily News observed

on August 4, 1949: “There is no cause for alarm in the Catho-

lic position relating to Federal aid, but there is in the ‘activi-

ties of the groups which have dubbed themselves as ‘Protes-

tants and Other Americans United for the Separation of

Church and State’/
5

Lutherans also conduct parochial schools, but we have

never heard any charge that they are demanding any all-out

support for schools because Dr. Behnken, President of the

Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, in a statement to the

press said: “The principle of separation of Church and State

in the sense that one does not dominate the other, can pos-

sibly be supported and even strengthened by Federal Aid

to public and private schools for certain specific welfare

services: school luncheons, health services, transportation/
5

Joy Elmer Morgan, editor of the NEA Journal, admits
that “no one may question the right of a parent to send his

children to the school of his choice, but he may properly

question the wisdom in our democracy of separating several

million young citizens on the basis of religion.”

But educators of the last generation believed that the

infiltration of all education by religion and its principles of

morality would far outweigh any disadvantage of separation.

They, by their anti-Catholic campaign, are trying to separate

group from group.



90 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

Fred Woodrow in The Age of Steel, October, 1896, said:

"If his (student’s) heart is not educated with his head, his

conscience with his memory, a knowledge of the date of the

battle of Bunker Hill and the number of gallons of water in

Lake Michigan are no guarantee that he will not use his

acquired knowledge in putting the finishing touches to as con-

summate a scoundrel as ever entered a prison cell.”

Dr. Hyde, of Bowdoin College, speaking before the Mass-

achusetts Teachers’ Association in Boston, in November,

1896, said: "The public school must do more than it has been

doing if it is to be a real conductor of youth and an effective

supporter of the State . . . People who know how to read and

write and cipher and know little else, are the people who

furnish fuel for A.P.A. fanaticism, who substitute theosophy

for religion, passion for morality, impulse for reason, crazes

and caprice for conscience and the Constitution.”

Two years later (October 22, 1898) Dr. David H. Greer,

speaking before the General Episcopal Convention, said:

"Education needs something more than mental training and

culture to make men pure and keep them so. It needs that

culture and training inspired by religion. The Episcopal

Church is not satisfied with the present system of public

schools, because religion is not taught in them.”

We never heard the Episcopal Church criticized because
at that Convention it was declared that "the Bishops and

clergy remind the people of their duty to support and build

up our own schools and colleges, and to make education under

the auspices of the Protestant Episcopal Church superior in

all respects to that afforded in other institutions.”

Dr. Wallace Radcliffe (Presbyterian) said in Washington,

D.C., on October 7, 1900: "It is something that your children

go to school; it is more that they go to a school of your own

religious belief ... Let us establish schools and teach our

religious convictions.” We never heard that gentleman crit-
icized for such an impertinent suggestion.

Dr. Washington Gladden, Congregationalist, speaking at



WILLARD E. GIVENS 91

Yale University in April, 1902, declared: “All that saves the

public school from ruin in many cities is the self-sacrificing

work of the teachers. There is a marked tendency in these

schools to lower the standard of education by eliminating God

and making us a sordid, money-making race.”

Dr. E. T. Wolf, of Gettysburg Theological Seminary, ad-

dressing the Evangelical Alliance on December 3, 1901, noted:

“Moral training has, for the most part, been cast out of our

public schools. Every faculty, except the highest and noblest,

is exercised and invigorated; but the crowning faculty—that

which is designed to animate and govern all others—is con-

temptuously ignored; and, unless its education can be secured,

our young men and women will be graduated from our schools

as moral imbeciles.”

We have heard no NEA criticism of that gentleman.

We could fill a large book with similar quotations ut-
tered during the past fifty years. Nine out of ten of all crit-

icisms of the public school system emanate not from Cath-

olic sources at all, but from non-Catholic writers, educators,

ministers.

The NEA Journal for January, 1951 (pp. 47 and 48) car-

ried an article by Gordon C. Lee, which was represented as

a reply to an article appearing in The Catholic Digest last

September entitled “Are Religious Schools American?” This

article was a condensation of an address delivered last June

by Rev. Robert C. Hartnett, S.J., who had said: “If you elim-

inate religion from the state schools, and then force all chil-

dren to attend state schools, you have gone a long way to-

wards eliminating religion from society.”

Father Hartnett had noted that the attack on religious

education implied in the Supreme Court decision of the

McCollum case, and the organized opposition to bus trans-

portation for children attending religious schools, had alien-

ated many non-Catholics and won friends for the Catholic

position. He thought that might be the reason which led

Mr. Lee to write as he did. But this gentleman only made



92 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

matters worse for himself by representing that the alternative

to the expansion of the public educational system would be

an abandonment of “that system to those who would subvert

education to partisan and parochial ends/’ There is abso-

lutely no logic in that reasoning, nor is it true that the paro-

chial schools subvert education.

Father Hartnett had argued against the monopoly of

education by the state, and Mr. Lee construed that to mean

that the Church wants the monopoly. That construction again

represents unpardonable logic.

Mr. Lee will not admit that the public schools fail in

teaching religion inasmuch as they teach “tolerance and

mutual respect, human dignity and brotherhood, cooperation,

honesty and reverence.” The Golden Rule, which Christ

Himself says the pagans observe, calls for emphasis on the

things which Mr. Lee seems to regard as religion; the most

that can be said of these things is that they are the natural

fruits of any religion. Fruits do not come into being inde-

pendently of the tree. Even morals need religion as a founda-

tion, even as George Washington in his Farewell Address,

taught in a last warning to the American people.

Dr. F. Ernest Johnson, Secretary of the Department of

Research and Education of the Federation Council of

Churches, until it changed its name a couple of months ago,

speaking to a thousand ministers in Washington on January

30, 1950, observed: “The parochial or other religious school

as a substitute for the public school. . . .seems to be growing

in favor. . . . Many Protestant scholars have begun to ask

whether the public school will not be maintained at too high

a price if the inevitable result is a complacent indifference

to religion.”

On October 15, 1947, the Chicago Tribune, in an editorial

criticized the NEA for propaganda it had sent out, some of

it defending a subversive booklet, written by one who had

betrayed the United States and gone to Russia to live. A co-

author of that work was Abba P. Lerner, a native of Rou-

mania, who was trained in the London School of Economics,



WILLARD E. GIVENS 93

a comrade of the late Harold Laski, who, according to Lerner,

"now and then is taken in by the Communists and plays

their game.”

The Tribune also noted that there are other pamphlets

issued by the Departments of the NEA which, the editor

claims, it has no right to inflict on the school children of

America. There is no subversive teaching, no subversive text-

books used in parochial schools. The pupil is taught that it

owes unalterable allegiance to civil authorities, even as a

conscientious duty.

It would be a good thing if those who do not know the

parochial school by contact, by visiting it, were to do so. We

are absolutely certain that the effect would, in no way, be

injurious to the parochial school while it might be to the

public school, because the teaching is thoroughly American,

the discipline of the school is better, the teachers more de-

voted because they are not motivated in their work by the

pay check.

As to religion in these schools, it occupies only one of

about seven periods each day, but because God must come

first in education by His own right and under the dictation

of the inalienable right of the child to know Him, Catholic

parents make great sacrifices to have the knowledge of God,

of the laws of God, of the plan of God for salvation, brought

into their children s education.

In the same year in which officers of the National Edu-

cation Association made the pronouncements quoted above

Colliers (October, 1924) sounded out the mind of the Amer-

ican public on the subject of religion and moral instruction

in the public schools. The result was told by the editor of

Colliers just two weeks later (November 1, 1924) in these

words:

Judges, financiers, doctors, psychologists, editors,

farmers, laborers, teachers, lawyers, penitentiary officials,

detectives, traveling men, government officials, politi-

cians, plain folks — Catholics, Jews and Protestants —

fathers and mothers — their letters lie in huge envelopes



94 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

in Collier s editorial rooms. Nearly all say they are deeply-

interested.

It would seem as if each had been waiting for some-

one to say what they all knew.

It seems as if it had been on the tip of America’s

tongue to say what Colliers had printed about the lack

of moral training for our children. . . .

Children do have souls, and their souls must be

trained in schools as well as in homes; if they are not

trained in homes, then school training is all the more

necessary. America, these letters indicate, is coming to

recognize that fact; it is getting ready to act on it.

About the same time "International Sunday School Coun-

cil of Religious Education” published this astounding and

shocking fact:

There are 27,000,000 Americans below the age of

twenty-five, normally Protestants, who receive absolutely

no systematic religious instruction. Two out of every three
Protestant children under twenty-five years of age are

not being touched in any way by the educational program

of any Church.

In September, 1937 the School of Education of the Indi-

ana University issued a report of a study on "Character De-

velopment through Religious and Moral Education in the

Public Schools of the United States,” and its findings are

reported as follows:

There is a totally inadequate work being done in the

way of moral and religious instruction, and a totally in-

adequate program for the future development of the

work.

Both from interviews and from this survey, the

authors are convinced that a large part of the hesitancy

found among teachers in giving definite courses of in-

struction on character is to be ascribed to the fear that

those who attempt this work will become involved in the

controversy over religious teaching in the school.

V



PAUL BLANSHARD

Plans ore being loid by the Inter-Church Movement of

North America to combat radical Socialistic ideas and a number

of speakers will undertake to show that these are violently an-

tagonistic to Christianity.—The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, Feb.
10, 1919 .

The only interest which the officers of POAU have in

Paul Blanshard is his anti-Catholicism, brought to their atten-

tion by his articles in The Nation and in the book which he

later wrote entitled “American Freedom and Catholic Power.”

This book which, with the backing of POAU, has reached

a large circulation (Blanshard claims 160,000) has been re-

ceived by its many reviewers as reliable because of its copious

documentation. We are certain that none of the reviewers
have analyzed it as has Professor James O’Neill, professor at

Brooklyn College, in his forthcoming book to be titled,

"Catholics and American Freedom.” He took the trouble to

trace Blanshard’s documentations to their sources, and found

that numerous among them have little relevancy to matters

discussed, and that much of his source material was misin-

terpreted.

There is no better documented book than the Bible. It is

divided not only into chapters but into verses, and with the

help of Concordances, any word in any text, can lead to the

discovery of the chapter and verse. Yet, is there any book so

badly misinterpreted as the Bible? Cardinal Newman, who

had done a hundred times more personal research work

than any officer of POAU, found that two hundred different

interpretations were recorded on the short sentence, and

clearest sentence in the Scripture: "This is My Body/

If most past and present officers of POAU have had a

Pink Socialistic record, Blanshard surpasses them all. He was

not only an active Socialist in the days when Socialism in the

United States, as elsewhere in the world, was not at all of the



96 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

British Labor Party kind, but rather an aggressive anti-Chris-

tian movement.

“Some of the aims of purely economic Socialism are good,

but its plan is bad,” wrote Rev. T. Brosnahan, S.J., back in

May, 1912. He continued: “What is the plan Socialism submits

for remedying our industrial and commercial evils? Briefly it

may be put in three propositions. The first is that all produc-

tive goods, that is to say, all the sources of production, all the

raw materials of production, and all the instruments and agen-

cies of production, should be owned by the community or

collectively by the people as a whole; and that no individual

or body of individuals should be allowed to possess either in

whole or in part any class of productive goods. The second is,

that all labor shall be socially organized and directed by offi-

cials of the community. And the third is, that every one shall

receive from the warehouse or stores of the nation in propor-

tion to the productive value of his labor.” But that was econ-

omic Socialism only.

At a Chicago convention held in May, 1908, of “Christian

Church Members,” who were also members of the Socialist

Party, participants in a floor discussion begged that the anti-

religious character of Socialism should not be publicized. Here

are the names of some discussionists and what they said:

Mr. Lewis (Delegate)

“I know that the Socialist position in philosophy on the

question of religion does not make a good campaign subject.

It is not useful propaganda in a political campaign. I do not

propose to state in this platform the truth about religion from

the point of view of the Socialist philosophy.” — Chicago Daily

Socialist
,
May 16, 1908.

Mr. Hilquit (Delegate)

“We should not go out in our propaganda among the peo-

ple and tell them that they must first become materialists be-

fore they can become members of the Socialist party. After we

have disposed of the things which touch their material welfare

it will be time to approach them with the full consequences of

the Socialist philosophy.”



PAUL BLANSHARD 97

Mr. Devine (Delegate)

ce

I want to say here, that we must be careful on this ques-

tion. I stand here as one actively engaged in the factory, trying

to bring the workers into the Socialist movement. I find they

are men of all religions. I am asked how can I be a Catholic

and a Socialist? What I am doesn’t matter. They don’t know

and you don’t know, and it is nothing to either of us.”

There was published at St. Louis during those days a

monthly magazine named the Melting Pot
,
long edited by Eu-

gene Debs. When he was succeeded in 1915 by a Mr. Tiche-

nor, the latter published the following excerpts from letters of

congratulation received:

'"You are the One man that truly fights the whole monster

—religious humbug and capitalism.”—H. j. Korford, Chicago.

"X bid you Godspeed in the noble fight you are making on

. superstition and sham, both political and theological.”—R. L.

Smith, Santa Ana, California.

'"My eyes have been opened, both economically and re-

ligiously . . . The light of the world is Reason.”—Chas. H. New-

man, Niagara Falls, New York.

""I have for the last thirty years thought most of our Bible

was myths, fables and priestly humbug, and your recent

articles appearing in the Melting Pot prove the fact of my con-

clusions.”—A. O. Latshaw, Brinsmade, North Dakota.

'"For the sake of the substratum of my matter, nick-named

Soul, keep up the circulation of the Melting Pot.” —Edmund

Miles, Dauphin, Pa.

In the Baltimore Sun (Oct. 23, 1915) H. L. Menchen re-

bukes the Baltimore Methodist for joining hands with the

antis, and asks:

"How long will the more intelligent Methodists stand for

this constant prostitution of their church to oblige political

uses? And more important still, how long will the generality of

civilized Americans look on unprotestingly while the various

Puritan churches immerse themselves further and further in



98 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

dubious politics? How proud the angels must be of such am-

bassadors on earth!”

Socialist Catechism

If this is not enough to show the anti-Christian character

of Socialism a generation ago, read the questions and answers

taken from “A Socialist Catechism,” printed in The Live Issue

,

1912 :

Q. What is God?

A. God is a word used to designate an imaginary being

which people of themselves have devised.

Q. Is it true that God has never been revealed?

A. As there is no God, he could not reveal himself.

Q. What is heaven?

A. Heaven is an imaginary place which churches have

devised as a charm to entice their believers.

Q. How did man originate?

A. Just as did all animals; by evolution from their lower

kinds.

Q. Has man an immortal sold, as Christianity teaches?

A. Man has no soul; it is only an imagination.

Q. Who is Jesus Christ?

A. Jesus Christ was the son of a Jewish girl called Mary.

Q. Is he the son of God?

A. There is no God, and, therefore, there can be no God’s

son.

Q. What do we know of the birth of Christ? (The answer

is so foul we will not print it.)

Q. Did Christ rise from the dead, as Christianity teaches?

A. The report about Christ rising from the dead is a

fable.

Q. Is it true that after Christ’s death the apostles received

the Holy Ghost?

A. It is not; the apostles had imbibed too freely of wine,

and their dizzy heads imagined all sorts of queer things.

Q. Did Christ ascend into Heaven?

A. He did not; what the Church teaches is a nonsensical



PAUL BLANSHARD 99

fable, because there is no heaven, and there was no place to

ascend to.

Q. Will Christ return on judgment day?

A. There will be no judgment day; that is all a fable, so

that preachers could scare people and hold them in their

grasp. Man has no soul, neither had Christ any soul. All these

things have been invented by the churches.

Q. What is the Holy Spirit

?

A. The Holy Spirit is an imagination existing only in the

minds of crazy religious people.

Q. Is Christianity desirable?

A. Christianity is not advantageous to us, but is harmful,

because it makes of us spiritual cripples. By its teachings of

bliss after death it deceives the people. Christianity is the

greatest obstacle to the progress of mankind, therefore it is

the duty of every citizen to help wipe out Christianity. All

churches are impudent humbugs.

Q. Is there communion of saints?

A. No, because there is no God, no saints, no soul, and

therefore our prayers are wholly useless, and only a waste of

time which should be spent in more sensible things.

Q. What is our duty when we have learned that there is

no God?

A. We should teach this knowledge to others.

Q. Do we owe a duty to God?

A. There is no God, and therefore we owe him no duty.

Q. Should we take the name of God in vain?

A. Yes; because the name of God has no meaning.

Q. Is adultery a sin?

A. It is not a sin. But it is undignified that it should be

performed like the beasts.

Q. Does Christianity stand for right?

A. No; it stands for and supports all that is wrong.

Q. Should we pray?

A. We should not. By prayer we only waste time, as there

is no God. If we are given to prayer, we gradually become

imbeciles.



100 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

Started By Socialists

If there be anything with which the compiler of this

work was and is familiar, it is with Socialism. Our Sunday

Visitor Press was launched in May, 1912, to counteract the

effects of the Appeal to Reason, a Socialist weekly, which

within a year, reached a circulation of more than one million

copies.

It was because of unfavorable Catholic and Protestant

reaction to the attacks on the Christian churches that the edi-

tors of The Appeal started an avowedly anti-Catholic paper at

Aurora, Mo., which they named The Menace . One of these

editors had been dismissed from The Appeal (see Appeal
,

February 4, 1905) for “immoral conduct/’ and another one,

about to be tried for a serious crime, committed suicide.

It was not long until The Menace had stolen the larger

part of the circulation of The Appeal. It was usually distrib-

uted during the night by Socialist workers. People would

find a copy on their porches on one morning of each week.

The venture became so profitable to publishers that other

unscrupulous men launched similar papers for local circula-

tion. The reader may recall some of these:

The American Citizen
,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;

The American Forum
,
San Antonio, Texas;

American Socialist
,
Chicago, Illinois;

The American Defender
,
Moras, Texas;

American Sentinel
,
Washington, D. C.;

Bible-Studenfs Monthly
,
New York City;

The Crescent
,
Mount Morris, Illinois;

The Convert Catholic Evangelist
,
Toledo, Ohio;

Christian Socialist
,
Chicago, Illinois;

Danger Signal
,
Bethel, Minnesota;

The Emancipator
,
Hicksville, Ohio;

Free Speech
,
Monroe, Wisconsin;

The Free Press
,
Jacksonville, Florida;

The Guardian
,
Chicago, Illinois;

The Jeffersonian, Thompson, Georgia;

The Liberator
,
New York City;

The Melting Pot, St. Louis, Missouri;



PAUL BLANSHARD 101

The Protestant Searchlight, Cleveland, Ohio;

The Peril, Wilkesboro, North Carolina;

Protestant Alliance Magazine, Toledo, Ohio;

The People's Press, Chicago, Illinois;

The Patriot

,

St. Louis, Missioui;

The Protestant Magazine, Washington, D. C.;

The Rationalist

,

Chicago, Illinois;

The Silverton Journal, Silverton, Oregon;

The Sentinel of Liberty, Grand Saline, Texas;

The Torch, Aurora, Missouri;

Watsons Magazine, Thompson, Georgia;

The Yellow Jacket, Moravian Falls, North Carolina.

Jointly all these papers employed hundreds of field

workers, lecturers, nearly all of whom were Socialists, a great

number of whom were bad characters, often falsely repre-

senting themselves to have been priests or nuns when they

spoke under Protestant auspices.

Fake Ex-Priests

O. P. Bellanger, Rev. L. A. Benner, Harry S. Bernaby (or

Barnaby), W. O. Black, M. E. Brooks, Rev. Laurence Riely

Carter, Benjamin Clearmont, Rev. Louis O. F. Cotey, Rey,

alias “Ex-Priest” Hildebrand, F. F. DeLong, Patrick Denni-

son, Louis F. Desaro,
J.

H. Dobbyn, Joseph Donnelly, James

W. Ford, Samuel Freuder, Harry H. Goodin, A. G. Graham,

J.
E. Hatfield, John J. Hayes, H. Bennett Higgins, Juliana,

alias Juliano “ExCardinal,” L.
J.

King, alias “Ex Romanist;”

Rev. Kolodzejecik; “Dr.” W. K. Mahoney, Sylvester R. Mc-

Alpin, Michael X. Mockus, Harold Patrick Morgan, W. A.

Mylwarczyk, Samuel O’Connor, alias Robinson, John F.

Rannie, Rev. C. H. Reeb, Gerald Sheehan, Henry Sullivan,

W. C. Tanner, Leo Von DeRoskey, Lawrence Zarilli.

Fake Nuns

“Sister Angel,” Helen Jackson, Burke McCarthy, Mabel

McClish, Mrs. Neva, alias Sr. Mary St. Constance, Maria

Monk, Margaret I. Shepherd, Mary E. Slattery.

The Connection

What have all these mountebanks to do with Blans-



102 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU7

hard? Well, they were all Socialists or worked for the Social-

ist Party, and Blanshard had been a Socialist for a number of

years during the 20’s. World Tomorrow
,

in 1933, called

Blanshard an "ex-Socialist," and in the November 9, 1933

issue of that periodical a letter from Blanshard was published

in which he wrote to the editor:

You wave your arm and dismiss us from the fellow-

ship of American Socialism because we have recognized

the obvious fact that the Socialist Party is dying and be-

cause, pending the arrival of a new third party, we have

decided to fight for progressive leaders and progressive

programs within the older parties. . . No one doubts your
sincerity, but the most intelligent radicals in America will

question the rather sophomoric and arrogant way in

which you dismiss veteran Socialist workers who happen

to disagree with you in regard to political technique in

the present confused and uncertain American situation.

The Socialist Party was dying out in the year 1933, as

Blanshard admits in that letter, but that did not mean that

ex-Socialists had a change of heart. They retained their anti-

Catholic animosity. That Blanshard did is evident from the

articles he wrote for The Nation
,
a Socialist magazine, of

which he had also been Associate Editor.

What do you think of this excerpt from an article written

by Blanshard on the subject "Socialist and Capitalist Plan-

ning/' for "The Annals of the American Academy of Political

and Social Science," July, 1932:

If we gained control of the American government, we
probably would begin with a complete revision of the

national governmental system. We would do one of two
things. We would write an amendment to the Constitu-
tion giving the federal government the right to regulate

all private business, and to enter into any business which

it deemed proper, or we would abolish the Constitution

altogether and give the national congress the power to

interpret the people's will, subject only to certain gen-

eral principles of free speech and assemblage.

Henry Wallace was repudiated by the American people

for advocating a far more moderate program than that.

You will note that even at that time Blanshard would



PAUL BLANSHARD 103

either amend or "abolish the Constitution altogether/
7

He

wrote further in the Annals:

"We propose to accomplish that revolution peacefully
and gradually if the American upper classes will permit a

peaceful transition/
7

(Annals, July, 1932).

Writing three months later in The Christian Century

(October 19, 1932), in an article entitled "Socialism, a Moral

Solution/
7

he observed:

I think there would be some bloodshed because the

American upper class is so blind to the sufferings of 11,-

000,000 unemployed that it would not yield much power

except through fear of violence.

Does not all this indicate that even after leaving the

Socialist Party he retained his Socialist mind, which was an

anti-Catholic mind, and which, according to the teaching of

leading Socialists throughout the world at that time, an anti-

Christian mind?

The organization Blanshard supported for a long time

was anti-Christian according to its chief spokesmen.

Same Everywhere

Leaders in Socialism everywhere,—in Germany, France,

Spain, England and the United States, say that under Social-

ism God and Christianity must be repudiated:

Liebknecht. In his "Materialist Basis of History/
7

"I am an Atheist, I do not believe in God. It is our duty
as socialists to root out the faith in God with all our might,

nor is any one worthy the name, who does not consecrate

himself to the spread of Atheism/
7

Herve, French Socialist leader, quoted by Harold Begbie—

Interview Nov. 10, 1906:

"It is absolutely necessary to destroy all vestige of re-

ligious idea, Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish, in order to

carry out the entire program of advanced Socialism, which

depends upon the disappearance of every form of theological

influence/
7

Spanish Socialists. At a convention of Spanish Socialists

held at Madrid, Sept. 21, 1899, it was resolved to expel any

comrade who supported positive religion.



104 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

Vorwaerts. Leading Socialist paper in Germany:

“We know that Christianity has not brought redemption.
We believe in no Redeemer. No man, no God in human form,
no Savior can redeem humanity. Only humanity itself, only

laboring humanity, can save humanity
.”

Robert Blatchford. Leading Socialist of England, in The

Clarion:

“I do not believe that Christianity or Buddism or Juda-

ism or Mohammedanism is true. I do not believe that any one

of these religions is necessary. I do not believe that any one

of them affords a perfect rule of life.

“I deny the existence of a Heavenly Father. I deny the

efficacy of prayer. I deny the providence of God. I deny the

truth of the Old Testament and the New Testament. I deny
the truth of the Gospels. I do not believe any miracle ever

was performed. I do not believe that Christ was divine. I do

not believe that Christ died for man. I do not believe that

he ever rose from the dead. I am strongly inclined to believe
that he never existed at all.

“I deny that Christ in any way or in any sense ever inter-

ceded for man or saved man or reconciled God to man or man
to God.”

Joseph Leatham. In “Socialism and Character:”

“At the present moment I cannot remember a single in-

stance of a person who is at one and the same time a really

earnest and intelligent Socialist and an orthodox Christian.

Those who do not openly attack the Church and the fabric
of Christianity show but scant respect to either the one or the

other in private.
* * * While all of us are indifferent to the

Church, many of us are frankly hostile to her.”

The New Yorker Volkszeitung
,

the principal organ of

Socialism in America:

“Socialism and belief in God, as is taught by Christianity

and its adherents, are incompatible. Socialism has no meaning

unless it is atheistic.”

The New York Call, March 2, 1912:

“There is nothing to be gained by holding out any false

hopes that a study of Socialism does not tend to undermine

religious beliefs. The theory of economic determinism alone,

if thoroughly grasped, leaves no room for a belief in the su-

pernatural.”

The Worker, November 10, 1901:



PAUL BLANSHARD 105

“Christianity is a huge and ghastly parasite, consuming

billions of treasure out of the labor and patience of the people,

and is supremely interested in keeping the people in economic

and spiritual subjection to capitalism. The spiritual deliv-

erance of the race depend on its escape from this parasite.

The world must be saved from its salvations/’

The Revolt, May 6, 1911:

“Socialism and ethics are two separate things. This fact

must be kept in mind/
5

It is not our accusation, but back in 1937 Jeremiah Ma-

honey, candidate for Mayor of New York, charged Blanshard

with being tied to the Communist Party. He was then Com-

missioner of Accounts under Mayor LaGuardia.

According to the New York Times (October 25, 1937)

Blanshard allowed Communist funds to be collected in his

office and permitted literature to be circulated urging the

election of Earl Browder, head of the Communist Party. The

Times quoted Blanshard as saying: “Having once captured

the government and shelved the Supreme Court, we Social-

ists would nationalize as many large industries as we could

chew and as speedily as such mastication could be accom-

plished.”

Writing in the Christian Century
,

Oct. 19, 1932,

Blanshard observed: “The church’s survival, it seems to me,

depends largely on whether the ministry has the courage to

rise to the moral level of Socialism.”

We should like to tell those who have believed that
Blanshard had been long a Protestant minister, that he was

ordained to the ministry in 1917, but relinquished it after two

years. He went from that post to one of “a union-organizer.”

Dale Francis, a former Methodist minister, who became

a Catholic, was an acquaintance of Blanshard in Ohio. He

decided that he should tell the country something about Blan-

shard. But, wishing to be fair, he wrote to the latter and

told him some of the things he intended to reveal. A few

days later he received by registered mail a letter in which

Blanshard threatened him with a libel suit if he dared go



106 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

ahead and publish what he intended to write. Dale Francis

replied that he had no intention to libel him. This letter

elicited another from Blanshard, as well as to the President

of the University of Notre Dame where Francis is employed,

in which he made new threats of libel.

To Mr. Francis, these letters seemed very strange since

Blanshard pretended to stand for “Freedom of the Press” and

to be a defender of “Academic Freedom.”

Rev. F.
J.

Connell, C.SS.R., of the Catholic University,

Washington, also comments on the “documented” facts of

Blanshard, and cites eight instances of their easily proven

falsity. The Rev. George H. Dunne, S.J., in his “Religion and

American Democracy” deals with Blanshard’s book critically.

But, you will note that the point on which we lay most

emphasis is that the author s background is one of coopera-

tion with un-American and un-Christian organizations, which

should disqualify him from giving lessons on patriotism, de-

mocracy, and the adjustment of Church practices to more

modern pagan practices, either legalized or condoned by a

government in which Blanshard, for a long time, did not

believe.

It is easy to criticize, and the Catholic Church has en-

dured all sorts of criticism for nineteen centuries, particularly

from those who did not like her moral code and from those

who, in recent years, have been reared in prejudice. But, her

general policy has been to ignore criticism except where it

might convey poison to thousands of innocent minds.

Abraham Lincoln was quoted in the press recently as

follows:

“If I were to try to read, much less to answer, all the

attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for

any other business. I do the very best I know how—the very

best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so to the end. If the

end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't

amount to anything. If the end brings me out all wrong, ten

angels swearing I was right would make no difference.”



PAUL BLANSHARD 107

The Converted Catholic Magazine

A source from which much material used by anti-Cath-

olic campaigners is drawn is The Converted Catholic Maga-

zine edited by “former Roman Catholic priests/' But why are

they out of the Catholic priesthood now? It is because they

were either put out, or automatically severed their connection

with the Catholic Church by violating their vow of celibacy,

freely taken after ten or twelve years time to “think it over/'

The founder of Christ’s Mission,' under whose auspices

that magazine is published, was a James A. O’Connor, who

was suspended from the priesthood because of intemperance,

just as Bernard Fresenborg, author of “Thirty Years in Hell”

was suspended for the same reason.

The last editor, the late Rev. L. H. Lehmann, entered a

marriage violative of his vow and hied away from Perry,

Florida, in the parish automobile.

Its present Field Representative, William Edmond

Burke, became a problem' case chiefly because of his drink-

ing. He had spent a short time in an institution where care

was provided for alcoholics.

Others connected with the Converted Catholic staff are:

(a) Andrew Sommese, who was a patient of a psy-

chiatrist in Philadelphia, who diagnosed his case as mental.

He spent some time at the Kirkbride Sanitarium in Philadel-

phia, and at Mount Hope in Baltimore. He, like a number of

others, was picked up by the Lutherans.

(b) Annibale Malinverni, who left Italy after he got in

trouble with his superiors because of his violation of the vow

of celibacy.

The books of Chiniquy, Fresenborg, and Crowley dis-

graced the libraries of many Protestant ministers. Chiniquy, a

Canadian, was suspended from the Catholic ministry exactly

one hundred years ago for many irregularities. He traveled

to Europe to collect money for a pretended seminary in Chi-

cago. In 1862 his fraud was discovered. He was picked up



108 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

by the Presbyterians, but it was not long until they accused

him of squandering great sums of money entrusted to his

care.

Fresenborg told us that the chief indictments against

the Catholic Church appearing in his book were written at

The Menace office. This gentleman, author of “Thirty Years

in Hell” retracted what he had written and asked to be re-

ceived back into the Catholic fold.

Crowley wrote a book dealing with the parochial school,

and promised not to publish it if the late Bishop Muldoon, of

Rockford, would give him $50,000.00. This Bishop told him

to publish it if he wanted to. The Menace published this book

and Crowley had to sue The Menace to get some of the royal-

ties its publishers promised him.

Another ex-priest who is quite active today is a young

Italian who also put himself out of the Church by getting

married.

Clare Boothe Luce told us that she was approached by

an ex-priest who had contacted the Converted Catholic office

to see whether they could procure employment for him. They

agreed to let him work in their own office, but after a few

weeks he became disgusted at the insincerity of the editors.

Every Catholic priest knows that these people are not sin-

cere; that having fallen from grace they also either lost their

faith, or, being down and out, sought a way of making a

livelihood with others of their ilk. When one of them returned

to the Catholic Church recently he told in a letter directed

to a Catholic publication that the others would do the same

thing if they were not involved as they are, and would be

reinstated.

When you consider that there are 43,000 priests in the

United States, it must be expected that there should be, let us

say, one out of every thousand getting into trouble, just as

one out of twelve did among the priests of Christ’s own

selection. Very few priests would agree that the proportion

is even one out of one thousand.



PAUL BLANSHARD 109

Catholics would never think of trying to make a case

against Protestantism by going to an unfrocked Protestant

minister for information. In fact, conversions from the Pro-

testant ministry to the Catholic priesthood have been very

numerous, but not one of them has ever been used by the

Catholic Church to say even an unkind word about the relig-

ion they left—and we do not recall any who have done it of

their own accord. In giving their reasons for embracing

Catholicism, many might have indirectly told what they

could not accept in Protestantism—but that is all.

Both Oxnam and Blanshard praised the L. H. Lehmann,

editor of the Converted Catholic, after his death in 1950, yet

he had no more faith than the professed infidel.

Blanshard is presently a traveling speaker for the POAU,

while incidentally autographing his book for every purchaser.

He is far more interested in the dollar than in saving the coun-

try, which he, over many years, was bitterly fighting.

Blanshard’s Latest Book

John Cogley, in the Commonweal (May 18, 1951), ana-

lyzing this book entitled
“
Communism

,
Catholicism and De-

mocracy” says a better title for it would have been “Com-

munism, Secularism and Catholicism” He notes that Blan-

shard identifies “American Democracy” with Secularism.

Hence, he writes, Catholic teaching on the Natural Law, ob-

jective morality, revelation, asceticism is patently “un-Amer-

ican.”

The book reviewer for the Commonweal writes:

“Throughout this book are two assumptions: (1) that the

Blanshard brand of secularism is identical with American

Democracy and (2) that this secularism, if loyally adhered to,

will protect the American tradition of religious liberty.”

Blanshard sees very little difference between Catholi-

cism and Communism because both are dictatorial—as if that

made them similar. The one represents the interests of God

Almighty in this world, who is the Supreme Ruler, while the



110 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

other is at war with God. The one, therefore is very honor-

able, the other detestable.

Dr. Wilfrid Parsons, editor of America
,
calls Blanshard’s

attention to the fact that while the Communist Party member

is controlled in every field, “there is no Catholic ideology in

politics, economics, sociology and even culture. Catholics

can be found strung along the whole spectrum of political

opinion/'

These things are debated openly and freely in the Catho-

lic press, in Catholic schools and universities.

A poll taken in 1948 by Our Sunday Visitor, which

reaches every state in the union, disclosed that Catholics are

almost equally divided presently between the Democratic

and Republican Parties. It revealed that 46% voted for

Dewey and 48% for Truman. The balance of the vote was

divided between the other Parties, the Dixiecrats and others.

Some even voted for Henry Wallace, while very few voted the

Socialist ticket, because there is not a great deal of difference

between the philosophy of Socialism and Communism. There

is, therefore, no political “thought control” in the Catholic

Church.

While Blanshard might openly profess to be a Christian,

his book discloses that he is not. The Christian claims that

the Bible contains God's revelation; that God as Creator,

and Christ as Redeemer, have a right to demand the spiritual

allegiance of all men; that God’s laws are binding on every

person because every one belongs to Him and is absolutely

dependent on Him; that these laws cannot change any more

than God can change; that many of them are only the formal

expression of things demanded by the very laws of nature;

that if human laws are in conflict with divine laws they must

be wrong. Blanshard, on the other hand, maintains that re-

ligion should conform, from century to century, to the new

conditions, or to the laws which legislatures of states may

enact. He believes that heresies should arise within the

Church, and criticizes the Catholic Church because no her-



PAUL BLANSHARD 111

esy has arisen in it during the past few centuries, which im-

plies that God’s laws are antiquated.

God is the author of marriage, and Christ tells us in Mat-

thew and Mark, and St. Paul tells us very clearly, what God’s

position is in relation to remarriage after divorce. But be-

cause during our generation divorce has been legalized and

even made easy by the states, the Catholic Church should re-

pudiate her Master and adjust her laws to this new secular

legislation. How could the Church be loyal to God and to

Christ, to Whom the state is also subordinate, if she did

that?

Blanshard represents that the Catholic laity are living

under a sort of servitude to their Church, and wonders why

they do not rebel. As a matter of fact the Catholic laity in-

stinctively approves of what they believe to be God’s will as

expressed through their Church, and would resent any inno-

vation in relation to doctrine or centuries-old traditional

practices.

He claims that the clergy makes no accounting to the

people of the money received from them. As a matter of

fact, all pastors in the country read from the pulpit the finan-

cial report covering the previous year, and most of them even

give to the people a printed report of all receipts and dis-

bursements after the report will have been checked and often

carefully audited by a parish committee.

He speaks of the Catholic Church taxing the people be-

yond what is reasonable. The fact is that the Catholic Church

is one of the few big Christian organizations which does not

expect a tithe, and which does not receive, for all purposes,

one-half a tithe. Catholics are poorer contributors than Pro-

testants are to their religion, even though they attend divine

services three or four times as well.

Blanshard believes that the people should vote on what

they want taught in Catechisms, and what they want to

hear from the pulpit. It was God, Who established the

Church, demanding membership in it and compliance with its



112 WHO’S WHO IN .THE POAU?

teaching. Therefore the Church, as the agent of God in this

world, representing His interests, merely promulgates what

He has demanded. Religion came down from Heaven to

people, and it was never God’s idea that He should be ob-

liged to accept the sort of religion which secularist minds

would impose on Him. That certainly would be a reversal

of the right order, the servant dictating to the Master; the

child to the Father.

Blanshard entirely overlooks God in the picture and sees

only the Pope who, he insists, has power to declare what is

right and wrong by divine fiat, and simultaneous power to

consign to eternal perdition any human being who defiies his

judgment. He (the Pope) can consign human beings to hell

for violation of divine law.”

These are not edicts of the Pope, but the declaration by

the Church, through the Pope, of God’s position very clearly

established in Holy Scripture. Catholics know that the Pope

claims to speak infallibly in God’s name only when he pro-

nounces on matters of faith or morals for the entire Catholic

world.

Blanshard maintains that since the Church demands

Union of Church and State “no true Catholic can agree with

the doctrine of Church-State separation in its American con-

stitutional form.”

As a matter of fact the Church has never declared that

Church and State must be united. It has only declared that

they may be united, and when practically all citizens are of

the same faith it is good that they be united. We do not be-
lieve that there is a Catholic in the United States, Bishop,

priest or layman, who does not firmly believe that the best

policy for the United States is separation.

According to Christ addiction to error in the religious

sense is slavery. He said to His followers: “You shall know

the truth and the truth shall make you free
9

—free from error

in religion, certainty in matters pertaining to faith and morals,

the conditions for the attainment of eternal life.

When the prophet Samuel told God in prayer that



PAUL BLANSHARD 113

the people wanted a King, He answered that the people’s

revolt was not directed against the prophet, but against the

ordinances of God Himself, which the prophet was obliged

to enforce. (First Book of Kings 8:4-9) Christ told Saul that

he was persecuting Him in persecuting His Church.

Blanshard’s more recent book has not been received as

favorably as his first. Several reviewers ridiculed the analogy

he makes between the Kremlin and the Vatican; his idea that

God should surrender to Caesar, his observations on canoni-

zation, and the status which, he claims, is attributed to

saints, etc., the emphasis he places on documentation even

when he interprets the same to suit his own anti-Catholic

purpose.

This book on the POAU is as copiously documented as

Blanshard’s, and not one quotation lends itself to any mis-

representation.

Paul Blanshard was born in Fredericksburg’, Ohio, in 1892, the
son of a clergyman. Graduated from the University of Michigan

in 1914.

From 1914 to 1917 he studied both theology and graduate so-
ciology at Harvard, Andover Theological Seminary ( then at Har-

vard), Columbia and Union Theological Seminary.

He was ordained a Congregational minister in 1917, but served
only one church as pastor, the First Congregational Church of

Tampa, Florida. He entered social service work, served as an
organied for the League to Enforce Peace until its dissolution;

then became a labor organizer for the Amalgamated Textile Work-
ers. Then a lecturer for seven years (with intermissions) for the

League for Industrial Democracy, a parallel organization to the

British Fabian society whose chief executive officer at that time

was Norman Thomas. In 1929-30 he served as an associate editor
of The Nation.

In 1931 he became director of the City Affairs Committee of

New York, headed by John Haynes Holmes and Rabbi Stephen S.
Wise. In 1933 he was chosen research director of the first La-
guardia campaign.

Studied law at night and was graduated from Brooklyn Law
school, admitted to the New York bar in 1938, and practiced law
in 1939-41. In 1941-42 he served as director of the Society for the

Prevention Crime of New York. In 1942-46 he was a State De-
partment official in Washington and the Caribbean.

In 1946 he retired to his farm in Thetford Center, Vermont,

to devote his full time to writing. Since then he ^has written

“Democracy and the Empire in the Caribbean” (Macmillan), and

“American Freedom and Catholic Power” (Beacon).
He is a member of the Civil Liberties Union, the League for

industrial Democracy and Americans for Democratic Action.



CHURCH AND STATE

There is o common notion that the early settlers came

here to separate church and state. This is absolutely a false

doctrine. In the old countries from which they came, their

religion was controlled by the state. From this they wanted to

be free, yea, they wanted the state to be controlled by religion.

The first public structures erected by these people after landing

upon the shores of America were churches and these became the

civic centers and the social centers.—-Roger W. Babson, in 1921.

Every one of the POAU officers and their propagandists

charge that the Catholic Church is committed to a belief

in the doctrine that “Church and State should be united/'

They quote a condemned proposition in the Syllabus of Pope

Pius IX, which reads: “The Church and State must be separ-

ate/' The inference our enemies draw, is that the opposite

must be true, namely, that the “Church and State must be

united/' That is false. The correct inference is that the

“Church and State may be united/'

But, doesn't the Catholic Church teach that “union of

Church and State" are ideal? Yes, where practically all the

people of the nation are of the same religion, and supposing

that both the Church and the State dealing with the same

citizenry, will cooperate. Wouldn't the people, whose wishes

should be respected, expect cooperation? On the other hand,

the Chinch has experienced too often that such a union means

nothing or is even undesirable, when the civil ruler, domi-

nated by a hostile minority, governs the country.

Seperation of Church and State in Latin countries dur-

ing the past hundred and fifty years was synonymous with

“control of the Church by the State; persecution of the

Church by the State; and confiscation of the property of the

Church by the State."

How such a situation could develop can be grasped by

anyone who considers what has happened in recent years in

Russia, and in all the countries behind the Iron Curtain. A



CHURCH AND STATE 115

majority in Russia did not favor Communism; and certainly

the majority in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslavakia were absol-

utely against any Communistic control over their countries.

But that control eventuated just the same. It happened

through the seizure of the government by a hostile armed

minority.

Organized revolutions representing only a minority over-

threw the government in Mexico forty years ago, and im-

mediately a persecution of religion began. A Socialist minor-

ity got control of the government of France a few years

earlier, and legislated against all religion. In 1911 Portugal,

a Socialist, irreligious group won power, because the majority

was sleeping, and immediately a war on the Church ensued.

What has been the reaction? Today the rulers of all these

nations are very friendly to the Church. In Belgium and

Austria Socialist governments -were established in 1911, but

it was not long before these regimes were overthrown. It is

the lesson of history that the pendulum swings in the op-

posite direction after a period of persecution.

The Catholic Church seeks no political ascendency. To

make a case against her, her enemies go back to the Middle

Ages and speak of the power of the Popes at that time. But

conditions were entirely different. There were no Protestants

and scarcely any infidels even to think about. Every king and

queen and other civil ruler as well as the entire citizenry

were members of the same Church.

Bird S. Coler, comptroller of the City of New York, and

a Protestant writer, in a book entitled "Two and Two make

Four,” tells us he could not comprehend how the non-Catholic

always goes back into the Middle Ages to make a case against

the Catholic Church.

Mr. Coler thought that we should leave Henry VIII, Mary

Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor, the Guises and the Bourbons,

the Philips, and both ecclesiastics and politicians rest in their

graves, and to leave their judgment to Almighty God. The

exhumation of persons after 600 and 700 years for the purpose



116 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

of indicting the Catholic Church of our day actually con-

verted Mr. Coler to the Catholic Church before he died.

Back in 1909 a Lutheran Synod and a Baptist Convention

urged that the American people elect no Catholic to political

office. They did not think the constitution provision “no relig-

ious test shall ever be requested as a qualification for any of-

fice or public trust under the United States” should be applied

to Roman Catholics.

It is that kind of “separation of Church and State” which

the Catholic Church does not favor. When the Church is

granted freedom to carry on her work, as now obtains in

most non-Catholic countries, the Church is quite content,

no matter whether the form of government of the nation

be monarchical or republican. Practically every bishop of

the United States has expressed himself on the subject of

“union of Church and State in this country,” and has said

emphatically that he would not want it.

Cardinal Gibbons, who was known by all public men

to love America from the depths of his heart, could not con-

ceive how any one could regard the Catholic Church as a

harmful influence in this nation, and hence wrote an article

for the March (1909) number of the North American Review ,

which was later published in pamphlet form under the title

“The Church and the Republic.”

In this pamphlet he observed: “Love of religion and love

of country burn together in all Catholic hearts. They love

their Church as the divine spiritual society set up by Jesus

Christ, and they love their country with the spontaneous and

ardent love of all patriots; and because it is their country

and a source to them of untold blessings, they prefer its

form of government before any other. They admire its insti-

tutions and the spirit of its laws; they accept the Constitution

without reserve, with no desire, as Catholics, to see it changed

in any feature. They can with a clear conscience swear to up-

hold it.”

“The separation of Church and State in this country seems



CHURCH AND STATE 117

to them the natural, inevitable, and best conceivable plan,

the one that would work best among us, both for the good of

religion and of the State. Any change in their relations

they would contemplate with dread.”

Cardinal Gibbons said that in a public address in Rome

and was not criticized for it. Hence, the propaganda talk of

POAU is, to say the least, very unfair.

The support of religious schools in this country would

not spell "union of Church and State” any more than it spells

"union of Church and State” in Canada, Great Britain, Ireland,

Scotland, Germany, Australia, and nearly everywhere else in

Europe.

It would not take half as much money to provide bus

transportation for parochial school children as is unjustly

taken away from parochial schools by excise taxes. When the

superintendant of local schools sends in his pupil list for the

per pupil capita allowance made by the State, he includes

all parochial school children. But, when he gets the money,

he counts out all the parochail school children and uses the

full amount for public school children.

We live under two governments, the Republic of America
and the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. We not only can, but must,
be loyal to the authority of both. Since the two authorities

do not conflict, our allegiance is never divided. The one is

concerned with our material and temporal, the other with

our spiritual and eternal, welfare. The one concerns itself

with our well-being here on earth, the other with our best

interests in the hereafter. The State makes no law with respect

to our religious duties, because they are outside its province;

the Church does not busy herself with things purely political,

because they are not within her province. Caesar and God,

State and Church, are distinct masters, but we must render

obedience to each, because the authority of each has Heavens

sanction.

State and Church, while remaining separate one from

the other, may live in the most harmonious relationship, and



118 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

be mutually helpful. The State should encourage religion and

morality, virtue and piety; the Church should foster obedience

to the Country’s laws and respect for constituted civil author-

ity. The more truly religious a man is the more devoted will

be his citizenship.

When Catholic loyalty was questioned during the Social-

ist campaign, Dr. S. Parkes Cadman, then an army chaplain,

speaking at East Orange, N.J., March 15, 1917, said:

“I wish their (the Catholics) loyalty was our loyalty. A

Roman Catholic boy is taught to obey, but I am sorry to say

that our Protestant boys are not. A finer group than the 250

Roman Catholics who were in our regiment, was never gath-

ered.”

One hundred and forty years ago. Bishop England, of

Charleston, S.C., having heard, during the war of 1912, the

very charges we are hearing from the POAU today, com-

mitted himself as follows:

“Let the Pope and Cardinals and all the powers of the

Catholic world united make the least encroachment on that

Constitution, we will protect it with our lives. Summon a

General Council. Let that Council interfere in the mode of our

electing but an assistant to a turnkey in a prison — we deny

its right; we reject its usurpation. Yet we are most obedient

Papists. We believe that the Pope is Christ’s Vicar on earth,
supreme visible head of the Church throughout the world,

and lawful successor of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles. We
believe all this power is in Pope Leo XII. Yet we deny to

Pope and Council united any power to interfere with one

tittle of our political rights as firmly as we deny the power

of interfering with one tittle of our spiritual rights to the

President and Congress. We will obey each in its proper
place; we will resist any encroachment by one upon the rights

of the other.”

Such allegiances were meant by Christ when He told

those who were against Him “Render unto Caesar the things

that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.”



CHURCH AND STATE 119

Pope Pius X, in an address to Argentine Pilgrims to Rome,

expounded the Catholic position towards civil allegiance in

these words, “The Church will always defend the constituted

authorities, imposing love, obedience, respect and observance

of the laws, helping the State to provide for the maintenance

of peace.”

Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr, of the Union Theological Semi-

nary, early in April, 1951, denounced the idea of an “abso-

lute, impregnable wall between Church and State.” He

claimed that our Founding Fathers would not have stood for

that.

He referred to the minimum which Catholics have asked

from the Federal government under a Federal Aid Bill, such

as the auxiliary services of bus rides and lunches for children,

and remarked: “Every time Protestants and secularists were

asked to consent to a slight compromise in favor of children

in religious and private schools, their answer was always, ‘No,

this is the camePs nose getting into the tent/” He said: “I

am sick of camels’ noses,” and observed: “There is not a

modern democratic society in Europe that does not give chil-

dren in independent schools more tax support than we do.”

He then suggested that “Protestants retreat from their un-

yielding opposition to bus rides, text-books and lunches for

children in religious schools.”

In the first number of The Outlook
,
new publication of

the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United

States, was an editorial deploring the secularization of Amer-

ican education. It observed:

“On the plea that we must not ‘indoctrinate/ it ignores

religion, treating it as if it had no significance for citizenship,

daily occupation, the welfare of the community, or politics.

The result is well stated by Sir Walter Moberly: ‘It is a

fallacy to suppose that by omitting a subject, you teach noth-

ing about it. On the contrary, you teach that it is to be

omitted, and that it is therefore a matter of secondary impor-

tance. And you teach this, not openly and explicitly, which

would invite criticism; you simply take it for granted and



120 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

thereby insinuate it silently, insidiously, and all but irresis-

tibly. If indoctrination is bad, this sort of conditioning and

preconscious habituation is surely worse/
99

Wasn't He Right?

Dr. W. H. P. Faunce, President, Brown University, Provi-

dence, R. I., said on Dec. 30, 1923—

"Without religion no settlement of the world’s problems

is possible, no peace can come to men or nations.

"But religion is not a substitute for some other agency;

it is that which must permeate and control every agency we

have. We can not abolish diplomacy, arbitration, confer-
ences, alliances, and expect religion to take their places.

Religion is not a new piece of furniture to be substituted for

an old piece; it is the sunlight which, when admitted to a

room shows us how to use the furniture we already have.

"At the present time the nations are, for the most part,

working in the dark. They have shut out of their councils

the two most powerful factors in human life—the love of

God and the love of man. No one dreams that the treaty of

Versailles, or the treaty of Lausanne, was motivated in the

smallest degree by love for anybody. Both treaties were

motivated by fear and hate, and fear and hate simply will

not work. Nothing is practical unless inspired and dominated

by religious faith. Nothing will succeed that shuts out of

human institutions the sense of God, and substitutes purely

economic or political aims/’



INTOLERANCE

A man's religion should not be interfered with and a man's
religion should not be charged against him in politics, business or

in any other relation of life. The right to hold an opinion, pol-

itical or social or economic and express it, is absolute, limited

only by a threat to destroy this government or to destroy property

by illegal process.—The Commercial Times, Memphis, Tenn.,
April 15, 1922.

Oxnam, Blanshard, and other co-workers of the POAU,

see in the Catholic Church an intolerant, totalitarian institu-

tion, therefore, un-American.

But, the truth is that the Catholic Church is the most

tolerant of all religious organizations, as the best and most

reputable historians will substantiate. There never existed in

England, or Germany, or Switzerland, or Scotland — the

countries of the Reformation — or in Catholic countries

such as Ireland, an organized movement against Protestant-

ism. During the hundred and sixty years of our nation's life,

there has never been formed an anti-Protestant society, never

anti-Protestant periodicals, never any corralling of Catholic

forces to oppose a Protestant candidate for office, never the

passing of anti-Protestant resolutions at conventions; never

any anti-Reformation Days.

Americans need hardly be told that numerous organiza-

tions of Protestants have been formed to wage a real crusade

against the Catholic Church; that hundreds of professedly

anti-Catholic papers and periodicals have been launched even

during the past 50 years.

The Catholic Church must, naturally, be as intolerant

of religious error as God Himself is; as the scientist is in

relation to facts belonging to his field; as the mathematician

must be in relation to his specialty. But, just as the scientist

does not direct his intolerance of error toward people who

differ from him; nor the mathematician disturb the person

who insists on believing that twice 2 are 13; so the Catholic



122 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

Church never identifies error and the person believed to be

addicted to error.

It is very common for Catholic architects, contractors,

business and professional men, to complain that Catholics

are more prone to patronize unfriendly non-Catholics in

these fields. While the Catholic Church, like nearly all the

churches did for years, forbids her members to join certain

oath-bound secret societies, she has never given a hint to

people that they should not patronize men who belong to

them. If she believes that her principle and theory are right,

she not only consistently maintains it, but asks her people

to be friends of everybody, to love and even pray for those

who “persecute and calumniate” them.

Blanshard would have the Catholic Church conform to

every new, loose practice, which might not only be tolerated,

but become prevalent in our land, because the majority seems

to favor it. He would have the Catholic Church revise her

laws relating to divorce after a valid marriage, because the

State permits divorce; to the practice of birth control, because

most people approve of it. We well remember the day when

no minister in our communities would assist at the marriage

of a divorcee; when there were no such things as contra-

ceptive devices manufactured. If these things offend against

the moral laws promulgated in Holy Scripture, then the

Catholic Church should be commended at least for her loy-

alty to Divine authority.

The Jewish and Christian religions were not founded by

men and offered to God for His acceptance . They were rather

established directly by God and imposed on men for their

acceptance . No majority vote can make right what God de-

clares to be wrong.

Going into other lands, the majority in south Ireland has

always been far more friendly towards the minority in the

north than the north has been towards the south. Catholics in

Germany, subjected to many persecutions, have never per-



INTOLERANCE 123

secuted in return; Catholic Quebec is far more tolerant than

Protestant Ontario.

What we are reading about the persecution of Protestants

in South America, or in Spain, or in Italy, is either untrue or

grossly exaggerated. In small communities, a number of

hoodlums may get together and create an incident, but they

do not do it with any authorization from the Catholic Church.

We never hear anything said by speakers representing or-

ganized anti-Catholicism, about the intolerence towards Cath-

olics in the almost solidly Protestant countries of Sweden,

Norway and Denmark where there is also union of Church

and State.

The Church's enemies go back 600 years to the Spanish

Inquisition, but never say anything about the Inquisitions in

England, which counted many times more victims than did the

Inquisition of Spain, which was operated not by the Church,

but by the State.

They go over the long list of Popes to ferret out three

or four who were unworthy incumbents, but say nothing

about the first twenty-nine who gave up their lives for

Christ, nor of the very many saints among them in later years,

nor even of the Popes of the past century, everyone of whom

has been a real saint, interested only in "restoring all things

in Christ.” We never hear them make any comparison be-
tween the Inquisitions of centuries ago with the Inquisitions,

called by other names in our times, such as in Germany ten

years ago, and in Russia today. They charge Franco with

having incarcerated 50,000 political enemies, but say nothing

about the 18,000,000 whom Russia holds prisoners as polit-

ically dangerous.

Most of the time of our Congress has been taken up in

recent years with Inquisitions, more frequently called "Inves-

tigations,” "Committee hearings,” etc.

Judging by their manner of acting, one would suppose

that scholars belong only to Protestantism and that every

level-headed person in this country is in sympathy with their



124 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

activities. The fact is that far greater scholars, who judge

matters impartially and investigate with sincerity, come to

the defense of the Catholic Church against her libelers. They

see the Catholic Church on the right side on the subject of

Communism, on Education, on Marriage, and on Home Life;

and, every year hundreds of them in this land are led by the

true facts they discover to embrace the Catholic Faith.

The charges made against the Catholic Church are

those made against Christ Himself, namely, that He was not

a "friend of Caesar,” that He "perverted the people.” Her

enemies have the same fears Christ’s enemies had—namely

that the "Romans will come and take away our nation.”

In His last words to the Apostles before returning to

Heaven, Christ told them that they would be treated just as

He was, that they would be persecuted and calumniated; that

men would think that they would do a favor to God by killing

them. Then He consoled them with the promise that their

"reward would be great in Heaven” for enduring persecution

for righteousness’ sake.

People who habitually read anti-Catholic literature be-

come affected in quite the same manner as those who read

anti-Government literature. Those who feed on the latter

week after week become obsessed with the idea that their

government should be overthrown. Those who feed on the

former become convinced that the Mother Church must be

destroyed. The Anarchist and the Marxian Socialist are op-

posed alike to organized government and organized religion;

they are equally hostile to the State and Church. Nearly

every one engaged in warfare against the Catholic Church

in this country, whether by pen or on the platform, has now

or did have connections with un-American organizations.

Most of the reading of some of the officers of the POAU

seems to have been anti-American over a long period. That

is why they became Socialist and Communist-minded as well

as anti-Catholic minded. But the Catholic Church has always



INTOLERANCE 125

stood adamant against tlie philosophy of both Socialism and

Communism.

If there were a disposition on the part of the Church to

unite her people politically, would it not be quite easy to

elect Catholics to most of the highest offices in New England

and in the midwest, where their group is more numerous

than that of the entire affiliated Protestant membership.

We have read in sectarian papers that the percentage

of Catholics in the Senate and in Congress is much larger

than the ratio the Catholic population bears to the entire

population. The fact is that Catholics are not represented by

half this ratio—but, if they did band together to vote for

one of their own, the ratio would be quite high.

Even last November (1950) the religious issue was

brought into the picture where Catholics were running for

office, but Catholics have never raised the religious issue

against a Protestant candidate.

During the campaign for the Presidency in the year 1928,

the Democratic nominee was A1 Smith, a Catholic. Yet after

his defeat it was noted by editors of our leading metropolitan

papers, by the editors of many magazines, that the absence

of meddling in politics on the part of the Catholic clergy

throughout the country was admirable. It was a case of his

own, who believed him to be an excellent character, not

coming to his rescue when enemies of his Church were

banded together to keep him out of the White House.

We have data which would enable us to fill a booklet as
large as this with brief quotations from the secular press which

expressed admiration at Catholic forebearance, and at the

same time denounced the hundreds of churchmen who forgot

their consecrated position and became politicians. They

wrote, in substance, as the editor quoted below.

Ellery Sedgwick, editor of the Atlantic Monthly
,
opened

the pages of his periodical during the Smith campaign to

both Catholics and Protestants who might care to say things

mean or pleasant about the Catholic Church. Those who



126 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

availed themselves of the offer were chiefly Protestants. To-

wards the end of the campaign (October 18, 1928) Sedgwick

wrote: “Had the Catholic clergy thrown themselves into the

hurly-burly after the pattern of their Methodist brethren the

Republic would have rocked on its foundations . . . The venti-

lation of this festered sore is for the best. To the Americanism

preached by Ireland and Gibbons is now added the Ameri-

canism preached by Smith. The Catholic Church in America

is, in the civic sense, an American Church. Ultramontanism is

in this country a lost cause. To the limbo where it belongs

Protestant bigotry must follow. The conduct of the Church,

high above reproach in this bad crisis, will not be forgotten.”

Trend Now in Opposite Direction

Religious News Service (May 12, 1951) carried the fol-

lowing items, indicating a trend in the very opposite direc-

tion to that taken by the POAU. It was reporting demands

made by other “religious leaders” in the course of one week.

It observed:

“Demands for some form of religious education in the

public schools continue to increase despite the three-year-old

McCollum decision in which the United States Supreme

Court outlawed released-time religious instruction on school

property.

“Religious instruction of some sort is vitally necessary for

the proper training of American youth.

“At the National Sheriffs’ Association meeting in Atlanta,

Ga., in the first week of May, 1951, a speaker deplored ‘the

absence of religious training in schools and the tendency to

rate athletics over moral and scholarly attainments/ which,

he said, ‘should be corrected/

“In California and Iowa Legislators recently sought to

put into effect their belief that religion should be a ‘must’

in the public school.

“A 100-member Illinois commission appointed to draft a

program for the state’s 2,500,000 children has urged that



INTOLERANCE 127

general courses of religion be included in public school

curricula.

“A questionnaire used for a doctoral thesis in Indiana

University showed that two-thirds of those questioned fav-

ored putting religious education in the public school curri-

culum/’

Catholics Pioneered in the Tolerance Field

In the United States

Some years ago in The Washington Post, the Reverend

Dr. McKim, an Episcopalian clergyman of that city, took

exception to a statement made by the late Cardinal Gibbons,

to the effect that the British colony sent to Maryland by Lord

Baltimore in 1634, was the first to establish on American soil

the blessing of civil and religious liberty. In the same paper,

under date of October 20, 1908, the Reverend Dr. William T.

Russell, pastor of St. Patrick’s church, Washington, published

an irrefutable reply to the Rev. Dr. McKim’s arraingment of

Cardinal Gibbons’ statement. He wrote in part:

Editor Post: As this controversy, begun by the Rev. Dr.

McKim, threatens to become befogged by a mist of extra-

neous questions, I beg leave to restate the case. The Cardinal

is reported as saying, in reference to the colony sent to Mary-

land by Lord Baltimore in 1634:

“This colony of British Catholics was the first to establish

on American soil the blessing of civil and religious liberty.

While the Puritans of New England persecuted other Chris-

tians, and while the Episcopalians of Virginia persecuted

Puritans, Catholic Maryland gave freedom and hospitality to

Puritans and Episcopalians alike.”

It was to this statement that Dr. McKim took exception.

Dr. Russell asked Dr. McKim to answer the following

questions, and to enable him to do so he referred to the

archives of the State of Maryland, Bacon’s Laws of Mary-

land, the Calvert Letters and Manuscripts, and other reliable

sources of Maryland history.



128 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

Questions Asked

1. Did not Lord Baltimore provide that freedom of

worship should obtain in his colony? (Archives of the State

of Maryland, vol. v.
?
page 78. Calvert papers, No. 1, pp.

131-132.)

2. In addition to freedom of worship, did not the

Catholic proprietary give the franchise, together with all

other civil privileges, to his Protestant colonists? In the first

assembly (1637), whose records have come down to us, were

not all freemen, Protestant as well as Catholic, not only

allowed but compelled to be present or represented? (Arch-

ives of the State of Maryland, vol. 1, pp. 1-23.)

3. According to the best authorities on Maryland his-

tory, were not the leading men of the colony, the men who

controlled the government in the beginning, Catholics?

(Bradley F. Johnson’s "Foundation of Maryland and Act Con-

cerning Religion,” p. 31. W. H. Browne, "George and Cecilus

Calvert,” p. 45. Clayton Hall, "The Lords Baltimore,” p. 37.

J.
L. Bozman, "History of Maryland,” 11., p. 26. J. V. L.

McMahon, "Historical View of the Government of Mary-

land,” p. 184. Sanford Cobb, "Rise and Development of

Religious Liberty in America,” pp. 370-375.)

Bancroft wrote: "Lord Baltimore was the first in the his-

tory of the Christian world to seek for religious security and

peace by the practice of justice, and not by the exercise of

power, to plan the establishment of popular institutions writh

the enjoyment of liberty of conscience.

"The asylum of Catholics wras the remote spot, where,

in a remote corner of the world on the banks of rivers which

as yet had hardly been explored, the mild forbearance of a

proprietary adopted religious freedom as the basis of the

state
* * * Roman Catholics oppressed by the laws of

England were sure to find a peaceful asylum in the quiet

waters of the Chesapeake, and there, too, Protestants were

sheltered against Protestant intolerance.

"The disfranchised friends of prelacy from Massachu-



INTOLERANCE 129

setts and the Puritans from Virginia, were welcomed to equal

liberty of conscience and political rights in the Roman Cath-

olic province of Maryland/’ (Bancroft, 10th ed., pp. 244, 248,

and 257.)

4. Can a single instance be cited to show that during

the first fifteen years of the existence of the Maryland colony,

during which period it was under Catholic control, the

government was ever guilty of a single act of religious

intolerance?

5. In 1654, when the Puritans seized Lord Baltimore’s

government, was not their first official act one disfranchising

the Catholics and Prelatists—Episcopalians? (Archives of

Maryland, vol. 8, p. 313.)

6. After recognizing Cromwell’s authority over the pro-

vince, was not the first act of the usurping Puritan assembly

one that denied to Catholics all civil and religious privileges?

(Archives, vol. 1, 340-341; Bacon’s Laws of Maryland, 1659),

and have we not proof that the harsh provisions of this per-

secuting act were duly carried out against the Catholic

colonists? (Archives, vol. 10, pp. 425-429.)

Beligious Freedom Restored

7. Is it not true that immediately upon the restoration

of Maryland to its rightful lord, Cecilius Calvert, religious lib-

erty was restored by him to all? (Archives, vol. 3, pp. 325-384.)

8. During the period of religious toleration in Maryland,

were not the Protestants persecuted and exiled by Protes-

tants in Virginia and Massachusetts? (Hennings’ Statues at

Large of Virginia, vol. 1, p. 277; Savage’s Winthrop, vol. Ill,

pp. 148-149.)



DEMOCRACY

Jealousy of power honestly gained and justly exercised, envy

of attainment or of possession, are characteristics of the mob,

not of the people; of a democracy which is false, not of a dem-

ocracy which is true. False democracy shouts "every man down

to the level of the average." True democracy cries "all men

up to the heights of their fullest capacity for service and

achievement." The two sides are everlastingly at war. The future

of this nation, as the future of the world, is bound up with the

hope of a true democracy that builds itself on liberty—True
and False Democracy, page 15 by Nicholas Murray Butler.

Any one who will have read what we had to say about

Bishop Oxnam and Paul Blanshard must agree with us that

neither is qualified to speak to the American people on the

subject of “Democracy.” Yet Paul Blanshard has just pub-

lished a second book entitled “Communism, Catholicism and

Democracy”

As to Communism for many years he was a vigorous cam-

paigning Socialist at a time when Socialism was as irreligious

as Communism is today. Its chief leaders in this country

were professed atheists and, as you will have noted, Blan-

shard is charged with having allowed literature to be sent

out from his New York office endorsing Earl Browder for

President. In his latest book he is not very harsh about Com-

munism. His chief target, of course, is Catholicism. He found

his first book to pay because it dealt with Catholicism from

beginning to end, and he approached his subject with preju-

dices akin to those Nero entertained against early Chris-

tianity.

As to Catholicism we have noted that while his earlier

book was well documented, it is filled with observations

which are not at all true to fact, and with misinterpretations

of material drawn from Catholic sources. Harold Fey, of the

Christian Century had done that a few years before.

As to Democracy you will note that we have quoted from



DEMOCRACY 131

his own writings, which proved that he did not believe in it

(cf. pp. 102-103).

Democracy, as taught by Thomas Jefferson, is very good

Catholic doctrine. In fact, it has been said many times by

different writers that Thomas Jefferson drew his political

philosophy, in part, from a work written by Cardinal Bellar-

mine.

The Catholic doctrine on Democracy is very clear and

has not been altered with the change in the forms of govern-

ments. When others speak about Democracy, people are not

so sure what they mean. Stalin calls the Communistic State a

Democratic State, where the proletariat is supposed to rule,

but which rather is ruled by an iron hand. He refers to all his

satellites as “Democracies.”

The Catholic Church has, from the beginning held, as

our Declaration of Independence holds, that “all men are

created equal.” That is why she suppressed slavery through-

out the Roman Empire and in every country to which she

brought the Catholic faith. If people were “created,” then they

owe their existence to God and are absolutely dependent on

Him. Our Founding Fathers called those two truths “self-

evident,” and every Catholic regarded them as self-evident for

seventeen centuries before the Declaration of Independence

was written.

Believing also that God created every human being

“according to His own image and likeness,” the Catholic

Church has always defended the dignity of man in the face

of every tyrant who has governed people. She did that

against Lenin, when he first promulgated the significance of

Bolshevism. She is ever reminding the world of “justice,”

of “law and order,” of “human rights,” of the “rights of small

nations” to their independence.

George Washington showed his agreement with the

Church when he wrote “of all the dispositions and habits

which lead to political prosperity religion and morality are in-

dispensible supports. Reason and experience both forbid us



132 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

to expect that national morality can prevail to the exclusion

of religious principles.”

Our Declaration of Independence declares that the con-

stitutions of states must be "firmly founded in and upon the

laws of nature and nature’s God.” Such has always been

Catholic teaching. Moderns have so far drifted from this idea

that they almost completely disown the idea of "natural law,”

and even of the personal nature of nature’s Lawgiver.

Karl Marx held that the "democratic conception of man is

false because it is Christian. The democratic concept holds

that each man is a sovereign being. This is the illusion, dream

and postulate of Christianity,” and Karl Marx always had the

Catholic Church in mind when he spoke of "Christianity.”

Protestantism never worried him.

Blanshard would have people believe that the Catholic

Church is "not democratic” because it is not run from the

bottom, because its members do not choose from the deposit

of divine revelation what they please to accept, and reject

the rest. Even in this he is out of tune with Thomas Jeffer-

son who, back in 1816, wrote:

They (the people) being unqualified for the manage-

ment of affairs requiring intelligence above the common

level, yet competent judges of human character, (they)

choose for their management representatives, some of

themselves immediately, others by electors chosen by

themselves.

None of our Founding Fathers, by the way, even spoke

directly about "Democracy.” They spoke about a "Republic,”

in which the people have a voice, but through their repre-

sentatives. The people have their representatives in the na-

tional Congress, and the national government has representa-

tives in the UN. Governments send those who, in their

judgment, are believed to be competent representatives to all

kinds of international Conferences.

Confusion is bad enough in the political world as it is,

but it would be a thousand times worse if 10,000 discordantly

speaking men were demanding the right to run their own



DEMOCRACY 133

country or the world. Confusion is equally great in the relig-

ious world outside of Catholicism, because of the practical

application of the private judgment theory. The Bible has no

authority when people emasculate it as they please. The

Constitution of the United States may not be treated that

way. We have a Supreme Court to guard and interpret it.

Protestant churchmen are working towards unity, not by

direct action from below, but by convening National and In-

ternational Councils, to which accredited delegates are

sent.

Christ commissioned His Apostles to do certain things

of universal importance, and since His religion was to endure

to the end of the world, these same commissions hold for the

successors of the Apostles. It was “with them” that Christ

promised to remain “even until the end of the world”; it is “to

them” that He promised to send the Holy Spirit to preserve

the truth through the ages. When God settles any matter,

there can be no “reformers,” no legitimate opponents.

Democracy in the State is based on the concept of man

and of his rights and duties as stated in the Declaration of

Independence and in the Bill of Rights. Democracy in the

Church is based on the same concept, but as declared in the

charter furnished by Christ to His Church: “He who hears

you, hears Me”; “Go, teach whatsoever I have commanded

you.”

Democracy Has Christian Origin

Many writers on American Democracy are wont to trace

its origin to the Magna Charta, drafted in England in the

thirteenth century. Even if that were true it would have had

a Catholic origin, because that Charta was demanded from an

unwilling King by Catholic barons.

All governments around Judea were like those which are

being set up in the modern world. They were despotisms or

dictatorships or whatever you choose to call governments

presided over by an individual autocrat. But the Hebrew peo-

ple lived under a government which possessed the same three



134 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

departments of which the American government boasts—the

executive, the legislative, the judicial. There was union be-

tween their State and a divinely instituted Church, which

tended to keep ruler and citizens alike mindful both of their

mutual relationship and of their individual and joint respon-

sibilities to Almighty God.

Christ did not revoke that governmental policy, but pro-

claimed principles which ennobled and universalized it. To

Him, as God, “all nations were given as His inheritance”

(Psalm 2); as God He was “King of kings and Lord of lords”

(1 Tim. 6:15). But as man He was a citizen, Who obeyed

civil authority as well as all the laws of the Israelitic religion,

practicing what He later proclaimed as an everlasting prin-

ciple, namely, that “to Caesar must be given the things which

are Caesar’s,” just as “to God must be given the things that

are God’s” (Matt. 22:21).

Pope Leo XIII, in his Encyclical Christian States
,
made

this very easy-to-understand pronouncement: “God has di-

vided the governments of mankind between two powers,

ecclesiastical and civil; one presides over divine things, the

other over human. Each in its sphere is sovereign; each is

marked with limits perfectly defined, and traced in conform-

ity with its nature, and its special end. Hence there is, as it

were, a circumscribed sphere, in which each exercises its ac-

tion jure proprio. At the same time, their authority being ex-

ercised on the same subjects, it may happen that one and the

same thing, though for different reasons, may come under

the jurisdiction and judgment of both powers; . . . hence

the necessity of having between the two powers a system of

well-ordered relations, analogous to that which in man con-

stitutes the union of soul and body.”

If there have been conflicts between the Church and the

State in the past, it was only because kings and emperors and

dictators insisted on being both ecclesiastical and civil rulers,

which means the right to “run the Church” even to the ex-

tent of appointing their sycophants as Bishops. In our day



DEMOCRACY 135

the Stalins have gone much further, and demand the right

to get rid of all Bishops and of all non-cooperating clergy.

The idea of the “divine right of kings” was never proposed

by the Catholic Church. The sixteenth century reformers were

the first to subscribe to that idea. The difference between the

Catholic and the Protestant viewpoint is expressed respec-

tively by Seller, in his “History of Passive Obedience,” and by

the late President Wilson in his “The New Freedom.” The

former writes:

We still believe and maintain that our kings derive
not their title from the people but from God, that to Him

only they are accountable, that it belongs not to the sub-

jects either to create or censure but to honor and obey

their sovereign, who comes to be so by a fundamental

hereditary right of succession which no religion, no law,

no fault or forfeiture can altar or diminish.

But President Wilson had this to say about the Catholic

Church and Democracy:

The Roman Church was then, as it is now, a great De-

mocracy. There was no peasant so humble that he might

not become Pope of Christendom; and every chancellery

in Europe, every court in Europe, was ruled by these

learned, trained, and accomplished men, the priesthood

of that great and dominant body. What kept government

alive in the Middle Ages was this constant rise of the sap

from the bottom, from the rank and file of the great body

of the people through the open channels of the priest-

hood.

Dr. N. Waters, (Congregationalist) writing on “St. Ber-

nard of Clairvaux,” says:

The monks of the Middle Ages laid the subfounda-

tion of the modern democracy. . . Those old monasteries

were the most democratic institutions the world had ever

seen up to that time.

Those who are opposing religion in education would do

well to harken to this utterance of the late Nicholas Murray

Butler, of Columbia University, in his 1938 Commencement

Address:

The chief problem of Democracy, if it is to be sue-



136 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

cessful and continuing, is the moral education and guid-

ance of the individual and not the suppression of the in-

dividual in the supposed interest of some mass or

group. . .

How often must it be repeated that Democracy rests
upon moral principles and that only when they are re-

cognized and supported, does it concern itself with the

purely material interest of individuals and groups?

The late Rev. George Johnson, Secretary of the Depart-

ment of Education of the NCWC, said about the same thing

at the same time (June, 1938):

Religion is the very corner stone of Democracy. To

the extent that it loses its influence, Democracy is in

danger. To the degree that the younger generation is

deprived of its light, robbed of its strength, the future of

free institutions is jeopardized. If to God are not rendered

the things that belong to God, they will be rendered to

Caesar.”

In the Feb. 1951 number of Think
,
C. H. Pollog calls

Switzerland “the oldest Democracy” having established it in

the year 1291. But Switzerland was solidly Catholic then.

“We cannot forget that she (Catholic Church) alone of

all the great institutions of the world has been the cradle

of democracy from the beginning. She alone of all the great

powers made it possible for one to be a ruler without owing

it to his father s position.”—Judge Riddell (Prot.) at Toronto,

Oct. 14, 1919.

They Wanted A Religious School System

Springfield, Mass., March 1923.—The Protestant clergy-

men and church officials of Springfield, Mass., at a recent

meeting, voted unanimously to organize an interdenomina-

tional church council with power to found a religious school

system which would equal in efficiency and effectiveness the

public school system in that city. This action was taken at

the social and religious survey conference which was attended

by 150 leading Protestant clergymen and laymen. The pro-

gram to be followed will include: (1) formation of a city

council of religious education; (2) a religious school board;

(3) a high-salaried superintendent of religious education.



THE KIND OF PEOPLE WHO MAKE
CAPITAL OF ANTI-CATHOLIC MOVEMENTS

How They Hurt Protestantism

NOTE: The following men and women were active during and after the
Ku Klux Klan crusade against the Catholic Church. We let editors of
newspapers tell you who they were. Note how well each observation

is documented; note also that most of the men exploited by the Klan

were people without character, that the very profession of most of

them was a lie, and that they were nevertheless given pulpit privileges

in many Protestant churches:

AMOLD, CHARLES W., Prominent Klansman. On trial

at De Land and Palatka, Fla., for the kidnapping and mutila-

tion of John E. O’Neill, Catholic, on July 3, 1927. Throughout

the trial C. L. WHEAT, Grand Titan of the District, sat di-

rectly behind defendant and prompted him.—Irish World,

(Feb. 4

,

1928).

ANDERSON, WILLIAM H., Former Head of the New

York Anti-Saloon League. Founder of the “American Prohibi-

tion Protestant Patriotic Protective Alliance,” Writer for the

notorious “Fellowship Forum,” Klansman. Served term in

Sing-Sing Prison, New York, for forgery and misappropriation

of funds of Anti-Saloon League.—Chattanooga (Term.) Times

,

(Jan. 5, 1925).

ARNOLD, W. H., Prominent Klansman, Kokomo, Ind.

Indicted on eleven counts by Howard Co. (Ind.) grand jury

for frauds in connection with the failure of the American

Trust Co., Klan bank, Kokomo. Fugitive from justice in Flor-

ida, being afforded protection by the Klan.—Muncie (Ind.)

Post-Democrat
,
(Jan. 6, 1928.)

ATKIN, F. W., Grand Goblin of Klan. Arrested on charge

of grand larceny, Philadelphia, Pa., Dec. 9, 1922, on fugitive

warrant from Atlanta, Get.—Evening Bulletin
,
Philadelphia

,

(Pa.), (Dec. 10, 1922).

BAKER, NATHAN A., Klan Kleagle, Confessed leader
of the Inglewood raid. Arrested, June 5, 1922, on complaint



138 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

from District Attorney’s office, Los Angeles Co. (Calif.),

charge of felony. Found insane.—Los Angeles (Calif.) Record

(June 6, 1922).

BARTLETT, ASA K., Klan leader and Constable, Muske-

gon, Mich. Given life-sentence on May 31, 1926, for the

murder of three persons, to whom he had sent a bomb

through the mails.—Fort Wayne (Ind.) Journal-Gazette
,
(June

2, 1926).

BEALL, FRANK H., Exalted Cyclops, Baltimore, Md.

Charged with appropriating $4,000 of the funds of the Nation-

al Klan.—Baltimore (Md.) Evening Sun
,
(Oct. 12, 1922).

BELL, ARTHUR H, Klan Kleagle, Long Branch,

N.
J.

Suit brought against him for recovery of $1,596.96,

which plaintiffs alleged he had extorted from them by threats.

New York Times, (March 13, 1926).

BELLANGER, O. P., Fake ex-priest. “Disciples” minis-

ter. Advertised by Klan as “former Jesuit priest of Wiscon-

sin.” Deserted wife and four children at Crystal Lake, Minn.,

and served a term in the Minnesota State Prison at Stillwater,

Minn., for arson. Confessed before his church in East St.

Louis, Mo., that he had been in prison on this charge.

BERTSCHER, SAMUEL, Klan thug (alleged “deputy-

sheriff”). Arrested on Oct 26, 1925, at Hamilton, Ohio, on a

charge of carrying concealed weapons and loitering. At the

same time his companions, STANLEY STULL and WIL-

LIAM THISLER, were also arrested on similar charges.—

Catholic Herald, St. Louis, Mo., (Nov. 1, 1925).

BLOODWORTH, LLOYD P., Grand Dragon of the

Texas Ku Klux Klan, gave his whole-hearted support of the

notorious
J.
FRANK NORRIS, on trial for the murder of

Chipps.—Fort Wayne (Ind.) Journal-Gazette (Aug. 23, 1926).

BLASS, FRANK, Klansman. Sentenced on Sept. 27, 1925,

at Trinidad, Colo., to from 4 to 6 years in the state peniten-

tiary, for assault with intent to kill Mr. Frank Flynn, Catholic,

prominent business-man and candidate for office on anti-Klan



ANTI-CATHOLIC MOVEMENTS 139

ticket. He, together with LEWIS ROCCO, were employed to

commit this deed by R. M. MASON, Exalted Cyclops.—The

Awakening
,
Denver

,
Colo. (Oct. 29

,
1925).

BOGDON, MR., National Klan leader, Colorado State

Senator. Killed by an irate husband who found him in apart-

ment with his wife.—Denver Register
,
(June 16

,
1927).

BRASHER, W. A., Prominent Klansman, Canon City,

Colo. Tried and convicted on charge of “taking indecent lib-

erties” with a 15-year-old child—Register (Jan. 13, 1927).

BROOKS, M. E., Fake Ex-priest. In 1924 the New Or-

leans Immigration Authorities were searching for him, stating

that he had slipped over the Canadian line without register-

ing.

BROWN, DEMPSEY, Klan vigilante, Paul's Valley, Okla.

Sentenced to two years in the Oklahoma state penitentiary for

the lashing of Mr. and Mrs. R. D. Lindsay.—News Item
,
N. C.

W. C. (Nov. 13, 1923).

BROWN, REV. GEORGE K., Methodist minister. Circu-

lation manager, “The Daily American,” Klan newspaper, Can-

on City, Colo. In jail, charged with embezzling $500 from

church building-funds, Canon City, Colo.—Western American

El Paso
,
Tex. (July 23, 1927).

BROWN, MORTIMER, Prominent Klansman, secretary

to Governor Morley of Colorado. Indicted at Pueblo, Colo., by

federal grand-jury, for using the mails to defraud because of

activities in connection with the “Bankers’ Reserve Deposit

Company.”—Denver Register (April 23, 1925).

BRYANT, GEORGE C., Klan Kleagle, Buffalo, N. Y.
Charged by Supreme Court (of New York) Justice George E.

Pierce with having fraudulently altered incorporation papers

of the “Kamelias,” women’s branch of the Klan.—The Tablet

(Brooklyn
,
N. Y.) Was indicted and awaiting trial under the



140 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU ?

Walker Act in September of 1924—Buffalo (N. Y.) Evening

News (Sept. IS
,
1924).

BUCHTEL, CHESTER C., Klansman, member Fire De-

partment, Portland, Ore. Confessed, after his arrest at Port-

land, Ore., that he had started more than 50 incendiary fires,

including fire which destroyed St. Charles’ Catholic church,

Portland.—Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times (Feb. 28, 1925).

BURWELL, H. S. 7 Publisher of anti-Catliolic literature,

Washington, D. C. In 1928 he was compelled to enter into

an agreement with Luke E. Hart, Supreme Advocate of the

Knights of Columbus, St. Louis, Mo., to cease further publi-

cation and circulation of the bogus K. of C. oath.

CAHILL, WILLIAM E., Klan organizer, Muncie and

Elkhart, Ind. Police of Elkhart started search for him on Aug.

10, 1927, stating that on Aug. 7th he had disappeared with the

total receipts of a dance-hall and diamond valued at $600.—

Muncie (Ind.) Post-Democrat
,
(Aug. 12, 1927).

CALKINS, REV. GEORGE G, Methodist minister, De-
troit, Mich. Klan organizer, manager of the Bowles-for-Mayor

campaign in 1924, gambler, and passer of bad checks. Was

obliged to leave Salt Lake City, Utah, where he formerly re-

sided, on account of his frauds.—Detroit News, (Oct. 28, 1924).

CAMPBELL, WILLIAM H., Grand Dragon, Missouri

Klan, St. Joseph, Mo. Action against him for criminal libel be-

gun by Former State Senator David M. Proctor.—Globe-Dem-

ocrat St. Louis, Mo., (Oct. 22, 1926).

CHAPPELL, A. A., “Anti-Catholic evangelist,” Holy-

Roller preacher, Evansville, Ind. Was accused by fellow mem-

bers of his church of failure to account for $500 of church

funds. Caught stealing a ham, while working in a packing

plant at Evansville.

CLARK, WILLIAM LLOYD, Publisher of “The Rail

Splitter,” and many anti-Catholic pamphlets and books, Milan,

111.; anti-Catholic agitator and Socialist for many years. Was



ANTI-CATHOLIC MOVEMENTS 141

arrested on Oct. 20, 1911, and fined $400 in Peoria, 111., for

sending immoral literature through the mails.

CLARKE, EDWARD YOUNG, Imperial Giant, K. K. K.
Arrested by police, Atlanta, Ga., while in a house of ill-fame in

company with MRS. ELIZABETH TYLER
,
Klan co-work-

er. Indicted at Houston, Tex., March 1, 1923, under the white

slave act, charge of transporting a woman from Houston to

New Orleans, La., for immoral purposes. Convicted and fined

$5,000. At another time indicted on charge of having liquor

in his possession illegally. Federal Department of Justice for

some time advertised him throughout the country, seeking his

apprehension.—The Chicago Tribune
,
(March 2, 1923).

COPELAND, REV. A. REILLY, Raptist minister, anti-

Catholic writer and lecturer, one of the organizers of the

“Anti-Papal League.” Eleven indictments for criminal libel

against city and county officials, Waco, Tex., returned against

him in 1925.—The Searchlight Fort Worthy Tex., (Jan. 16,

1925).

CORTNER, W. M., Klan kleagle and organizer, Muncie,

Ind. Arraigned on a charge of riotous conspiracy at Spring-

field, O., in February, 1923.—New York Sun
,
(Feb. 17, 1923).

CRANE, ROY, alias “Ex-priest Hilderbrand.” Anti-Cath-

olic agitator. In prison three times: for selling drugs, for circu-

lating bogus K. of C. oath, and leading anti-draft riots. Served

time in the Federal Penitentiary, Leavenworth, Kas., from

Nov. 2, 1917 to Apr. 4, 1922.

CRAWFORD, REV. C. C., “Disciples” Minister, St.

Louis, Mo., anti-Catholic lecturer, editor, “The Patriot,” Klan

sheet, St. Louis, Mo. He signed a written confession of frauds

in connection with the offering of mythical prizes for a motto

for “The Patriot” in 1924 and was being investigated by post-

office inspectors.—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
,
(March 7, 1924).

CRAWFORD, MATTIE, Self-styled ex-Catholic and

evangelist. Enjoined by court order from conducting ser-



142 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

vices at Flushing, N. Y.—Chicago Herald and Examiner, (Sept.

2, 1926).

DAVIS, REV. A. A., Baptist minister, one of the founders

of the “Anti-Papal League.” Found guilty of perjury in testi-

mony in connection with the flogging of R. W. Burleson by the

Klan, and sentenced to serve two years in prison, on Jan. 26,

1924, at Georgetown, Texas.—Freeport (III.) Journal, (Jan. 26,

1924).

DE LONG, REV. F. F., Baptist minister. Anti-Catholic
agitator for many years. Committed, on Dec. 15, 1904, to the

State Hospital for the Insane, Lincoln, Nebr. His wife was

granted a divorce in 1925. At the time of filing her petition at

Ortonville, Mich., in July, 1925, Mrs. De Long charged that

her husband had bestowed undue attentions on a girl who

was residing with them. De Long had, for some time, been

traveling about with this girl and exhibiting her as an alleged

“escaped nun.’’—Detroit (Mich.) Times, (July 11, 1925).

DOBBYN, REV.
J.

H., Lutheran minister when last re-

ported. Anti-Catholic agitator. An old offender against de-

cency; as far back as 1898, and again in 1915. Eleven boys

testified before the Church Council of the English Lutheran

Church, Kent, O., in 1924, that he had been guilty of improp-

er conduct and he was obliged to flee the town. Arrested at

Hamilton, Ontario, April 5, 1924, by local detectives on war-

rant issued by the Sheriff of Portage Co., Ohio.—Akron (O.)

Press, (March 29, 1924). Pittsburgh Gazette-Times, (April 6,

1924)

.

DONNELLY, JOSEPH, Fake ex-priest. Contributor to

Klan periodicals. Arrested in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1919. Was

found intoxicated in the street and using abusive language.

DOVER, GEORGE L., Klan official, Chattanooga, Tenn.

Indicted on charge of perjury, Chattanooga, Tenn., Oct. 29,

1925. At the same time indictments were returned against

JAMES ESDALE, “Imperial representative,” and B. J. RICE,

another local Klan official.—Chattanooga Times, (Oct. 30,

1925)

.



ANTI-CATHOLIC MOVEMENTS 143

DUVALL, JOHN L., Klan Mayor of Indianapolis, Ind.

Convicted of corrupt political practices and sentenced to one

year in jail. Ousted from the mayorship, 1927.

EDGEWORTH, JAMES G., Klan Councilman of Denver,

Colo. In June, 1926, he went on trial at Del Norte, Colo., on a

charge of “obtaining money from the state under false pre-

tences.”—Denver Register
,
(June 24, 1926).

EMMONS, HUGH “PAT,” In jail at South Bend, await-
ing extradition to Canada. Klan organizer, charged with em-

bezzlement of $11,313 of Canadian Klan’s money.—Hunting-

ton (Ind.) Herald
,
(Feb. 14, 1928).

“ETHEL,” “SISTER MARY,” alias Mrs. Helen Steep. Ex-

nun, lecturer for the Klan. Arrested Nov. 23, 1923, at Kansas

City, Mo., charged with selling obscene literature.—Kansas

City (Mo.) Star
,
(Nov. 23, 1923).

EVANS, HIRAM WESLEY, Imperial Wizard of Klan.

Often before the courts because of suits brought against him

for slander and defamation of character of other Klansmen.

Simmons, the original founder of the Klan, charged him with

responsibility for the Carnegie, Pa., riots.

FARNSWORTH, EUGENE, King Kleagle of Klan in

Maine and Massachusetts. Hails from New Brunswick. One

time mesmerist; was charged with murder at Woonsocket, R.

I., because a man with whom he was experimenting in an ex-

hibition of his prowess died on his hands.

FINLEY, ARTHUR, Prominent Klansman, Constable of

Broken Bow, Okla. Sentenced to two years in the Oklahoma

State Penitentiary on Aug. 27, 1923, when he plead guilty to a

charge of riot.—Nett; York Herald, (Aug. 28, 1923).

FLEETWOOD, EVERETT L., Klan organizer, Swea

City, la. Admitted to the Minnesota State Penitentiary to

serve term for grand larceny on Oct. 5, 1909. Deserted wife

and two children at Dundas, Minn.—Kossuth County Advocate

Algona
,
la., (May 21, 1925).



144 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

FULLER, EDGAR L, Klan Kleagle, Sacramento, Calif.
Arrested on Nov. 2, 1922 at Oakland, Calif., and returned to

Sacramento to face prosecution on two counts: for distributing

a bogus circular signed “The Catholic Welfare League,” and

for criminal libel against W. R. Cook, a candidate for office.—

Sacramento (Calif.) Star
,
Nov . 2, 1922.

FURNEY, N. N., Cashier of the Klan, Atlanta, Ga. War-

rant issued on Apr. 4, 1923, charging him with embezzlement

of $80,000 of the Klan’s funds. Warrant at the same time is-

sued against T.
J.
McKINNON, Chief of the Klan’s Investi-

gating Department, on the same charge.—Huntington (Ind.)

Press
,
(Apr. 5, 1923).

GARNER BROTHERS: GEORGE GARNER and R. C.
(ROMA) GARNER, Fake ex-priests, associates of L. J. King,

assisting the latter as singing evangelists. Later lecturing on

“their own.” Charged during September, 1924, before the

courts of Sarnia, Ontario, with having robbed St. Joseph’s

church, Sarnia, of consecrated hosts to use in celebrating a

mock Mass.—Egansville (Out.) Leader
,
(Octo. 1, 1924).

GILBERT, HAROLD, District Representative and organ-

izer of Klan, Cobourg, Ontario. On trial, charged with extor-

tion, during April, 1926, at Cobourg.—The New World Chi-

cago .
,

(April 2, 1926).

GLOSSNER, DOYLE, Klan organizer. Under arrest at

Youngstown, O., March 2, 1923.—Youngstown Daily Vindica-

tor
,
(March 2, 1923).

GOODIN, HARRY IT., Anti-Catholic lecturer. Formerly

Baptist preacher, Pontiac, 111. Fake ex-priest. Arrested Dec.

17, 1908, in Chicago, on charge of seducing and abducting

Anna Blanche Edgerton, 15-year-old girl of Pontiac.—Chicago

Inter-Ocean
,
(Dec. 18, 1908).

GOODWIN, “THREE-FINGER” JACK, Anti-Catholic

lecturer, minister, klansman. Convicted by jury at Tacoma,

Wash., in March, 1924, “of a heinous statutory crime, the max-



ANTI-CATHOLIC MOVEMENTS 145

imum penalty for which is life imprisonment.”— Tablet

,

Brooklyn
,
N. Y., (March 15, 1924).

GORDON, LIEUTENANT D.
J.,

arrested and convicted

in July, 1922, at Oakland, Calif., for circulating bogus K. of

C. oath. Served six months in jail. Not an American citizen.—

Oklahoma Fiery Cross
,
(July 24, 1924).

GRAY, CHARLES, drill master Klan No. 4, Muncie, Ind.

Tried in February, 1926, for the murder of his 15-months-old

baby.— Muncie, Ind. Post-Democrat, (Feb. 12, 1926).

GREGORY, REV. W. F., Methodist minister, klan spell-

binder, Newport, Ky. Arrested on a warrant sworn to by Ana-

bel Fisher, in September, 1924, charging him with assault.—

Cincinnati Enquirer
,
(Sept. 24, 1924).

GROGAN, WESLEY E., treasurer Klan klavern, Kittery,

Maine. Skipped with more than $1,000 of Klan’s money, and

the White Coal & Power Co., Inc., of which he was secretary-

treasurer was found short of funds after his disappearance.—

The Register, Denver, Colo., (Sept. 28, 1926).

GRISCIOTTI, C., Ex-priest, being exploited in Texas by

the Baptists as anti-Catholic lecturer. Priest in Lower Califor-

nia, where he “took unto himself” a “civil-law wife,” by whom

he had three children. Deserted this family, came to Texas in

1921, and joined the Methodist church in 1922.—The South-

western Catholic, Santa Fe, N. M., (Sept. 1, 1922).

HALL, HOOPER, Klan kleagle of Baltimore, Md. Re-

tained funds owed to national Klan headquarters, and com-

mitted suicide at Louisville, Ky., May 24, 1923, when pressure

was brought to bear to make him “pay up.’’—Indiana Record,

Indianapolis, (June 1, 1923).

HARTMAN, PHILIP A., Prominent Klansman, Lebanon

and Annville, Pa. Confessed to Reading police his robbery of

Abbotstown (Pa.) State Bank and murder of State Policeman

Francis L. Haley, Catholic.—Record-Herald, Waynesboro, Pa.,

(Oct. 17, 1924).



146 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

HIGHT, REV. LAWRENCE M., Methodist minister,
Ina, 111. Murdered his own wife. Sentenced to life imprison-

ment, Mt. Vernon, 111., Sept.-Oct., 1924. During trial he testi-

fied that he had been "an active worker in the Ku Klux Klan.”

—The Tablet
,
Brooklyn

,
N . Y., (Sept. 27, 1924).

HIGHTOWER, WILLIAM A., "Continually attended

meetings of the Klan” in and near Bakersfield, Calif., accord-

ing to District Attorney Franklin A. Swart of San Mateo, Calif.

Convicted in October, 1921, of the murder of Rev. Patrick E.

Heslin, Catholic priest, and sentenced to life-imprisonment.—

News Item, N. C. W. C
.,
(Oct. 21, 1921).

HOTALEN, REV. W. EARL, Methodist minister, Klan

Cyclops and Grand Titan, Red Bank, Tenn. Enjoined by court

order issued to Klansmen from exercise of dictatorial and op-

pressive policies in Klan. Later on indicted for perjury by

Hamilton Co., Tenn., Grand Jury.—Chattanooga Times, (May

13, 1925, and Oct. 29, 1925).

HUFFER, REV. ELMER, Minister, Klansman, Newell,

W. Va. Fugitive from justice. Two indictments issued, charg-

ing him with obtaining money under false pretences from the

Grant District Board of Education in Sept., 1922, and Oct.,

1923. Forfeited bond of $1000.—Tolerance, Chicago, 111.,

(March 6, 1924).

JACKSON, HELEN. Fake ex-nun. Incorrigible girl in

House of Good Shepherd, Detroit, Mich. Once escaped from

institution; returned by detectives; told companions she had

been over night in house-of-ill-fame. Lost suit for libel against

Ypsilanti, Mich., editor who had referred to her as "a woman

of the street.” Enjoined from holding meetings at Muncie,

Ind., by court order in November, 1922. Defied Mayor and

Police of Norwood, O., in January, 1925.

JOHNSON, HERBERT ROY, Klansman, Syracuse, N. Y.
Under arrest for defacing Catholic church by smearing a "K.

K. K.” on the door.—News Item, N. C. W. C., News Service,
(Nov. 8, 1924).



ANTI-CATHOLIC MOVEMENTS 147

JOHNSON, REV. ULYSSES S., Baptist minister, Klan

lecturer, Waldron, Ind. Arrested June 26, 1923, charged with

setting fire to his own church at Waldron on May 10, 1923.—

Indiana Record
,
Indianapolis

,
(June 29

,
1923).

JONES, AL. Indicted on Oct. 24, 1924, at Chattanooga,

Tenn., under the Tennessee Ku Klux Klan law for assaulting

and attempting to rob John Carroll, while wearing a mask. Al-

so indicted for highway robbery. His companion, BILL

BURCH, was indicted on similar charges at the same time.

JONES, REV. E. O., Baptist minister, “general kleagle” of

the Klan, Moundsville, W. Va. Convicted of conspiracy in

connection with shooting of Dan Washington, negro. Sentenc-

ed to 5 years in State penitentiary. At the same time J. A.

LANDIS and IVAN POLING were also convicted and sen-

tenced.—Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette
,
(Oct. 28, 1924).

JONES, LEWIS A., financial backer of a Klan daily, Can-

on City, Colo. Court ordered him to pay $2,500 to Clarence

A. Noble for alienation of affections of latter s wife.—Denver

Register
, (Jan. 14, 1926).

JONES, N. T., Chief Investigator and publicity agent for

Klan, secret agent of Mexican Government, and agent of In-

telligence Unit of U. S. Internal Revenue Department. Son of

Anti-Saloon League Superintendent of Georgia. Once posed as

friend of Catholics and “regional director” of American Unity

League. On trial in September, 1925, Baltimore, Md., charged

with conspiracy to divert alcohol to illegal uses through the

Maryland Drug and Chemical Co —The Sun
,
Baltimore, Md.,

(Sept. 19, 1925).

KILLENE, DR. H. F. Prominent Klansman, East St.

Louis, Mo. Found guilty of extortion by injury in Federal

Court on May 27, 1925.—S^. Louis Globe-Democrat, (May 28,

1925).

KING, L. J. Fake ex-priest, anti-Catholic lecturer for

many years, Toledo, O. Two men were killed and one ser-



148 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

iously wounded in connection with King’s meeting at North

Whiteford, Mich., on June 27, 1920, by “Guardian of Liberty”

thugs.—The Antidote Peekskill

,

A7 . Y., Sept., 1920; Toledo (O).

News, June 28, 1920. Arrested in Indianapolis, Ind., for as-

saulting woman who resented statement made in one of his

lectures.—Indianapolis (Ind.) News, Oct. 16, 1924. While he

and Garner Bros, were at Port Huron, Mich., the latter

entered St. Joseph’s church, Sarnia, Ont., on Aug. 13, 1924,

and stole consecrated Hosts, presumably for King to desecrate

in a mock Mass. King was again arrested at Evansville, Ind.,

on March 6, 1925, charged with inciting to riot. He led a mob

against a Catholic institution there. A writ of attachment was

served on King at a depot in South Bend, Ind., just as he was

departing because he was attempting to avoid payment of

$200 to a fellow-Klansman he owed for services rendered.

Finally King was convicted, together with the Garner Broth-

ers, on charges of resisting officers at Alma, Mich., on July 19,

1925, when he, at the head of his followers, forced his way in-

to a public park to hold meetings in defiance of mayor’s and

police’s orders.—Toledo (O.) Times, (Oct. 12, 1926).

KITCHEN, H. H. Klan organized, Oklahoma City, Okla.

In jail for contempt of court at Topeka, Kan., (March 1, 1923).

KUENZEL, FRED W. Captain of the “special executive

agents” of Morley, Klan Governor of Colorado. Deserter from

the British army. “Wanted” by the police of New York City

and police of Melbourne, N. J., as well as by the British Army

authorities.—The Awakening, Denver, Colo., (Dec. 17, 1925).

LAWSON, REV. GEORGE H. Evangelical minister,

Orange, N. J. Klan chaplain. Got thirty days in jail for drunk-

en and disorderly conduct at Perth Amboy, N. J., Nov. 29,

1925.—Jersey Journal, (Dec. 1, 1925).

LOCKE, DR. JOHN GALEN. Grand Dragon Colorado

Klan. Sentenced on June 15, 1925, to ten days in jail and fined

$1500 for contempt of a Federal Court. Locke had also pre-

viously been held in jail for contempt because he refused to



ANTI-CATHOLIC MOVEMENTS 149

testify, when charged with evading payment of his income tax.

—St. Louis Globe-Democrat
,
(June 4, 1925).

LOUGHER, REV. E. H. Klan organizer. Under arrest,

Owensboro, Ky., for "wilfully banding together with others

for the purpose of intimidating, alarming, disturbing or in-

juring/—Owensboro, Ky. Messenger
,
(Aug. 23, 1923).

MacCORMACK,
J.

E. M. National Klan organizer. Sued

by wife for divorce. Charged with adultery, etc.—Chicago

Tribune
,
(Dec. 2, 1921).

MacCURDY, BRENTON H. Head of Boston A. P. A. and

"Loyal Coalition.” Twice under arrest for passing bad checks,

in Dec. 1924, and May, 1925. Fined $50 on May 25, 1925,

Municipal Court, Boston.—Boston (Mass.) Evening Transcript,

(May 25, 1925).

McCREARY,
J. C. Editor "The Independent” Klan

weekly, Colorado Springs, Colo. Sued for $10,000 damages,

libel, by Sheriff Samuel R. Berkley.—Wisconsin News, (Oct.

26, 1925).

McGEHEE, REV. CHARLES D. Ex-Methodist minister,

Klan lecturer, St. Louis, Mo. Fired from the Methodist min-

istry and Methodist church, his army chaplaincy, and then fi-

nally from the Klan. At last report had been ousted from the

Presbyterian ministry and the Presbyterian church, which he

joined and to which he presented forged credentials as a

"Presbyterian minister.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch, (Dec. 17,

1924)/

MALONE, PAT. Anti-Catholic lecturer for many years,

more recently Klan lecturer. Under scrutiny by Department of

Justice agents for disloyal activities during the late war. Sen-

tenced to one year in county jail at Oconto, Wis., in Nov.,

1926, for criminal slander against a Catholic priest. Case was

remanded on appeal and Malone was fined. ROLAND RICE,
Klansman, Malone’s assistant, was also awaiting trial, but in-

jured priest did not proceed with prosecution after Rice had



150 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

apologized for his part in slander.—Daily American Tribune

,

Dubuque

,

Za., (Non. 19, 1926).

MAYFIELD, BILLIE. Publisher of “Col. Mayfield’s

Weekly/’ Klan sheet of Texas. Attempted to kidnap G. V.

Saunders, former editor of The Houston Press —Locomotive

Firemen and Enginemens Magazine
, July, 1923. Sued for di-

vorce by his three-days’ bride, who charged “cruel, harsh, un-

kind, and tyrannical treatment.”—Houston (Tex.) Press, July

25, 1923. Was sentenced to two-year term in county jail at

Marshall, Tex., on Mar. 20, 1925, for libel; but when he

begged for mercy and signed a retraction was fined $732.60.—

Houston, Tex. Press, (Mar. 22, 1925).

MILLER-MOSS, MRS. NEVA. Fake ex-nun. Incorrigible

girl in Houses of Good Shepherd, Detroit and Grand Rapids,

Mich. Sentenced, on Jan. 15, 1927, to a fine of $100 or 30 days

in jail for “disorderly conduct” at York, Pa., by the Mayor of

York; and this sentence, on appeal, was upheld by the higher

court.—Youngstown Vindicator, (Jan. 16, 1927). Again arrested

at Clarendon, Va., on Feb. 8, 1928, on charge of “obtaining

money under false pretenses.”

MORROW, BENJAMIN F. Indicted at Belleville, 111., for

distributing “anonymous and scurrilous” Klan and anti-Cath-

olic literature before a municipal primary. HARRY WEEKS

and WALTER GILLEN were indicted on same charge also.—
Cleveland (O.) Plain-Dealer, (Apr. 19, 1923).

MOYERS, WILLIAM. Klan organizer, Appalachia, Va.

Confessed in court, at Burlington, Vt., on Nov. 6, 1924, to the

theft of vestments and other articles from St. Mary’s Cathe-

dral, Burlington. WILLIAM McCREEDY and GORDON
WELLS, his assistants, were sentenced to serve from four to

six years in the House of Correction at hard labor on Nov. 18,

1924 —Catholic Telegraph, Cincinnati, (Nov. 20, 1924).

NORRIS, REV.
J.

FRANK. Baptist minister, one-time

Klansman, anti-Catholic preacher and agitator. Was under

investigation at one time by Department of Justice author-



ANTI-CATHOLIC MOVEMENTS 151

ities, the charge having been made that he burned down his

own church at Fort Worth, Texas. Indicted, on July 29, 1926,

by the Tarrant Co. (Tex.) grand jury for the murder of D. E.

Chipps, wealthy lumberman and Mason.—Fort Wayne (Ind.)

Journal-Gazette
,
(July 30, 1926).

OLDHAM, ALVIN S, alias JAMES O’BRIEN. Klan or-

ganizer. Fugitive from justice. Escaped from Indiana state

prison where he was serving time for embezzlement. Also

wanted by police in Los Angeles, New York, Jacksonville, Fla.,

Durham, N. C., and other places. Arrested in New Orleans

and held for extradition.—New Orleans Times-Picayune
,
(July

10, 1924).

PENFOLD, SAXBY. Anti-Catholic writer; contributed to

C. Lewis Fowler’s “American Standard” and wrote against

Gov. Smith of New York. Placed on probation for sixty days

by Magistrate, Tombs Court, New York City, charge of ac-

costing and annoying a woman on the street, in April, 1927.—

New York Times
,
(Apr. 23, 1927).

PARKER, LOUIS. Editor “Protestant Herald,” Denver,

Klan paper. Got jail sentence of thirty days for passing worth-

less check for $20.—Denver Register
,
(June 16, 1927).

PATMONT, REV. LOUIS R. Anti-Catholic agitator ex-

ploited by the “Disciples.” Figured in fake kidnapping in 1914.

Arrested May 15, 1925, on charge of using mails to defraud

in connection with a “mail-order marriage” project in which

he was active, at Omaha, Nebr., where he was then pastor of

a Christian Church.—New York Times
,
(May 17

, 1925).

RAINBOW, “PROF.” Advance publicity-agent for Helen

Jackson and W. C. Tanner (vide). Arrested at Dayton, O., on

Dec. 6, 1924, and charged with the commission of an unspeak-

able offense of same nature as Tanner’s.

REESE, REV. W. H. W. Presbyterian minister, active

Klan member. Tried in July, 1925, by the Presbytery of New

Brunswick, N.
J.,

on charges of “conducting himself in a man-



152 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

ner unbecoming a minister and neglecting his duties.”—Hud-

son, y. J. Dispatch, (July 7, 1925).

RICH, SAM D. Klan Grand Dragon and Kleagle, Penn-

sylvania. Sued by his wife for divorce; she claimed he had

made $500,000 out of the Klan in 5 years and wanted half of

his earnings.—The Telegraph, Cincinnati, (Oct. 28, 1926).

RIDLEY, REV. CALEB A. Baptist minister, Klan Im-

perial Kludd, Atlanta, Ga. Ousted by the Baptist Ministers*

Conference of Atlanta in June, 1982, and shortly afterwards

was arrested while driving a car, in an intoxicated condition.

RUTLEDGE, G. K. Klan agitator, once connected with

the “American Unity League” of Chicago. Found dead; police

pronounced it suicide.—Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, (Sept.

11 , 1926) “Edgar Allen Booth,” in “The Mad Mullah of Amer-

ica,'’ says that Rutledge was slain by Klan avengers.

SANDERSON, HOMER. Klansman. Sentenced to ISO

days on the county works at Jasper, Ala., on April 10, 1925,

for participation in the flogging of George Tallant on March

9.—Irish World
,
(April 25

, 1925).

SENTER, MRS. GANO. Official of Women’s Branch,

Klan. Sued at Denver, Colo., for the recovery of $150,000 in

funds and paraphernalia which passed through her hands, by

the “Women of the K. K. K.”—Denver Register, (Dec. 17,

1925).

SIKES, BEN F. Self-confessed Klansman, Broken Bow,

Okla. Sentenced on Aug. 23, 1923, to 2 years in the Oklahoma

penitentiary for participation in floggings. At the same time

his companions in guilt, also Klansmen, GROVER C. SIKES

and EARL SACK received sentences of two years each.—Fort

Worth, Tex . Record, (Aug. 24, 1923).

SIMMONS, “COL.” WILLIAM JOSEPH. Founder of the

Ku Klux Klan, Atlanta, Ga. Former Methodist minister. Often

before the courts in litigation over the Klan. Sold out his in-

terests to Evans for $146,000. In court, at Chattanooga, Tenn.,

September, 1922, it was charged by defendants, in injunc-



ANTI-CATHOLIC MOVEMENTS 153

tion suit brought by Simmons, that he had been “on a pro-

longed debauch and was unfit to transact the business of the

organization/
1

SINNINGER, CAL. Publisher of the Walton (Ind
.)

Weekly Enterprise

,

violent anti-Catholic and proKlan sheet,

1923-24. Spent 7 years in the Longcliff Asylum for the insane.

—Mancie
,
Ind. Post-Democrat, (Feb. 29, 1924).

SKELLY, WILLIAM. Klan agitator and thug. Sentenced

to five years in the Portsmouth penitentiary and deportation

from Canada, after being found guilty on Oct. 14, 1926, at

Barrie, Ontario, for dynamiting St. Mary’s Catholic Church. At

the same time his companions, WILLIAM BUTLER and

CHARLES D. LEE, local Klan officers, received sentences of

four years and three years respectively.—New York Times,

(Oct. 15, 1926).

SKIPWITH, CAPTAIN
J.

K. Klan Grand Cyclops, More-

house, La. Attained notoriety in connection with the atrocious

murders of Mer Rouge, perpetrated in August, 1922.

SPURGEON, REV. OTIS L. Baptist minister, for many

years anti-Catholic lecturer, more recently Klan agitator.,

Figured in a “kidnapping” case at Denver in 1914. Arrested on

Jan. 4, 1925, at Collierville, Tenn., and brought to Memphis

to face a grand larceny charge. Shortly before this a Memphis

bank announced Spurgeon’s default on a note and Spurgeon

had charged the Klan with keeping back salary in amount of

$12,053 from him.—Memphis News-Scimitar, (Oct. 24, 1924,

and Jan. 5, 1925).

STEPHENSON, D. C. One time Grand Dragon, Indiana

Klan. Former socialist in Oklahoma. “Pal” of Gov. Ed Jack-

son and political “boss” of Indiana. Served many years of life

sentence at Michigan City, after conviction of responsibility

for the death of Madge Oberholtzer.

TANNER, W. C. Fake ex-priest. On trial in December,

1924, at Dayton, O., for an unmentionable crime. Three 15-

year-old boys testified against him; and he was sentenced



154 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

on Dec. 8, 1924, to a one-year term on the Dayton workfarm.

The judge, prosecuting-attorney, and jurymen were all non-

Catholics. In court Tanner confessed that he never was a

Catholic priest—Dayton Daily News
,
(Dec. 1924).

THOMAS, C. E. Klan agitator, circulator of anti-Cath-

olic literature, “special deputy-sheriff.” Arrested in a police

raid on vice resorts, Carrollton, Mo., Jan. 7, 1926. The REV.

ALBERT S. GAFFNEY, Presbyterian minister, same city,

and fellow-worker in the “National Law Enforcement League”

of Kansas City, at once came to his assistance.—Republican-

Record, (Carrollton
,
Mo.) (Jan. 8, 1926).

TRUE, EZRA. Prominent Klansman, Muncie, Ind. Con-

victed in May, 1925, of an unmentionable crime. Twelve boys

of his “scout troop” testified against him—Muncie (Ind).

Post-Democrat
,
(May 22, 1925).

UPCHURCH, U. P. Atlanta, Ga. Klan organizer for

southern New Jersey. Arrested March 31, 1924, at Camden,

N.
J.,

charged with assault on a fellow Klansman. He, with

a companion, MORSE, also assaulted the wife of the com-

plainant, Warfield.—New York Herold Tribune, (March 31,

1924).

WALT, ROBERT E. Klan solicitor, Denver. In jail for

the abduction of Alberta Blanchard, 14-year-old girl.—The

Awakening, Denver, (Nov. 5, 1925).

WHITE, “BISHOP” ALMA. “Pillar of Fire” sect leader.

Militant anti-Catholic. Sued some years ago for alienating

the affections of a Mrs. Goode by the husband of the woman.

The “Bishop” was denied a divorce from her own husband,

when she brought suit against him. In August, 1926, the

parents of a girl, whom the “Bishop” had spirited away from

her home to the sect’s establishment at Zarephath, N. J., were

striving frantically to regain possession of their daughter.—

Fort Wayne (Ind.) Journal-Gazette, (Aug. 27, 1926).

WILSON, GEORGE E. Prominent Klansman, Trinidad,



ANTI-CATHOLIC MOVEMENTS 155

Colo. Also named in connection with the assault with intent

to kill Mr. Frank Flynn, Catholic. Wilson was named by

Rocco as one of his employers. See FRANK BLASS.— The

Awakening (Denver
,
Colo.), (Oct. 15, 1925).

WILSON, O. CLINTON. Prominent Klansman, Denver,

Colo. Sued by his second wife for divorce, in August, 1927,

charge “cruelty and desertion.” His first wife had voluntarily

released him so he could marry this woman, to whom for a

long time he had devoted his attentions. — Denver Evening

News
,
(Aug. 11, 1927.)

ZEIGLER, R. CARL. Former minister, Klan Kleagle in

New Jersey. Deserted his wife and three children and fled

with a woman to El Paso, Tex., where he and the woman

were arrested July 22, 1925, and returned to New Jersey.

Note

One would imagine that the American people should

have had its appetite well satisfied for anti-Catholicism and

that it would have, by this time, been disposed to distrust

any new movement designed to separate Catholics from

their non-Catholic citizens in this country, so often referred

to as fair-minded.

Our nation is flooded with leaflets of all kinds called

“Tracts,” published by fifty different Protestant groups or in-

dividuals. Since the profit on the sale of these Tracts must

be very meager, isn’t it quite logical to conclude that the

sponsors and authors must be, whether knowingly or un-

knowingly, the tools of organizations which need watching?



THINK IT OVER

No one can read about the activities of the POAU, no

matter through which field-agent it is carried on, without ar-

riving at the conviction that it has only one purpose, namely,

"to get the Catholic Church.” None seems to care how dis-

honorable the means employed if only his end will be

achieved. They have been rebuked for that by the American

Council of Churches, by the American Council of Christian

Laymen, by many ministers and by editors of many publica-

tions.

How any Christian can read the character-sketches con-

tained in this book, all of which tell the truth, without break-

ing company with them, is inconceivable to one who actually

believes in Christ and in our own Republican form of govern-

ment. Bible Christians and Patriots the founders of POAU

certainly are not.

We have often reiterated the point that every one of the
founders and present officers of the POAU knows that the

Bishops of the United States are not seeking all-out support

for the parochial schools; should know that the Catholic

Hierarchy of the United States does not work as a unit. They

tell an untruth—and they know it—when they publicize that

the Catholic Church does not recognize a marriage between

two Protestants. At most denominational conventions held this

year—at least according to the newspapers—there was very

little done in a constructive way, but, after taking a stand on

some political issue, resolutions were passed to send to

President Truman demanding that he disallow bus transpor-

tation to the parochial school child, and the appointment of

a successor to Myron Taylor at the Vatican.

We are certain that this new anti-Catholie activity will be
a boomerang and, within a decade, Protestants will feel its

disastrous effects—not because Catholics will try to do any-

thing about it, but because the outstanding lesson of history

is that. Even in the Reformation countries, Germany, England,



THINK IT OVER 157

Holland, where it was vigorously persecuted, the Catholic

Church alone is growing today.

The Catholic Church in this country never grew so fast,

during any period, as when it was under attack; there was

never such a demand for parochial schools, in communities

which did not have them, as there is today.

Last year (1950) the Church had its largest number of

converts from all ranks of life—122,000. Each underwent a

long period of personal instruction and was told that he would

be accepted only if he could declare honestly that~be believed

fully in the Church’s claims and teachings.

Good Protestants are shocked when they find that their

leading churchmen follow atheists and accept the support of

any organization, no matter how anti-Christian. These are the

Protestants who, in large numbers, make an investigation of

their own of the charges leveled against the Catholic Church.

They cannot believe about the Church of their Catholic

neighbors, of their business partners, of their fellow-workmen

in office and factory, of those with whom they mingle socially,

what they read in the literature of the POAU, or in many sec-

tarian journals.

In Germany, where the Protestant reformation began,

Protestant Church leaders are working in the very opposite

direction from the POAU. A news item from Hamburg, on

May 16, 1951, noted that the relations between the Protestants

and Catholics in Germany are “better than at any time during

the last 400 years.” So said the Evangelical Bishop of Hanover

and Deputy Chairman of the Council of the Evangelical

Church in Germany. He remarked further: “German Protest-

ants are fully prepared to do everything possible to retain this

good relationship. . . . Cooperation between Catholics and

Protestants is indispensible in view of the present situation of

Christianity.”



158 WHO'S WHO IN THE POAU?

ALL PROTESTANT GROUPS DO NOT SEE
ALIKE

American Council of Christian Laymen

122 W. Washington Ave.,

Madison, Wisconsin

Our Sunday Visitor

Huntington, Ind.

Dear Editor:

Since my retirement from active business, I have been
even busier than before as result of my acttiities in con-
nection with this Council. My reading list is larger, but
somewhat different. For several years a good Catholic friend

employed in the same Company, supplied me with Our

Sunday Visitor each w’eek; now wre both are retired and do

not see each other.

I am pleased then, to learn from you, that Visitor read-

ers have been advised about Mr. Markham’s book, and know'

that not all Protestants are as narrow-minded and viciously

biased against another Christian communion as people of the

Blanshard stripe. Another of my pet peeves is Harold E.

Fey, hatchet man for the Christian Century (so sadly mis-

named) in matters pertaining to Catholic—Protestant rela-

tionships.

I first heard about the POAU at a meeting of Protes-
tant laymen in September 1950, at winch the plans for the

organization wrere outlined by Charles Clayton Morrison,

former editor of Christian Century. I told the group at that

time that so far as I was concerned, POAU is “Pfui.” . . .
Frankly, I see more in the anti-Catholic attitude of men

like Morrison, Fey and Blanshard, than merely desire to

exploit and profit by hatred and prejudice. I asked leaders

of POAU, “who are the ‘others’ if not Communists, Atheists,

Anti-Christians and un-Americans?” The men mentioned are

doing a fine job for the Communists in breaking dowm con-

fidence in our American institutions through their activities

in other organizations, and nobody is happier than the Com-

munists when Christians fight among themselves. POAU w'as
organized and is being sponsored by men with evil records

in support of and affiliation with Communist-front organiza-

tions.—Verne P. Kaub, President, American Council Of

Christian laymen.



THINK IT OVER 159

American Council of Christian Churches

15 Park Row

New York 7, N. Y.

Our Sunday Visitor

Huntington, Ind.

Dear Editor:

By our good friend, Dr. Carl Mclntire, President of the

International Council of Christian Churches, our attention

has been called to your March 4th issue in which on page 4

under “Father Quiz of Matterrs Catholic” you indicate that

the Federal Council was regarded as too modern by both the

International Council of Christian Churches and this Council

(The American Council of Christian Churches) for member-

ship, but then you go on to say, referring to this Council,

“The latter has now joined the National Council of Church-
79

es.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Generally

speaking, the very same position which the International

Council of Christian Churches takes on the world level as in

sharp distinction from the World Council of Churches, this

Council takes on the North American scene in equally sharp

distinction from the National Council of Churches.

It is a matter of common knowledge to all who have

made the slightest observation that precisely the same lead-

ership which for long dominated the Federal Council is now

in complete control of the National Council. That leadership,

as clearly indicated by the books of its officials has been so

anti-supernaturalistic in its pronounced Modernism as to make

it abhorrent not only to every Biblical Protestant, but we

should hope to every Roman Catholic as well. Citation of

many of its officers by our Attorney-General and the House

Committee on Un-American Activities reveal multiple asso-

ciations with subversive organizations, and some of us be-

lieve on the basis of massive evidence that the old Federal

Council and the very leaders who now head the new Na-

tional Council, could be proved as war criminals No. 1 be-

cause of their militant promotion of pacifism immediately

preceding World War II.

Therefore, believing as we do that the controlling lead-

ership of the National Council is by men who degrade and



160 WHO’S WHO IN THE POAU?

dishonor Christ shamelessly by their unbelief, and that their

promotion of a suicidal, non-resistent pacifism and a Fabian

Socialism makes them a serious menace to the very life of our

nation, you can certainly recognize how unthinkable it would

be that anyone in the American Council should consent for

one moment to be identified with the National Council of

Churches. It is our settled conviction that every Christian

who is a member of a denomination belonging to the Na-

tional Council should serve notice in no uncertain terms that

if his denomination does not withdraw from such member-

ship, he will leave the denomination and take membership

in a church which does not give aid and comfort to the ene-

mies of Christ and His pure gospel.

We have already received expressions of alarm and
amazement by those wiio have read such misinformation as

your columns carried. It is exceedingly important for the

reputation of this Council that a retraction and correction

appear as quickly and prominently as possible. You are, of

course, at liberty to print this letter if you care to do so.

“We would appreciate being advised as to the source

of your wrong information that correction may be made

there also.

“Respectfully yours,

Wm. Harllee Bordeaux

General Secretary”

POAU Imitates the Communists

On June 2, 1951, Religious News Service observed:

“Communist campaigns against the Roman Catholic Church

in Europe's Iron Curtain countries are being pushed with

new vigor, especially in Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary

and Poland.”

It observed further: “A secret conference of Communist

representatives met in Carlsbad, Czechoslovakia . . . Soviet

delegates were reported to have voiced dissatisfaction with

the progress of the anti-Church measures, especially in Poland

and Hungary.” What Communist leaders regard as an enemy

must be a real asset to orderly society.