New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1854-10-19
KNOW-yOrHINGIssf.


tious excitement against Roman Catholics, which
is now rife in the land. Should some serious and
vertable Don Quixotte find a wide public CO.
operation in an attempt to revive knight Grant
~; or should the prevalent fillibusterism assume,
all Of a sudden, the form Of modern crusade to
recover the Holy Land from the in6del Turks
an unfinished job of our ancestors, which it might
be well to take advantage Of the present Russian
embodiment 10 complete-neither would be a
stsler reacting Of an old scene in. the drama Of
history than ia the new cry Of mo Popery,"
which almost threatens to drown oil our legiti-
mate politics. The plethoric and luxurious world
lately over-fed with prosperity, and fallen into
a MONDAY nap, is dreaming again the night.
mare that frightened its childhood ages ago.
Jesuits, hungry for souls, swarm through the land,
even hiding their shorn skulls under the curling
wigs Of some of our most popular statesmen.
Guy Fawkes is storing his combustibles and e1.
plosive under every legislative hall, and in the
vaults of all buildings where large conventions
copgregate. Catholic servant girls fascinated
at the confessional by the basilisk eyes Of their
priests are making 8 run upon the spothecares
for stry chime with which to poison the families
whose bread they eat.
Men with very free and-easy systems of reli-
gion men of no religion, men even of no mOral-
ty, join with the adherents of bigotries twinborn
with Pspacy, either in feigning or in feeling the
nightmare fears Of this spperstitious dream.
Prominent among our political topics for the last
ten years has been the problem of African Slave
~, in this nation and the adjustment either to its
prosperity or its encouragement Of various meas
ures Of internal and foreign state policy. The
recent reopening to Slavery of the national terri
tories by gross breach Of faith and Law, has
given additional Importance to this whole ques-
ton. Of equal local importance has been the
movement in many of the States, to give some
legal protection to society against the sellers of
Intoxicating drinks. After an effort that has
cost the labor and zeal and genius of thousands
OF the foremost men Of the nation, and now that
both Of these questions are fairly incorporated
into the programme of American politics to give
them new dignity and interest, We must suspend
the contest in its very agony, to join in puerle
and untimely prescription of the Catholics.
We are well aware that the new popular faith
has another article in its creed be sides its anti
Catholic one-that it assumes the narrow patri
otism Of Native Americanism, and hounds on
general persecution of classes Of men, as well on
the ground Of their nationality as on the ground
Of their religion. But it is the theological ele-
meDt that gives its zest to the new party, subsi.
dining widespread and deeply rooted preju.
dices that prevail among the uneducated With
out this theological element Native Amercani.m
would have but limited influence and q tenn
porary ascendancy. 1t is mainly because the
majority of foreigners Catholics, that their in
fuence in the Government is decried.
Here then in country opened as an asy lum to
men Of all creeds peopled by the love of liberty
of conscience, the boast of whose history has
been mainly its tolerance Of free thought, we
have the singular spectacle of an attempt to re-
,ive popular persecution Of the Oldest form of
Christian eccesiasticism, the faith Of nearly half
the civilized world. Ali the Christian charities
of the last three centuries that have gradually
melted away the bigotry and ferocity of theolog.
cal hatred the relaxations Of old statutes against
Quskers, Anabaptists AMI Pspists, free tolerance
and Catholic emancipstions, have been but the
cowardly expedients Of trimmers and time-serv-
ers, to be heartily repented Of and s.oned for By
lighting again the fires of Smithfeld, and bring
ing brave and good men to the block for constancy
in an Illegal faith, or coming as near to those
modes of suppression as public sentiment and the
temper Of the times will permit Now if this
new order of Notbingism proposes any
serious results, anything beyond . questionable
eIpediept to carry the very next election, there
are few considerations which it would be we'll