The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1871-09-06


murder. The strength of the Irish In
telligence and the organization of the
Catholic Church should have been
sufficient to check the ferocious spirit
of mob violence. Bit they did not,
and there was every reason to believe
they would or could not, and so the
conservative arm of the law, as a pre-
vention, was the most certain method.
The right Of one class of citizens to
publicly insult another class every year
seems questionable right. Certainly
it is q dangerous one to be exercised.
The policy of sustaining by public
opinion public exultation of nationa!
calamity is q reproach rather than an
encouragement to'genuiEe tolerance.
Under preteuse of celebrating Pro-
testant triumph the Orangemen really
parade the vanquisliment of their
countrymen, and they do this at the
cost of disturbing the peace of people
al io hiSO i1iSpitctCu III lHtii iolCiSh
broils. That Governor Hoffman car
ried out an American principle with
rare courage is plain enough. But he
carried it out at fearful cost to pro-
tect an association that has little claim
on our respect or sympathy. Mr..
Kelso's order was tyrannical, but it
would have saved all the lives that
were lost and preserved the public
order. The question naIrows itself
down to the preservation of order by
SURPRISING a parade intended to Insult
a great mass of ignorant and excited
people and tue assertion of naked
abstraction at the cost of many lives
and the peace of a great metropolis
aud this is a very nice question in
civil ethics. The debate in the New
York papers is interesting. The point
we wish to make, however, refers to
the disposition to get up a religious
excitement about it.
In country like. ours, an1jn an
age as advanced, as enliglited and as
skeptical as this, nothing is more un-
likely than tie domination of any re-
ligious sect. The effort to get up a
"no-Popery" spirit is ridiculous. The
Catholic Church has its uses and
abuses, and, like every great organiza-
ton, is a mixture of good and i'll. So
far as it threatens the souls of men
we are indifferent, because we are not
engaged in the soul-saving line of
business. AS far as it threatens the
State we are interested, and whenever
we think we see it making any danger
| Gus encroachments on the Constitu-
ton or the body polite we shall have
| something to say. But the, man is a
lunatic or bigot who pretends that
| there is any such danger, and the out
cry raised through the agency of the
late riot is simply KnowNothi.gism
in new dress, Radical and Puritani-
cal cutlery designed to operate as a
political agent on rural opinion in
New York, and to take the State out
of tho hands of the Democracy.
The Radicals are trying to use the
riot of Wednesday for their own sell
fish purposes. They have nehope OF
getting the Irish vote. Therefore they
want to make the Irish as odious as
possible, to array every conceivable
prejudice against them, and ultimately
to reconstruct New York. The arti-
cles in the Tribune and the cartoons
in Harper's Weekly are conclusive on
this point, and: the outbreak of last
weak-unjustifahle and savage as it
was-is good food for both papers.
They will use it as they are using Ku-
kluxism, not only to the just censure
of the rioters bnt to the censure of the
Democratic party and the Catholic
Church, which are as little responsible
for the bloody work that was done as
the Southern people are for the acts of
violence which haye disturbed our do
nestle peace.
In conclusion, we have a word to say
to those over-sensitive persons who
are eyer ready to accuse us of bias for
or against this or that religions sect,
because of our unvarying habit of
speaking of them all with entire free
dom and candor. We have given, we
are sorry TO say, more offense to the
Catholics than to any other sect. Only
last week an article on the -infal-
lihility" movement in Germany, which
we meant to be fair presentment OF
the case, and which we believe to have
been such, gave great disguiet to some
of our Catholic readers. But little
while before we were called upon by a
deputation of Catholics to demonstrate
against certain expressions which they
said implied deep-seated hostility to
them. Last winter Mr.. Webb abused
rs like pickpocket in his paper, be-
cause OLA piece ofmiscellany which we
had published that disturbed the
Catholic imagination. Still later we
have learned from a highly fanciful
Protestant source that we ourselves
are devout Catholic (heaven bless
tho M n ri. rco rrish Nh ,rono llounnt n,