Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-08-17

peen SUBJECT OF discussion.
America owes much to the enterprise and
sterling moral principle of many of the
ioreign-born of her citizens, bot she also
owes much of her present political and
moral corruption to the same source. We
in New York have had special experience
of this foreign political tyranny; the
Western States of alien moral dep-avity;
and against both firm stand m.st be
taken. Provision has already been made
in the East to purify city government, in
the West the opportunity is present for
the suppression of Sunday desecratiou.
The discussion over the Worlds Fair has
opened the whole subject anew, and an adj
mIrable occasion is now offered for a gen.
eral revision of the Sunday laws. They
are in sore need of it. But in so doing
care should be taken 70 avoid excess in
either direction, fer too severe restrictions
are as likely to be productive of restless
ness and revolt as too great laxity of dam
gerous excitement and license"
When we find the most upright citizens taking
no interest in politics. showing no zeal for the
good government of the country we may expect
polisieal stagnat'on and corruption: but when
the best citizens manifest interest in public af-
fairs, We have good governraet and honest ad-
ministration of public trusts 1t is the duty of
every public man 10 take an active personal in
terest in the welfare of his country, and TO see
that the best citizens are elected to public
Bditfmsrs.
"At no period of our history have the
words used by Cardinal Gibbons been more
applicable that the present" says the
Freemaa's Journal Roman Catholic).
Thousands of our est-equipped citizens
take little or no interest in politics. Their
plea is that machine rule is dominant, and
that they would be contaminated by con-
tact with the rough masses. They take an
altogether pessimistic view of municipal,
state and national affairs, and too many Of
them are ready to join in with the foreign
ers who pronounce the republican govern
ment in America a failure. But these
gentlemen are sltogether mistaken.
Wherever government is corrupt, it will
be found owing largely TO the neglect of
such as they 10 do their duties as patriotic
Americans. They could speedily put to
rout the forces of evil, and cleanse the
Augean stables of public affairs. For,
while we believe that our Constitution and
free system contain in themselves the po-
the cooperation of the citizen to bring
and usefulness"
"The Roman ncontroversialists OF late are
making much of short and easy argument
for the paoal supremacy" says the Liring
Church. "The Church is an organized
body, and moreover, a visible body; but a
visible body, it is insisted, to be body at
all, must have visible head. 1t is often
asserted, and sometimes the assertion is
allowed to pass, that on this ground the
Anglo-Catholic position leads logically to
Rome. Since we acknowledge the visibil-
ity of the Church, we are illogical, it is
said, in denying the visible head. Sooner
or later our own reasoning will compel us
to accept the papal supremacy, infallibility
and all If we are to believe Mr.. Riv-
ington, who seeded to the Roman intru-
sion in England some years ago, and has
written book about IL, this argument
struck him as immensely forcible. Per-
haps nothing will bring out the fallacy in
volved in it so clearly as a reductio ad db-
surdum. The Romanist holds that the
Pope is visible head but visible head,
to be head at all, must have visible
body. The visible Church therefore must
be the body of the Pope. We imagine
that not many, even of the most ardent ad-
vocates of the papal claims, have been ac-
customed to put the matter to themselves
in this bold and direct form. 1t is i'm
mediately seen that when we speak of the
Church as the body it is in a sense which
admits of only one headship, namely, that
of Christ, and that the connection which
warrants such language is vital and or
ganic one."
The Churchman, in discussing the subject
of Trusts, remarks: Industries of all
kinds are shaping themselves to meet the
demands of artificial wants, not needs. So
ciety is in danger of becoming an artificial
life; education under the mastery of an
artificial system; art is lifeless the
factory, with its scores of slaves, young and
old, is a necessity; wealth despotic, and
poverty helpless. Therefore these great
combinations which hold out hope of
increased associate activities, which better
all temporarily, and scatter broadcast good
tid-bits to employees and servants, and
promise the coming of day when science
shall bring in universal cooperation, and
the State shall regulate everything, are a
positive relief. They are in advance, a
great advance, over that system of every
man for himself which takes fourteen
hours of mans day, instead of eight, and
pays him for eight instead Of fourteen,
and makes him work seven days in the
week to get the barest supply of bread
and meat and the coarsest covering of
clothing for his nakedness. Yes, but the
whole system is wrong, and history has
proved it so again and again, and has de-
stroyed it as many times. And the sci
ence which has elaborated this system
has shown it's origin by its work upon
Christianity at one and the same time 1t
has taken the fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of man out of its religious
creed, just as it is leaving the same factors
out of its study of social problems. Its
advance on the one side kills the soul of
man; why should We trust it on the other
side to do any better for his body and his
mind?"