The Irish standard., 1894-03-31

Id QUE 8uCSsGOE63 udyo" UeoA C0A4oO AACS'
question by men whose patriotism is
measured by the civil Offices meted out
to them and which. when the spoils of Of
fee are denied them through the suf-
frages OF their fellow citizens, is con-
tracted accordingly.
BY what right, ask. do these men call
into question either our loyalty or our
constitutional prerogatives; by what
right, I repeat, does any man question
our citizenship, with the sovereign rights
entailed therein. In the language of
William Lloyd Garrison, Il will be as
harsh as truth and as uneompromising
as justice"
It may, perhaps, seem strange to these
men, who imagine they have an excln-
sive patent on all patriotic inspirations,
that /, Catholic priest, with all the
pharaphenalia that the name implies, in
Guiding the "horns." should assume to
modestly insinuate that even Roman
Catholics have some 1ighte in this coun-
try that they are bound to respect. and
that we will not take any dictation or
prescriptions for loyalty from them; we
whose forefathers have written their
names in American history in their own
blood, ard have ourselves shed our blood
in defense of it's perpetuity. We make
no apology-we accept no dictation-we
live with the Bible in one hand and the
constitution in the other, knowing and
feeling that
Freedom is not gift
That tai ries long in the hands of towards, :"
see tonight an announcement that q
Rev. Pulpiteer is to lecture on "Protec-
ton to Our Public School System" :"
Who are the enemies OF the public school
system? Only men that have graduated
therein, unfortunately. Men who pro-
scribe their fellow citizens and deny to
them the right guaranteed them by the
constitution; cast a reflection upon any
system Of education which they espouse
and may truly say such men are in
deed enemies of our public schools.
We Catholics are not enemies to edu-
cation. The saying Of any man OF any
number of men does not make doctrine
for the Roman Catholic Church. Our
position is this: The state has the right
to educate it's citizens; 1t is necessary for
the state to have system OF education,
and as we spilled our blood in defending
our country, so, too, would we in defend
ing the public school system.
What pity that these pal asites should
fasten themselves upon our glorious
school system, and, using it as cloak to
their evil designs, enoeavor to pry open
the public treasury.
II there is one thing that makes me
fear for the safety of our public school
system, it is that the common school
which sheltered me and gave me the
modicum of education which possess
could have produced, even by accident,
class of citizens who wonld deny to
their fellow citizens rights guaranteed
them in the blood Of departed ancestry.
We might, indeed, fear for the safety OF
our country, did it's welfare depend upon
these canting hypoorites who, in times OF
peace, upon platforms like this, swish
and slush and wade about to their knees
in the imaginary gore of their harmless
Catholic fellow citizens, but drop OF
whose own blood never stainad blade
of grass in their country's time of need
on any field Of battle.
Remember it, ye who cry out that the
Irishman's devotion to the suffering land
of his fathers saps his loyalty to the land
OF his adoption; remember it, ye who
wrap yourselves in the American flag to
shrek out treason, if we unturl the ban
ner of the harp; remember that that ban
ner waved above the heads of men who
on every battlefield contested by the
army of the Potomac, were pouring out
their life blood to preserve Union OF
which they, too, we're citizens. 1t was
flung to the breeze in glory on the field
Of Bull Run, it waved above the scene OF
carnage at Fair Oaks and Fredericks-
burg; at Gaines Mill and Savage Station;
at Malvern Hill and Chancell ellorsville; on
the heights Of Gettysburg and in the
Wilderness; at Spottsylvanih and in the
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