The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-06-20
Conversations Of Our Club ;.
BY orestes A. Brownson

! trymen. He takes up the cudgel il
their defense where there is no occa
sion, and does them serious injury by
his over-suspiciousness and sensitive
ness. In the Catholic world, l take it
/ for granted, there is no disposition to
overlook or deny their claims or their
just merits. The Catholic world is
not ignorant of their Catholic worth
and services-is not ignorant of the
f1rmness with which the Irish have
held fast to the faith, and the sacri-
fees, as a people, they have made for
conscience. 1t loves and honors them,
and holds them inferior to no Catholic
people on the earth. 1t sympathizes
with them, and defends them, and no
Catholic but feels an insult or injury
to them is an insult or injury to him
self. Mr.. O'Flanagan must permit me
to say that he would serve his coun-
trymen better, if he would learn to
respect them more, and not cherish
so ungenerous a distrust of them.
am very far from asserting or con-
ceding that Catholics, whether of
Irish or of any other national origin,
furnish the whole vicious and GRIM
inal population of the cities and towns
of the Union, but fear I must admit
that they furnish, at least, their full
quota say not of the most really
criminal and sinful, but of those the
administration of justice practically
treats as such. Certainly, the Dead
Rabbits are not greater sinners than
the plug Uglies"; our poor boys
who are sent to BlackwelPs Island or
to Sing Sing, are not worse than hun
dreds of the sons OF respectable non
Catholic families, who are regarded
as very good boys; and the Catholic
who is arraigned for beating his wife
in drunken row, for knocking down
a policeman, or stabbing one of the
opposing faction in an affray, is less
really depraved than many pious
evangelical banker, railway president,
cashier, or director, member of the
legislature, or representative, or SEN
ator in congress. Our vicious and
criminal population are rarely as de-
PRAYED as they seem, and when stud
led closely viii be found to retain
many noble qualities and generous
sentiments wanting in the correspond
ing class Of nOn-Catholics. Their of
lenses are the result of thoughtless-
ness, animal spirits, love of fun, love
of adventure, or of sudden passion,
excited perhaps by strong drink, far
oftener than of deliberate malice Yet
with all the drawbacks and allow
ances we can make, the breads fact
stares us in the face, that we con-
tribute our full proportion if not more
than our proportion, in the cities and
large towns, to the corrupt and vicious
of the country, and a pro-
portion, l fear annually increasing in
stead of dir, fishing. This is fact
well known = non-Catholics, who do
not fail to make the most of it against
our religion. No doubt non-Catholics |
regard our faults and defects in a too
light, and draw from
them differences wholly unwarranted, |
simply because these faults and de-
fects are not precisely their own; but
it is possible, on the other hand, that |
we ourselves pass over them too |
lightly, because we have long been ac-
customed to them. There can be /
graver injury to Catholici-
-y, in this country than to let our chill
1ren run at large, and receive their
only education in dens of drunken
ness, and haunts of vice and crime
am sure the injury thus done would !
more than overbalance any that could
be done by the sectarianism of the
public schools
Ito be Continued.)