The Irish standard., 1903-06-06
Parents are Brutally Deprived of the Right
to Give Their Children Teachers
of Own Choice.
Today, as in the Past, French Free Thinkers
Can Tolerate No Free Thinking
Except Their Own.

The following letter written at Nice
by the author of "Slav and Moslcm,"
York Sun:
\ few years ago the May laws OF
the Russian government against the
Jews elected the tiercest protestations
in all free countries notably in Eng
land and the United States. To-day
crimes against liberty, justice and hu-
manity of far greater magnitude are
being committed in France and the i'll
dignation aroused is Of the most
courteous kind. In the first case no
money was spared to trumpet abroad
the rigOrs exercised against the Jews,
and in the second, if money is used
at all, it is to organize a conspiracy
Of silence and Misrepresentation.
Two years ago the Associations
bill was represented as IL very inOf-
fensive measure of domestic economy.
To-day the tyrannical, intolerant char
acter of the Trouillot bill can no
longer be dssimulated. 1t should
have been labelled AN act for the
suppression of religious congregations
engaged in teaching or preaching, pre-
par,tory to the suppression of the
Catholic religion in France" To-day
lion,
bill was merely Il trap set by the
government to obtain the detailed and
minute information regarding the
pecuniary resources, members, etc, of
each congregation, in order to con-
fiscate their property c'liIuidation' is
only euphcmism) and to see to it
that the members are forever debarred
from teaching or preaching. TO use
the language of NJ. Dccruis, an ex-
minister of the Rousseau cabinet, 1.-THE
manner in which the law Of 1901 has
been applied is a violation of the
spirit and Of the letter of that law"
When the bill was before the
Chambers M. WaIdcck Rousseau OBJ
taincd many votes by sOlemnly de-
claring on the part of the government
that the free primary schools support
ed by the Catholics and taught by Con-
grcgatiOnalists were in no wise af-
fccted by this law of 1901. Yet two
months later his successor, NJ. Com
hes, closed some three thousand of
these schools by administrative pro-
cess as in Russia. AS in Russia, the
sisters were all peremptOrily ordered
out of the villages and towns where
they had been teaching from thirty
to forty years and commanded to con-
ccntratc ut their mother houses. There
were, Of course, many aged sick and
infrm among these poor women, and
the mother houses were wholly made
quntc t6.aflord space and food to such
numbers The suffering was, of
course, very great in many cases.
was at Juan les Plus, near Can
nes, when some sisters who had an
orphanagc Of small boys were ordered
at , in the morning to 80 Immediately
to their mother house in Brittany, at
the other extremity of France, a jour
ncy Of three or four days. Now no
free government may legally enforce
a residence on any except an accused
or condemned criminal. The Journal
of Geneva, an able Protestant paper,
was the first to raise an indignant cry
at this violation OF public right.
Thus in this episode alone we have
guile, brutality and illegality on the
part of this government of Jacobins
My blood boils to think that such
crimes can leave liberty-loving people
unmovcd merely because the victims
happen to be Roman Catholics. a
conspiracy of silence conceals from
the people of the United States the
shameful violations of liberty, huma n
ity and Justice which are being per-
pctl:lted in France in the name of n
barbarOus law Of religious persecution.
The latest act in this disgraceful
episode of French history has just
been perpctrated at the Chambers in
violation Of the spirit and the letter
of the law of 1901, to use the words
of NJ. Decrais. This law required that