The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1905-01-28
PRIDE OF CREED AND RACE BEGET
PATRIOTISM.
(Connunicated.)


Why is President Roosevelt so proud of his
Irish ancestry, humble folk though they were Be
cause he is truly manly" man.
There are two legitimate and enobling prides
pride of creed, pride of race.
The Creator has implanted in the human heart
a twin feeling overshadowing operpowering all
others love of God and love of country. In order
to bear their best fruits both need to be trained
and developed By education. Therefore it is that
Mother Church directs that the first lessons given
the child be along religious lines and supplements
these through life by Sunday schools, sermons, in
structions and missions. f.-
The Church does not fear enlightenment The
experience of the ages proves that the better cdu
Gated her children are. the more doce the more
fervent, the more perscvering do they become as
worshippers at her affairs. The enlightened Catholic
believes firmly and is proud of his belief
Education will also develop rational patriot
ism and healthy pride Of race. In this country
of ours hear great deal of shallow prating
ancnt Americanis1n and things purely American.
1t requires only very cursory survey of the ma
tonal field to reveal the fact that ours is the most
Heterogeneous population under the sum- that
there is yet no truly American people; only frag-
ments of different races having common purpose
Common interests and striving to attain a common
end, and that the great national problem is to
amalgamate and unity these heterogeneous Gle
ments. In the heart and mind of every citizen
love of the United States and loyalty to its nsti-
tutions occupy the first place. ANY assertion to
the contrary is mere ignorant cant or wilful per-
version of the truth. But blood will run thicker
than water. Man cannot forget his birth place the
customs of the land where he grew to manhood
his early assoclations-nor the achievements of his
kindred. Children, through the very respect they
have for their parents, Will endeavor to ascertain
the cause and the justification of this love of the
old land. This means the study of its history of
its institutions and political changes. Among the
histories of all the races that have found in the
United States haven of refuge and an opportun-
ity for advancement, none offers greater field a
more inspiring theme can point Get us hope) to
brighter future than that of "Auld" Ireland
Like Mother Church, she does not fear the light,
she invites investigation of her past and of her
present, feeling that it can only result in a
greater love and veneration from her children and
especially from her chdren's children
Since the day that the Roman emperors began
the first persecution of the Christian Church to the
present time, no other people offer record
superior TO hers whether teacher of civiliza-
ton constant devotee to principle an upholder
of the right of man to worship God according to
the tenets of ones own conscience and of the right
of the people to government founded upon the
consent of the governed
Ireland has undergone for conscience sake an
ordeal of persecution and tyranny such as no other
people ever endured and yet After centuries she
energies from the struggle still Catholic, and Irish
she has preserved her faith and her individual
nationality. The Irish are today, perhaps more
truly Irish than they have been at any time within
the last five hundred years That this is SO is
wonderful, but still the wonder grows when we
appreciate the herceness and the ingenuity of the
efforts that have been made to destroy her religion
and nationality Her priests and her school teach
ers were prescribed, ban was put upon her lanpu-
age, her lands were confscated by the wholesale
and their ownership transferred to aliens This
spectacle seen. The native sons till
ing the soil for the benefit of foreign and raciav
inimical proprietary
Inc sufest means OF making people accent the
loss OF liberty is to degrade them, to make them
ignorant. This method England adopted and of
all the high crimes against humankind for which
ireland cites England before the bar of civilized
public opinion the most heinous is this one: That
she deliberately, malieiouslv used all the means
which her cruel ingenuity could devise to reduce a
highly cultured and intellectual people to the low
standard of say the Russian peasant of today. To
resistance to Der nisrnle, she resolved to
make the Irish ignorant bassgwere passed making