The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-12-14
GIBBONS ON
 SITUATION American Public Does Not Understand CARDINALS POINT OF VIEW Declares French Deputies Simply Hate All Religion. Says That Spirit of Jacobins Isas Not Died 0ut and Leaders would Force Denial
 of Christ.
 
CARDINALS POINT OF VIEW

 bons this evening, when asked for hta opinion on the correspondence. Ha continued:
 T am getting old now, ana I thank my countrymen. They love fair play, they love liberty, they love to see hH~ mane dealings of man with man and the late years have shown how eor~ dially they hate injustice. tyranny and inhumanity. And yet France has throt- tied her nobles and citizens with in~ justice ana inhumanity, and Americas which has sympathy for the oppressed of all relations, raised no protest ar uttered a word of sympathy.
 ''If believed that my countfymen would Knowingly see q great and hen- eticent organization unjustly deprived of its property and the means Of een- tlnued usefulness: would knowingly see tens of thousands of honest mem and noble women robbed of their just income and means of support; would knowingly see hundreds of thousands and even several millions of peopla brutally wounded in what they hofd dearest and most sacred; would know- ingly see a majority in the ehamber1 utterly disregard and trample upon fhe rights of millions of their countrynem in the name of liberty--would know ingly soc tens of thousands of men and women who happen to be priests and nuns turned out of their homes for no crime but that of loving God, say, if my countrymen can see and recognize all this injustice and tyranny and cruelty and refuse genuine sympathy then I will leave life without that faith in American love Of liberty and humane ity which has been my comfort and special support and hope.
 Americans Misinf0rmes.
 ''Rut the American people have an& had these things put fairly before them. Our own press has been to a considerable extent the reflex Of tho PaFisian anti-clerical press. Most neo- pie over here have little conception. of the French anti-clericals. They look on the ieadcfs of this party as enliK4t~ ened statesmen seeking to preserve the republic from hn attack of an aggrss- sive cIeRgy, There hRv@ been honest and sincere lovers Of republican gov- ernment among anti-cleriNals. I ail- nit but the majority of tAem have far less love of the republic than they hass hatred of religion.
 q am weighing my words and l say with deliberate conviction that the leaders of the present French govern ment are actuated by nothing less than hatred of religion. We have iio spirit akin to theirs in this country. We have here much indifference to rec ligion, but we have no body of men. no great party that makes 1t a chief
  and if possible to utterly destroy it out of the land.
 But in France the Jacobin party ia not dead Their spirit is as living to- day as 1t was in the last decade Of tho eighteenth century. They hate Godt they hate Christ; they hate His rec ligion as much as ever their fathera hated them. But they have learned a more prudent method of attack. They are almost scientific in the means they take to suppress Christianity. And yet the utterances of such men are received as unsuspectingly by many Americana as would be a discourse by Mir Cleve-f land or MT. Roosevelt or MT. TRft--4 men who recognize the powerful inlu- ence that religion plays in promoting the welfare of society.
 "It is easy to show that l ana not mlsrepresenting tho spirit of anti-cler- icals. They make no secret of their hatred of Christianity. They avow if in the press and in the chambers. Lee me give you few examples of the language of these men and you can fudge If the American people have ever heard anything similar from their own leaders or. If any American statesmen would dare to utter such statements, In the course of long speech in tho Chamber of Deputies, the well known Socialist leader, Jaures, said:
 "Tf God Himself appeared before the multitudes in palpable form. the first duty of man would be to refuse Hint obedience and to consider Him not as a Master to whom men should submit, but as an equal with whom men may argue.'
 Labor. speaking also in the Chamber Of Deputies. gave utterance to thesa sentiments:
 :. Al of us together. first by our forefathers, then by our fathers ncw by ourselves. have been 7.ttached to the work of anti -clericalism and irre- Iigion We have snatchod the human conscience from belief in a future life. Do you think the work is at an endR No. 1t Is beginning
 The Chamber decreed that the ois- course from which this Is extracted bo placarded in every town and village oe France.
 "Ir the same strain the present Min ister of Public Worship, and the most strenuous advocate of the law of sep aration. NJ. Briand, said fin an. address to school teachers:
 " The time has come 10 -oot up from the minds of French children the an- cient faith which has served it's pur- pose and replace 1t with the light of free thought. It Is time to get rid of the Christian idea, We have hunted Jesus Christ out of the army. the navy. the schools, the hospitals, insane and orphan asylums. law courts and now we must hunt Him out of the state