The Irish standard., 1907-02-23
Speaking to the Knights Of Columbus at
Chicago He Shows the Injustice
of the French Position.
The Whole Of Individual Property and
Individual Liberty Of Conscience
: is. on Trial.

Speaking recently at a Lincoln cele-
bration arranged by the General James
Shields Council, No. 967, Knights of
Columbus, Hon. Peter p. Grosscup,
presiding judge Of the United States
Circuit court for this district, made a
notable pronouncement bearing upon
the spoliation Of the Church in France,
says the Catholic Standard and Times.
AS the utterance Of one of the leading
jurists on the Federal bench, who has
been called upon to decide many ques-
tions of the very highest Importance
to the nation at large, and as u Prot
estant. Judge Grosscup's views must
carry great weight. His subject was
Abraham Lincoln" and in his de-
velopment of it he was led to a dis
cussion Of common honesty, interna-
t1onal relations, law, Justice and lu-
mauity. He took up the French qucs-
tion. and dealt with it as a judge ren-
dering an opinion off the bench. 1t
was a mastery effort, and at. the con-
clusion of his remarks the jurist was
given vote OF thanks by all pres
ent.
Judge Grosscup spoke in part as fol-
lows:
Perhaps the greatest lasting thing
that. the Civil War did was to nation
alize life, liberty and property. Be-
fore the fourteenth amendment to the
Federal Constitution life, liberty and
property were within the power of the
eight and thirty states. BY that amend
1nent they were put within the pro-
tecting shield Of the. nation. Hence
forth the right to life, the right to lib
erty and the right to property were
national interests. When We look
across the Atlantic to what is transpir-
ing in France to day in relation to the
church properties created by the. Cath
olics of. France, the valuo Of this. our
great national guaranty against abso-
lutisn and spoliation, stands out one
of the mighty bulwarks Of American
institutions:
For centuries the Catholics OF France
had been building their churches and
their other institutions. Like the little
Lutheran church building in which
was contlrnled-like the Protestant
church buildings to which the major
ity Of Americans are attached-theso
edifices became, humanity speaking, tile
property of their human creators. By
every law of nature and Of right they
their creators. But in the frenzy of the
revolution of 1889 they were seized by
the mob. and because the mob at that
time was the Government of France.
what had been built by religion was
contiscated to the state. No historian
Of standing, no jurist Of standing has
ever attempted on any principle Of
honor or morals to defend this act.
1t was an act Of sheer brute force
>NAS SNAAAAtS Wy S4ICC1 4OlCC dI0 N1L1lOuL
compensation of things created from
their creators and turning them over
to the state. No Socialist of the most
radical type has ever outstripped in
speech what the mob of the Revolution
accomplished I'm deed.
For twelve years the situation thus
stood-the forcible retention by the
state Of that which did not belong to
the state. Then Napoleon, alive to the
fact that a religion in France was
needed as we'll as French armies, and
that the weakness of his government
in the eyes Of the world was the spoil
alton on which it was founded, set
about to undo the wrong. .The Con-
cordat of 1901 was the result. The
Concordat was q compromise. It did
not restore to the Catholics of France
the property that belonged to them.
Rightful as such restoration would have
been, it probably was beyond the pow