The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1907-02-16

must be the number of those who ought to be in tn
tails and prisons and are not At banquet givel
IN the Great Northern hotel, Chicago, on the even
NO of last November A. the same Judge was by in
,itation the speaker OF the occasion. In the cours
# his address he said: "The United States is thu
most criminal country in the world the jury sys
fem the most loose and antiquated" He gave fig
ures and crime statistics and showed that while il
England and Wales ST. murders were committed
last year. in the United States $3.50 persons wen
TO their graves from the hands of the assassin
What then is our boosted educational system do
ing for u.s. And yet when YOU discuss these mel
ancbolv affairs with native Americans they delud
Themselves and try to delude you with the assur
ance that things are going to improve. 1t is upor
this hone or illusion they build their expectations
for the future of the race. But an analysis of the
court and prison reports and a survey of the felt
of moral health generally, as far it is practicable
is calculated somewhat to shake confidence in the
coming Utopia. The prisons and penitentiaries il
the states of the union filed beyond their capac
tiles and already humanitarians are debating the
problem of providing some occupation work fol
the vast hordes rotting in ideness within the walls
of our penitentaries. But this is not ALL Stats
tics show that while many of the quick killing dis
eases which involve but brief suffering and disa-
bility like typhus and typhoid fevers, meningitis
septcaemia and cerebral hemorrhage are decreas-
ing slowly degeneratve diseases involving much
misery and protracted invalidism like cancer.
Bright's disease, valvular heart disease, consump-
ton diabetes and crrhoss are on the inclease The
barometer of health is falling. Here and there ath
letes may display great agility and endurance but
on examination it will be found that these men are
of Irish, Scotch English nativity or of the
first generation of these races The stamina of the
native American is by no means what it was. There
are more sanitariums, private and public, in the
United States than in all Europe The state and
private hospitals are congested and southern Cali
fornia, Arizona, Colorado New Mexico and the
pine states are filling up with unhappy men and
women whose constitutions are wrecked by con-
sumption and so-called nervous prostration. The
fertility of the is diminishing and the old aud
familiar American names disappearing from
the census. Insanity is increasing out of all pro-
portion to the population and the care of the in
sane is becoming serious problem in many states.
We are getting ashamed of the number of our asy-
lums for the insane and we try to hale our humil-
iation by calling them mental hospitals" Spec
taces are more in evidence than formerly. / at
tended a meeting in Denver few weeks ago and of
the hundred and seventy women present eighty of
them wore or carried glasses. Decay of the teeth is
all but universal and in many of the towns | have
been in dentists were almost as numerous as doc
tors. Melancholy short of madness has in some
states become endemic and in a yearly swelling
number of instances eliminates in suicide, whcih is
now almost a national calamity All this gives
ground for some foreboding that whatever may be
he case at present, progressive deterioration is in
store for people unless they mend their ways.
And let me bear lightly on this for, though it
'e national menasss, too many do not wish to hear
lbout it. There is among American women good
leal too much of what Sir John Crichton Brown in
he Lancet, calls "cuckooism." The cuckoo is de-
crbed in Culver discontinued, i'll conditioned,
bird" 1t shrks the responsibility of par
ntage and the self denying of brooding and in the
words of Scripture, applied to the ostrich, SIS hard
med against her own young ones as though they
we're not hers" to be more explicit is hardened
against having any young ones" at all. Catholic
theology teaches that there no moment after con-
,eption when the wful destruction of the foetus
IS not the murder of human life. As result this
hameful crime is unknown to practical Catholic
mothers. We told by the secular press that the
Increase of Catholicism in America is a sequence
If immigration but who sit behind the scenes
Snow there Is another and very vital reason for
he increase. Then, and this is the most sinister
outlook of American daily life. there is a wide
spread decay of faith and the oil of faith flow
out, the polluted waters of quackery, of theosophy,
spiritism and third rate superstitions
take its place. In the spiritual world, as in the
physical, nature abhors a vacuum and where faith
decays monstrosities flourish. l deeply regret to
have to acknowledge that among the many profess
sors of the state universities with whom l priv
LEGGED to talk / have not met one who believed
Christianity to be a supernatural institution or q
revealed religion. Not one [ cannot help think
ing that religion is in danger at both ends of the
social scale, from the intellectual teacher at the
head and the radical socialist and butterflies of So
cety at the base 1t is possible that as the athlete
when entertained, must "et up" or go to pieces
the Americans may have to call halt on high pres
sure education or become race of physical deca
dents and moral imbeciles. Of course, while mil
lion of Europeans annually land on our shores and
become absorbed into population we may not
notice our decay and retrogression But depend
upon it the native American is going We are a
great people-large. hearted, progressive and ag-
gressive-but must our 'habitations become desc
late" and foreigners and strangers come and "take
our bishopricsl" HUBERT LARKIN.
Chicago, February 4.
They who in ceaseless meditation wrestle with