Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1907-08-22
RICH MEN WILL
NOT ENTER HEAVEN
Great Majority Are Bound for
Other Place
so SAYS CARDINAL GIBBONS
Head of Catholic Church in America
ASSaiIS Methods and Lives of
WeaIthy.-MOneyiS SurpaSS-
ing Spread of Religion.

NEW YORK, August 21.-Cardinal
| Gibbons, who is summering at South
hampton, L. l., has given out an in
teryiew, in which he assails the veal
thy class in a most positive manner
His most startling statement is that
only a small percentage of the rich
men will enter Heaven. The noted
| prelate declares that the increase in
wealth is SURPRISING the spread of
religion and that the rich people to-
| day get their joys on this earth and
think nothing of the hereafter.
Cardinal Gibbons also attacked the
trusts of the country and said that he
believed the Federal Government in
first attacking the Standard Oil Com
| panywas pursuing the best policy, as
the cure of the evils lay in telling the
big fish first, thus preventing them
| from eating up the little ones.
Speaking of wealth and religion the
Cardinal said:
| | do not mean that it is impossible
i know some rich men who are pious
and devout; but that they are indif-
| ferent as to their spiritual welfare
they prefer the things of the earth,
of which they have an abundance. In
the luxury of our civilization they
heed not the hereafter. They are
blinded to the truth.
1t is to the poor and the lowly. Car
dinal Gibbons went on to say, that
the church looks for the maintenance
of the true spirit of religion. But he
stopped there, and would not be led
to say whittier the trend of religious
Indifference among the great and in
huential of the nation was leading:
Allusion was made to the spirit of
commercial life, the ideals upon
which the great swollen fortunes of
the country have been founded. The
cardinal pronounced the tendencies
all wrong. He severely araigned the
builders of the great financial and in
dustrial corporations as laboring up
on an immoral foundation-rearing
their mighty structures upon the
ruins of competition and fair play
and driving to despair and despera-
ton the young men whose means of
honest toll are stripped from them
by the methods of the mammoth
trusts.
He specifically mentioned the Stan
dard Oil Company by name, and it
was a reference to Mr., Rockefeller's
statement begging the moral aspect
of Standard Oils guilt, that Standard
has only done as others have done,
that called forth the striking utter
ance that the religion of wealth has
taken precedence in America over
the religion of Jesus Christ,
The cardinal said that if the Stan
dard Oil Company was guilty of the
offense charged against it the fine
of 29240,0 900 for rebating was not too
great. He said:
There is reason and justice in the
law going after the big ones first.
These big fishes are engaged in eat
ing the little fishes up, and just prin-
ciple seems to be to strike at the
most prominent and formidable first
as an example to all others.
| believe, however, that adequate
and prop rtionate punishment should
be meted out to all alike. For in
stance, the railroad corporations have
no right to discriminate in the prices
they charge one man and another
man. The whole system is bad,
however it is looked upon.
Cardinal Gibbons wound up by
saying that the great wealth of to-
day was not an unmixed blessing be-
cause of the evil that it causes.