The Irish standard., 1909-07-17
GLAD THAT B|GOTRY
IS BEING FORGOTTEN
President Taft Talks to a
Large Gathering at the
Catholic Summer School of
America at Cliff Haven,
N. Y.-.-Cardinal Gibbons
Delivers an Eloquent Ser
mon at the Tercentenary
Celebration.

On July Z, President Taft motcred
from Plattsburg, n. Y, to Cliff Haven,
half a mile from Bluff Point, where
he addressed large gathering at the
Catholic summer school of America, re-
turning later to the Hotel Champlain,
where he received the foreign ambas-
sadors, Governors Hughes and Prouty,
members of the New York state legis-
lature and others of the guests. In
the evening he spoke at a banquet.
The presidents welcome at the Cath
olic summer school was a hearty one,
and the edifice was packed to the
doors. At the presidents right on the
platform was Cardinal Gibbons, while
on his left was Governor Hughes, by
whom he was presented. Others on
the platform We're Bishop Collins of
Kingston, Jamaica; Bishop Cotton Of
Buffalo; Bishop AIacSherry of Cape
Town, Africa; and DR.. Mcmahon,
president of the summer school, who
introduced the governor.
President Taft had little to say of
Champlain, and devoted his address
mainly to his dealings with the Cath
olic church in the Philippines as hav-
ing a bearing on. the present celebra-
ton. He told of his meeting with Pope
Leo XIII at the Vatican, whom he
culogized as distinguished statesman
and pontiff.
II am not Catholic, but l have
had in the last ten years a great deal
to do with the Catholic church," said
the president. my lot did not carry
me into a part of the world that made
me as familiar with the French explor-
ers, the French leaders of civilization
like Champlain, as it did into the re-
gions of those leaders that came from
Spain into the Philippines, where the
same influence that carried Champlain
here and the same influence that con-
trolled him, controlled men equally
brave and in certain respects more sue
the Philippines with four or five Au-
gustinan monks, converted to Chris
tianity that entire archipelago now
having some seven or eight million
souls and then perhaps 5O0.OoO-the
only community of people in the en-
tire Orient that today as a people are
Christians.
Religious tolerance is rather mod
ern invention. Those of us of Puri-
tan ancestry have been apt to think
that we were the inventors of relig-
ious tolerance Well, as matter Of
fact what we We're in favor of, if I
can speak for Puritan ancestry, was in
having right to worship God as we
pleased. and have everybody else wor-
ship God in the same way. But we
have worked that out now, and there
has been great change, I am sure,
and his eminence the cardinal will
agree with me, even in the last rs
years.
Il have had personal evidence of it
in some of the work that we had to
do in the Philippines. Fifty years
ago if it had been proposed to send a
representative Of the government to the
tn kiofo
arising in a country like the Philip
pines between the government and the
Roman Catholc church, it would have
given rise to the severest condemna-
ton and criticism on the part of those
who would have feared some diplomat
ic connection between the government
ditions.
But within the last ten years that
has been done, with the full concur
renee of all religious denominations,
believing that the way to do things is
to do them directly, and when mat
ter is to be settled that it should be
who has authority to act. And so
it fell to my lot, and in that respect
just by good luck I came to be an ex-
ception, which will perhaps stand for
many years as the sole exception. Of
being a representative of the United
States at the Vatican. There had
the great pleasure of meeting that dis