The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1910-02-12
A TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT.

A TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT.
A former president of the
United States, Charles w. Fairbanks
of Indiana, has succeeded in creating
a rumpus in Rome between the Meth
odists and the Vatican. Mr.. Fairbanks
on his arrival was entertained by Mgr.
Kennedy at a banquet in the American
College and made a post-prandial ad-
dress in which he complimented the
Catholic Church on it's splendid work
in the cause of education. After dis.
playing his powers as an American
orator and eliciting rapturous applause
from the students, Mr.. Fairbanks pro-
ceeded to Methodist conventicle and
praised the work of the followers Of
John Wesley in converting or pervert-
ing the ignorant Italians Of the famous
city on the Tiber. Having elected moro
applause by his utterances before the
Methodist proselytizers, he next tried
to get an audience with the Pope but
that dignified old gentleman refused to
receive the ex-president, and then 4
howl went up from all the Methodists
in the Eternal City for refusing to see
their champion and co-religionist from
the Hoosier State. They made Rome
howl" and are bowling yet in the press
against Pope and popery, brass buttons
and wooden shoes. Poor Fairbanks said
not word but kept eloquently silent.
visited the art galleries, the ruins of the
coliseum and forum, the catacombs
and the other curiosities, and then
strolled along the Appian Way to cool
his feverish brow and indulge in rev.
cries of the olden times ere Romulus
and Remus had been sucked.
done on his arrival in Rome was to
first obtain an audience with the vener-
able pontiff. Instead Of that, he called
on the King, then on Mgr. Kennedy and
the Methodists. and when he called to
see the Pope, his holiness sent word
that he was non persona grata at the
Vatican for making sectarian speeches
in the City of the Popes, or something
to that effect. Were we in the Pope's
place we would have treated Fairbanks
IN the same way. The greatest cele-
brity in Rome now, and at all times
in its history for twenty centuries, has
been the Pope; and he is the first
person on whom an American or any
other foreigner should call on visiting
the city. Perhaps Fairbanks thought
he was comforting an honor on the
Pope In condescending to visit the sue
cessor of Peter at all, but he knows
better by this time. The trouble with
Fairbanks and other American politi-
clans when they go abroad is that they
talk too much. They seem to be af-
fiicted with that mental malady yclept
'cacoethes loquendi," or the itch for
speaking. and when they open their
mouths they put their pedal extremi-
ties into them and render themselves
ridiculous among strangers.
The Methodists, to whom Fairbanks
! evidently belongs, are congratulating
that gentleman on the way he acted
in Rome. They have some sort of a
propaganda there for making Meth
odists out of Italian Catholics by the
same methods employed by the Kildare
Street society in Dublin in the DAYS
Of O'Connell and later during the ia
mine years. The Methodists in Rome
appeal to the stomachs of the Italians
as the Church Of England people did
to the Irish in 1s47, when about a mill
lion of them died of hunger in the
midst of plenty. The English wolves
| would give them food If they aposta .
tized, but let them starve if they
didn't; and to the honor of the Irish
they refused the food and died in the
Catholic faith. In published inter-
view with Archbishop Ireland on the
Fairbanks incident, that eminent pre-
late says:
II was in Rome last winter and I
made very particular study of this