The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1910-02-05
THE CHURCH AND THE SPEAKER.


At the banquet rendered to Cardinal Gibbons
by his Washington friends few weeks ago, the
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honor
able Joseph Cannon, occupied the right of the
guest of honor. After speaking eloquenty of his
theme, "The Supreme Court of the United States"
Speaker Cannon turned to the aged Cardinal, and
apostrophizing him tenderly, said: "You are oc-
cupying the highest position in your Church In
America-a church which in membership far out
numbers any other in this country. [ am happy
to pay tribute to that Church which is today one
of the greatest forces for order and civilization"
If this public acknowledgment of the position
of the Catholic Church, and her unquestioned in
fuence in favor of all that makes for the highest
civilization, but isolated admission of
visible truth or an expression of friendly feeling
for organization presided over in the United
States, by great and lovable man, it would merit
more than passing notice, especially when
mating from such thoughtful and observing man
as the Speaker of the House. But, unlike Byron's
lonely column of the Roman Forum, the statement
of Mr.. Cannon is not isolated example of
greatness that has disappeared but living tribute
to a religious institution which in the human
ence on civilized society. Read this from the Chi
cago Inter Ocean. The editor is writing the obitu
airy of a g-hearted priest most friendly clergy
man of Chicago, who died few hours before the
Inter Ocean went to press. Among many gracious
references to the priests generosity, and his all
embracing kindness, the editor relates this inter
esting anecdote:
Father Flanagan, in the company of P. j.
O'Keeffe, his close friend, went to Washington in
the spring of 1900 to visit President Mckinley in
an effort to influence him to appoint a friend to
the federal judiciary. The friend was Methodist.
They took dinner with President Mckinley and
Senator Mark Hanna, and in the course of the con-
versation which was about the country's future
generally, Senator Hanna made his famous state
ment:
You or [, Mr. President, may not live to see
the day. but the day will come when the United
States will need its protection, and when that time
comes what will stand between the stars and stripes
and anarchy will be the Supreme court of the
United States and the Roman Catholic Church"
There is not in America today sound, we'll
informed or conservative man, of any creed or no
creed who will not say, shear, hear" to the admis
sions of these observant and level-headed men to
the steadying influence of the Catholic Church on
society at large.
Mr.. Cannon proclaims the Church to be cone of
the greatest forces for order and civilization" and
the late Senator Hannah, the Theseus of political
organization, compares that Church to buwark,
standing with the Supreme Court of the United
States between the flag and the dragon of an
archy
Now read what the English Sociologist, @. D.
Wentham, writes in the British weekly, the Living
Age:
"The Roman Catholics alone among our fam
lilies of good stock taught by the principles of their
religion have kept right sense of social respon-
sbility Among them alone the birth rate is main
tanned, and the figures are very significant, show
ing clearly that there is real decrease in fertility
in the class involved in survey"
What effect will the announcements of these
able and evel-headed Catholics have in leading
human souls into the zone fold?" None. It is now
as it was in the times of Dives and Lazarus Dives
wishing to save his five brothers. asked Abraham to
send from the dead to warn them
And Abraham said to him: "They have Moses
and the prophets: Let them hear them"
But Dives said: 'No, Father Abraham: but if |
one went to them from the dead they will do pen
ance"
And he replied to him: eff they hear not
Moses and the prophets neither will they believe if
one rise again from the dead"
MARIO AND TERRAZAN0,S TIM