The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1913-09-06
LETTER OF RIGHT REVEREND
BISHOP CARROLL TO THE REV.
EREND CLERGY OF THE DID,
cESE OF HELENA.
Reverend Dear Father:

Monday, September 1st, will be
Labor Day. On the previous Sunday
at all the Masses congratulate the
laboring men and women of your con-
gregation on their approaching Feast
Day. Tell them it is a day on which
the whole country rejoices with them,
paying willing tribute not only to the
inestimable services which by brain
or Drawn they have rendered human
ity, but also to the social progress
which their united efforts have pro-
NOTED. 1t is a day on which all true
lovers of the race express their SYM
pathy with the hopes and ambitions
of the sons and daughters of toll.
On this happy feast no one rejoices
more than Holy Church, the fruitful
mother of so many of the children of
labor. Her face is radiant with joy
as she bids the multitudes who sur
round her affairs look upon the vision
of her Divine Founder who, though He
was Master of the earth and of all
it's treasures, chose to become poor
laboring man. With pride she points
to His life of toll and suffering, and
reneWs His promise of happiness and
everlasting riches to those who walk
in His footsteps: Blessed are the
poor in spirit, for theirs is the King
dom of Heaven"
The Laboring Mans Church.
With her Master she voices the low
ing invitation: Come to me all you
that labor and are heavily burdened,
and l will refresh you" She need not
speak of it, for the record of her
motherly solicitude for the down
trodden and the oppressed looms high
before the minds of her children. 1t
was her teaching and beneficent legis-
lation that caused slavery to disap-
pear from the world. 1t was she who
created the Christian home, and lift
ing up woman from degradation, en-
throned her as it's queen. 1t was she
who rescued the child from dishonor
and made it's education in virtue and
religion the foundation stone of both
church and state. 1t was the labori-
GUS care of her monks in transcribing
the Bible and the classical monu-
ments of antiquity that enriched the
modern world with learning sacred
and profane. 1t is to these same
monks who cleared the forests and
drained the marshes and ploughed the
fields that I'VE owe," says Hallam
'the agricultural restoration of great
part of Europe" The guilds of the
Middle Ages, the models of our mod
ern labor unions, owe their origin and
wonderful development to the tutelage
of the Church, their decay and f1nal
suppression being simultaneous with
the Reformation and the French Revo
lution-periods during which the
power of the Church was weakened in
Europe From the very beginning OF
modern industrialism the Church has
espoused the cause of the laborine
man. The great Won Ketteler, who
led the social reform movement in
Germany, was called ''the laboring
mans Bishop" The London dock
workers will never forget the friendly
interest of Cardinal Manning, and we
are all familiar with the efforts oi
Cardinal Gibbons on behalf of the
Knights of Labor. 1t was their well
known sympathy with the wage-earnel
and their spirit of fair play to every
interest involved that led to the Sc
lection of Archbishops Quigley anG
Spalding as arbitrators in two of the
greatest strikes in our history. Final
ly, it was Pope Leo XIII who, in 1891
declared that "a small number of very
rich men had been able to lay upor
the teeming masses of the laborins
poor a yoke little better than slavery
ITSELF" If conditions have changed
materially since then, the change i:
due in large measure to the grea
Pope's Encyclical on "The Condition
of the Laboring Classes" which ha:
become the textbook of leaders O
capital and labor, of statesmen anC
churchmen, in word, of all men thu
world over who have sincerely strive1
to solve the problems of modern in
dustrialism. Carroll D. Wright, ou
former eminent Commissioner of La
Dor, has said: 81 consider that thu
Encyclical of Leo XIII on the labo
QuSSIIOu udS given Tic AOuAO1OAOh ~
the proper study of social science il
this country. 1t is wade mecum
with me, and know that it has haC
an immense influence in steadying tht
public mind" With good reason, then
do the toiling masses on their feas
day rejoice with their Holy Mothe,
and hail her with that glorious title
which contempt has sometimes ap
piled to her-"The Church of the poo
and the working classes"
The intelligent and loyal Catholic
laboring man, therefore, is not dis
turbed by the noisy agitator who, OF
the street corners and in the unioI
meetings, declares the Church to bc
the enemy of labor, and its Bishops
and Priests to be in league with capi
tai to defraud labor of its just re
wards Instead of offering him vio
lence, he pities his ignorance and does
all in his power to prevent him from
poisoning the minds of his fellow
workers. To this end he encourages
his union to invite only the ablest ant
most impartial students Of economic
to address it. He refuses to read, ant
he endeavors to dissuade his brethren
from reading, those newspapers an,
magazines whose only aim seems t,