Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1913-07-26
Appearance of This Hoary Old
Tale Causes But Little
Surprise.
Lengths to Which the Desperate
Un-American Guardians
Will Go.
CAN NOT VERIFY STATEMENTS

The people publishing the Menace
evidently have a good memory along
with very fruitful imagination.
Fruitful as they are in inventing
new species of defamation, they seem
to feel bound to have recourse to
many of the old stories circulated by
the A. p. A. people some twenty
years ago. In their desire to maligu.
they Gull stories from the A. p. A.
publications, change the dates and
places, and dish them up to a public.
| all too eager for sensation and not
critical enough to probe statements
as to their truth or untruth.
One of the pet stories of the A.
P. A. publications told of so and 40
many thousands of rifles being
stored in this or that church, to be
used by Catholics on certain day
against Protestants. Those who
have been watching the recent cam
paign of anti-Catholic publications
have been waiting for this hoary old
tale TO be 1disfied up Ssgain. And 10
and beholdl Now that thepS5lic is
sufficiently prepared the Menace of
July issues the old tale, tells this
lay of the ancient maligner. In tho
issue mentioned the paper, telling Of
an alleged assault upon "ex"-priest
Jeremiah j. Crowley, at Oelwein,
Iowa, says literally: There is
story going the rounds in Oelwein
that there are 1000 Winchester
rifles stored in the basement of the
hall of the Sacred Heart church.
This is building that stands di-
rectly in back OF the church proper.
1t was formerly the church
proper :" etc. "a Rom"n
Catholic, one of the good kind, who
is within the inner circle, let the
cat out of the bag in a spirit of
boastfulness in these words, after
the attempt to kill Crowley we
have 1000 guns in the basement of
the old church building and a dozen
rounds of shots and when the time
comes we are going TO make good
use of them on you dirty Protes-
tants.
Needless to say there was no in
tention or attempt to "kill Crowley
at Oelwein; but we are used to hear
ing the Menace mako statements
which can not be verified. The in
teresting feature, and the one we
want to direct particular attention
to, is the repetition of the old story
Of the rifles which the True Ameri-
can, the American Idea. the Ameri-
can, the Loyal American. the Rocky
Mountain American and other So
called American" A. p. A. publica-
tions loved to tell in the early part
of the nineties. Even then this story
was not new, being copied from
Know-Nothing publications.
The foregoing and other stories
we're made much of in the A. p A.
papers in their day. All that the
people at Aurora, Mo-, had to do
was to copy a line or two from the
old publications and substitute the
name of Oelwein for one or two ot
the names contained in these stories.
The trick is simple, but none the
less vicious, and merely shows 20
what lengths these un-American
Guardians of Liberty will go in their
hatred of Rome.
The fact that the Menace is now
copying both the tactics of the old
Know-Nothings and the A. p. A.
movement and their very campaign
material, shows not only a great
lack of originality but also degree
of malice entirely foreign to the
American mind. It would be wasting
space to defend Catholics against
such accusations and malignant sus-
picions. The very fact that the
Menace is still running its shop at
Aurora is sufficient proof that Cath
olics pursue Just the opposite course
of that ascribed to them by that
paper. SAYS Editor Windle in a re-
cent issue of the Iconoclast, speaking
of Catholics and defending them
against the accusation OF contem-
plated violence raised by the Mem
ace. "If a hundredth part OF what
Walker says against Catholics were
true, his outfit would have been