The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1913-01-04

Il AIACFC AC NJAAANA NOAAAAA9esAAAk
her children to render unto Caesar
what belongs to Caesar; to love oul
country and to be loyal to our flag.
Socialism repudiates patriotism and
institutes treason; 1t scorns our in
stitutions and sets up the red fae
of revolt.
Twelfth The Church seeks thai
peace and prosperity that comes wher
mercy follows after justice, seeking
to do good to the lame, the halt and
the blind.
Socialism advocates the class strug
gle and sets the revolution about fol
the destruction of order.
Why, then, should Catholics stand
all the day idle2 Our faith may not
be nicely wrapped up and hid away
in napkin, for this is one cue tC
work, to put to use our talents in
this great and glorious country. Ours
is the duty to gain better under
standing of the antagonism between
tho Church and the Socialist move
ment. We must rally to the defense
of the faith against Socialist assault
We have the truth, and the unity
which it gives. On our side are
great bodies of men already organ.
lied as by the Providence of God. Our
fraternal societies, the Holy Name
Societies and the st. Vincent de Paul
Societies should rise in their might
and drive these false theories of the
false prophets out of our land out
| of our schools and colleges, out of the
official positions in our municipalities,
out of power within our trade unions,
from off the public platform, and out
of the editorial sanctums; out of our
press columns, our magazines, and out
of the command of public opinion
We should reconquer every foothold
they have gained
Socialists have worked while Cain
olics have slumbered In less than
ten years, from almost negligible
number they have builded an organi-
cation of almost 100000 dues paying
members. They have established
about 300 daily, weekly and monthly
publications. The Appeal to Reason
alone has in the last twelve months
printed and mailed 31,040,484 papers,
an average Of 596,932 copies a week,
to raid subscribers Taken altogether,
the papers, leaflets, pamphlets and
books circulated by the Socialist
movement is almost too great to cal
culate. These pieces of false itera-
ture are not confined to the homes of
the working class
The Inter-C Collegiate Socialist Soci-
ETY. last autumn reported chapters in
forty of the most prominent colleges
of our country BY this propaganda
thousands of students are interested
in the principles of Marx and Engels
More than score of Socialist leaders
are actively engaged in the college
propaganda. John Spargo addressed
eighteen of these chapters during the
past year.
Probably the most fruitful of all the
divisions of this pernicious activity is
the Socialist Lyceum Bureau It is
arranging for 600 lecture courses to
be given during the winter season,
five to each course; 300 of the courses
are already arranged. This, taken
together with the lectures arranged
by the 1900 local branches and the
organizers, both national, state and
local, should make it no wonder that
Socialism strides ahead as with the
seven league boots. Surely, it needs
no prophet nor the son of a prophet
to foresee that more than 800 public
offices to which Socialists have been
elected will be greatly increased in
the elections of the next year, for the
Socialist campaign begins the next
morning after the elections.
Suppose Catholics were suddenly
to awaken to the situation, what
then can we do? Become active as
the Church Militant would have us.
Give the reason for the Faith that is
in US. Defend our religion in our
shop talks, within the organization to
which we belong, in our trades unions
and others. Be Catholics on the
street corner, in the public press and
on the public platform We can
patronize the public press, and SO
build it up, responding to the wish
of the Holy Father We can distribute
Catholic literature on sociological
questions. We can spread broadcast
the knowledge that the most brilliant
men of science of our time are Catho-
lie, as they have been in times past.
While we are doing this we may
ourselves learn how to use the weap-
ons of truth, right, reason and cor
rect data. For this assault upon the
Church has just begun; it will be a
live issue for years to come.
We can open up our meeting halls
for lectures and discussions; we can
and we should sacrifice something of
our pleasure to do these things. And
we can and we should make these
meetings popular centers.
We can create public opinion that
shall be Catholic, by our praise and
our blame of editors as they deserve
praise or blame. We can vote for
men of civil integrity. We can make
it an especial point to defeat those
Catholics" who use their race and
Church in order to graft upon the
body polite. Our great Cardinal
O'ConneIl has set his face like flint
against this inner assault upon the
Church. So, we can march on to vic
tory ~ q rSh~s.&;n~ H.. 49,, -. =