El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1914-12-05
ROOSEVELT LAYS BLAME ON BRYAN
ANDWIL5ONF0RMEX ICAN OUTRAGE5
Says Secretary Bryan COndOned outragng Of Nuns by
Assembling to Huerta Regime Similar Outrages;
Quotes From Decree Issued Against
Church by Carranza.


tries there have been bitter contests
between the Clericals and the anti
Clericals and again and again the eX-
tremists of each side have taken po-
sitiOns which in the eyes of sensible
Americans of all religious creeds are
intolerable.
There are in our own country indi-
viduals who sincerely believe that the
Masons or the Knights of Columbus, or
the members of the Junior Order of
American Mechanics, or the Catholic
church or the Methodist church or the
Ethical Culture society, represent what
is all wrong. There are sincere men in
the United States who by argument de-
sire to convince their fellows belonging
to any one of the bodies above men
toned land to any one of many others)
that they are mistaken, either when
thew go to church or when they do not
go to church, when they preach ser
mons of n fanatical type" or inveigh
against sermons of a fanatical type,
when they put money in the plate to
help support a church or when they re-
fuse to support a church, when they
iOin secret societies or sit on the mourn
ers' bench or practice confession. Ac-
cOrdiug to our ideas, all men have an
absolute right to favor or oppose any
of these practices.
But. according to our ideas, no men
have any right to endeavor to make
the government either favor or oppose
them According to our ideas, we should
emphatically disapprOve Of any action
in auv Standardization country which
is designed to Cypress either Catholics
or Protestants. either MasOns or anti
Masons, either Liberals or Clericals, or
TO interfere with religious liberty,
whether by intolerance exercised for or
against any religious creed, or by peO-
Die who do not believe in any religious
hold that these should be our SYM
pathies. But I emphatically hold that it
is not the duty of this government to
trv to make other countries act in ac-
cOrdance with these sympathies, and,
above all, not the duty of the govern
ment to help some other government
which acts against these great princi-
pies with which we sympathize
Messrs Wilson and Bryan by their
actions have assumed a certain un-
doubted responsibility for the behavior
of the victorious faction in Mexico
which has just taken the kind Of stand
indicated in the proclamation above
quoted: q stand of course, hostile TO
every principle Of real religious liberty,
a stand which If applied logically would
mean that no minister Of any churcn
could in public wear a nigh cut waist
coat or perhaps even a black frOck coat
and which would put a stop even to such
commonplace actions as the passing OF
the plate in any church to encourage
home missions.
Outrnges Sworn to by PriOress OF
But this attitude is only one of the
offenses committed. Catholic schools
almost everywhere in Mexico have been
closed, institutions of learning sacked
and libraries and astronomical and Oth-
er machinery destroyed, the priests and
nuns expelled by hundreds and some OF
the priests killed and some Of the nuns
outraged.
Archbishop Blenk. of New Orleans
father Tierney, editor of America;
father Kelley, president of the CathO-
lie Church Extension society; Mrs
Petry, one of the directors of the Cath
Ole Church Extension society, and
Mexican bishop whose name do not
give because it might involve him IN
trouble came to see me at my house
and in Chicago I saw other priests and
refugees from Mexico, both priests
nuns and lay brothers. The statements
and affidavits, submitted to me in the
original and copies of which have be-
fore me as / write, set forth conditions
which are literally appalling and tOI
which. be it remembered, the actions
of Messrs. Wilson and Bryan have
made this country partly responsible
For example, archbishop Blenk sub
mitted to me an affidavit by the prior
ess of the Bare-fOOted Carmeltte nuns
of the Convent of QueretarO This sets
forth from the personal knowledge OF
the prioress how the churches have
them on horseback, breaking statues
trampling on relics and scattering on
the floor the sacred hosts and even
throwing them into the horses feed
how in some churches the revolution
aries have offered mock masses and
have in other ways. some of them 100
repuIsive and lOathsome to mention
behaved precisely as the Red Terror
lists OF the French revolution behaved
in the churches of Paris; how, for eX-
ample. st. Anthony's church at Aguas-
calientes has been made into legisla-
tive hall and the Church of st. Joseph,
at Queretaro, and the great convent of
the Carmelites and the lyeeum of the
Christian Brothers all have been con-
fiscated; how the church property has
been sequestered and the archives
burned and the men and women in the
clustered communities expelled with
out being allowed to take even an eX-
ira suit of clothes or a book of prayer.
See Soldiers PrOfnne Churches,
The priOress states that she has her
self seen in Mexico City nuns who have
been victims of the passions of the
revolutionary soldiers and some
whom she found in their own homes,
others in hospitals and in maternity
houses, who in consequence are about
to be delivered of children. She de-
poses: L have seen soldiers dressed
up in chausables, stOles, maniples and
cinctures. with copes and altar linen
and their women dressed up IN alos
surplices, and corpOrals used as hand
kerchiefs."
She has seen the sacred vessels pro-
famed in a thousand ways. She de-
scribes meeting seven nuns who hac
been outraged, who she directed to a
maternity house, and who had aban-
dOned themselves to utter despair, say
ing that they were already damned
and abandoned by God and they cursed
the hour of their religious profession"
She describes how she escaVed from
QueretarO with nuns who had been
obliged to hide in private houses in Or
der to escape being taken to the bar
racks by the soldiers She describes
how she had daily to beg the food
necessary to sustain the "a sisters with
whom she escaped
Pathetic Question of "A Young Girl al
TOluca.
In Chicago I saw a French priest
father Dominic Fourier, of the con-
gregation of the Passion, who had just
escaped from Mexico with two young
Spanish students for the priesthood