The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1914-05-16

1
sad and eager search for opportuni-
ties to work by that far greater por-
ton of the unemployed who suffer
their miseries in silence. The men
who speak loudest are often the
least anxious to earn their living by
the labor of their hands. They seek
occasions like the present to stir up
discomfort with the entire social or
der and to scatter broadcast the seeds
of radicalism which will in time bear
evil fruits.
Is the husbandman asleep while the
enemy sows the cookie? Catholics in
particular must consider it their duty
to devote to this question their serious
attention. Justice and charity alone
will be sufficient motives. But there
are still other considerations which
should appeal to their ZEAL Idleness
is the mother of vice, and enforced
idleness is only too likely to add ran
cor and bitterness to all other dan
gers.
The problem of unemployment is
not local or temporary. 1t is univer-
sal and chronic. At the first Interna-
tional Unemployment Congress which
met at Client in September, 1918, six
teen nations we're represented. In
our own country, at the first National
Conference on Unemployment, held
at New York on February q, delegates
from twenty-five States of the Union
we're assembled. Peculiarly signif-
cant was the fact that in spite of the
great popular demonstrations which
have marked this year the speakers
at the convention could not agree
whether the present unemployment
situation is acute or normal"
Yet the Church loves the poor more
truly than the world can ever love
them Pagan civilization was not con
cerned for them. Whatever true char
ity there exists today was kindled at
| her hearth. It is to this that men
must return if pauperism is ever to
disappear. 1t is an evil which never
found any place under her dispense
ton and wherever her influence was
felt. Neither would she hesitate now,
if no other refuge could be found-as
| in fact is not the case-and all due
reverence were observed, to throw
open her churches. The Blessed Sac
rament could be removed. No other
institution has done for the poor all
that she has done and still is doing.
Where have the worlds castaway and
unemployed found safer refuge than
in her converts of the Good Shepherd
and among her Little Sisters of the
Poor? Yet these are only two of her
countless orders devoted to the needs
of suffering humanity.
| Had her voice been needed in the
past the problem of unemployment
would not exist today. 1t is the in
evitable consequence of economic prin-
ciples of which she has never ap-
proved and never can approve. On
the other hand, this problem is not
the necessary result, as we are often
told, either of modern inventions or
of modern methods of living. Justice
and charity are compatible with every
stage of industrial progress. Were
her Sundays rest observed religiously,
we're her holydays of obligation in
force as during the ages of faith, were
the home preserved in it's integrity
and not replaced to such an extent by
factory and shop, were senseless ex-
cesses and expenditures avoided and
the law of brotherhood and Christian
solidarity obeyed in the spirit of her
teaching, there would be work and
bread for all today. Charity would
supply in the love of Christ for what
ever might still be wanting in times
of private or public distress. There
would be less display, there would be
| fewer fortunes made, but the happi-
ness of the people would increase a
thousandfold. There would be a
place neither for Liberalism nor So
cialism in such world.
But we must take conditions as we
find them. Ideal they can never be.
Original sin is fact which the
world may try to ignore, but whose
consequences it must always feel.
AS Catholics every social problem is
of interest to us, and the problem of
unemployment not least of all. Our
Lord Himself, we may well suppose,
had suffered bitterly from it.
What Catholic does not feel the
gentle touch of grateful pity when he
contemplates the Flight into Egypt?
How the heart of Joseph sank as with
Mother and Child he fastened in the
night, through the silent moon-lit
streets of Bethlehem, at the angels
warning! He looked to Gods Provi-
dence alone to find a living for those
most dear to him. But it was not in
the ruling Of that Providence to re-
move the suffering which should be
so meritorious for him and in which
Christ and Mary were to have so large
a part, the blessings Of which we
were all to share. We can picture
him humbled and abashed, perhaps
penniless and breadless, seeking for
work in pagan city from people of
an alien tongue. There was no pang
of that royal, faithful heart in which
Christ and Mary did not bear their
bitter yet their happy part. They
were winning even then the special
graces of patience and of sanctifica-
ton for those multitudes of the un-
employed through all the ages who
would thereafter suffer in union with
them.
And that the unemployed of our age