The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1916-08-30
A PROTEST FROM RUDE ALLYN

, There is great deal of food for
thought in the following from the
Sarasota Sun:
This kind of thing is getting on our
nerves. We quote the following from
the Palmetto News, which for relig-t
ious intolerance beats anything COM
ing to our notice since childhood's
balmy days.
"The more we think about it, the
more sympathy we have for this anti
Catholic crusade. Any denomination
which refuses to recognize any relig-
ion other than it's own, that will not
allow it's schools or nunneries inspect
ed and that claims that it's priests
can pray one out of purgatory, must
be rotten to the core"
Remember that the above is from
the pen of young man born and
reared in Florida and justly proud of
it-a young man whose father was
one of the leading educators of the
state who had advanced ideas along
educational lines, in which we con-
Cured. He is a prominent worker in
the Methodist church.
There are so many things one might
say in reply to this voluntary insult
to one of the greatest religious instf-
buttons in the United States, the
members of which denomination, from
President Wilson's cabinet down, TAX
ing their places in the nations activ-
tiles side by side with their Protest
ant brethren, that we refrain from
saying them lest we seem unneces-
sarily severe. We prefer to believe
that Editor Russell simply didn't
think seriously of his, what must have
been, thoughtless utterance.
However, we feel it duty to cali
attention to the great injury being
done to the state of Florida by these
Catholic haters. We are spending
money lavishly trying to induce i'm
migration to our state. We are seek
ing people of knowledge and wealth
and assuring them Florida is free OF
religious prejudice and sectional ami
mostly, only, when we get them here
to have such things as the above hurl-
ed in their faces. There is no Catholic
church in Palmetto, we believe, so the
News man cannot claim that his
rights are in any slightest degree
curtailed by Catholic invasion. But,
has it's board of trade and real estate
dealers been duly warned that Cath
olics are not wanted in Palmetto, and
that they will be insulted by the local
newspapers if they do come. We have
a very small Catholic mission church
here in Sarasota. The editor editor of
the Sun was never in it, nor does he
know who chiefly supports it. A priest
occasionally comes from Tampa to
hold service. We do know, however,
that inasmuch as they cannot be dis
tinguished from other Christians, they
must be mighty fine people, for that
is the kind the general run of our
citizens are. We do happen to know,
however, that one of these Catholic
citizens, who is contractor whose
work stands every test, recently re-
fused to be party to graft PROPOSE
ton put up to him by the other kind.
He is honest-not, perhaps because he
is Catholic-but because he is fine
southern gentleman who couldn't do
crooked thing if he wanted to. An
other of these Catholics has invested
about $4,000 here the past year and
we are besieging him with fattery
and encouragement to spend at least
q hundred thousand more-which he
could easily do and not miss it. What
impression will such men have with
the people of a state who permit such
unwarranted attacks on the religion
of their mothers who will vote for
man for their chief executive in op-
position to an upright citizen of un-
improbable character who has rem
dered faithful service to the state,
simply because he denounced Cathol-
icism. If Editor Russell and other
Catholic haters would take a volume
of Father Ryan's magnificent poems
Father Ryan, affectionately called
the poet-priesU of the South-they
will discover that mere was a cham
pion of the Lost Cause who pillowed
the heads of many dying Confederate
soldiers on his breast-and who wove
into deathless song the very heart
throbs of the heroes of the South
land-who deified the purity and
goodness of Southern womanhood, and
rescued from the battle-scarred wales
and hills the song of the lark and the
sweet incense of the flowers at even
tide. 1t was Father Ryan who wrote
these lines, bearing a message of
hope to the forlorn and desolate:
There never was a valley without its
faded flower,
There never was sunset without
some little cloud.
The face of day may flash with light
at every mornings hour,
But evening soon will come again with
its shadow-woven shroud.