New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-05-07
Listeners Seldom Hear
Anything Good of Them
selves" Says Editorial.
MODERN SOCIOLOGY
BLAMED FOR INQUIRY
Father Blakely Declares Scribes
and Pharisees of New Philan-
thropy Have Had Their Day.

Although he threw out the entire
eavesdropping evidence presented by
counsel for the city in the charities in
vestigation, Commissioner Strong was
attacked yesterday by Roman Catholic
publications and by the Rev. Daniel c.
Potter, Of Brooklyn, whose telephone
was tapped by the police.
Dr. Potter, who with his son and
Father William b. Farrell have been
the targets for the fire of Mayor
Mitchell and Commissioner Kingsbury,
declared that every new outgiving of
the Strong commission is more dis
graceful and desperate than the one
that preceded it."
He described Commissioner Strong's
four reasons for return of the exhibits
as an act adding insult TO injury.
Church Organ Prints Attack.
"The Mentor" an organ of the Cath
Ollie Church Of the Nativity, appeared
yesterday with an editorial, entitled
1.-THE Wire Taper" which says, in
part:
Listeners seldom hear anything
good Of themselves. The man who will
tap n wire will open letter, will lis
ten at keyhole or peer through a
knothole. In the category of shame
there is no word strong enough to de-
scribe him or his conduct. The fact
that he Is the Mayor of a great city
magnifies his crime"
America" a leading Jesuit periodi
cal, attacks the Strong Commission in
an article by the Rev. Paul Blakely,
s. j., entitled, "The Catholic Charities
and the Strong Commission"
For the present" writes Father
Blakely, "the Strong Commission has
ceased to be. The Department OF
Charities has explained quite fully the
principles upon which 1T intends to
proceed and the animus by which it is
guided. For this, Catholics may be
thankful. Called from the quiet of
their convent homes. religious women
were heckled and cross-examined by
men absolutely incapable of under
standing the elementary principle upon
which Catholic charities are based: the
love of God. With somewhat disas-
trous results to its assumed dignity,
the department summoned Catholic
priest, the Rev. W. b. Farrell. who in
carefully chosen words voiced the opin-
ion of thousands of citizens, Catholics
and Catholics, on the influence
which called the commission into being.
Flags Charity Trust.
Like war, pestilence. earthquakes,
famine and other natural scourges, the
commission has not been utterly with
out profit. IL has forced the modern
sociologists and their henchmen, the
members of the New York charity
trust, to declare their principles.
at last the testimony IL in. The
Scribes and Pharisees OF the new phi
lanthropy, who for years have been
attacking in secret the Catholic chart
table institutions, have asked for, and
have been accorded. their full day in
open court. Now they have said their
worst, and have done their worst. BY
insinuation, by implication, by open
assertion, they have striyen TO destroy
the work and reputation of heroic men
and women, the latchets of whose shoes
they are unworthy TO loose. They found
the Catholic charities of New York re-
fusing 10 pay tribute TO the modern
pagan philanthropy; for this bias
phemy they m .rked the Catholic In
stitution. of New York for death. A
tool was needed they found one, did
these modern Scribes and Pharisees, in
a 'devout Roman Catholic but he could
not give that for which they had bar
gained. Therefore other proofs of
guilt were necessary.
The true spirit of the modern soci-
ology, craven, dshonorable and de-
spcable, was never shown more clearly
than in the means adopted by its fol-
lowers to secure this proof" Prsting
loudly of ideals" "honor," human
ity," and with many claptrap phrases
presenting their satisfied, sanctihed
selves as the ultimate types OF moral
goodness and social holiness, this
noisome crew of "reformers" did not
hesitate to make full use of such
exalter methods of regeneration as sys-
tematic eayesdropping and an anony
nous. lying pamphlet"
Father Blakely then calls attention