The Irish standard., 1918-06-22
Z. S. GOVERNMENT OF.
FlclAlLY BRANDS A.P.
AS ITS ENEMIES

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The United States Committee on
sued this week under the signature of
Harvey O'Higgins, assistant chairman,
directly charges the anti-Catholic
movement in America with being not
only unpatriotic but directly under the
control OF our national enemies. While
Germany has many splendid Catholics
in her borders, some of the best the
world knows, they had an experience
with the anti-Catholics of their own ma
ton themselves in the Kulturkampf
and, through the aid of sincere Cath
Ollie press and widespread organiza-
ton, won complete victory. But the
forces that backed the Kulturkampf
are now transferring their energies to
this country, in order to split the NOR
ale of the American people. Mr.. O'Hig-
gins says:
In previous article we have noted
how the German agents in this country
are using their whispering propagan-
da' to set us against the French, the
British and the Japenese, by circulat-
ing among us all sorts of SANDERS and
ill reports against these allies In the
campaign to promote domestic dis
unity the pro-German rumor-monger
has been even buster. He is working
here, exactly as he worked in Italy,
upon religious prejudices. He has
spread the report that the Masonic Or
ders have protested to the Government |
against the knights of Columbus being |
permitted to build recreation huts in
the camps. No such protest was ever
made. He has circulated stories that !
Catholic nuns were refused permission |
to do Red Cross work unless they wore
Red Cross uniforms, and that Catholic
soldiers-and Jewish soldiers-were
being Disseminated against by Red
Cross officials All such stories are
outright inventions. At the same time
he passes around every kind of rumor
of Catholic disloyalty, such as the ia
nous one that President Wilson's Sec
rotary, Catholic, had been executed
for treason. He has filled the mails
with printed copies of an alleged
''bloody oath of the knights of Column
bus" giving it on the pretended au-
thority of the Congressional Record.
It was printed in the Record because
it was read into a debate before the
House of Representatives on an elec-
ton protest, in order that it might be
denounced as forgery and a libel up.
on Catholic candidate. A pro-Ger.
man agent has been caught distribute
ing copies of this "bloody oath" in New
Jersey and sent to prison for it.
I'm Spain and the Catholic countries
of South America the Kaiser poses as
the champion Of Catholic Bavaria and
Catholic Austria against Protestant
England, infidel France, and socialistic
Italy, the enemy of the Vatican He
does not preserve that pose in Catholic
Belgium or Catholic Poland. And In
America the Kaiserite uses this very
claim of the Kaiser to arouse enmity
against the Catholics, just as in Italy
the German agent used it in an unsuc'
cessful attempt to seduce the Italian
Catholics, and now in America accuses
the Italian Catholics of having sue
cumbed to the seduction. As matter
of fact, the Catholic chaplains in the
Italian army were among the first to
discover this propaganda among the
soldiers, reported it to the officers, and
combated it diligently.
"Various persons and publications
that made living out of sectarian ami
mosities before the war are uncon-
sciously doing the work of the enemy
by assisting the spread Of anti-Catho-
lie and anti-Protestant ISLANDERS. They
can only be stopped by an appeal to
public reprobation. They are repre-
senting the trouble in Ireland as purely
a religious trouble, and the opposition
to CONSUMPTION in Quebec as the same
sort of thing. Even Rudyard Kipling
recently fell into the trap and de-
nounced the Pope and the Kaiser and
the neutrals in one breath. Such de-
nunciations overlook the fact that
Cardinal MERCER, the Catholic prelate
of Belgium, has been the most effec-
tive popular opponent of the Kaiser
that Europe has produced. This is a
war of nations, not of creeds. Prus-
STA is as Protestant nation as Eng.
land is, and Belgium and Poland are as
Catholic as Austria Anyone who rails.
es the religious question in America
today is acting as a German agent
whether he knows it or not, as truly as
if he were blowing up munition plants
All loyal citizens should discourage
him"