The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1920-12-25
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
PRIEST PUTS QUERY AS TO
AMERICAN GENEROSITY.
St. Paul, December IS, 1920

To the Editor:
When one reads in our American
publications of the Astounding wealth
about us it is easy indeed to cheer
up" as one editor advises. To quote:
"The United States is the greatest
financial nation in the world. Our
bank reserves total more thar $751;
OOO, 100000" That would mean about
$500 for every man, woman. and child
in the country. Before the war we
owed $4,OO0,OOO,OO0 to other nations
Now other nations owe us about $14,
O00,OO0,0OO, and the only 100 per cent
piece of currency on earth just now is
the American dollar.
We have just harvested the biggest
crops ever. What glorious land is
ours! How God has blessed us! Is
it our virtue that He has thus reward
ed? Is it our generosity? Our kind
ness to the poor? Our love of relig
ion and reverence for authority that
God is rewarding in this Astounding
wealth that flows in golden streams
into every part of the nation?
Well, perhaps it is. But let us look
at another picture:
Reverend Thomas Shannon of Chi
cago writes from Vienna, the city Of
the ancient Faith, describing poverty
and misery and starvation that has
seldom been surpassed even among
tribes of the uncivilized. He says
LAS to the children-practically sever
or eight per cent get no food. Fifty
two per cent have adequate food t
keep up their present low vitality
Ninety-six per cent are undernour
ished. The Relief (the American Re
lief Commission who supplies thest
data feeds about 100000 children ont
full meal a day. If there is supple
mentary feeding these children re
main in fair state of health. If ther'
is no supplementary feeding they arr
constantly losing their vitality. >.
More startling poverty l have neve
dreamt of. 1 had seen photographs o
starving East Indians and Chinese duh
ing a famine, but we found the dupl
cate of both in Vienna. Food was no
only scarce. but almost impossible t
procure. Even in the case of Chi
dren there is absolutely no milk i
| Vienna. l will pass over the povert
| of the priests who must go to tn
public kitchens like the Others Blu
| the case of the Sisters is more tina
pathetic-it is tragic
The Reverend Peter Guilday of tn
t Catholic University at Washingto
writes from Vienna:
"After seeing the battlefields {
France one could imagine he had see
Europe at it's worst. By no means
Here, and here of all places in tn
world can the real horrors of war b
seen. The poverty, the horrible po
erty is appalling. In one of the no
pitfalls a whole ward of bed-ridde
women, starved to the bones, raise
their gaunt arms to heaven, when tt
Sister told them was an America
! and praised God that America hs
proved itself the land of charity
praised be Jesus Christ, they Sc
to you everywhere in the century-o
, custom of Austria"
Monsignor Francis c. Kelly who W;
over in Vienna distributing a fur
of $4,000 raised by the Extension S
ciety for relief there, writes: "Tl
condition of the priests and Nuns
both Austria and Germany is pitifl
, 1t is quite impossible to, describe
, My companion is on the verge of tea
= all the time, and l am not much b.
, ter. You can have no concepti
of the awful condition of the Sister
q Some of them have died of starvati
already. God help them this winte
a The 100000 children of Austl
4 who will need ten dollars each fire.
q America to keep them living till ne
4 spring are challenge to our gener'
o ity and the abundance God has loan
g us.
!, But farther away there is 81
8 more dismal picture. In poor old ;
Il cient, patient China the relief agenc
d at work have about decided to all
r millions to starve, in order that til
r may be able to save until the NJ
harvest the few hundred thousa