Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1924-02-23
MIR. CREAGER'S LETTER

MIR. CREAGERS LETTER
Mr.. R. B. Creager, member of the
Republican National Committee and
Mailing from Brownsville, Texas, quot
ed further from the celebrated letter OF
Henry A. Wise
There was once time when the
very name of Pope frightened us as
the children Of a nursery. But, now
now! who can be frightened by the
temporal or ecclesiastical authority OF
Plus TX? Has he got back to Rome
from his late excursion? Who are his
body-guard there? Have the lips of Il
crowned head kissed his big toe for a
century? Are any so poor as to DO Ma
Italian crown any reverence? Do no;
two Catholic powers France and Aus
tria, hold all his dominions in detesr
able dependency? What army, what
revenue. what diplomacy, whac cnurch
domination in even the Catholic coun-
tries of the old or the new world has
be?
Why the idea of the Pope's infu
ence at this day is as preposterous as
that of gun-powder plot. l would az
soon think of dreading the ghost #
Guy Fawkes.
No. there is no necessity, from eitt'
err oppression or weakness OF Protest
ants or natives. They are beth free
and strong; and do they now, because
they are rich in civil and religious
freedom, wish, in turn. to persecuts
and exclude the fallen and the down
trodden of the earth? God Forbid
3D. But there is not only no niece.
ity for this secret political organiza
ton but it is against the spirit of
our laws and the facts of our history.
Some families in this Republic render
themselves ridiculous, and offensive,
too by the vain pretentions to the ex-
alting accidents of birth. We. in Vir-
ginia, are not seldom pointed at for
our F. +. Wis of ancestral arrogance.
But who ever thought that pretention
Of this sort was soon soon to be set up
by exclusives for the Republic itself?
OOIllG VI l1S dlClCuI OPSth pCNP'-
may boast of their ''protoplasts" and
OF their being themselves ,'autoch-
thones''-that they had fathers and
mothers from near Adam, whom they
can name as their first formers and
that they are of the same unmiXed
blood original inhabitants OF their
country. But who were our protoplasts? ?
English Irish, Scotch, German Dutch
Swedes. French Swiss Spanish, Ita,-
ian. Ethiopian-all people of all ma
tions tribes. compilations, languages
and religions! And who alone ara
"autochthones" here in North Ameri-
ca? Why, the Indians! They are the
only true natives. One thing we have
and that more distinctly than any
other nation: we have our "epony
mas" We can name the very hour OF
orr birth. as people. We need recur
to no fable of wolf to whe.p us into
existence. 1t may be hard to fix Ammo
Mundi. or the year of Noah's flood, OF
the building of Rome. Rome may have
her Julian epocha, the Ethiopian their
epocha of the Abyssines the Arabians
theirs of the flight of Mahomet THE Per
SLAMS, theirs of the coronation f Jesde
gerdis; but ours dates from the Declal
alton of independence among the ma
tions of the earth, the 4th day of July,
A. D. 1776. AS nation We are but 7S
years CT age. Many person is now
living who was alive before this nation
was born. And the ancestors of this
people. about two centuries only ago,
were foreigners, every one of them
coming to the shores of this country
to take it away from the Aborigines.
the 'autochthones, and to take posses
sion of it by authority, either directly
or derivatively. of Papal Power? His
holiness the pope was the great grant
or of all the new countries Of North
America. This fiction was fact of the
history Of all our first discoveries and
settlements. Foreigners, in the name
of the Pope and Mother Church took
possession of North America, to have
and to hold the same to their heirs
against the heather forever!-and now
already their descendants are for ex
Guiding foreigners and the Pope's fol
lowers from an equal enjoyment of the
privileges Of this same possession! So
strange is human history. christopher
Co'umbusi Ferdinand and Isabella.
What would they have thought Of this
L = l1..h II,