Daily Kennebec journal., 1925-03-18

Numerous utterances of Roman
Catholic priests and publications
| could be cited to show with what bit
terness our schools have been con-
demned.
The subject OF Roman Catholic
meddling with our school system
has been but little touched upon by
the public press. Greed of gain, ad-
vertising, circulation. political pat
| ronage and assistance has been a
more potent factor with men than
love for America and her institu-
tions.
What, today, is the situation in our
great cities; what of ST. Louis; what
of Chicago; of San Francisco, and
other great cities and centers of
population?
In st. Louis the school board Is
in the hands of Roman Catholics,
and they are starving the public
schools, filling them with Roman
Catholic teachers, refusing or ne
glecting to provide public school
buildings, while the money raised
for that purpose by direct taxation
is diverted to the pockets of favored
| contractors.
Similar conditions prevail in Chi
cago.
Let us briefly consider San Fran
cisco. Just look at her! Just look
at her School Board! Look at her
schools.
With Alfred Roncovieri for Super
intendent, the censoring of school
books was turned over to the Roman
Church, and books on history, eco
nomics, biology. and science We're
submitted to Priest Wood of st. Ig-
ratius College for his approval.
Under a Roman Catholic regime
the whole school system of that city
has become corrupt almost beyond
belief. Graft and favoritism are
rampant; thousands of text books
bought in defiance of state provis-
ions and at prices higher than We're
permissible. Investigation showed
11,1ol books which could not be used
at all. Miss Alice Rose Power, a.
| member of the school board, admit
ted that she had formerly owned
five thousand shares of stock in a
text book company, and had assign
ed one half of it TO the head of the
| company and the other half to her
| nephew.
These things, my fellow citizens.
are matters brought out by a Grand
Jury investigation and are matters
VI puUllc record.
The President Of the Catholic
school board had been given an au-
tomobile costing over five thousand
dollars. Other members had built
homes at the expense of the city,
and material to build them was TAX
en- from the department of public
works, and employees of that de-
partment helped to construct the
buildings and their time was charg-
! ed to school repairs.
The public schools were over
crowded yet building material was
sold at bargain prices or was given
outright to parochial schools. Aye,
more, and worse than this, thousands
OF desks were sold. illegally, from the
public schools, sold at prices rang
ing from fifteen cents to fifty cents
each; many of them, it was proven,
being put at once into parochial
schools and refinished by city work.
men at the expense of the city.
Priest w. II. O'Mahoney received
two hundred and thirty-five desks
on voucher 960, dated May Sth. 1920,
and voucher unnumbered September
u. 1919, and Priest Peter c. Yorko
received two hundred desks, etc, A
total OF nine hundred and seventy
one desks were delivered in lots of
fiom thirty to sixty each.
On September 18th, 1921, a crowd
OF hundreds of women stormed the
CITY hall in protest aGair": conditions
in the public schools from which
desks had been taken.
A Mrs. Mccarthy declared that
children at the Portola ard Buena
Vista public schools, from which
desks had been taken wera having
to sit on soap boxes. When the
desks that were taken from the pub
Tic schools were replaced, it was at