The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-01-18
Auxiliary Bishop, Hartford

and had then said: 'I am glad you came. I want your advice on a problem. The priest from this lit- tie church near the plant was m here this morning to ask Tor a contribution for a Catholic schooi he wants to erect. Now he's all right. He's a good fellow, good friend of the corporation. real ize that the president of the cor poration put up the money for his church. But can't see his propo- sition. I stand for the, little red schoolhouse every time."
 My friend replied, "You don't want an opinion. Your mind IS all made up. But am going to give you an opinion. You did not know that I am Catholic. All you know about me Is that am from the head office, and that l was brought into the corporation to smooth out the labor difficulties. But I am going to give you an opinion, and l am going to stake 1t on one proposition. You have in your employ a large number of Catholics who worked with me in the mills down in Illinois. If you can find among these employees one man who is not honest, who Is not loyal, I will withdraw my proposi- ton. But you can't. Why not? Because they have been trained to honesty and loyalty in the paro- chial schools. The sisters there taught them that 1t Is just as wrong to loaf on the job as it is to take money out of the till. They taught them that they must give a good days work for a good days pay They taught the wives of these men to be honest and decent wives and good mothers. If you are looking out for the future of the corpora tion you will sit down and write out a check for five thousand dol lars and send 1t over to that priest"
 Fruitful Results
 Two years later I entered the same office on another visit. As opened the door I received q hearty, informal greeting from my friend, who said: You are just i'll time. I want you to hear what this man has to say" The man was a stranger to me, but since the greeting was informal re- piled in kind: "Well, what has he to say?" "He was just telling me, ' my friend replied, "that the Cath olic church Is the only agency fol law and order in the United States" After Q glance at the in signia in his lapel, I remarked: "Is he just finding that out?" The ..k ..n .. ,o,, ro,,I;nd. didn't mt If just that way. sI was saying that the Catholic church and the fra ternal order of which I am a mem- Der are the only agencies in the United States who are doing any thing effective to check bolshev- ism." Well" I replied, If you fellows can do as good job of 1t as we have done for the last nine- teen hundred years, more power to you. That's what we want-some- one to help us in the fight. We've been going it alone too long,"
 The formal introductions were then passed, and learned that this new-found defender of the Catholic church was the subsidiary presi- dent who had opposed parochial schools just two years before. Ap- parently, ne nuu leaTHeu HiS icSooii well.
 Enlightened Class
 have spoken of two classes of Catholics who have to be reached. The great mass of Catholics. with elementary Catholic shooling, will make an effective following for in- telligent Catholic leadership. The other class of Catholics who must be reached for Catholic Action is composed of a more enlightened, more favored portion of our Cath ollie population, but a group which has been crippled by what I have called the Elisabethan standard of greatness, which came into English philosophy with the defeat of the Spanish Armada. These are the Catholics who have all the worldly advantages that a secular education can give; they have the graces of Mayfair and the sophistication of Montmartre; they have perhaps the superficial knowledge that the worlds greatest artists and poets and musicians have been Catholics. but if they give the matter any thought at all they attribute this to their mysticism and not to the energizing influence of Catholic