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Show : Disgrace to Catholic Americans if J ' ! Mine has come for plain sjieak- : :r ' "in the attitude Catholic Amer- 1 J ii.ivc maintained for the last j I ''' :'' rs toward the Philippine epjes- j j 1 .: . ' is5- pusillanimous and disgrace- 1 f Ti;- :u- President McKiniey ap- I I 1 1 "' ' i a commission who virtually j s : dictatorial powers in matters j ; ' ; ":. -fleeting the civil, but the re- , ' ' of the natives of the Phil- I : i ' :" ' 'n that commission there is j i ,; ;i Catholic. When its com j ' -! .!: t.,.,.1,,,, known there was no I : ' '" - I'l-otestant commissioners I ; : : . H.-.k to substitute godless. ! - fur catholic schools. Again ' ''!: Americans were silent. 1 j ' 1 nor Taft and his fellow com- V " 1 recommended that the i " : .'!: friars, without whose spiritual I ; :. "Orations .".00O.O1 hi f Filipinos i ! deprived of the sacraments! j 1. . -."neration. should be deprived of f ' f.'tnporal goods by forced sales. 5 V i !i the' Protestant commissioners i I .i would have the effect of compel-(4 compel-(4 the friars to leave the archipelago. s ' more Catholic Americans were : f, : .:!.!,. I rios of all sorts of sacrileges com- I H i in ('atholic churches in the Phil- I i ones ;ip))cared in the American I f-:-s. And yet no adopuate expression I horror at these sa-rileges came from j 1 '"'holie Americans. I our brothers in th faith, sons of our 1 "inmon mother, were trampled on as J '. 1 hey were th veriest dogs hanged, I .'h t. toMured and in ery way treat- i '! as. if they were not human beings I ; ";:d we. their brother Catholics, re- ' ainod silent witnesses of these infa- I ' ' ons wrongs. i U remained for a Trotestant. Senator 1 T'-itterson of (Colorado, to call the at- i t -ntjon of the -country to the fact that 1 if the Filipinos writ Protestants in- s:e-in of being Catholics, they would J not have been subjected to the nut- I vaaeous treatment they have been ! compelled to endure. As the senator i f from Colorado pointed out. the Protest- ; -ant pect.s from the Atlantic to the Pa- !fi would have been up in arms and I have made a vehement protest which I v ou'd have been heard in Washington ; f and ivsnerted. The Philadelphia Times shares Sen- 1 ator Patterson's views, as will be seen I lv the following comment upon his I speech in the Fnited States senate: ! "There are senators who protest that they would not vote differently than ! " "iiiiM nmn. 1 iiimi.in 1 ii 11 1 1 umM.mi i u U'. JfV they have done on Philippine affairs if there were 6.000,000 Protestants in the archipelago instead of 6,000.000 Roman Catholics. Their protests are too vehement vehe-ment to bo convincing. The truth is that Mr. Patterson shot home when he I suggested that if there were a strong lieligious kinship between the mass of I the people over there and those of the dominant party in America the govern-I govern-I ment policy would be less arbitrary, i The anger of Senator Spooner in the j debate 011 the Philippine tariff bill on Friday illustrates again the pungent 1 ptoverb: 'It is not the nasty lies that hurt; it's the nasty truths.' " The Charleston News and Courier, commenting in the same strain as the Philadelphia Times, says: j "Senator Patterson was right in his i initial statement, even though his col-I col-I leagues smiled. And that he was right j in his further declarations: that, if i these Christian wards had chanced to j be Protestant Christians, and if they ' bad learned their Christianity in the i sanctuaries of the Methodist. Presby-j Presby-j terian and Baptist churches, and if I they were only asovell founded in their I faith as they are today, there would be such an uprising among those dc-' dc-' nominations in our country against the 'cruel, unc institutional and relentless ! treatment of these Filipino converts I and brethren that 'few members of j congress would face their wrath.' we think, will be conceded on all sides j without argument or differences on. the point." To us Catholic Americans this criti-I criti-I cism emanating from non-Catholic I tourna's comes as a rebuke. Try as we ! mav. we cannot hide the disgraceful 1 fact that we have viewed with listless i indifference the way in which poltti-! poltti-! ciar.s at Washington and 'their repre-: repre-: sentativts in the Philippines, have con-I con-I temptuously ignored the Catholic ' church and the Catholic natives in '. those far-away Pacific islands, j Startling as the statement may seem 1 to some of us. we have by our inaction I become in a measure participators in the wrongs that have been heaped upon the Catholic church in the Philippines. Senator Patterson unwillingly becomes our accuser when he .declares that if there were a strong religious kinship between the Filipinos and the majority of the dominant political party in the United States, the policy of the government govern-ment at Washington would be less arbitrary. ar-bitrary. Freeman's Journal. |