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Show VOICE WTSJE WESTON Ml SCHOOL QUESTION Communication to the New York Sun from ?:r. Mdrkoe of St. Paul, Which W'3s Refused Admission. (Xow York Freeman's Journal.) The following interesting allegory, from the able pen of Mr. Markoe St. Paul, was refused admittance in the New York Sun: To the Editor of the Sun: Since ihe Sun ha-? so freely opened its columns to the discussion of the school question precipitated by its publication j of the educational resolution recce My adopted hy I the American Federation of Catholic Societies, per- haps your readers may be willing to listen to a voice from the West. And since Bishop Messtner assures us the resolution was intended as a "parole d agitation' I feel encouraged to agitato tin. time-worn time-worn topic once more, as I have done so often during the past, twenty-five years. I believe certain phases of the opposition of j Catholics to the public school system can often j be made intelligible to non-Catholics who do r.ot j understand us, by means of homely illustrations or J arables. This was a favorite method of our Sa i viour's when teaching things ids hearers did not understand. un-derstand. 1 believe the Catholic position on the school question can be. made clear by means of one of these homely illustrations or allegories. Catholics believe religion to be the salt of the earth, and especially the salt of education. XW this belief has brought about a condition of things precisely the same in principle and effect as though the State, with the best motives in the world, viz., to furnish pure food and secure the health, and prosperity of her citizens, should undertake by means of a general tax to establish a system of public soup houses. With the vast resources and I energy at her command the country would soon j be dotted, with substantial soup houses (school ! houses), comfortably heated, lighted and furnished I in first class style; soon, indeed, boasting Haviland ! china soup plates and bowls, and an elaborate bill of fare (curriculum of studies), including everything, every-thing, from light chicken broths, for the young and feeble, to the heavy clam chowders, oyster stews and German .soup's for the strong and healthy. On the appointed day the government soup bouses are opened with a rush, for truly the pcopb- are hungering hun-gering for soup (education), besides they have paid their soup tax (school tax), and why not get their money's worth? Hardly has the feast, begun when certain citizens are seen to be making grotesque grimaces and gestures of impatience. Finally the discontent breaks out into a great shout: "Salt! Salt! Give us some salt! There is no salt in the soup!"' Xow. every one knows that the best soups are J "stale, flat and insipid"' without the essential ingredient in-gredient of salt. But to these clamors the State calmly replies that, having no salt mine of her own (State religion), she is quite unable to furnish salt. Thereupon an argumentative genius steps up and reminds lhe State that neither has she stone quarries, nor brickyards, nor furniture plants, nor china factories of her own. yet all these things are furnished. "Very true," replies the State, "because there is nothing in the Constitution forbidding us to furnish them; but the Constitution specifically forbids for-bids us to furnish salt" (religion). At this apparently unanswerable argument the citizens try to be contented, but it does not make the soup taste any better without salt, and their discontent continues to increase. Soon some of the citizens (Catholics) have a bright id.a. "Why, salt is about lhe cheapest thing we can buy." they say. "In fact, we know whore there is a salt mine (Catholic church) where we can get all we want for nothing. Let us furnish our own salt" "That is all very well," interrupts the State; "you can eat all the salt you want at home, but you cannot eat it in our soup houses or during meal hours." "Thereupon a few citizens (a very few) try the experiment of gulping down a handful of salt (religious (re-ligious instruction) just before entering the soup house. But devouring pure salt without any other food only nauseates them and creates a burning thirst which all the saltless soup they can gorge in the soup houses cannot assuage. Others tried bolting down the soup first, and then rushed out and swallowed a handful of salt. But it only sickened sick-ened them and caused their overloaded stomachs to reject much of the soup they had swallowed. At last a large number of citizens, becoming indignant indig-nant at this state of things, boldly demanded the return of their money on the ground that they were not getting what they had paid for. namely, good, wholesome food, properly cooked and seasoned. This demand the State peremptorily refused to consider for a moment, adding that if the citizens did not like the food she furnished they could eat somewhere else. This many citizens would gladly have done, but unfortunately they were very poor, and. having faid their soup tax a year in advance, ad-vance, they had no money left to buy food elsewhere. else-where. Matters worried along in this way for sor.-.: time till many persons, including the State herself, began to notice that the citizens, even those who pretended to like soup without salt, were becoming weak and emaciated. Many had become confirmed dyspeptics (agnostics), and many, loathsome diseases dis-eases had become epidemic (divorce, suicide, embezzlement, em-bezzlement, bribery, grafting, municipal corruption, corrup-tion, lynching, burning at the stake, etc., etc.) I Many citizens who had money would have been glad to' go back to their old soup houses and to f put up with a less variety of soup,, me rely for the I sake of getting their soup properly seasoned with salt. 'But, alas! they found to their surprise that 'most of the private soup houses they used to fre- I quent had been forced out of business by State com- j petition. At this juncture thousands of those citizen3 I (Continued on Page 3.) ' f VOICE FROM THE WEST0NTHES(899L OUESTIOS (Continued from Page One.) Avho had offered to supply their own salt and the feAv Avho had tried the experiment of eating it just before or after meal hours at the public soup houses determined that, cost Avhat it might, they Avould establish soup houses of iheir own. It was hard sledding at first, but by close economy and by cutting cut-ting down expenses for clolhing and fuel and amusements and all kinds of luxuries, they managed man-aged to save money enough to build and equip a system of first class' soup houses all over the country. coun-try. As they owned iheir own salt mine and many other things needed to run a high class soup house, including a large corps of thoroughly trained waiters wait-ers (brolher.hoods and sisterhoods), it was soon found that they could conduct their establishments more economically and efficiently than the State. Moreover all their soups Avere properly seasoned with salt, and as their salt mine had the reputation reputa-tion of being the best in the world, thousands of those citizens that had previously professed to like soup Avithout salt Hocked to the uoav establishments because ihey considered their own so unsanitary. Steadily and rapidly the iicav institution continued to grow and prosper till the future of the State institution seemed to be wawring in the balance. Charges Ave re. freely made that the State soup houses were producing a crop of imbecile and degenerate de-generate citizens. In Aain the State denied the charge, protesting that the evils complained of existed ex-isted in spite of her efforts to cure them. To this the people only replied that if the State did not directly di-rectly produce the evils, at least she failed to pre-A-ent them, and that Aas the only excuse for usurping usurp-ing the functions of the private soup houses Avhich had ahvays done their work efficiently till the State had stepped in, to try her new theory regarding soup houses. During this time the socedors had become thoroughly thor-oughly organized; and one fine morning, April 1, 1910, the order Avent out from a certain society bearing bear-ing the cabalistic letters "A. F. of C. S." to close all the private soup houses and send their patrons to the public soup houses. The order A-as obeyed, and soon hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of hungry citizens besiege the public soup houses, clamoring for admission. Unfortunately ther is not a vacant seat, nor CA'en standing room to be had. The indignation of the starving multitudes rises to feA-er heat, and vents itself in angry shouts on all sides. ''We hae paid our soup tax for years, and noAV we are refused a single meal." "'What has become of the millions of dollars Ave haA-e contributed to the public soup houses?" "By what right does the State tax one-half of the people and use the proceeds exclusiAely for the benefit of the other half?" "We have supported the State soup houses for fifty years. 'Turn about is fair play.' Now let the State support our soap houses for fifty years!" To all this the State replied that to feed the Avhole nation it would be necessary to double the soap tax, and to spend countless millions in neAV soup houses and equipment, and that it aaouM be at least a year before she could furnish the first meal. The idea of a famishing people Avaiting a whole year for a. meal simply infuriated the now thoroughly thor-oughly arousted populace, and the most frightful bread riots ever knoAA'n in history Avere imminent. The authorities were powerless, for the whole nation na-tion had become a seething mass of humanity tortured tor-tured by hunger and indignation. At this moment Avord was reeeiA-ed that the order of the "A. F. of C. S." had been withdraAvn,. jmd ?e priA'ate soup houses Avould be opened for business as usual the next morning. .,'' It Avas merly an "April Fool day" joke, intended as an object lesson to the State; But it had served its purpose well, for it had given the State an awful aw-ful scare and demonstrated to eArery one the in-adequack, in-adequack, the inefficiency, the injustice and the iniquity of the State system of public soup houses. Next morning it Avas unanimously decided, for the safety of the nation, and, as a matter of economy, econ-omy, to use the pri'ate soup houses instead of spending millions for iicav ones, and to furnish them with soup and lea-c it to priA'ate enterprise to furnish fur-nish the salt and the Avaiters as they pleased. St. Taul, Minn. WM. F. 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