Discovering Platitudes
McGowan, R. A.
DISCOVERING PLATITUDES By R. A. McGOWAN TO DISCOVER again an old book that one had forgotten, a picture once seen and admired, a vista that had enchanted, the flavor of a flower or a fruit that...
...For if the love of God and our neighbor is to be the rule of governments and social systems, first, there must be the general will to make it the rule...
...O, yes, and the burning of cane fields and an occasional murder...
...There, this absenteeism of the masses of the people from ownership is aggravated by the absenteeism of the native landlords and the native owners of the sugar factories...
...Of course...
...In conclusion, let me recommend an ambling journey through the West Indies...
...Thomas...
...The first of these platitudes is that absentee ownership is something to be cursed...
...The journey taught me not one platitude, but two...
...Work is extremely seasonal because the only work September 2, 1925 THE COMMONWEAL 395 that is available is on one-crop plantations that require practically no workers part of the year, a few for another part of the year, a great many during the planting time, and still more during harvest time...
...One cannot resist it...
...I learned this platitude in Islands A to E in the West Indies...
...It is bad enough to be a farmer and own no land of your own, or to be a factory laborer, subject to low wages and to periods when there is no work and no pay...
...Unemployment...
...it is not only a matter of the sacraments and the sacramentals...
...Class politics...
...But the accumulation of evidence finally becomes too strong...
...Let us take Island A as an example...
...Now there are two kinds of absenteeism...
...second, there must be widespread knowledge of the main lines of what, under the circumstances, is required...
...Shipping, trade, and banking, based on sugar, tobacco, coffee, and fruit complete the economic life...
...Not the least delightful part of the experience may be that, as you sail again home, you will see, as the land fades away, two huge platitudes swimming beside your boat...
...The point, however, is not the particular kind of foreigner who owns most of the agriculture and industry of Island A. The point here is foreign ownership itself...
...but it is worse if your boss is simply an agent, commissioned to get profits for the absent owner...
...Absenteeism is raised to the third power...
...I seemed to see how much more good and how much greater happiness and how much sounder personal morality, and how much more spirituality might result if more attention were paid to finding out what is meant by the love of neighbor for the love of God in governments and social systems, and if more thought were given towards how to accomplish it...
...The effects.of all this are imaginable...
...It is briefly this—Religion is not only a matter of praying to God and the Saints...
...When you see with your own eyes what enforced idleness, without pay, of so many people means, then you have discovered something...
...They are yours...
...It must be applied in different ways at different times and in different places...
...The second is the platitude of Sundayism...
...Verifying this platitude is tricky in the West Indies...
...This is divided again into two types, the absenteeism of foreign owners and the absenteeism of native owners, since it is one thing for the land and capital of a country to be owned by natives and residents of the country, however few they are, and it is another thing for it to be owned by foreigners...
...The platitude is definitely discovered...
...It is the same with the platitude of absenteeism and the difficulty of breaking it up into its constituent parts...
...it is also a matter of making the love of God and the love of neighbor the rule of governments and the rule of a social system...
...this latter absenteeism refers to the masses of the workers and the absence among them of property ownership in the means of livelihood...
...As a matter of fact, that person may think that a government official is one who has an opportunity for private graft and that so long as a person is not an illegal liar and thief in relations of property, trade, banking, and labor, he is an honorable man and he may be a good Catholic...
...It is when those working on the property are absent from, away from, are outside of, and lack its ownership...
...Let us label the two in the manner of the school-men...
...Worse than most persons in the United States have ever seen...
...After such an experience, one comes back to the United States hoping that the platitudes, in so far as they are not realized, will not be overlooked forever...
...The other platitude one discovers is the platitude of Sundayism...
...The conclusion is finally reached that it is not enough for a person to be an ordinarily good Catholic for him to fulfil the duties of the virtue that Saint Paul called charity...
...DISCOVERING PLATITUDES By R. A. McGOWAN TO DISCOVER again an old book that one had forgotten, a picture once seen and admired, a vista that had enchanted, the flavor of a flower or a fruit that had lingered in the memory, or an old friend whom one had not seen in years, is a great moment...
...it is not only a matter of keeping the Commandments in their plain and evident meaning...
...That the owner is your fellow-countryman makes little difference to you...
...Learning a platitude is of course only the beginning, for it must be transferred from the academic appreciation of a truth to its realization in practice...
...It is for the most part agricultural...
...What manufacturing industry there is deals almost entirely with the conversion of the cane into crude sugar and some of the tobacco into forms for smoking...
...and, third, there must be an organization, or organizations, to secure it...
...The first is the platitude of absenteeism...
...Yes, wretched wages...
...At any rate, it is a pleasant sensation, my friends, to understand something more even about one platitude, not to speak of two platitudes...
...One need not go into details...
...The reigning system is absentee ownership by foreigners and, for the most part, American foreigners...
...Now the splendid thing about learning a platitude is that it is sufficiently general to be of universal application...
...Bad housing...
...In each one of these islands, a new angle presented itself...
...One discovers it suddenly and then one loses it again...
...Certainly, and successful ones, too...
...But in Island A, few of the islanders own sugar, fruit, tobacco or coffee...
...Besides this physical absenteeism of the property owners, there is another kind of absenteeism which twists somewhat the usual meaning of the word...
...The second is that religion is so far from being merely a matter of praying that it ought to envelop one's whole life and the life of whole peoples...
...In Island A, the masses of the people do not happen to own what they work with...
...Strikes...
...But where the masses of the people do not own what they work with under such a system, they are for a large part of the year enforcedly idle without pay...
...I recently finished a tour of the American possessions and dependencies in the West Indies, from Cuba to St...
...Yes, both kinds—the concealed class control of the foreign and local landlords and capitalists, and the class political battles in the open of the property-less workers...
...The former absenteeism refers to the owners...
...There is absenteeism of the workers from ownership, absenteeism of the few native owners from their possessions, and to cap the climax, that blackest form of absenteeism, foreign ownership...
...It is a depressing experience but it is salutary...
...Low wages...
...One comes back hoping that the truth of the platitude of absenteeism and of Sundayism will be realized and, having been realized, be acted upon...
...As one passes from Island A to Island B and on to other islands, new lights on the platitude shine forth...
...One feels its importance so much that one looks forward to two future national holidays in commemoration of the discovery...
...But discovering anew an old platitude, a bit of the eternal wisdom of mankind, is an experience all by itself...
...One is when the property owners are absent from their property and manage it and receive its usufruct through agents...
...This platitude goes far afield...
...Open shop" drives...
...Under any system of ownership where this type of work prevails, most of the people will be idle a large part of the year...
Vol. 2 • September 1925 • No. 17
