Communications
496 THE COMMONWEAL March 10, 1926 COMMUNICATIONS LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT Washington, D. C. TO the Editor:—The Landmark for February, 1926, carries a striking little essay under the title,...
...I refuse to believe that the laity of the Catholic Church consider themselves martyrs to clerical inefficiency...
...I submit a proof...
...the poor layman...
...On the other hand, the use of chimes and "fire gongs" among us will be found to have great support from the laity, who certainly consider them "very nice...
...States' rights" was the issue in both cases, "by which one properly means the privilege or the constitutional right of political units to control their respective affairs and exercise their police powers without undue interference from encroachment on the part of the [federal] government...
...If our priests were ignorant or indifferent, our people would be worse...
...ON THE LAYMAN Philadelphia, Pa...
...at home a rigid respect for states' rights, insistence thereon, even in the face of the states themselves, combined with Republican imperialism abroad...
...We "have to contend with the effects of distorted historical exposition...
...The same might be said, indeed, for almost any section of the United StatesQuite possibly the secret of President Coolidge's extraordinary success lies therein that he has been able to combine in his administration the fundamental principles of both parties...
...There may be a few laymen who feel this way but they will be found to be ex-ritualists or jaded neurasthenics...
...That "the pews" would be able to order things better than the clergy is to be doubted...
...Andrews, was the issue in 1776, not "taxation without representation...
...The suggestion that priests and people in the Catholic Church are not united is untrue...
...and with the masses of the misguided and misinformed who have grown accustomed to look to Washington for redress of all real or alleged political and moral ills, including those which are local...
...Those who had, in 1778-1789, urged the states to ratify that great instrument, had pledged their faith that such a sequel was impossible...
...They do not sit patiently in their pews with "their nerves jarred, and their eyes becoming astigmatic" through the performances of "musical acolytes" and "choirs that ought to have their throats cut...
...If the principles propounded by George Washington and his associates are still sound, the greatest problem facing America today is the restoration, as far as possible, of the federal republic of the founders by relearning the lessons of the American Revolution and by setting forth without fear or favor the historical exposition of these fundamental changes in the federal government...
...Rev Edward Hawrs THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS Webster Groves, Mo...
...We have also copied the "choir stalls" but we have not yet filled them with vested ladies...
...Cyril Clemens...
...Someone has said, with profound feeling, that it would be well if Congress were as far removed from the states as Parliament from the dominions...
...by Matthew Page Andrews...
...They have "bad architecture, tawdry glass, and clumsy ceremonial," as well as we...
...Father Peter A Moran, C.S.P., is, of course, right when he suggests that an intelligent laity is the best proof of a vital Catholicity, but, surely, his illustrations are unfortunate...
...They are usually presented to the Church by some good souls whose feelings would be hurt were they to be refused...
...1 AO the Editor:—Lo...
...Interlocking economic interest with northern Republicans, runs in the South, side by side with the old American principle of "states' rights," the urgent desire for local self-government in all matters that the state can do alone...
...Together with a far-reaching change in population in the past decades, there has come to the South, also, the economic development foreseen by Southerners in the 'fifties, recognized by them then, and before that, as impossible under the slavery system, and set back for fifty years by the Civil War...
...Today, when so much morbid psychological fiction is dished up, we need the robust and lifemirroring pages of Cooper as never before...
...Out of the conflict [of the Civil War] emerged the centralized power that was most feared by the framers of the Constitution...
...When our own laity have the arrangement of musical services they always prefer "Nearer My God to Thee" to "Dies Irae...
...on the other, the Washington government has been assuming the imperial prerogatives which the British Parliament has abandoned...
...They are "crazy about" solos and duets, as every pastor knows who is trying to raise the standard of Church music...
...then the people of the states would again learn—and desire to practise—the art of self-government...
...probably the Democratic party contains no more convinced and powerful believer in just this doctrine than President Coolidge, head of the Republican party...
...Like priest, like people...
...That we have such splendid laymen as those who are making The Commonweal a welcome addition to our Catholic literature is due to the fact that the clergy are leaders and teachers...
...local self-government, he claims, was again the issue (though much beclouded) in 1861, not slavery, nor, essentially, the right to secede from the Union...
...496 THE COMMONWEAL March 10, 1926 COMMUNICATIONS LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT Washington, D. C. TO the Editor:—The Landmark for February, 1926, carries a striking little essay under the title, Who Profited by the American Revolution...
...It happens that everything that Father Moran dislikes is found in use among the Anglicans...
...His thesis is that the British commonwealth of nations is practising the fundamental principle for which the American colonists contended, while the people of the United States have more or less repudiated that principle: "On the one hand, the original American faith in local self-government has become the guiding canon of the British Empire throughout the world...
...They love, above all things, to have "Oh Promise Me" rendered as the most appropriate chant for a marriage service...
...This is good in reason and in theology...
...There is one body of Christians where the leadership of the laity is unquestioned and that is the Protestant Episcopal Church...
...Local self-government, says Mr...
...Equally curious is the growing change, very rapidly growing, within the one time solid (Democratic) South...
...Sacerdotem oportet praeesse...
...The duplex envelope was invented by them and copied by us...
...TO the Editor:—Let me congratulate The Commonweal on its excellent little editorial prompted by the centenary of The Last of the Mohicans...
...It is curious that this essentially Democratic doctrine should have become so widely held by thinkers among Republicans...
...William Franklin Sands...
Vol. 3 • March 1926 • No. 18
