Communications
384 THE COMMONWEAL February 9, I927 COMMUNICATIONS KOSCIUSZKO: A LITHUANIAN shows a commendable spirit; but by what right do the Poles Washington, D. C. steal the ideals of Lithuania, as...
...and when Kosciuszko, as commander-in-chief of the united forces, on March 24, I794, issued a proclamation, it was addressed to the military forces of Poland and Lithuania...
...It might well be, of course, that the Poles of that time were not as narrow and prejudiced racially as Mr...
...the important thing is that Kosciuszko himself, in letters and documents, made the unqualified statement that he was a Lithuanian--notable when he wrote to General Niesiolowski: "What am I, if not a Lithuanian...
...A review in a recent issue of The Commonweal, written by Robert R. Hull (a convert to the Church, I believe) is an example of the evil effect upon our writers of the Mercury and its contributors...
...My answer to that is that it matters not what Mr...
...Your correspondent is emphatic in declaring that "we [Poles] will not let anybody steal our own ideals...
...STEPFIEIq Du BRUL...
...Your correspondent in one breath asserts that it is impossible to be a Lithuanian without being at the same time a Pole, and in the next breath, he asks: "Do you suppose that if Kosciuszko were a Lithuanian, racially and culturally, he would have become the national hero of Poland, and have been regarded as Poland's greatest patriot...
...Possibly this statement will put at rest the doubts Father Spalding has of my intention in raising the question in the beginning...
...I might point out that the famous Polish writer, Sienldewicz, like other famous Poles, was born and died in a time when Poland was a province of Russia...
...This is a compromise between Miss Church's dogma and my own contention that a wage cut is justifiable regardless of the future hopes for better times...
...Of course, this is very smart...
...O the Editor:rain The Commonweal of December 29, x926, there appeared an article of mine entitled Kosciuszko: A Lithuanian...
...Shall he close his plant and leave his men to their own devices (and by hypothesis, these are few and inadequate) or shall he pay them what he can until they can arrange to do better somewhere else or conditions change, enabling the employer to pay them more ? To sum up our views then, Miss Church maintains that the first alternative is the only moral one, I maintain that the second is more in keeping with the principles of Christian charity, and Father Maguire supports my view "with reservations...
...Now when the diabolical school of writers in France or elsewhere attack the Catholic Church, there are certain nonCatholics who seem unmistakably glad, not realizing that an attack upon the Catholic Church is an attack upon Christianity in general, and that the same hand that smites Catholicism today will surely smite Protestantism tomorrowmif the smiting seems worth while...
...yet no Russian has ever attempted to "steal Poland's ideals" by claiming that Sienkiewicz was a Russian, although there might appear to be some justice in such a claim, since not only was Poland a province of Russia at that time, but both were of the same Slavic group...
...Gleeful imitations of the ultra-liberal style of berating the heretic are not going to save us from the poison pen when the moment is ripe...
...But obviously it is of little value in a discussion of a presentday ethical problem to have valuable space used in criticizing logic...
...True, it is the basis of argumentation but when the participants refuse to recognize that foundation and to be guided thereby, it is almost futile to comment further on it...
...O the Editor :--Because Mencken and the Mercury school of writers unmercifully maul the Methodists and Baptists on all occasions, certain Catholics seem to think it smart to copy the Mercury style when referring to the activities of these sects...
...Suffice to say that Father Maguire has sadly misunderstood my analogies in my letter in The Commonweal of November I7, and despite my protest that all criticisms of our present economic order are out of place in this discussion, he insists upon injecting it again and again...
...Not at all...
...This It could only be by the same process of reasoning as that employed by the African Negro who, when questioned by a missionary as to his ideas of justice, replied that for him to take the wife and goods of his neighbor was just, but that for the neighbor to take his wife and goods was unjust...
...As to his having become the national hero of Poland, history leaves no room for doubt on that score, the "touchiness of the Poles on the point of nationalism" notwithstanding...
...The same condition obtains by hypothesis in the problem presented...
...If good faith on the part of the employer is in question, we need not consider any further, for the only problem he is trying to decide is his duty to his men, with no consideration of his own interest outside of his desire to preserve his investment if ethically possible...
...THE FACTS OF FASCISM Washington, D. C. O the Editor :--Referring to Father Bandini's letter in your issue of January z9, I would respectfully recall to his attention the following words uttered by His Holiness Pope Pius XI, reported by the Associated Press and published in the United States on December 2o: "We declare pointedly that so far as religious interests, which are the supreme interests of the people, are concerned, the faith in the force of right, in the vigor of laws, in the efficacious good will of the authorities--is not yet complete or secure...
...ciuszko was a Pole...
...I shall be delighted, once this discussion has been concluded, to then consider the evils of the order which are responsible for the sad situation which I have presented...
...384 THE COMMONWEAL February 9, I927 COMMUNICATIONS KOSCIUSZKO: A LITHUANIAN shows a commendable spirit...
...but does it not seem just as foolish for our publicists to gloat over the bitterness of the Mercury's attacks upon Methodism...
...So, too, with Miss Church, in her letter in The Commonweal of December 15...
...It seems that an obscure menace--confirmed by clouds of suspicion, interferences, and difficulties--hovers over the activities of the 'Catholic action organization,' which is the apple of our eye...
...Father Maguire thereby makes the morality of a present act contingent upon an economic hope...
...So the discussion stands, with no other views expressed, for Father Spalding's letter is merely a protest against the problem being used as a criticism of the doctrine of the living wage...
...So that analogy is futile and illustrates nothing...
...In your issue of January x2, there was a communication from Mr...
...but by what right do the Poles Washington, D. C. steal the ideals of Lithuania, as witness their Kosciuszko claim...
...EXISTING ECONOMIC DIFFICULTIES Jackson, Ohio...
...Kosciuszko then, as he did on other occasions, clearly drew a distinction between the two nations...
...Of course, someone may answer: "But the Methodists are not courteous in their controversy with us, and the Methodist denomination furnishes the bulk of those who belong to the Ku Klux Klan...
...Rxv...
...It is distinctly different from mine, and, I may say, that of every recognized economist...
...And to Alexander I of Russia, he wrote: "I am a Lithuanian born...
...Only by this can we accomplish what we wish, and prevent the discussion from being shunted into a maze of irrelevant ideas...
...DEms A. MeCARx~Y...
...Kosciuszko in his will, and in every other document and letter in which he referred to his nativity, described himself as a Lithuanian, and that he should have described Lithuania as "in Poland," could not and did not make him a Pole, for Poland and Lithuania are entirely different nations...
...It is true that in Kosciuszko's time there existed between Poland and Lithuania a union "aequales aequalibus," designed solely for the greater protection of these countries against the danger of invasion by more powerful neighbors...
...He seems very happy doing this, more especially in February 9, x927 THE COMMONWEAL 385 dragging into his review mention of one chapter which, when it appeared last year in the Mercury, was the cause of much controversy over its decency or indecency...
...Even if this were so, what are we going to gain by patting on the back and slavishly imitating the people who attack those who, with all their faults, are still much nearer to us in belief than the writers whose sneers at all religion, all supernaturalism, are notorious...
...At least we have our sincerity in common...
...Furthermore, Father Maguire's analogy of a diamond worth $i,ooo which can only find a market at $1oo is a perfect illustration of his theory of economic value...
...O the Editor :--I must confess a reluctance to debate with anyone who finds a satisfaction in having anyone convict him of bad logic and triumphantly declares that he has "pinked" me when I protested against such an irrational procedure...
...Stephen B. Mizwa, in which the writer stated that he was at a loss to understand what I meant when I said that Kosciuszko was a Lithuanian...
...REv...
...Mizwa or the writer might suppose...
...Mizwa's statement would indicate...
...But I respectfully contend that it is not courteous, nor is it wise...
...This foolishness on the part of Protestants has often been commented upon in suitable words by the Catholic press...
...I maintain that its use is false in this connection for if the diamond can only be sold for $mo that is its value...
...and I have seen some use of the word in somewhat the same sense in the recent writings of Catholics...
...It seems the task of the education of Christian youth, which is an important part of our divine mission, is endangered...
...Mencken has made the word "moron" fashionable-meaning Methodist or Baptist...
...If I had I should have told him so personally and plainly...
...THE MERCURY SCHOOL AND METHODISTS Boston, Mass...
...If there is any glory in such tactics, Father Maguire is welcome to it...
...Lithuania was never a province of Poland...
...JosEea B. Ko~re~victus...
...Again, in The Commonweal of January 26, Reverend Francis Jablowski says that Kosciuszko's description of himself in his will, as "a native of Lithuania in Poland," solves the question of the great patriot's nationality and makes him, willynilly, a Pole...
...Mizwa's letter itself furnishes the explanation of his bewilderment, for it betrays in the writer a palpable lack of knowledge of Lithuanian history...
...I still feel like Diogenes, however, for I am still looking for the ethical yardstick of a fair wage and it seems as elusive as that famous philosopher's honest man...
...But the prohibition of liquor is not the only prohibition likely to fall under their displeasure, and the Catholic Church, standing as it does for prohibitions of various kinds which are just as irksome to certain natures as the prohibition of liquor, cannot expect to escape the attacks of the "wide open" brigade for any great length of time...
...The one doubt I have never entertained is that of Father Maguire's sincerity...
...I, too, have criticisms to offer of that system, but must request that Father Maguire and anyone else discussing the present ethical problem please confine their remarks to that one phase, and not indulge in criticism entirely beside the question...
...The employer is not offering to pay his men any less than their labor is worth, but exactly what it is worth...
...This is one view...
...The same sneers now directed at the "morons" of Methodism will surely be flung at the members of the Catholic Church in due time...
...Even though it may surprise Father Maguire, I am heartily in favor of seeing that every man receives a living wage according to his accepted and expressed definition before others are entitled to luxuries...
...Applying this doctrine to the claim made by Father Maguire that there are many persons in this country who do not receive a living wage ( io,ooo,ooo is the estimate of Secretary of Labor Davis) all these persons should be laid off simply because they are not receiving a living wage, if the employers cannot or will not pay that living wage...
...This anti-Protestantism does not connote any special love for or sympathy with Catholicism...
...Lithuania, on the other hand, does not belong to the Slavic group...
...I wonder what our Catholic moralists will say to this ? I for one have never been taught that the morality of any immediate act can be made contingent upon some future possibility...
...We again see a conception of the state making headway which is not a Catholic conception because it makes the state an end unto itself and citizens mere means to that end, absorbing and monopolizing everything...
...JOHN A. RYA~I...
...Passing over the rest of Father Maguire's and Miss Church's remarks, however, let us, for the sake of clarity and brevity, now sum up the opinions expressed so far in this discussion: Miss Church maintains the position of "a living wage or no wage at all...
...Historical documents prove that Kosduszko was a Lithuanian, and no mere words uttered by anyone now can alter that fact...
...Father Jablowski's statement that my article was "distasteful," that Kosciuszko "studied in Wilno" (?), that "we had Lithuanians from the beginning" (?), that "we [Poles] try to live in peace with everybody" (?), "we are Catholics," "Kosciuszko's picture is honored in every Polish home the same as the pictures of the saints," etc., afford no proof that Kos...
...The next is Father Maguire's admission that a wage cut is permissible in this case if there is a reasonable hope that the industry will soon be able to pay a living wage...
...Hull deliberately copies the Mercury way of writing and the Mercury attitude toward the Methodists...
...It simply so happens that the Methodists are associated at present with prohibition and other activities which are extremely distasteful to the "liberal" group...
...Indeed, Poland and Lithuania are, and always have been, entirely different and distinct nations---radally, linguistically, and culturally...
Vol. 5 • February 1927 • No. 14
