Communications

...McCarthy says, that this school would attack Catholicism with as much readiness were it dominant in this nation...

...There are many outside of '"Gotham," perhaps some in it, who feel that quite possibly the most serious point against a certain popular Gothamite as candidate is that insistence on this false issue is deliberately intended to bring out favorable "Catholic" votes in both parties because of the inevitable "religious antagonism" it will arouse...

...and on the other, voluntary renunciation of "war debts" or scaling down of debts and reparations, after their validity has been vindicated...

...Asbury's scepticism toward all religion, the picture of Farmington, which he offers, is true to life...

...The opening words of my review of Up from Methodism (by Herbert Asbury) in The Commonweal of January 12 run as follows: "I think it best to preserve the style and spirit of this book...

...McCarthy says: "It simply so happens that the Methodists are associated at present with prohibition and other activities which are extremely distasteful to the 'liberal' group...

...Asbury nor the Mercury school to which he belongs can be correctly classed as "liberals...

...Du Brul, in the case he stated, offers an Empson dilemma, one conclusion of which is that the employer must be allowed to pay a "notoriously low wage," contrary to the doctrine of Leo XIII, and the other, that he must go out of business with consequent disaster to himself and his employees...

...That would seem to be the duty of a conscientious reviewer, to faithfully reproduce the thought and style of the particular author he is examining...

...Whether any man complies with the annual spiritual duties of a Catholic at Eastertime, or even whether he is a daily communicant is not the business of the American people...

...the same dilemma arising in foreign affairs affecting our domestic life, and the same difficulties in approaching a solution...

...It is purely and simply an unworthy appeal to honest voters who have and can have no adequate knowledge of the major problems of government, and whose vanity is tickled...

...There are thousands of such towns in the hinterland of this nation...

...For proof of the minor I refer Mr...

...Being a Catholic, I have a not entirely unusual penchant for desiring to be in accord with the doctrine of the Popes...

...The dilemma: curtailment of export or lowering of tariff protection for the United States on the one hand...

...McCarthy asserts...

...That I, in the estimation of yourself, succeeded in doing this is proven by the fact that you accepted my manuscript for publication...

...Du Brul will retort that this is advocating empty idealism and fighting a lost cause, but I fear fighting lost causes is an ineradicable racial defect...

...The case proposed by Mr...

...Fortunately, there are men in both parties of the highest mental qualities and with the experience of successful constructive participation in the solution of post-war economic and financial difficulties...

...If that is a right principle and prevails, solution must be looked for on the other horn, in the direction of cancelation of war debts and reparations—also a weighty question...

...There is one thing which I have observed about the sect under consideration which seems characteristic of it...

...Pope Leo XIII in a document with which Mr...

...TO the Editor:—I trust that your patience and the patience of your readers will endure just one more contribution to the discussion on existing economic difficulties...

...It is nobody's business what a President's religion is in private life...

...Did I "deliberately copy the Mercury way of writing," as Mr...

...I rather chose the lesser of two evils...

...Denis A. McCarthy's letter on The Mercury School and Methodists in The Commonweal of February 9, I am unconscious of having offended any of the canons of good taste or courtesy...

...Asbury's book...

...Are the Methodists "much nearer to us in belief than the writers whose sneers at all religion, all supernaturalism, are notorious" ? If Mr...

...But it will be noted that even where, as in Boston, Catholics have to some small extent been inveigled into helping with a "Watch and Ward" movement, the directors of the movement are careful enough to place a Methodist in charge to direct the work of "keeping the Puritans pure...

...EXISTING ECONOMIC DIFFICULTIES Bourbonnais, 111...

...Du Brul to accuse me of making the "morality of a present act contingent upon an economic hope...

...but a look behind the scenes ought to convince the thoughtful that what really hurt was Asbury's merciless exposure of Methodisric cruelty to the erring and straying...

...Du Brul finds my logic and ethics so distressingly faulty and I wish he had a foeman more worthy of the steel of his own incomparable logic and ethics...

...There was some controversy about the ''decency or indecency" of a certain chapter in Asbury's book some time ago...

...among others, and very weighty, the dilemma of American business...

...I regret that Mr...

...If they are not prosperous we cannot sell any more than they can buy, and the circle closes...

...It is not at all a question, and should never be allowed to become a question of the religious beliefs of a wise and honest and capable candidate...

...The Republican party—and many Democrats—are wholly opposed to curtailing American exports for the benefit of competitive foreign imports, and are equally inimical to anything approaching free trade...

...The term "Catholic President" is not merely irrelevant...

...For a Mellon in one camp there is an Owen Young in the other...

...it is actually and actively pernicious and harmful, an unseemly use of sacred things to further partisan political ends...

...It is not our business to make religion an issue in American politics...

...No doubt it was...

...RfiV j w R Maguire, C.S.V...

...Now in deference to the long-enduring patience of yourself and your readers, I must withdraw from the combat...

...that the injection of this false issue is not only stultifying to the candidate himself, but harmful to the church to which he belongs...

...If anything they are humanists...

...and I confined myself to pointing out, in the last paragraph, Mr...

...Asbury's book is funny...

...I expressed very few of my own opinions, indeed, in that review...

...Robert R. Hull...

...If through necessity or fear of a worse evil the workman accepts harder conditions because employer or contractor will give him no better, he is the victim of force and injustice...

...If there is a reasonable hope that in the immediate future the industry may be able to pay a decent living wage I think an employer may, for a short while, be permitted to pay a low wage in order to weather a temporary crisis...

...but why should it be necessary, as Mr...

...McCarthy wishes to make rapprochement with them, that is his business...

...Methodism Adrift, has something to say about their "supernaturalism" and their present-day loyalty to Bible Christianity which is not very much to their credit...

...Neither Mr...

...I plead guilty to the charge...

...I could hardly deny that there is, or at least once was, a "preternatural" element in Methodism...

...Du Brul to the case 466 he stated, which started this interesting discussion, and I throw in the figures he quotes from Secretary of Labor Davis for good measure...

...I do not see wherein I have offended either against courtesy or wisdom...

...Leaving aside Mr...

...Had I lived in Farmington, I confess that I would have taken delight in sheltering, to the best of my ability, poor "Hatrack" from the snobbery of the "holy...

...but he might also have added, "and Catholics...

...Du Brul is perfectly well acquainted, said: "There is a dictate of nature more imperious and more ancient than any bargain between man and man, that the remuneration must be enough to support the wage-earner in reasonable and frugal comfort...

...Where it is strong and the Catholic Church is weak from a numerical standpoint, there is scarcely any limit to its anti-Catholic activities...

...In competition with vigorous American export all over the world even in European home markets, and restricted in the American market by tariff walls, that opposition, essential to their prosperity, becomes increasingly difficult if not impossible...

...Du Brul is welcome to any consolation he can find in thinking my economic theory is as parlous as my logic and ethics...

...It is true, as Mr...

...Asbury's chief deficiency...

...that it is an astute but dishonest political manoeuvre...

...but he will please excuse me...

...McCarthy intimates, to make friends with the Methodists rather than with the humanists of the Mercury...

...Du Brul with the powerful weapons and impregnable armor of his logic, ethics, and economics to engage in battle with the insoluble problems of the present economic order...

...As Mr...

...Aside from the impropriety and danger of the misnomer which has crept into current political phraseology—"Catholic President"—it is question only of a Democratic or a Republican President, faced with at least one major problem identical to both parties...

...Girding the tattered shreds of my logic, ethics, and economics around my torn and wounded form I betake myself to the more hopeful and less difficult battle for fundamental reform of our economic system...

...These problems call not only for thought, but for experience...

...As President he has none...

...Du Brul has an overwhelming devotion to logic I will venture, with the modest tearfulness of a pupil in the presence of a master, to put my contention in strictly logical form: All economic systems which necessarily compel the owners of important and essential industries to pay less than a living wage or go out of business are in need of fundamental reform...

...but I would not like to state what I believe to have been the source of that element...

...The real question before the electors hinges on the war debts and reparations and the redistribution of gold, to which, from the prevailing American point of view, an essential preliminary first step is confirmation of the sanctity of international and national obligations...

...Fortunately also, the "Catholic President" misnomer is not yet an issue...

...It is quite unfair of Mr...

...Doubtless Mr...

...Was my review of Mr...

...It was my principal intention to give the readers of your review some idea of the contents and style of Mr...

...Du Brul proves, as I mildly suggested before, the ethical absurdity of the present economic system...

...On the other hand, where there are a great many Catholics its venom is somewhat blunted and its members and leaders even seek the cooperation of Catholics...

...Evangelist L. W. Munhall, in his Breakers...

...Therefore, the present economic system is in need of fundamental reform...

...It would take too long to explain and defend my "theory of economic value...

...But the present economic system does compel owners of important and essential industries to pay less than a living wage or go out of business...

...This, however, cannot be accepted as a final solution of the problem and I do not make the morality of the act contingent upon a future economic hope, but permit it because it is a lesser evil than to subject men to no work and consequent total destitution...

...Then comes the problem and the dilemma: People without money to meet their obligations must produce and sell, perform services or collapse...

...Despite my weakness in both logic and ethics, I refused to be impaled upon this kind of Empson's fork and therefore I pointed out that the only solution of these difficulties lies in fundamental economic reform, which under the circumstances can hardly be said to be irrelevant to the discussion...

...William Franklin Sands...

...However, though I may be torn and bleeding, I gaspingly protest that I have not injected "a maze of irrelevant ideas into this controversy...

...I will leave Mr...

...THE BATTLE IN GOTHAM Washington, D. C. TO the Editor:—With regard to The Battle in Gotham, it does not seem to be properly question of a President of the United States who in his private life shall be a Catholic, but rather of a President who in his public life shall realize and attempt to solve some of the problems of our national life which come within the President's competency...

...In no other way can the European peoples obtain money to pay each other and us but by production and sale of goods or performance of services...

...Asbury's book "a gleeful imitation" of his style...