Communications
COMMUNICATIONS MORALITY AND THE LAW Madison, Wis. TO the Editor:—I have read with great interest your editorial, in your issue of March 30, upon the problem of raising the standards for...
...A PLEA FOR REALISM Huntington, Ind...
...I have explained that my intention was to give your readers an idea of the style and contents of the book, Up from Methodism...
...McCarthy are referred to the article on Orestes A. Brownson in the Catholic Encyclopedia...
...They also believe that with these improved intellectual standards, there will be, incidentally, a decided improvement in the moral standards of the average person admitted to the bar...
...This was exactly the situation before prohibition, and the resultant evils led to a constitutional amendment...
...the states have rightly delegated their difficulty to our national government to solve in unison...
...The investigation made by the committee that formulated these recommendations showed that the undesirable members of the bar, those with whom the grievance committees of the bar associations had to deal, came to the bar almost entirely from study in law offices or from low standard law schools...
...and it offends in that way against the principle that "he that gathereth not with me scattereth...
...The reason for faith in our federal government is plain...
...Is it not an excellent opportunity for nation-wide lay cooperation in a very Catholic work, a unique work in America— a most valuable experiment in that development of lay thought which is so urgently invited by our bishops and which is so essential to the ideal functioning of the Church ? William Franklin Sands...
...The committee further found that such schools were tending toward certain standards, and it tried to formulate the standards to be recommended by the American Bar Association upon the experience of such law schools...
...The Catholic Women's Council of San Francisco has established a "home" for backward children...
...History has not always proved the wisdom of some of them...
...It is based, in Washington, upon scientific knowledge and experience by one of the most eminent psychiatrists in the country...
...Saint Gertrude's Guild was formed to assist Dr...
...To Roman Catholics who are troubled about the Anglican development, one may quote as follows: "And now I say unto you, refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it...
...and to the partisan politics and oftentimes corruption of individual states is no place to leave a question of this kind...
...One of these standards for such a school is an entrance requirement of at least two years' study in college...
...And other states have done likewise—without need of mentioning any specific instances because they are well known and even recent...
...Millions do not believe In a Being Who rules the universe, and Who will hold them responsible for their acts, and reward or punish therefor as justice dictates...
...It is to the closing paragraph of Mr...
...One possible standard for law schools not mentioned in the recommendations of the American Bar Association, but included in the resolu660 661 tions of the Conference of Bar Associations held in Washington in 1922, which endorsed recommendations of the American Bar Association, is that a school which has the right to prepare students for admission to the bar should not be conducted for the commercial profit of those connected with it...
...and the greatest value of the book for him—it more than puzzles his mind: it rebukes his prejudices while it renews his hopes—is to realize that, although the trunk to which he clings alone can bear fruit of dogmatic truth, since it alone is rooted in reality, there remains sap of faith in the errant branch that bears blossoms a Catholic may cull with delight for a veritable spiritual bouquet...
...Naturally, as part of their teaching office they take the initiative in meeting it...
...TWO RELIGIONS" OF ANGLICANISM Menton, France...
...States are still making a plentitude of laws...
...Charles J. Byrnes...
...Among these are a minimum length of course and a certain number of full-time teachers...
...Shriver describes very truly—but I am quite certain there is just as much "perjury" in that court as there is in any of the other courts where the recitation of the oath may not be so solemn...
...There has been no invasion by the federal government of any domain that should be reserved for the state...
...Let me quote from The Commonweal of March 2, a review of an Anglo-Catholic book: "A Catholic could borrow it with the chapter called after the Mass, almost literally for meditation...
...While, of course, it did not appear that no graduates of the better law schools had ever acted in such a way as to bring discredit upon the profession, the number of such graduates who had so acted was so small as to indicate a very marked advantage upon the moral as well as the intellectual side for the better schools...
...Robert R. Hull...
...The Commonweal invites its readers to send in communications expressing individual views on all topics that are of public interest, regardless of whether or not such topics have been previously discussed in its columns.—The Editors...
...It is useless to try to find a solution of the liquor question that would exclude the pill of enforcement...
...One reading it would obtain the idea that the main feature, if not the only part of the program for higher bar admission standards, is a requirement that the candidate have studied in college...
...Fisa attributes to The Commonweal...
...The present movement has been initiated as a lay movement, and lay movements under our present conditions are notoriously likely to overlap and waste valuable energy...
...Speaking merely of the principle of state rights—surely the fathers of our Constitution builded wisely when rights were reserved to state and national governments in the specific manner of our Constitution...
...But Governor Ritchie and some who agree with him in his stand against prohibition have no more reason for feeling discouraged than had advocates of prohibition for many years prior to the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment, for laws can be unmade in the same orderly way in which they were made...
...The moral advantages of such a training are to be found, not in the additional intellectual equipment which it affords, but in the association with a body of students shown by experience to have better moral standards, and with a faculty devoting itself primarily to the teaching of law...
...PROBLEMS OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA Bridgeport, Conn...
...Father Vernimont and Mr...
...Both of these gentlemen seem to miss the point altogether, and it is not at all a case of imitating or not imitating Christ...
...TO the Editor:—It is not my desire to prolong a controversy in your columns...
...Perhaps the editor may find the answer to his question in the quotation taken from Professor Hayes's book...
...Moore in his plan to put the meeting of the problem of the backward child by Catholics upon a scientific basis, by the medium of small school units, in which each child may receive special attention, and in which, also, special teachers may be trained...
...but since Father Raymond Vernimont of Denton, Texas, has come to the assistance of Mr...
...March 22, 1927...
...Something must be wrong in any system or any "life'' which leads to such disloyalty to what has been received before...
...I think, however, there is one mistaken assumption which runs through the comment in your editorial...
...TO the Editor:—I have read with great interest your editorial, in your issue of March 30, upon the problem of raising the standards for admission to the bar, which editorial was, I presume, occasioned by the recent hearing on this matter before the New York Court of Appeals...
...TO the Editor:—The Prevalence of Perjury, by Mark O. Shriver in The Commonweal of April 6, is very good reading matter—no more...
...It is not hard to picture forty-eight states of varying degree of wetness or dryness trying to solve the problem alone—with bootlegging in and between the states and the whole issue the football of politics...
...I am sure that those who are advocating better intellectual attainments for admission to the bar are not suffering under any delusion that the adoption of such standards will immediately revolutionize the character of our lawyers or the administration of justice...
...Attention is here drawn to the theory of enhanced state rights—whether there would be an improvement of our government by a step of this kind ? Certainly there would be no guarantee that the aggregate of disappointed would be less...
...In spite of the writer's interest in conversion, it pours out a good deal of energy against a group which, to say the least, is moving very rapidly toward Catholicism...
...In fact, the recommendations of the American Bar Association only mention college study as incidental to the main feature of the proposed improvement in standards...
...This, too, is my last communication in regard to the so-called "obviously erroneous statements" which Mr...
...This generous expression of good will on the part of the government toward this church has caused the editor of The Obrana to raise his eyebrows and ask, "How come...
...Since prohibition, marked sentiment of this kind has appeared and it would seem to be inspired by the outraged feelings of a drooping wet...
...TO the Editor:—A letter written by Marion Pharo Hillard on Anglo-Catholicism in a recent number of The Commonweal has just been brought to my attention...
...The Separatists say that this is absolutely true...
...THE BACKWARD CHILD Washington, D. C. TO the Editor:—America has two important articles (March 19 and March 26) on the "backward child...
...This main feature is that the candidate for admission to the bar graduate from a law school having at least certain standards...
...Governor Ritchie would settle the liquor question by allowing each state to make its own laws concerning liquor...
...Shriver's article that I enter exception: "The godless schools have done their work well and there is startling lack of faith on every side...
...I picked up The Commonweal at the Pratt Library Reading Room as a kind of recreation after having just carefully studied the trial of Galileo and its verdict...
...They more often cause the supposedly sensitive "separated brother" to mock at Catholic cowardice, the while he rejoices to know that Catholics have little or no confidence in the power of their message...
...The recommendations of the American Bar Association were not formulated because of any theoretical preference for the additional book-learning which might be obtained from two years' college study...
...The result was the recommendation which I have above described...
...Denis A. McCarthy of Boston, Massachusetts, on the subject of The Mercury School and Methodists, allow me to ask if these two gentlemen are not attempting to set up a false criterion...
...What they are doing, in fact, is frequently inducing the students who might otherwise obtain a proper preparation for the bar, to attend their low-grade schools, while at the same time lining their own pockets from the profits...
...Let those who decry the "agnosticism of so large a proportion of the people" wake up to the fact that the globe theory denies the Bible, denies Christianity, and that it is responsible, not only for the prevalence of perjury, but for all the pagan practices prevailing today...
...Fisa says, "if they [intricate problems] are dealt with by all interested parties in a spirit of mutual tolerance, understanding and loyalty," he expresses just what all admirers of the Czech and Slovak people hope for...
...It could readily be more and just as clamorous...
...Our colonial states were anything but an example of fair play and tolerance, and even Governor Ritchie's state strayed from the good path of its founders and passed laws unfair and discriminating in a matter so dear as religious belief...
...TO the Editor:—When Mr...
...What sense is there in blaming "godless schools" when the fact is that the theory of the earth as a spinning, speeding, spiraling globe, lopsided, with two-thirds water surface, and monkey-men all around it, and with its billions of miles and years—all that is just what the verdict in the Galileo trial said it was, false, pagan, heretical...
...Tis a consummation devoutly wished for by all honest Czechs and Slovaks...
...Will this be realized ? Professor Carlton J. H. Hayes, in his book, Essays on Nationalism, says: "The mere fact that the large majority of Czechs and Slovaks have remained in communion with Rome and have refused to join the national church has not deterred the government from persevering in a campaign of persecution and intolerance against the Catholic Church...
...It is a reviewer's business to tell his readers something about the book he is reviewing, and it is not allowable for him to be concerned with the possible reactions of those who may be interested in keeping from the general public all knowledge of the fact that such a book exists...
...Joseph A. S. Scribner...
...John B. Sanborn, Secretary, Council of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, American Bar Association...
...That is perfectly true, and there are many reasons for it...
...But why not face the truth fully and directly...
...If a possible convert to Rome happened to read that letter, and then to reflect on it as he assisted at an Anglo-Catholic Mass, he would be likely to conclude that he himself could never risk being brought to such a repudiation of what is available in Anglicanism...
...Howard R. Patch...
...Such persons usually make the matter somewhat worse, if possible, by posing as disinterested friends of the poor young man who desires to become a lawyer...
...When keeping "dignified and sweet," in order not to "alienate them from us," is a reviewer's first purpose, he may succeed in pleasing the sect mentioned (especially if he goes out of the way to attack the book to which they object) but he is unfaithful to the truth...
...STATE RIGHTS Pittsburgh, Pa...
...Thomas Vernor Moore, M. D. (O.S.B...
...There are, however, other standards for such a school which are equally insisted upon by the Council on Legal Education of the American Bar Association before approving a school...
...Before both these events, a school was established under Benedictine Sisters, at Brookland, D. C. (Saint Gertrude's School of Arts and Crafts) under the direction of Dr...
...The laity defers to their leadership—and seeing no role for themselves therein but the raising of funds, are content to do that when the need is placed imperatively before them, and unconsciously place upon the clergy an added burden which does not belong there...
...Very probably, most of the readers of The Commonweal will consider it foolish for anyone to hark back to that trial...
...For wet or dry, to be sincere, must profess an honest belief in a willing effort to minimize the evil of drink which has a tendency to grow unless constantly restricted...
...They believe, however, that modern conditions which confront the lawyer require something more than the mere equivalent of a high-school education, plus a few years of law study wherever the student feels inclined to pursue that study...
...Monsignor Hlinka asks for nothing more...
...The letter hardly shows that peace which comes with present inner satisfaction, nor that fairness which springs from even moderate charity...
...Recently we read in the daily papers that the CzechoSlovakian government gave a gift to a certain church in New York City...
...TO the Editor:—One paragraph in particular in The Commonweal of January 26, advocating the enlargement of state rights, would invite discussion, as it infers that our federal government has invaded the domain reserved for the state...
...One of them may be the fact that prelates, clergy, and sisterhoods in their teaching office are more immediately aware of the existence of this menace than is the general comfortable public...
...W. V. Lyons...
...662 Father Blakeley, in his appeal for interest in this matter of the backward child, so preeminently a Catholic problem, says: "In the heartrending problems which teachers and school authorities daily face—and almost daily fail to solve—many Catholics have no interest whatever...
...There is more to fear in the sweep of unfair and popular notions in the several states than there is in the slower processes of the federal government with its Congress, Senate, President, and Supreme Court...
...Catholic fears of "alienating" somebody do not always succeed in their avowed object...
...I think that those who are doing more to lower the moral standards of the bar than anyone else are those who conduct law schools at a profit of so much per head...
...OUR PERJURED GLOBE Baltimore, Md...
...who was nationally known among psychiatrical specialists before he entered the order...
...I have been in the United States Court at Baltimore during many cases, and heard the very solemn recitation of the oath— as Mr...
...lest haply ye be found even to fight against God...
...Considering the history of this country, it is hardly possible to mention a national law or constitutional amendment in which our government has not shown a marked degree of tolerance and justice...
Vol. 5 • April 1927 • No. 24
