The Silver Ship
392 THE COMMONWEAL August 2I, 1929 sity more obvious than in the sphere of "prosperity," which displays not a sign of willingness to permit a wider immigration. A new school of writers on...
...Among the many reports issued lately about peon labor in the United States, the one prepared by Miss Linna E. Brisette (Department of Social Action, National Catholic Welfare Conference) should be noted as having particular value...
...No man would risk his private fortune betting that the conditions upon which they are based can be even relatively permanent...
...A new school of writers on economics declares that the fight against poverty will be won by the instruments of efficiency...
...But that the "settlement" is far from having ended the difficulties of the Church in Mexico becomes evident if one scrutinizes a little the hundred scraps of news which have eddied across the border...
...ONLY where old-line Democrats are concerned did the recent party primaries in Virginia result in a vindication of progressive government...
...Nor is the domestic environment in which these children live anything but horrible...
...The resumption of Mexicans Catholic life in its normal forms has Here and likewise restored much of the old Yonder "tone" to a landscape individualized during centuries by spires and the robes of priests...
...The story is that of an exploited race, brought to work in beet fields and on railroads, housed in the worst manner conceivable, and paid at a rate which makes eventual appeals to charity inevitable...
...The majority of the families sleep five in a room...
...True, the results have encouraged the New York Times to declare that the Bishop's hopes have no show at all, and the Herald Tribune to hail the revival of a two-party...
...news report likewise informs us that Padilla, the Mexican Secretary of Education, is carrying on a cultural campaign "to tranquillize consciences and to free the peasant masses from fanaticism...
...To anyone who knows the kind of literature and oratory which Padilla and his associates have favored during recent years, the intention to broadcast propaganda against the Catholic faith is obvious...
...But the clear inference in this case is that the government has dropped none of its antagonism to Christian tradition but remains what, essentially, it has been...
...Raskob, a citizen of Delaware...
...that these last are, primarily, unifications and mergers of capital, natural resources, and means of production...
...The sugar companies deal with the grower, who in turn employs the family as a unit without allowing to this any rights other than those specified...
...Who knows but what our increasing knowledge and control of nature also forces us to run greater risks, to enter more hazardous unknowns...
...The "temporary" deportation of Archbishop Orozco is explained on the ground that his "visit" to the United States might help in quelling the rebellion in Jalisco...
...Although the state law requires attendance in school on the part of children between the ages of eight and fourteen, yet at the present moment, "thousands of young children are in the beet fields of northern Colorado," despite the fact that Congress has been assured by various spokesmen that "no child labor exists...
...392 THE COMMONWEAL August 2I, 1929 sity more obvious than in the sphere of "prosperity," which displays not a sign of willingness to permit a wider immigration...
...In our sugar-beet districts, the average earnings of thousands of contract-worker families, that is for the labor of the father, the mother and the children from seven years and up, will average only $6oo a year...
...To most of us flying is still a dashing stunt rather than an enterprise in which we care to risk our lives and money...
...and that the recipe for keeping an "improved producing machinery" in motion is simply the inevitability with which an earner becomes a purchaser...
...THE Mexican is, however, very much with us in this country...
...and "habitable housing" has been reduced, in most cases, to a mere shack...
...These Mexican people are here to stay...
...The question is whether they are as numerous as Bishop Cannon has represented, and on this the primaries throw no light...
...They guarantee the economic stability of the individual rather than of the mass...
...and as a nation we can hardly face with equanimity the prospect of their staying under circumstances which would produce even very bad sheep or horses...
...Signs and For others, state government of one kind or another is unimportant cornProphecies pared to whether its administrators hold allegiance to Mr...
...Some have even ventured to say that this theory, now partly in effect throughout the United States, must be "exported" for the welfare of other nations--that, indeed, giving currency to it will prove to be our most distinctive international service...
...It may well seem, however, that this device is far less effective than a cordial reception of this brave men at Mexico City would have been...
...Thomas F. Mahoney and read at a recent Catholic Conference on Industrial Problems...
...An N.C.W.C...
...Conceivably enough, however, neither aviation nor statecraft may prove lastingly trustworthy...
...Of course Mexico cannot expect that religion will be shielded from intellectual or revolutionary opposition...
...As yet, however, it is sadly evident that these are mere surmises...
...WEEK BY WEEK NE is glad to hear that the pacification of Mexico has now been carried to a point where the number of troops actually under arms is smaller than it has been for years...
...Nothing could be more plain than the world's abiding lack of confidence in aircraft...
...We continue to need, possibly we need more than ever, those solid landmarks of moral and religious truth which are the only safe guides in history...
...More light is thrown on the matter by the detailed survey of conditions in Colorado prepared by Mr...
...It is likewise true that the majority of Americans are still very far from placing a great deal of trust in the social trends which characterize the society to which they belong...
Vol. 10 • August 1929 • No. 16
