The Captain's Medal
Maguire, William A.
September II, I9z 9 THE COMMONWEAL 475 And since that shore is void of man No sail about it flies, But hundred-hued Leviathan Like a prone rainbow lies, And looketh on the...
...It was nearly the hour for dinner and I was about to lay below to my stateroom when I discovered an old shipmate on the navigating bridge of Edwards's ship...
...Tiens...
...Please accept this, 476 THE COM MONWEAL September I I, I929 ,,i my son, as a souvenir of this disaster and your heroism...
...But these statements are altogether false and show that your source of information is unreliable...
...THE CAPTAIN'S MEDAL By WILLIAM A. MAGUIRE T WAS in May, :[923, at Constantinople, when a large force of United States destroyers operated in Turkish waters...
...As for the "modernists," such as Professor Buonaiutl and others teaching either in Italy or elsewhere, they, though excommunicated by the Church for their views and their scholarly activities, still consider themselves members both of the Church and of the ecclesiastical profession...
...I awaited my chance and then asked if I might examine it...
...Atlee Edwards told us of an incident that occurred at the burning of the Vinh-Long...
...Their claim has always been that of belonging to the spiritual body of the Church, from which no excommunication can separate them...
...The priest was in ecstasy...
...By far the largest number of them left the Church only after the war, having served either in the sanitary corps, or as officers in the army for four years in the trenches...
...Tiens...
...Then Edwards explained that he had studied as a boy at the Dominican College in Paris...
...In the elementary schools religious teaching, made obligatory a few years ago, has from the beginning been under the supervision of ecclesiastical authorities, and therefore the six hundred former priests teaching in these schools have nothing whatever to do with it...
...2) that "not a single one of the so-called 'modernist clergy' in Italy has taught any but a religious subject...
...Tell me the history of it...
...Dreadnoughts were anchored within sight of the sultan's palace--a gesture in sea-power calculated to be fearful in the eyes of the Turk but reassuring to the other nationals ashore, as a guarantee of protection, should one of the daily crises become a catastrophe...
...and they are, perforce, accustomed to being laid off for long periods of time...
...We exchanged greetings and I accepted his invitation to dinner...
...The medal struck my fancy for the main reason that it appeared to have an image of a saint, in low relief, on one side of it...
...O the Editor :--Since you are interested in the Mexican problem in the United States, perhaps you would like to hear something about the conditions in which these unfortunate people live in one of the larger towns of central Kansas...
...As a teacher of Spanish in the schools there, my sympathy was enlisted primarily in order to teach catechism at a small mission church ministered to by one of the Augustinian Fathers at Topeka...
...Of a total of 495 on board, 482 [men, women and children] were rescued by his coolness, judgment and professional skill, which were combined with a degree of heroism that must reflect new glory on the United States navy...
...The other officers at the mess table delivered over that sheet of radio news the finest composite eulogy I have ever heard given to a fellow-man...
...I had recently returned from the Black Sea where our destroyer had sailed to Odessa in the north and to Samsun on the southern shore...
...I was introduced to him at table in the rather diminutive wardroom of the Bainbridge...
...later I volunteered my services in helping to start a Red Cross clinic for Mexican mothers and babies...
...On one side I saw the image of a saint whose name is lost to me, and on the other side a representation of a French destroyer, steaming into a head sea...
...His clear eyes and general poise bespoke the officer of quick and accurate judgment...
...Like to the summer leaves that make A little whispering, These folk that dwellen in the lake Full fairly say and sing, As waters blown at night, that wake With a sweet murmuring...
...O the Editor :--The editorial which recently appeared in The Commonweal concerning the article of the Lateran treaty which takes away from excommunicated and former Catholic priests the right to hold government offices or offices in any public administration, shows that its writer, in critizing some remarks made by professor La Piana of Harvard University, is altogether unfamiliar with the facts on which he comments...
...It was peculiarly Parisian...
...Professor Buonaiuti wore his cassock until, in accordance with Article 29, i, of the concordat, he was forced by the civil authorities to discard it...
...Then, practically the only other source of income for the Mexican...
...This is my most precious souvenir...
...Later, in the cabin, after Edwards had personally arranged for the comfort of the refugees, the bearded chaplain inquired as to the origin of the American commander's knowledge of French...
...Two remained: the captain and the chaplain of the troops, an old priest of the Dominican order...
...My permanent address, if there be such a thing as permanency in the naval service, was the U.S.S...
...even Spain had a smart cruiser there...
...But the most misleading statement of your editorial is that which labels as "modernistic clergy" this group of former priests...
...Yet as I stood on the deck of my own ship I could visualize the other scene...
...He was a man of medium height...
...Several chairs of the history of religions in general, which exist in a few Italian universities, are held by laymen, or in one or two cases by priests in regular standing with the Church...
...We read in the radio press news that Atlee Edwards had died...
...In the first place, the greater number of men, fathers of families, are almost wholly dependent for work and wages on the precarious employment offered to them by the various railroads, work along the tracks, which varies in amount according to the weather and the season...
...His father was in the diplomatic service...
...A gemmy archipelago The gemmy waters bore, And all these sprites that are unchained of woe Do dwell there evermore...
...A lovely medal, captain," I said, aimost caressing the thing...
...Mon Dieu...
...This figure given by the Premier, was based on a survey made by the Italian Department of Public Education, which shows that about six hundred of them are teaching in the elementary schools, more than three hundred in the gymnasia and lyceums (high schools and colleges) and about a dozen in the universities (graduate and professional schools...
...It is a medal we wore during the great war when I served with the destroyer squadrons in the Mediterranean...
...COMMUNICATIONS WHAT IS THE LATERAN ACCORD ? Cambridge, Mass...
...And though no sail move on the deep As calm as any mere, A radiant folk, who may not weep, Without a sall do steer, And very pleasant ways and winding keep Above the solemn clear...
...What won't they say in Paris when they hear of this...
...Atlee Edwards was proud of his medal...
...not one of these former priests has tahght or is teaching any religious subject...
...On the eve of the departure of one of the destroyer divisions to home waters, the Bainbrldge, under the command of the late Lieutenant Commander W. Atlee Edwards, came alongside for stores in much the same smart way as she had approached a French transport a few months before, when her captain won the Congressional Medal of Honor...
...One saw life in the raw when the new republic of Turkey was aborning...
...the more than three hundred former priests teaching in these schools taught other subjects, mostly the classics, modern languages, political history or the sciences...
...Their new experience had convinced them that they were not in their right place in the ranks of the clergy, and they preferred to get out and live decent lives as laymen rather than lie to their consciences and to the Church and be objects of scandal and corruption under cover, as many other hypocrites choose to do...
...At the time of his death he was serving as executive officer of the President's yacht, the Mayflower...
...Atlee Edwards still professed sympathy for the Armenians, in spite of the vogue of damning them because of the few who converted the lot of the refugee into an easy avocation...
...For most of these former priests the general Italian public and many of their former colleagues have a great respect...
...His shipmates have since told me that this sort of nervousness was characteristic of him...
...As to the first, it is enough to quote Mussolini's words in his address to the Italian Chamber of Deputies on May 13: "The individuals in such a situation [former priests teaching in public schools] are about a thousand...
...As Edwards joined in the jolly repartee of the mess he unconsciously twirled, with his index finger, a gold medal which hung suspended from his watch chain...
...As for your other statement, it is just the opposite that is true...
...He jerked his watch from his pocket and handed me the whole combination, including a gold pencil on the opposite end of the chain...
...As for the university professors, there are in Italy only two chairs which might be considered as of religious subjects: the chair of Church History at the University of Naples, held by a layman, and the chair of the History of Christianity at the University of Rome, held by Professor Ernesto Buonaiuti...
...His knowledge of French made this function agreeable, especially to those whose lives he had saved...
...In the gymnasia and lyceums there was no religious teaching at all...
...Mine was a roving commission that took me on frequent trips into the Black Sea and the eastern Mediterranean...
...Par miracle, I once did go, And stood upon the shore...
...This glorious feat of Edwards was still the popular topic of conversation in all the wardrooms of the ships then cruising in Turkish waters...
...Then with great feeling the old priest detached from his watch chain the medal...
...The circumstances were not the same...
...I had never met Atlee Edwards, although his name was known to me long before the episode in the Sea of Marmora...
...As an Italian layman and professor at the University of Rome, I think that the readers of The Commonweal are entitled to know the truth about these facts, and I am sure that, as you are loyal to your public, you will publish this letter...
...AMBROGIO DONINI...
...The old priest was amazed at Edwards's accent...
...The medal was about the size of a halfdollar...
...Even a very superficial knowledge of the Italian system of public education makes this clear...
...This latter work brought me in touch with the families in their homes and opened my eyes to the sorrows and tragedies of many a household...
...Edwards stood on the well deck of his destroyer and greeted the priest and the French captain as they climbed aboard...
...All but two of the transport's personnel and passengers had been taken on board the American craft...
...Professor La Piana's remark that the elimination of the former priests from the public schools would be a great blow to the educational standing and progress in Italy was based on the figures quoted above and on the knowledge that most of the former priests teaching in the lyceums (colleges) and universities are among the best Italian scholars, who could not be easily replaced by equally competent men...
...I thought of that dinner party in the Bosphorus while at breakfast in the fleet last winter...
...Bridge, a "beef-boat," serving the twenty odd destroyers of the force which the American High Commissioner, Admiral Mark Bristol, commanded in the near East...
...September II, I9z 9 THE COMMONWEAL 475 And since that shore is void of man No sail about it flies, But hundred-hued Leviathan Like a prone rainbow lies, And looketh on the weaving waters wan With stilly emerald eyes...
...Lieutenant Commander Edwards," so runs the citation, "placed his vessel alongside the bow of the French military transport, Vinh-Long [destroyed by fire in the Sea of Marmora] and in spite of several violent explosions . . . maintained his ship in that position until all who were alive were taken on board...
...The extravagant sunset that evening made an alluring background for the mosque of Saint Sofia and the forest of minarets that flank the far side of the Golden Horn...
...The Bosphorus was completely in the hands of the Allies...
...Nearly every maritime nation of the world flew its flag in that region at the stern of a warship...
...There are two statements in the editorial on which a justification of that drastic measure is based: (I) that "the number of such men [former priests teaching in public schools] is exceedingly small...
...it will be introduced now...
...Gladly, padre," he said...
...He had all the air of a citizen of tile world without the concomitant cynicism so often noticeable then among our officers who had seen at close range "man's inhumanity to man" in the Levant...
...The sinister type of our ship belied its mission, for our task was to build up rather than to destroy the social fabric of unhappy humanity...
...MEXICAN LABORERS IN THE UNITED STATES Madison, Wis...
...That such was the situation was clearly confirmed which, in spite of the article of the treaty and of the explicit wishes of the Vatican, decided, as Mussolini himself stated in his address to the Parliament, that "the article of the treaty has no retroactive value" and that the former priests teaching in the Italian public schools "shall remain where they are...
...I am sure that he wore it to his dying day...
...This scholar, however, by the express will of the Fascist government, has not taught for the last four years (i.e., since the beginning of the negotiations between the Vatican and the government) ; so that during this period this chair has been practically vacant...
...You, my dear captain, one of our boys...
Vol. 10 • September 1929 • No. 19
