Communications
COMMUNICATIONS A CATHOLIC LINK BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND HOLLAND Boekelo (Ov.) Holland. TO the Editor:-Some years ago a signal blessing was bestowed by His Holiness Pope Pius XI on the Church...
...Tuka Calls Charges Historical Romance and Autonomy His Sole Aim-Father Hlinka Backs Him...
...Isaac Jogues was the first Catholic priest who ever came to what is now New York, but even his geographic fame carries much further, as Baucroft calls him "one of the first missionaries to preach the Gospel a thousand miles in the interior...
...The writer was captivated by the pulse of American life which he learned to know on visiting the Chicago Eucharistic Congress...
...If they give any indication of a religious wrangle between the Czechs and the Slovaks, I fail to see it...
...SAMUEL J. NEW YORK REVISES Albany, N. Y. TO the Editor:-May I thank you for your courtesy in sending me a copy of The Commonweal of February 12, 1930, in which appeared your editorial regarding the New York Telephone Company case...
...MINORITIES IN CZECHO-SLOVAKIA New York, N. Y. TO the Editor:-I have been decidedly impressed, not so much by what Mr...
...After all he is a professor...
...Listen to Heywood's conclusion: "The Pope seems to say that intellectual preparedness and reliance on the grace of God are mutually exclusive...
...Will Catholic Americans thereby follow the lead which the former (Catholic) United States Minister to Holland and the present (Protestant) Dutch Minister at Washington so magnificently gave...
...Unfortunately neither of these newspapers are in a position to assume authority or a claim to direct knowledge of the internal affairs of Czechoslovakia...
...Joseph Husek who edits the Jednota is quite satisfied with the thought of a free Slovakia 'mysilenka samostatneho Slovenska' in spite of the fact that he has been one of the signers of the Pittsburgh agreement...
...then he tells us that I have a particular fondness for the word "melodrama," that the Pittsburgh pact, an agreement between the Czechs and the Slovaks that was supposed to render for the Slovaks an autonomous constitution, is a farce (a proof that has long been furnished, even by myself, with painful frequency) and that while the Slovaks are not at all interested in the above Pittsburgh pact, they would welcome a "Slovak free state," and to reinforce his resource he says: "And what is more, Mr...
...I do not offer this as a criticism of your article, but merely that you may know the facts...
...In this stand Mr...
...Simply by culling from Slovakian newspapers sent here from abroad, and from the large American dailies...
...Says Tuka Urged Break-up of the Czecho-Slovak Republic...
...Ryan also comments on the frivolous character of the books contained in Mr...
...Ryan commenting on the resolution before the New York convention in regard to the Ku Klux Klan says that Bryan's speech on that occasion was "probably the shallowest and most tortuous that he ever delivered...
...what a dilemma...
...Such was the more frivolous interest of that age...
...Returning the next year, he was soon captured again by the tribes and met his death...
...In one way it has already achieved something American, by planning to erect within its parish-church-of which the first stone was laid a month ago-"the first European shrine in honor of Isaac Jogues, America's early martyr saint...
...As for bad-tempered bunnies, you may put them aside also...
...You say: "Under existing conditions, companies seeking raises have gone to a distant judge who thus automatically became the arbiter of a question about which he could, in the nature of things, know very little...
...J. H. SCHNEIDER...
...Sumner, all served a la Broun...
...Tuka Gets Fifteen-Year Term-Slovakian Leader Is Sentenced in Prague for High Treason...
...TO the Editor:-Some years ago a signal blessing was bestowed by His Holiness Pope Pius XI on the Church in the United States in the beatification of the Jesuit missionary Isaac Jogues, who suffered martyrdom for the Faith at the hands of the Indian tribes...
...Treason Trial of Professor Tuka Arouses Czechs...
...TO the Editor:-I have just read the critical review by Dr...
...Father Hlinka Tells Bratislava Court that Tuka Trial Is to Crush the Move of Slovak Autonomy...
...The Republican platform in a cowardly way did not mention this issue...
...It was not found entirely feasible, I am informed, to organize the statutory court which passed upon the last New York Telephone Company proceeding with a membership consisting entirely of judges who resided in the New York district, this being due to the fact that judges who did live there were preoccupied with other work, or there was some special reason why they did not care to serve upon that statutory court...
...But why go to Kansas...
...and in fine, that some stupid witness had confessed that once the Slovaks are granted their freedom they would immediately revolt against the Czecho-Slovak republic...
...Bryan had been a candidate for President in 1896 and caused to be inserted a vigorous plank in the platform condemning religious intolerance and referred to it in his speeches in that campaign...
...From this clear, plain, even trite statement, that sins are not so much the result of one thing as of another, would your Kansas professor conclude: "therefore they are mutually exclusive...
...Although a native of France, one of the most momentous episodes in his life links this venerable pioneer of Catholic America to Holland...
...Is it to be wondered that this historic link, as great as it is pious, has not altogether been forgotten by the present Dutch generation ? Sometime ago the writer was charged by the archbishop of Utrecht to organize a new parish at Boekelo in the province of Overyssel...
...New York Times, July 29...
...Pious Dutchmen, although fervently protestant, once fell on the ground and kissed the mangled hands of the martyr on the soil of Manhattan, then a part of Holland...
...John A. Ryan on the biography of William Jennings Bryan, by Hibben and Gratton...
...Chicago Tribune, October 5, 1929...
...Anti-Czech Leader Up for High Treason as Crowds Storm Tribunal...
...Slovak Party Secretary Says Press Bureau Misrepresents the Tuka Trial...
...I have personally studied conditions of the Slovaks here and broad for nearly twenty years, and in addition to that I am of Slovak ancestry...
...Won't a "leading" columnist do...
...Of course one cannot hold them responsible for their plight, for practically every word of news leaving the Czechoslovak republic is subject to a thorough slashing which is rigorously administered by the Czech censor...
...But this opinion was written by Judge Manton, whose knowledge of local and state-wide conditions will not be questioned...
...New York Times, August 8, 1929...
...The above items are but a few of a hundred which I have on hand, and which have appeared in the form of news and editorials...
...New York Times, August 9.) "Tuka Insists Treaty Upholds His 'Treason.' " (New York Times, August 13...
...Will Catholic Americans, rightly proud of their great present, recall the heroic past in which missionaries from Europe played so great a role...
...Bryan in the committee said many times that he was willing to make the resolution as strong as anyone could desire but that he was opposed to naming this or any other organization by name as they were not entitled to be dignified in this manner...
...Bryan's library...
...How then do the various Slovak newspapers in America, including the Jednota, avail themselves of news particularly of a political nature...
...And why pick on an obscure professor...
...New York Morning World, July 29...
...and that that is the whole affair which for the last ten years has been playing havoc within the Czecho-Slovak republic...
...Bryan I read a letter from his widow saying that among Mr...
...Won't New York do...
...The Pope's encyclical will serve...
...Trial of Professor Tuka for High Treason Emphasizes Slovak Autonomy Move...
...This plank did not refer to the A. P. A. by name...
...After the death of Mr...
...The New York Telephone Company in appealing to the federal courts has not gone to a "distant judge...
...Bryan's cherished possessions was a copy of the Catholic Encyclopedia and she wished to present it to some institution and requested suggestions, one of which was carried out...
...Once a queen of France, hearing of him, expressed the desire to meet him: "Romances are feigned," she said, "but here is a genuine combination of great adventures...
...The action was brought in the New York City district and the preliminary proceedings were heard by a resident judge of the district...
...But nowadays, after three centuries, Isaac Jogues is venerated not only as New York's patron saint, but honored by the whole of Christendom...
...LOGIC IN NEW YORK New York, N. Y. TO the Editor:-Weren't you a bit cruel to poke fun at the logic of an obscure professor from far-away Kansas...
...However, for the immediate present, the most important thing in connection with this writing is to substantiate all that I have written in The Commonweal on January 8 of this year, and for the sake of space, I will but cite dates and quote captions...
...WILLIAM A. PRENDERGAST...
...New York Times, July 25, 1929...
...Your comments upon this question are conservative and express the situation clearly and fairly...
...Will they offer some help to realize in brick a vision of that great spiritual link which in Isaac Jogues and his shrine, unite the States with far-away little Holland...
...Under the aegis of "seems" the column is then spiced with the usual dressing of Canon Chase, Anthony Comstock, Mr...
...I think a statement of this character goes very far to disturb public opinion and influence that opinion in taking what may be a prejudiced attitude toward the United States courts...
...It is a place of new textile plants and of recently discovered salt mines, with no church building yet, no vicarage, no school...
...Bryan was only following precedent, as the Democratic platform in 1856 did not mention the Know-Nothings by name...
...As soon as he was captured and put to degrading work as a slave of the tribe, "two Hollanders on horseback came to the village and tried to ransom him, but the Iroquois would not listen," as the reports of the Jesuit missionaries tell...
...Hey-wood Broun quotes thus from the encyclical: "They err gravely in not recognizing the innate frailty of human nature and also in neglecting the experience which warns us that sins against morality are not so much the result of intellectual unprepared-ness as of a weak will exposed to temptation and unsupported by grace...
...He endured untold hardships and trials, before he was finally put to death by the Iroquois...
...and arguing from analogy...
...I refer to an editorial in The Commonweal of January 29...
...Joseph A. Skoda-Scribner wrote in his letter of January 22 (though his intention appeared good, his method was wrong) but by the nature of his citations culled from the Jednota (Unity) a Slovak Catholic weekly published by the First Catholic Slovak Union in America, and another newspaper called the Slovak, an official publication of the Slovak Catholic People's Party in Slovakia...
...REV...
...New York Evening Post, July 29...
...It is a notorious fact which no American Slovak editor will deny...
...M. M. S...
...was talking about rabbits...
...New York Times, August 26...
...Now Boekelo, one day, might become a little America in the aspects of its labor and industry...
...Father Jogues could then proceed to Manhattan, where the Protestant Dutch pastor, Johannes Megapolensis, "exercised much kindness and charity" and the Dutch Governor Kieft, although of the Reformed religion, treated the martyred missionary with the greatest consideration, gave him decent clothing, placed him on his right at table and, later on, sent him with an almost affectionate letter of recommendation to Europe, where he landed at Plymouth on Christmas Eve, 1643...
...The Slovak newspapers leaving Slovakia for the various parts of the world (I repeat from my first letter to The Commonweal) carry little of value worth the readers' attention because of Czech censorship...
...How many statesmen of today who are non-Catholics have this great work in their libraries...
...Yet my correspondent, while attempting to supply us with real facts concerning political matters in Czecho-Slovakia, has failed to observe this, and instead ascribes all that he had to say upon the subject to the Jednota because that paper had culled from the Slovak, another publication, and that the Slovak attributes Professor Vojetch Tuka's imprisonment to a religious wrangle (ye gods) instead of a political one...
...Taste, please, this delicious morsel of reasoning served the readers of the New York Telegram, January 18...
...THE COMMONER Louisville, Ky...
...STEPHEN J. PALICKAR...
...The Dutch, who about that time after the foundation of New Amsterdam (now New York) had a settlement, Fort Orange (now Albany) on the west bank of the Hudson, later on arranged for a secret flight and hid him in one of their ships until they, as the chronicles again tell us "had appeased the barbarians who would use him as object for their fury, with presents...
...Broun, and then forthwith introduces an amen chorus from Calvin, Knox and Company...
...There is just one point upon which I would like to remark...
...If I read the Pontiff's meaning aright he has gone completely over to the Puritan cause," says Mr...
Vol. 11 • March 1930 • No. 20
