Communications
DESMOND, JAMES F. & BURKE, REV. JOHN E. & MAYER, REV. A. M. & Fitzpatrick, Edward A.
COMMUNICATIONS LEGAL RUBBISH Reading, Mass. TO the Editor:-Mrs. Boole, national president of the W. C. T. U., has given us the rather disturbing assurance that "the President's commission on law...
...But suppose the commissioner recommends a conviction and within three days the offender demands a jury trial, what then ? For his impertinence in thus defying the commissioner, his legal status becomes an exceedingly precarious one, to say the least...
...And evil precedents now established to enforce the dry laws may some day come back to plague the present-day sponsors...
...Even Portia refused to accept Bassanio's advice, "To do a great right, do a little wrong," knowing, as she did, the evil consequences of bad precedents...
...Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims have thronged in order to show their loving recognition to their Blessed Mother, their spiritual filiation and filial love...
...TO the Editor:-We have just received a cablegram from Rome granting the institution of a new ecclesiastical feast day to "Mater Generis Humani," under the title Behold Thy Mother, which is the dignification of the mission of the National Sanctuary of Our Sorrowful Mother, located at Portland, Oregon...
...It was not until 1926 that Ontario decided upon its present policy...
...TO the Editor:-I was very much interested in your editorial, Writing Up Alma Mater in the issue of April 9. I was particularly pleased to have the suggestions you made to Catholics who might be legitimately interested in a higher educational program...
...Such a feast looming forth from Christ's Holy Church would confirm in the minds of all the maternal character in the Divine plan bequeathed to us...
...For as Tacitus once wrote, "That which is now supported by example, growing old, will become an example itself...
...Rev...
...It is their mission to place before the world the position our Blessed Mother holds in our redemption...
...Wickersham proposes in the first place, that the Jones act be amended so as to define the "nature of those violations" which constitute "casual or trivial" offenses, thus removing these "petty cases" from the category of potential felonies and classifying them as misdemeanors with a maximum penalty for each offense of a fine of $500 or six months in jail or both...
...Seitz pictures Canada as a country driven by financial decay to repudiate anti-liquor legislation his theory is again false...
...but in her relation to men, she is our mother, intimately associated to her children...
...At no time did such a consideration influence the people of this country to deal with the liquor problem as they did...
...by the resurrection of the old internal revenue laws of 1866 and by decisions such as the infamous wise-topping decisions...
...And be it noted, that it is only when the commissioner recommends a conviction that the offender can demand a jury trial...
...A CLOUD FROM CANADA Toronto, Can...
...Insist on them and I will do all within my power to send you up for five years...
...This feast, in its relation to us, would be the culmination of all other feasts of our Blessed Mother...
...Almost a year ago, the permission was received from the Holy See to establish the Sanctuary Confraternity of our Sorrowful Mother, and special permission was given to make it nation-wide, and investing the Sanctuary with the power of subdelegating any authorized priest to enrol its members throughout the country...
...Edward A. Fitzpatrick, Dean of the Graduate School, Marquette University...
...There must come to be a Catholic Harvard...
...When this message of the Sanctuary first went forth, an immediate response of approval was received from every state in the union, and elsewhere...
...The commissioner, unable to exercise a judicial act, simply reports his findings to a district court and (1) makes no recommendations at all, or (2) makes a recommendation of acquittal, or (3) makes a recommendation of conviction...
...2) jury trials are, to all intents and purposes, done away with...
...And this congested condition is due, says Mr...
...Why not think continently about Catholic education, and develop these regional intellectual power-houses that will make for a genuine, Catholic apostolate of great intellectual distinction...
...Wickersham has reasoned to the conclusion that the congestion of the courts can be measurably relieved if a little "legal rubbish," in the form of indictments and jury trials can be removed...
...Wickersham, to the fact that the Jones law, with the exception of illegal possession and the maintenance of a nuisance, makes "every violation of the national prohibition act a potential felony...
...John E. Burke, C. S. P. THE NEW FEAST Portland, Ore...
...I think we should make a fundamental mistake if we would direct Catholic energy in this country to a single Catholic university...
...Just where this whole business will terminate, it is difficult to say...
...and in 1924 Saskatchewan adopted the system of government control...
...While grappling with the prohibition problem, the Wickersham commission evidently concluded that one of the most serious obstacles to effective law enforcement was the terribly congested condition of the courts...
...It is the final allotment of Infinite mercy, humanity's greatest bequest...
...but the one link between her and ourselves, the elevation of her motherhood, the Saviour's last appeal, our acceptance of her, is not recognized by a feast day...
...Hence, Mr...
...The documentary authorization will be forthcoming within the next few weeks...
...For being felonies, they thus come within the scope of the Supreme Court's definition of what constitutes "an infamous crime" and consequently (I) every offender must be proceeded against by grand jury indictments, and (2) the offender is entitled to a jury trial...
...It is the privilege of the Sanctuary, which is dedicated to motherhood, demonstrating and emphasizing the two personalities, our spiritual mother and our earthly mother, to have this ecclesiastically established feast day celebrated and solemnized on the second Sunday of May, Mother's Day, which is also a legal holiday in the United States, thus elevating this day to a holy festival by sublime association with the mother of our souls...
...There was one suggestion you made upon which I would like to comment...
...Wick-ersham's new legal jig...
...When Mr...
...The presentation was then made to the experts of liturgy...
...Boole, national president of the W. C. T. U., has given us the rather disturbing assurance that "the President's commission on law observance and law-enforcement will remove much of the legal rubbish which has interfered with law enforcement...
...Boole's tip cart and "proceedings upon complaint or information" is hauled to the scene in Mr...
...James F. Desmond...
...For now (1) the grand jury indictments are taken away in Mrs...
...In effect the district attorney can say to the offender, "Give up your constitutional rights altogether and I will treat you leniently...
...A special Mass has also been written and is awaiting its final approval...
...It is the fruit of her divine relationship, of her exalted personal characteristics, of her martyrdom, of her coredeeming properties...
...For, although up to this stage of the proceedings, the government has been proceeding against the offender on the assumption that he has been guilty of a misdemeanor, the district attorney is now empowered to decide whether the offense shall still be treated as such or whether it shall suddenly become a felony- "an infamous crime"-subject to the harsh penalties of the Jones act of either $10,000 fine, five years in jail, or both...
...At the present time seven shrines are being temporarily erected, in which will be placed the statuary representing the seven great sorrows in the life of our Blessed Mother, the recognition of which, Holy Mother the Church has always considered as our complete compassion to our sorrowful mother's martyrdom...
...Thus to all intents and purposes, the offender's constitutional right to a jury trial goes lumbering away in Mrs...
...In 1923 Alberta repudiated prohibition...
...A few of the devotional ideals that inspired this new feast to the maternal heart may be stated briefly, as they were presented to the Holy See: "Whether we consider our Blessed Mother in respect to God, or in respect to herself, she stands immeasurably apart...
...That this mission might be extended and placed into the hearts of all our people, even as Christ did so intend, when He raised His own Mother into the dignity of the mother of our souls, the cause of the National Sanctuary of Our Sorrowful Mother was projected, and the Sovereign Pontiff, in its inception, by a personal letter gave his apostolic benediction to all those who show their good-will and assist...
...As a matter of fact revenues from these sources have increased to such an extent during the last ten years that our governments might well dispense with liquor profits and still carry out a large share of their progressive policies...
...But if the offender stands on his constitutional right of a jury trial in the only instance in which this is permitted-he may suddenly find out to his sorrow that his misdemeanor is suddenly turned into a felony on the sole say-so of a mere individual-the district attorney...
...For under Mr...
...WRITING UP ALMA MATER Milwaukee, Wis...
...So Mr...
...Canadians know the potential wealth to be found in their forests and streams, in their mines and water powers, and in their lands...
...But one thing is fairly certain, and that is, that if the Eighteenth Amendment is ever enforced it will be enforced over the dead body of our Bill of Rights...
...We have seen "legal rubbish" in the form of constitutional rights lugged away by enterprising drys since the early days of the dry regime, by way of injunctions...
...The National Sanctuary of Our Sorrowful Mother is situated at Portland, Oregon, comprising approximately sixty acres of territory...
...For demanding his constitutional rights, he may be penalized...
...Having removed these cases from the category of "infamous crimes," the removal of a little "legal rubbish" becomes a fairly easy task...
...A. M. Mayer, O. S. M., Rector and Treasurer, Sanctuary of our Sorrowful Mother, Incorporated...
...A cablegram reached the Sanctuary Saturday, March 22, from the prior general, Most Reverend A. M. Moore, O. S. M., Rome, Italy, as follows: "Celebration of feast granted for second Sunday in May, Mother's Day...
...Might I say that the main economic objection to prohibition here was not the loss of revenue but rather the very high cost of a futile enforcement...
...and, after the regular procedure, was solemnly proclaimed as an established feast...
...The dominating motive in their objection to prohibition was a moral one...
...The Servite Fathers, of Portland, Oregon, under whose auspices this national institution is being erected, were founded in 1233 by seven noblemen of Florence, Italy...
...The petition for the setting aside of the feast day was presented to His Holiness, Pope Pius XI, almost a year ago...
...The initial celebration of the feast day will be held May ii at the National Sanctuary of Our Sorrowful Mother...
...I say disturbing assurance, because "the legal rubbish" which Mrs...
...Seitz's economics were false and his history untrue in his story of the repudiation of prohibition in Canada...
...Rev...
...It was then passed over to Cardinal Laurenti, prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Rites...
...Wickersham's novel proposal, offenders are now brought before a United States commissioner for a hearing...
...Therefore, the feast to her spiritual motherhood would reecho the union Christ established on the cross-'Behold thy son-Behold Thy Mother.' "Holy Mother, the Church, through her feasts to Mary, brings out her many attributes, prerogatives, and the position in which she stands in respect to God...
...But, unfortunately, Mr...
...In other words, to get rid of grand jury indictments and trial by juries certain offenses now termed felonies were to be treated as misdemeanors...
...Boole's objective...
...Boole's tipcart, as so much "legal rubbish" while the offender in all probability will be spirited away in "the poddy wagon...
...In all other cases he must take his chances with the court, notwithstanding the fact that the judge may ignore the commissioner's recommendation for acquittal and find the offender guilty and sentence him to a possible six months' imprisonment with the possibility of the judge having never seen the culprit...
...As his economic principles have already been dealt with may I point out that when he described Quebec as the first province to adopt government control he was right, but when he stated that Ontario was second and that instantly Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia "had to follow to save their bacon" he was wrong...
...Boole and those for whom she speaks, evidently have in mind are those "interferences" which are contained in and go to make up our Bill of Rights...
...British Columbia was the first to walk in the footsteps of Quebec...
...TO the Editor:-In A Cloud from Canada in your issue of March 5, Mr...
...Wickersham cannot be so easily exonerated for his evident willingness to supply the modus operandi for the attainment of Mrs...
...Thus in the hands of a district attorney is placed an extremely dangerous club, which he is permitted to hold over the head of the offender from the moment he is ushered into the commissioner's presence...
...By all means let us have a Catholic Harvard in the East, but why not a Catholic Chicago in the Middle-west, and a Catholic California or Stanford in the far West, and in the South where there is no real great university in the same sense with these other four, there might be a Loyola of the South, greater than anything in that section of the country-a Loyola of the South in New Orleans...
...A huge grotto hewn into the solid rock, with an immense auditorium was erected about three years ago...
...Boole may be excused for advocating the removal of this "legal rubbish" on the grounds of what Thomas Norton in his able book, Losing Liberty Judicially, aptly describes as "constitutional illiteracy...
Vol. 11 • April 1930 • No. 26
