The Stranger within the Gates

...He says: July 9, 1930 THE COMMONWEAL 281 It is our business, to make known to the majority what really is this minority to which we belong...

...It means the subjection of all but a single group (itself invariably a minority) which has managed to get control of the machinery of government and proceeds to use it to grind all others into the dust...

...But once again also Belloc is haunted by his study of the Jews...

...But Belloc's idea of "alien" is almost like that of the Jews—not modern Jews, but that primitive people flourishing (or languishing) in the dim ages prior to about 900 B.C., according to Jewish scholarship...

...After all, Catholics and Protestants, not to mention Jews and a great number of heathen, do agree as to most of the essentials of good government...

...For them, both a nation and a god must coincide more or less with a particular race and a particular piece of territory...

...In the article from which I am quoting (The Conditions of Minority, published in The Commonweal, April 2, 1930) he says: It seems to me that the first thing we have to recognize is that since religion is at the basis of all corporate conduct and of the whole state of mind in a society, a religious minority is and must be separate, and, in the real sense of the word, alien...

...They must end by coming into harmony with the bass, not it with them...

...But where does one find Catholics who deny that they are Catholics, or claim that Catholicism is practically the same as Protestantism, or not different from paganism, or at one with Bolshevism and infidelity...

...But I do say that the postponing of it is like the postponing of a debt . . . Instruction must be undertaken...

...In his book, The Jews, published in 1922, he makes "aliens" out of the children of Israel, universal aliens, so to speak, "a foreign substance" in every country in the world, Great Britain above all...

...I doubt if Procrustes himself brought his bed into play except in extreme cases...

...This does not mean that all shall think alike, or pretend to think alike, or cooperate upon all occasions or in every particular...

...Evidently there is a sense—a profound religious and philosophical sense—in which he is right...

...God forbid...

...And this mixing projected itself as a sort of habit into secular republican governments, where it was yet more out of place...

...The actual numbers of the practising and confessed adherents of a particular system of thought," he says, "may be a numerical minority, and even a small numerical minority, and yet mold the tone of the community...

...Must we who live in the United States forget that it is a republic which, in order to succeed, must count upon the cooperation of all, or at least the great mass, of its citizens...

...The Catholic could not have been in sympathy with everything which happened even in the ages of faith...

...And as the Catholics benefited by his dominant position in the middle-ages, Belloc seems to think it would be only fair, now that he finds himself both numerically and politically in the minority, for him to admit his position and openly declare himself an outcast...

...Or would it not be better to suggest that the alien shoe was on the other foot...

...But is it true that those who sing another tune are necessarily aliens...

...It might be said of all Christians that they are strangers in the world...

...Caesar, unrestrained, grew yet more inclined to meddle with God...

...The Church held within itself an immense amount of variation (as it still does), much of which was considered quite important by some of the variants...

...Is the real Englishman, then, a communicant of the Church of England...

...Other "tones" than his were at times insistent and threatening...

...It by no means implies the abandonment of all or any of one's cherished beliefs, or even notions, though it certainly does put a restraint upon unsocial habits—which are simply those that are harmful to others, or give offense when publically indulged in...

...He has noted and complained of the "Crypto-Jew," the one who changes his name, for example, from Mordecai to Marx, from Cohen to Curzon—Jews who seek to pass for Gentiles, who deny that they constitute a particular race, or have a religion, or belong to a peculiar people...

...There is a considerable amount of live and let live even when the worst of theorists get into power...

...And Belloc's words are certainly open to this—well, let us call it misconstruction...

...No such government exists...

...His heart is quite in the right place...

...But they are divided "at many essential points" among themselves...

...It is a problem which concerns everybody...

...But the present government of England is headed by a gentleman who is distinctly "Chapel," and his party, the Labor group, are the adherents of a particular system of thought which in giving tone to the community does not hesitate to enter into affiliations with Soviet Russia...

...This "rest of the community" does not have to be a majority...

...And who, then, are the natives...

...What seems to be an alien "organ-point"—the one true monotone— may become, as in the case of a fugue, the all-prevailing dominant, and so by merely sticking at its job prepare the entire composition for final resolution into a triumphant close...

...Is the native Englishman, then, a Bolshevik...

...That Catholics are aliens is, for example, precisely what certain politicians have heen saying...

...Belloc seems not sufficiently aware of the change which has taken place in the constitution of secular government since church and state have become separated...

...It is rather a compound of many tones, and—like all music—consists of a great mass of discords more or less dominated by certain harmonies, which change and interweave and modulate from moment to moment...

...To explain the nature of these differences when called upon to do so is obviously right and proper, at least when the demand comes from a sincere desire for information...

...Belloc, of course, is speaking particularly of religious minorities, and more especially of Catholic minorities "in the English-speaking countries outside Ireland," such as Britain and the United States...

...It took centuries of preaching by the prophets to win acceptance for a Jehovah considered as a universal and spiritual deity—preaching which was never quite successful among the chosen people...

...Shall, then, the great sostenuto suffer itself to grow mute...

...A civilization that insists upon an absolute uniformity, upon a Procrustean standardization either of thought or of conduct, is not a civilization but a tyranny...

...Hilaire Belloc considers all people "aliens" if they belong to a minority "which is, as well as less numerous, less wealthy than, less in control than, and professing ideas opposed at many essential points to the rest of the community...

...No man should attempt to reconcile irreconcilable things, or pretend allegiance to ideals which are not his, or attempt to pass himself off for something other than he is...

...And yet I see no escape from this conclusion if we accept Belloc's theory in all its fulness...

...And Belloc seems to acknowledge the term...

...I am afraid no honest mayor would be elected, and that ring-rule would triumph...

...So, in England, both the Catholics and Jews are "in the real sense" foreigners...

...He would probably say that he derives his authority from the history of the Papacy during the period of temporal power, when Jews and other heretics were excluded from the full rights of citizenship...

...Hence their rejection of a Messiah who was something more than national...

...They could conceive of universality only as an expansion of their own territory and of their own racial power and importance...

...The Protestants...

...But to withdraw from the arena, or to admit to an alienation which would warrant the dissenter's disqualification as a citizen, is to return to a conception of government which not only has no place in modern life but can find no actual counterpart in the history of Christendom...

...I certainly hope not, for this would make many (I think most) of the citizens of the United States foreigners in the country which they call their own...

...For a minority to admit itself to be alien simply because it is at odds with the prevailing tone of the moment, is for the organ-point to admit that it does not belong to the composition...

...With many of Caesar's doings, including those of that Caesar who is no longer a person but a corporation theoretically constituted by a counting of noses, no Catholic, no Protestant, no ordinarily sane and decent individual even, can be altogether in sympathy...

...Shall we admit that they were right...

...That is, a religious minority which is not in power and does not "mold the tone of the community...

...Yahweh was then regarded as merely a tribal god...

...But a ruler cannot rule without a ruling class at his back, and a ruling class cannot hold together without exercising tolerance for differences, at least among themselves...

...Once again he may be interpreted in such a way as to conform with common sense and obvious right...

...What would be thought of a Baptist, who, before joining with a Presbyterian in the election of an honest Methodist to the mayorality, should insist upon delivering a lecture setting forth the insufficiency of sprinkling as a mode of baptism...

...What, then," scream the piccolos, "are you doing here...

...If the music at times becomes a horrible cacophony, all the more reason that the organpoint should continue to sound...

...And this of course is true...

...The ability to make common cause with others is therefore the first step toward becoming civilized...

...But the molders of the tone are not an unvarying body, nor is the tone a monotone...

...This is a terrible predicament if differences of any sort are to be made the ground of enmity and estrangement...

...Theoretically there was a certain separation even in the middle-ages, an acknowledged difference between II Papa and II Papa Re, and a yet greater difference between the Pope as Pope on the one hand, and Christian kings as kings on the other...

...for the individual finds himself in a sense pitted against society in general...

...It means merely that they shall pool their agreements, and pull together as much as possible...

...But I think his conception of modern nationalism is erroneous...

...Sometimes in practice the things which were Caesar's and the things which were God's got a little mixed up...

...So they voted Christ an alien...

...Of course Belloc does not intend that it shall grow mute...

...And when they do not (as to schools, for instance) it is because the prevailing government attempts to extend itself beyond the proper governmental sphere...

...It is not the first time that he has said something of the kind...

...Which seems to mean that if one is to amount to anything, or even to be suffered to exist, one must learn to get along with people with whom one does not altogether agree...

...There is, of course, always a tendency upon the part of rulers to become intolerant of variations from what they consider the norm...

...The shrieks of unclean spirits are the aliens...

...The minority must make itself known . . . The duty of instruction involves the duty of repudiating allegiance to ideals which are not ours, and above all the attempt to reconcile irreconcilable things...

...But it can hardly be said that he confessed himself to be an intruder, no matter how strong the thieves that occasionally broke into his father's house—or at least into the dooryard...

...That there are differences is already sufficiently well known...

...But cooperation implies the bringing forward of resemblances...

...It was the Catholic who then was the only spiritual native in the estates of the Church and in Christian countries generally...

...I don't say this makes for peace, for I don't think it does—or at any rate, not for peace without previous combat...

...280 THE COMMONWEAL July 9, 1930 THE STRANGER WITHIN THE GATES By HARVEY WICKHAM THE treatment of minorities has always been one of the great problems of statecraft—never more so than today...

...To answer, "As a matter of fact, I am not here," is not to "combat," it is to deny one's right to combat —as if a religious man had no business to make his weight felt in secular affairs unless they be already essentially to his liking...

...There is the "Established Church," and there is the "Chapel," and one Chapel differs mightly from another in points which the Chapelites at least consider essential...

...The "secular arm" not seldom terminated in a grasping hand or a rebellious fist...

...But in making a purely political application of this principle, he goes too far, I think, and puts a weapon into the hands of the anticlerical...

...He speaks of "combat...

...And what can be the practical effect of Belloc's dictum save to encourage Catholics and all others to thrust forward their differences at all times and places...