Week by Week
WEEK BY WEEK developments in Germany are varying between the dangerous if farcical antics of the Hitlerites, and the serious struggles of the responsible heads of the government for what...
...WEEK BY WEEK developments in Germany are varying between the dangerous if farcical antics of the Hitlerites, and the serious struggles of the responsible heads of the government for what they The Hope believe to be the very life of their comr p monwealth, it is enlightening to observe the comments on the situation in the French press...
...They may, in time, revivify the perishing tradition of learning, and bring back the days when, even among us, all scholars were private scholars...
...Soon Tide after, Major Campbell's revelations in the public press showed the hypocrisy and nullificationist attitude of eminent persons in the administration charged with enforcing prohibition...
...1 HE savage breasts of commuters are to be calmed, the weary legs of travelers moved to rhythm, and the idle thoughts of those condemned to sit and wait will no longer be allowed to run riot in the Pennsylvania Station in New York...
...Saint Elizabeth of Portugal...
...Rockefeller's RivcrEinstein side church probably occurred vaguely and to the artist who did his portrait for Religion the frontispiece of the Forum magazine, for he labeled it, Einstein with His Cherub Smile...
...The vandalism was easily prevented, and it had results of far-reaching and gratifying importance...
...For those who are not among the handful of physicists who are competent to judge Dr...
...Einstein...
...1 HE recently scheduled debate of Abbe Ernest Dimnet with Mr...
...Einstein's standing in phy'cs may be, his views on the subject of religion are singularly illogical and vague...
...One of the beautiful paradoxes of the Faith is the honor it pays to humility...
...As Father Nott writes to us, already "the crucifix has done its religious work in a manner far above that expected...
...We believe that it is significant that this sane section of German political opinion, standing as a bulwark between the extremes of the Communists and the Fascists, and even rallying the traditional enemy to its support on such a delicate question as that of arming, is the Catholic party...
...That the defenders of this position are not pale theorists, was given vigorous expression by the bishop of Mainz in excommunicating all within his dioscese who should remain members of the Hitler party, the bitter nationalism of which, Cardinal von Faulhaber of Munich has pointed out, is so diametrically opposed to the benign internationalism focused in Pope Pius XI, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church...
...When we in America speak of giving equal educational opportunities to all, it is evident to anyone not a madman that we must be understood with considerable abatement...
...Unfortunately this message rather bears out Father Burke's contention that the President seemed to have gone out of his way to make sweeping claims on behalf of a particular religion...
...but as we cannot, any more than our colleague's fine editorial, endorse the present results of the practice, we put our chief hope elsewhere...
...Anyhow, the Forum article presents the self-portrait of the great scientist as being otherwise an amiable gentleman, mildly relating his opinions as a pacifist and as a sort of sentimental mystagogue, who proclaims his own lack of need for a personal deity and who thinks that "the most beautiful thing that men may experience is the mysterious, the source of all true art and science," which has "also given rise to religion...
...to speak and act as if one Popular expected the principles of politics or Education: education, for instance, to work with a Defense as little qualification or anomaly as the principles of identity and contradiction...
...and when his cries at last are dimmed by that throbbing, everlasting music, we will sympathize...
...Is it a dream...
...Einstein, gives us an article from his pen on What I Believe...
...There are, here and there in the country, examples that need not be named of very special private pedagogical enterprise, exclusive, intensive, bidding for the intellectual aristocrat and him alone...
...Yet how safe is it for us to say so, as a nation, unequivocally, and to incorporate recognition of these facts in our current educational practices ? How much would this mean, in sober actuality, a stultification of the most vital doctrine of our commonwealth, the doctrine that "all men are created equal...
...A state reward has been offered for the apprehension of the culprits who attempted the vandalism—which Catholics might pardonably be excused for calling by the harsher word of sacrilege...
...Singular phenomenon of an age whose most vociferous if not truest spokesmen tell us it is the age of enlightened reason, and the epoch in which faith has been swept away to make room for verifiable knowledge...
...Its importance lies in that it neatly gives what would have been the popular idea of such a public and commercial circus as was contemplated...
...This would seem in effect the principal hope of western Europe's entangled struggles and ambitions, as indeed we believe it is the underlying hope of mutual understanding of the whole world...
...1 HIS exceedingly vague and general recognition of the social value of religious ideals contrasts rather startlingly with what was said in the message to the Lutherans, who were told that from the Protestant Reformation and the Augsburg Confession there issued "so many of the changes of point of view from the older conceptions both of religion and government," and that "the effects of these historical events are reflected in our national life and institutions, in religion through the predominant number of adherents to the Protestant faith, and in government through the principle of the separation of church and state...
...Apropos, Wladimir d'Ormesson in Le Correspondant thus ends his reasoned article on the future of FrancoGerman relations: "No doubt the question can finally be solved only by a Christian interpretation of the purpose of existence...
...Hitler with an enlarged army would chop off heads of his political opponents, and go to war again for the purpose of completely rearranging the international situation...
...Morrow's widely hailed avowals and the increasOctober 29, 1930 THE COMMONWEAL 655 ing rumors of the likelihood of his being the Republican choice for President in 1932, were followed by the Republican repudiation of the drys in the New York gubernatorial contest...
...Both incidents are indicative of that strange process so popular in the secular press today, by means of which "men of science" are turned into prophets of or spokesmen for religion and philosophy, apparently only because of the publicity value of their names...
...The secretary who wrote the message which the President signed probably did not remember that the union of state and church, under Lutheranism and Protestantism in general, flourished exceedingly in Germany, Scandinavia, Holland and Great Britain, and still exists in some of these countries, and that it was the rule in nearly all of the colonies established in America by the followers of various Protestant faiths...
...These official pronouncements are in their way an encouragement to those who make a business of violating the spirit and the letter of the unfortunate law...
...Besides the 2,500,000 members throughout the world at the present day, the princess is in the historic company of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary...
...The Association against the Prohibition Amendment reveals that over two billions, eight hundred millions of dollars are spent yearly by the American people on liquor—all outside the law, every cent of it underwriting law-breaking...
...was called off Sacred by the chancery of the diocese of New and York with what to us seems at the Profane least excellent taste...
...UnOctober 29, 1930 THE COMMONWEAL 653 der the auspices of Bishop Brennan, Father Walter J. Nott and the Historical Committee of the Catholic Women's Club of Richmond, Virginia, have been promoting interest in the erection of a memorial at Aquia in commemoration of the charter of religious liberty granted by James II to George Brent for his colony at Brenton...
...1 HE American Federation of Labor's demand at its recent convention for 2.75 percent legal beer and Mr...
...Darrow, a contest of special pleading and wit in which the abbe with his vigorous and pleasing manner would certainly have not been at a disadvantage...
...WHEN President Hoover signed the message prepared by one of his secretaries and sent to the American Lutherans who are celebrating on Church October 31 the anniversary of the and Protestant Reformation, and the 400th State anniversary of the reading of the Augsburg Confession, while he assumed full responsibility, he probably did not give the matter that careful consideration which it demanded, so that the rather sweeping assumptions and claims made in his message very properly gave grounds for the strong protest made on behalf of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, by the Reverend John J. Burke, the general secretary of that organization...
...Saint Jean-Baptiste Vianney, the humble cure of Ars...
...In his message to Cardinal Mundelein the President said: "I will be obliged if you will express my cordial greetings to the meeting this evening of the National Eucharistic Congress . . . and my appreciation of the value of spiritual ideals and of religious observances in the life of the nation which are indisputable foundations of the social order and our enduring political institutions...
...Material circumstances vary, individual capacities vary, far beyond the power of any benevolent enactment to correct...
...But we honestly wonder whether this is not part of the ineluctable price to be paid for a democratic school system...
...Albert Einstein has been placed among the angels and saints sculptured on Mr...
...Saint Louis, king of France...
...When we hear one screaming and going underfoot in the Canned Calm press, we will know how it is...
...We are at one with all the findings of this editorial...
...He traveled a distance of more than seventy miles that day to be present...
...of encouragement for the wets continue to multiply...
...The public at the debate that was envisaged would have been treated to what would probably have been an amusing baiting of Abbe Dimnet by the shrewd and colloquial Mr...
...Strains of six powerful reproducers are to float through the air, filling the concourse, whether you will or no, with selected radio broadcasts and also recorded music...
...but certainly mystery is not God, and an at654 THE COMMONWEAL October 29, 1930 tempt to substitute it for God, as the source rather than as a mere factor of religion, is proof enough that whatever Dr...
...The Radio Corporation of America is doing it, and what it does, gets thoroughly done...
...to us, too serious...
...Einstein's scientific theories, the article is the first opportunity afforded to gain some knowledge of its writer's general ideas, and of his place as a thinker concerning matters not so abstruse as those which have given him his fame...
...A dry-voting ex-congressman is caught operating a moonshine still...
...The leading editorial in the last issue of Le Mouvement to come to hand, questions the wisdom of the Versailles treaty in its limitation of German armaments...
...It illustrates once more how blind faith and mere credulity, not to mention superstition, still guide and control the mental processes of so many people...
...More recent portents are the announcement of Mr...
...also of Dante, Giotto, Petrarch, Columbus, Cervantes, Galvani, Volta, Liszt and Popes Pius IX and X and Leo XIII...
...uO FAR as the public is concerned, he is simply a "great scientist," because the populace has been told over and over and over again that he is one—being told so by men who themselves have been told by other people that he is a great scientist, by the handful of specialists, who, of course, may be right, but whose judgment cannot be checked...
...A French journal actually suggests that Germany should have a larger army...
...DURING the period of the erection of the monument, which takes the form of a wayside crucifix on the main highway between Washington and the South, fourteen miles north of Fredericksburg, an act of vandalism was attempted by the members of an automobile party...
...But it is at least tenable that the great public system—and with it we count its immediate periphery of private systems that take their color from it—has in the main, and with the qualifications any sweeping statement always implies, a different function to perform: the teaching of a minimum to the masses...
...And, finally, to go back to our opening remarks, we honestly question whether our educational system, in general, can depart materially from the practice without seriously subverting the theory...
...The Lutherans have accomplished too much of solid benefit to the country to need the attribution to their religion of credit for movements with which, as a matter of historical fact, they had nothing to do...
...The director of the Federal Prohibition Bureau, Colonel Amos Woodcock, has announced that makers of home-made wine are within the law and that the American people are under present conditions drinking 876,000,000 gallons of intoxicating liquors per year—which is over seven gallons per man, woman, and child, and, as surely some of the latter do not drink, is actually even more per man per year...
...and an educational system which is concerned completely with the many is bound by definition to neglect the gifted few...
...The defeat of Louis C. Crampton of Michigan, who has long been regarded A as the leader of the dry forces in the Rising House, was a notable beginning...
...IvEGRETFULLY remembering some of the actions we were compelled to record in connection with certain individuals in Virginia, during the Salute to religious bigotry manifestations in the y- • • last presidential campaign, it is a pleas** urable duty to record the rebuke administered to that ugly thing by Governor Pollard, and also by the leading Virginia newspapers, on the occasion of the recent unveiling of a Catholic shrine in the state of Thomas Jefferson...
...This invasion of the inner recesses of the mind that were the last refuge of privacy in such public places as the railroad station, will make the commuter wilder, we believe...
...Well, of course, God is mysterious, but that is a truth so obvious that it hardly required the revelation of a Dr...
...James M. Moyle, a leader in the Mormon Church and Democratic national committeeman for Utah, declaring he will work to send a delegation to the national convention in 1932 instructed for Governor Roosevelt in spite of Mr...
...Clarence Darrow, on the subject Is Religion Necessary...
...1 RESS dispatches which mention the desire of Princess Giovanna to be married at Assisi, reveal that the princess is one of the members of Another t"ie Third Order of Saint Francis...
...For, according to those best qualified to judge the matter, only a few score living persons can possibly follow Dr...
...JjRUENING, the German Centrist party, and evidently some sections of French public opinion, desire an enlarged German army to maintain the status quo, to protect the citizen who wishes to work out his salvation in peaceful industry...
...We do not want the theory to be subverted...
...Thus one more shrine of the Catholic spirit in America is made available to pilgrims, not only those of the faith of our fathers, but to all men and women of good-will, of no matter what religious persuasion, to whom religion and patriotism are compatible terms, and who are willing, as all should be willing, to recognize the contributions which have been made to American life by the pioneers of many faiths...
...Roosevelt's pronounced wetness, and the splitting off from the Republican party in Utah of a new political organization called the Liberty party, which has the specific purpose of working for repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment...
...we, too, deplore the fact that great numbers of students are nursed through four years of what is called higher education, and then presented with a degree, for no reason that can possibly seem reasonable to an onlooker interested in culture or mental discipline...
...we honestly see a fundamental connection between the egalitarian theory and the practice of treating the least common denominator among student minds as the normal educational unit...
...1 HE missionary spirit of self-sacrifice has had a further testimonial of blood in the fatal crash in Alaska of the airplane Marquette, in which were the Reverend Philip I. New T . Delon, head of the Jesuit missions in lestimony Alaska> the Reverend William F. Walsh of the Kotzebue mission, and Ralph Wien, pilot...
...In this position, it is in agreement with both Herr Hitler and Chancellor Bruening...
...1 HESE reflections—which, though they are not new, have lost none of their power to disturb—are brought to mind, in the present instance, by an editorial in America on the subject of the prevailing lax standards of most of our colleges...
...He will be like a rabbit flushed from his last covert...
...1 HE bizarre fact that a figure of Dr...
...Einstein's scientific work intelligently, and of those few quite a number seem to be in strong opposition to his views...
...It is difficult for us to credit the remark attributed to the abbe when the debate was being publicized and promoted, "I shall be very happy to defend God against Darrow...
...The Forum, for example, in addition to the cherubic smile of Dr...
...That fame, it may be said incidentally, is one of the most paradoxical phases of modern publicity...
...We rather imagine this remark may be attributed to some professional ballyhooer engaged for the occasion...
...We p ,. are constantly being amazed at the arisrovere a tocracy, as well as the democracy, of this order...
...Fred Pabst, sr.'s, investment of $1,000,000 in a plant which will be able to start the manufacture of beer on short notice, sound good to those who like beer that does not leave a flat and unprofitable taste in the mouth...
...It is stated that the bride wishes her marriage to be the great religious event of her life, and to have the ceremony in Assisi in the great basilica built over the tomb of the saint and over the little church which he raised with his own hands...
...and many other saints...
...In The Commonweal a year ago, Father Nott told the fascinating story of George Brent and his more famous sister, Margaret Brent, and the little group of Catholic cavaliers who came from Maryland to found Brenton...
...Education, for example, is certainly a temporal and pragmatic thing...
...IT IS a bad mistake to apply to temporal and pragmatic things the absolutism which belongs to logic and metaphysics...
...But we believe it would have been a bringing of holy and sacred matters into questionable company and, by implication, a putting of them in an unworthy position of needing defense...
...The incident is not only a profoundly moving illustration of the daring of the missionary spirit which has given so many sainted martyrs in the service of God, but also it again illustrates the perrenial youth of the Church and its readiness to adopt the most modern innovations to carry on its work of promoting the truths that are timeless—that are neither young nor old because eternal...
...White House -spokesmen for the President, in deprecating Father Burke's charges, and upholding the President's impartiality, pointed out that "President Hoover also sent a message to Cardinal Mundelein of Chicago to be read at the National Catholic Eucharistic Congress at Omaha recently...
...That the Church will be as undaunted by this tragedy, as are the developers of aviation for commercial ends undaunted by their accidents and disappointments is a foregone conclusion...
...No, it is serious...
...The newspapers flared up in protest, and Governor Pollard, who had been prevented by other engagements from accepting an invitation to attend the dedication ceremonies on October 5, immediately telephoned that he had canceled all other engagements and would attend the ceremony with a party of state officials...
...The prisons are overcrowded and the courts clogged to a point where they are seriously breaking down in dealing with legitimate business...
...While we wish to express our own sorrow, and our heartfelt sympathy with the families and the friends of the victims of this accident, we cannot end on this note, knowing that the spirit of these men will be honored and will not die...
...How astonishingly divergent, however, are the reasons for this agreement...
...Yet it is not easy to know how much qualification may honestly and conscientiously be allowed for...
...Yet he has become a rival to Lindbergh, Mussolini or Henry Ford as a "news story...
...Darrow is, or rather was, chiefly famous as a criminal lawyer, adept at all the arts and artifices of cross-examination...
...Saint Ferdinand, king of Castile...
...He first came into national fame as the defender of the notorious Leopold and Loeb boy murderers in Chicago...
Vol. 12 • October 1930 • No. 26
