Communications
May 28, 1930 THE COMMONWEAL 107 COMMUNICATIONS NEO-PAGANISM Norwalk, Conn. TO the Editor:—No doubt, Mr. Harvey Wickham recalls that Dr. George Santayana, of whom he has written,...
...Wickham is a pagan...
...So with the central government of the United States when they allow a militant majority, or a misguided and fanatical minority, even though sincere, to force upon this country the appalling situation both in politics and economics that has resulted after ten years of the "noble experiment...
...You have hit the nail on the head in a very pithy half-column, and no doubt have rendered a very substantial service to our cause...
...Wickham evidently does not realize that I have been defending him for, if Mr...
...It probably sounds quite naive to Mr...
...For example, the full official title of the Eastern Church is The Holy Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Eastern Church...
...I presume to doubt it...
...Wickham infers that the business ethics of the pagan business man are different than those of his Christian contemporaries...
...It is true enough that these were sorry representatives of the Christianity they professed, but Bakunin may be as equally a sorry example of paganism...
...Wickham will hardly agree with these definitions, but they are of record, nevertheless...
...If the government prosecutors are vitally interested in the apprehension of criminals, their function (if they are fairminded, legal employees of the public, as equally concerned in eliminating cases obviously unjust to the accused as in securing evidence, conviction and punishment) would be destroyed especially by hampering justice with politics...
...It behooves the friends of our cause therefore to do some very effective work, otherwise the bill will not be voted on at this session and our efforts will have been in vain...
...But they will also, as senators, vote as judges of their own handiwork...
...He will be amused, I am sure, to learn that my last stock market tip came from a good Catholic, and (in the manner of speaking) I lost my shirt...
...Wickham has answered my quotation from Sir Bertrand Russell's A Free Man's Worship with an excerpt from Marriage and Morals...
...io8 THE COMMONWEAL May 28, 1930 Macaulay, in his History of England, when discussing events leading to the expulsion of James II stated that the tribunal, by successive dismissions, had been reduced to such complete subjection that the very government which had instituted the prosecution was allowed to prescribe the punishment...
...It is past time that I composed a symphony on my spading fork...
...J. B. Culemans...
...Donald Powell...
...Such wisdom as I may have is hardly derived from the golf-club locker-room or from philosophical or legal studies, which are some years behind me...
...See how beautifully it stretches...
...But enough: I leave the field to Mr...
...When he starts to emulate my Puritan brothers and write his notions into our laws, I shall begin my shuddering...
...It has been my experience that amiability and a deeply religious nature go hand in hand...
...The Editors...
...Down in my cellar are several hundred gladioli bulbs, which give evidence that spring is come ; and scattered around are innumerable seedlings, which ache for transplanting...
...Wickham has been so kind in answering all my questions and in telling me all that is wrong with this "cocci-ed" world, that I should feel guilty and ungracious, indeed, were I not to respond to his last attempt to be of assistance to me...
...Not only may there be, but there are "Catholics who are not Roman...
...All this has resulted from blunders and stupidity through loss of confidence and trust by the governed in their government and in its daily weakening and complete collapse...
...Sportsmanship is especially lacking, but especially needed, in matters relating to two of mankind's primary concerns: politics and religion...
...One can agree with his theories or not, as one pleases...
...It is now just past April, and I feel like Professor Santayana...
...George Santayana, of whom he has written, remarked to his class at Harvard, "Gentlemen, it is April," departed, and was seen no more...
...Editor, the Homiletic Review...
...If Italy builds, France will build...
...the high priest of anarchy [who] helped to make possible . . . Soviet Russia...
...For the sake of charity in the journal which I edit, I always prefix Roman to the word Catholic when referring to the church whose head is in Rome...
...Williams, is one who is not a Christian...
...This translation of the Greek title is exact and literal...
...I think, however, that the first represents the essential Russell, while the second is simply Sir Bertrand married to Miss Thesis, a young lady who has raised considerable havoc with some of our best minds...
...AN ENFORCEMENT EVIL New York, N. Y. TO the Editor:—Since the decision by Congress on the authority of the executive proposal has resulted in placing in the Department of Justice the enforcing of the Volstead Act, the writer, being only a neophyte in both politics and economics, begs the leniency of the reader until a few inquisitions are put before him...
...If England does—we must...
...My correspndent thinks I "boasted," but I hope, on second thought, that he will forgive the boasting on grounds of my innocence...
...THE CONSTITUTION AMONG FRIENDS Dorchester, Mass...
...To be sure, we have handed over the seas to the "threepower international, limited" and so made war "unthinkable," but then—but then, suppose that some day a big Chinese firecracker should be exploded in Asiatic waters...
...Irritability and an inferiority complex are blood brothers...
...Where he is articulate at all, the neo-pagan in America has limited himself to moral suasion...
...Now because of the weight every President gives to the Department of Justice's opinions on proposed appointees to the federal bench before which these cases are tried, the Department will hold a powerful, if indirect, influence on the procedure and sentence, the discovery, securing of evidence against and apprehension of law violators, whose very acts a large portion of our citizens hold venial...
...It is unfortunate that my kindly correspondent misunderstood my statement that a "Protestant is a faithless Catholic...
...Yet Mr...
...If both build, England may...
...REVIVING THE WORLD COURT Moline, Ills...
...Suppose that America, traditional friend of China, should find itself in disagreement with the other two corners of the triangle—what then...
...He warns me against taking a pagan's stock-market tip...
...TO the Editor:—"What is the constitution among friends ?" Our frame of government is based upon the separation of the three powers—executive, legislative and judicial...
...I hope that Mr...
...Is it pertinent to ask when, and by what majorities this policy has been approved by the voters of the country, when given an opportunity to express themselves specifically on the issue ? And, is the result of an election just "an advisory opinion" to a President and other "servants of the people...
...I was merely adverting to the genesis of Protestantism, and that anyone would think I spoke other than historically did not occur to me...
...Furthermore, I know, as does the editor of The Commonweal, that there are other Catholic churches besides the Roman and the Eastern...
...Michael Williams is correct, Mr...
...Although the sentiment of the country is strongly in favor of these measures, the chairmen of the respective committees on the Library—Representative Robert S. Luce and Senator Simeon D. Fess—still persist in holding up the reports on them, and I fear if we do not bring considerable pressure to bear the collection will be lost to the United States...
...Wickham] lives in Rome . . . not a member of the Catholic Church, in fact so far as I know, he is still, as ever, personally detached from all organizations...
...So there you have "big navy" or "little navy"—according to whether the rubber be stretched or relaxed...
...A CORRECTION In a paper by William Franklin Sands—What Is Russia?— which appeared in The Commonweal for May 14, there occurred an unfortunate typographical error which changed the meaning of a sentence...
...The obvious objection to it is, of course, that it implies that there may be Catholics who are not Roman...
...These will naturally be accomplished by means of agents, provacateurs, stool pigeons and spies...
...Wickham does not play with the Thesis sisters...
...I have seen no better argument in the public press in support of H. R. 6147...
...Wickham believes that the religious person seldom is amiable, but I cannot agree...
...Irascibility seems to be confined to those who are, consciously or unconsciously, unsure of the correctness of their position...
...and, as defined by Catholics, less kindly than Mr...
...I submit humbly that the anarchist may have had, as helpmeets, sadistically inclined czars and lecherously inclined Rasputins...
...Shall we then remark "What is Asiatic friendship among us three...
...Wickham speaks of "Michael Bakunin...
...Wickham, for the gladioli are calling me...
...For this is a time for gardening, not writing letters...
...Now, the three- or five-power pact is such a lovely thing— so elastic, you know—that who would be so mean as to refuse to swap off the constitution in order to get it...
...It would certainly tend to railroading the accused so they may prove themselves right in their accusations and they will ignore their primary duty of protectors of the public...
...Rev...
...So let us beware lest in the future, historians will say of us as they did of the last of the Stuarts of England, that by an unprecedented succession of stupidities they trampled on the fundamental laws of their country, written and unwritten, sometimes with a show of legality and sometimes without...
...It is by such mere trifles that liberty is lost...
...I am sure we shall all feel amply rewarded for our efforts, if we are successful in having the bill voted on at this session, for I am certain it would pass by a large majority, if not almost unanimously, if the members would have an opportunity to cast their votes thereon...
...Nor was the market tip given me on the golf course, for, while it may be clear to Mr...
...Still, I cannot yet find any grounds for hysteria...
...Meanwhile, so long as the pagan grants me the privilege of endeavoring to convert him, I do not see why I should not reciprocate...
...In print the last sentence was made to read: "A number of high-school boys and girls were arrested for disturbing a rather innocuous Communist antiprotest...
...Wickham, since it stems from Gilbert White, Richard Jefferies, Alexander Smith and other such simple fellows...
...If this transfer of authority continues, the Department of Justice will have control, apprehension and discovery of all violators of the Volstead Act, also the preparation of the cases and the paroling of the convicted...
...TO the Editor:—"And [it is] perhaps equally useless to point out that our adherence [to the World Court] has been an approved policy of four presidential administrations...
...Gardeners are essentially simple people, which is probably why I suggested that I was not afraid of the pagan two-thirds of the human race...
...A number of high-school boys and girls were arrested for distributing a rather innocuous Communist antiprotest...
...Now they have returned, and again the executive crosses over into the legislative, this time by proxy, for in the nature of the case the servants of the President will remain his servants, and although (or because) they are leaders of the Senate, they will act as his attorneys before that body...
...George W. Gilmore...
...Now a pagan, as defined by Webster, is one who is neither a Christian, a Mohammedan, nor a Jew...
...Sands wrote: "I think the recent arrests in Washington in connection with Bishop Freeman's meeting of protest illustrate very well the direction of the Bolshevist tide...
...Possibly a second tip from the same source would result in the loss of the rest of my apparel, in which event I should become M. Rousseau's 1'homme naturel, thereby incurring the displeasure of Mr...
...The executive crossed a supposedly impassable barrier into the legislative branch when the President hand-picked two senators, significantly leaders of the two opposing parties, and sent them as clerks of the executive department to London—and by their going the legislative branch crossed over into the executive...
...The Commonweal, April 30, page 724...
...Ross A. Collins...
...Any man consenting to act in concert with this scum of mankind would necessarily be of a lower type than should control the immense power of government as prosecutor...
...Wickham that I play golf, it is not so clear to me...
...Christopher I. Fitzgerald...
...Said the editor of The Commonweal on April 30, 1930, "He [Mr...
...A, E. F. CONGRESS AND INCUNABULA Washington, D. C. 'TpO the Editor:—I have received a marked copy of your JL magazine—issue of May 7—which contains a splendid editorial in behalf of the purchase of the Vollbehr collection of incunabula...
...THE AMBIGUOUS "ROMAN" New York, N. Y. TO the Editor:—The same sensation of surprise as that expressed by W. L. Scott in your issue of May 7 was felt by me on reading his first two sentences—"I was surprised to see the term 'Roman Catholic' used by an editorial writer in The Commonweal of March 19...
Vol. 12 • May 1930 • No. 4
