LAMST week we gave the first half of the remarkable letter of the Washington correspondent of the Baltimore Daily American, as printed in that paper, October 15, 1898, declaring and justifying the fact that as the result of “numerous conferences with Cardinal Gibbons and Archbishop Ireland” on the subject, “It is the determination of President McKinley that the Catholic churches [in Cuba] shall be kept open, and that public worship shall be amply provided for,” and “To this end sufficient money will be advanced by this Government to support the Catholic Church.”
It was stated by this correspondent that “this will only be regarded as a temporary loan and when law and order are fully reëstablished on the distracted island, the Catholic Church will be expected to maintain itself like every other church.”
Do you notice the trickery in this sentence last quoted?—It is said that this Government money “will be only a temporary loan.” Now the natural complement of that expression would be that “when law and order are fully reëstablished on the distracted island, the Catholic Church will be expected to pay back this money. But instead of that we find only the elusive statement that while this money “will be only a temporary loan” “till law and order can be reëstablished,” yet “when law and order are fully reëstablished” instead of paying back this “temporary loan” it is only that “the Catholic Church will be expected to maintain itself like every other church.”
Then whereabouts does the “temporary loan” come [727] in? When the money is never to be paid back, how can there be about it any of the character of a loan either temporary or otherwise? The truth is of course that it is not, and is not expected to be, a temporary loan at all; but an eternal gift.
The correspondent next makes an open bid for all the other denominations in Cuba to sanction this unlawful course of the Catholic Church and President McKinley, by themselves doing the same thing. He says:—
“Such free Protestant churches as exist in Cuba are supported either by contributions of their congregations or by the mission funds of their respective denominations. At the same time, if a demand were made on this Government that the same favors be extended to Protestant churches and clergymen in Cuba that it is intended to extend towards the Catholics, that is to say, undertake the entire responsibility for their support, it is assumed that this Government could not consistently refuse to do so.”
This is an attempt to play again upon the Protestant churches, the identical trick that was played upon them by the Catholic Church, in connection with the Indian schools, in the first year of Mr. Cleveland’s presidency, by which fourteen “Protestant” churches and the United States Government were entrapped; and from which the Government has not yet been able to free itself.
It is true that if this demand were made by the Protestants the “Government could not consistently refuse,” since the Government is doing all this for the Catholic Church. And more than this, the Government cannot consistently do this for the Catholic Church without doing the same for all the Protestant churches. The Catholic managers of this scheme know this full well, and therefore this shrewd suggestion is made to the Protestants, that they may again be entrapped and so hide the inconsistency of governmental support of the Catholic Church. Will the Protestants of the land repudiate this designing suggestion, expose this evil scheme, and demand that the United States Government shall maintain the only lawful as well as the only consistent attitude—that of absolutely refusing to furnish a single cent or cent’s worth of support to the Catholic Church, or any other church; or to the “priests and high church dignitaries” of the Catholic Church, or the ministers of any other church, in Cuba or anywhere else? If the Protestants of the land will not do this, why will they not?
That correspondent suggests that the Protestant churches and clergymen in Cuba “demand” that the United States Government extend to them “the same favors that it is intended to extend toward the Catholics.” This is also intensely suggestive that the Catholics got these favors upon “demand.” The rest of this remarkable letter shows the basis of this demand of the Catholics. We have no space for it this week, and must therefore postpone the analysis of that till next week. However, from a careful study of it, we are prepared to say that for cool, essential deviltry it must bear the palm.
Meantime let all bear in mind that so far this Washington correspondent makes plain, that “It is the determination of President McKinley that the Catholic churches [in Cuba] shall be kept opne, and that public worship shall be amply provided for;” that “To this end sufficient money will be advanced by this Government to support the Catholic Church;” and that this means that the Government “undertakes the entire responsibility” for its support.
A. T. J.