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THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NE S S
ROMAN AUTOCRACY The greatest obstacle to the democ ratization of the world is Roman autoc racy. Mind, I don’t say the Roman Catholic Church, but Roman autocracy. It has been the greatest disturber of the peace of the world, the greatest intriguer known to any nation, the greediest aspirant for power, the most unfair and subtle in its methods. It is the greatest obstacle to the progress of the doctrine of equality. It is the one element that does not fuse in our com posite population, the most aloof in its aims, the most alien in its attitude, the most suspicious in its political course. Even the patriotism of Amer ican Catholics in the present great struggle has this reservation in it that •somewhere and somehow in the course of the struggle or at thé end of it they will be able to turn their service to account in advancing the interests of their autocratic sovereign and his empire. This is not mere suspicion; it rests on substantial facts in evidence. There is but one remedy for this intolerable- situation. Our American •Catholics must renounce their foreign alliance. They must abandon their ambition to advance their foreign sov ereign to a position of world-sov ereignty. They have no more right to maintain such a foreign alliance than •Germans have to work in the interest of the Kaiser. The two cases are exactly parallel and are fraught with the same peril to American interests. There is, of course, the possibility of a legal remedy in this country by so amending our naturalization laws as to compel all subjects of a foreign autocrat to renounce such sovereign as a condi tion of exercising the franchise. But it is undesirable to resort to such meas ures. It is in the power of American Catholics to voluntarily separate them selves from this entanglement and democratize their Church to fit Ameri can conditions and American principles. There is no desire on the part of our
American people to destroy the Catho lic Church or limit its freedom. What we object to is their autocratic govern ment and their foreign alliance, and we have a right to object to this. It is in conflict with our American democracy, our American doctrine of equality, our American institutions. And it is in conflict with the democracy of the New Testament. It is an anachronism, a survival of medievalism, and a menace to the great cause of world-democracy for which all nations are now longing and struggling. — Rev. E. D. Bailey. FRANCE AND ZIONISM The French Government has made an official declaration in favor of a Jew ish State in Palestine. It is doubtful whether France before the war would have so readily fallen in with the plan, as the French Government had long assumed protectorship over Roman Catholic interests in the Holy Places, a task which Russia formerly assumed for the Eastern churches. Now opposi tion from both these quarters has van ished. BOOZE AND BOMBS “ Drink during the war has used up as much tonnage as the Germans have sunk with all their submarines. Drink during the war has killed more men than have been killed by the German submarines. Drink during the war has destroyed more food than all the Ger man submarines put together.” •; rrf-Lloyd George. Though waves and billows o’er me pass In whelming floods of ill, Within the haven of God’s love My soul is anchored still; For though the stress and strain of life My thread of faith may break, The cable of His faithfulness No storm can ever shake.
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