The Two Radicals
AT the beginning of this series of sermons the thought
was expressed that in a discussion of the labor question
there are two extremes which must be avoided. One is
advocated by many spokesmen of the so-called ultra-capitalist
class. The other is preached to the laboring masses
by the disciples of Lenin, the communist.
"These unavoidable periods of depression appear
to be normal happenings in the history of civilization," says
the modern representative of the first class. "At
present," so he promises, "business is on
the up-turn. Money will be cheap. Work will be plentiful.
Those obstructing the return of prosperity are they
who complain and give utterance to the inflammatory
statements of intemperate fear."
Such, my friends, is the refrain which he sings to us
from the perch in his golden cage of self-complacency.
His gospel subscribes to the infallible dogmas of the
perfection of things as we find them. The chief heresies
which he religiously combats are three: First, human
rights must not take precedence over industrial or
financial rights. Secondly, government must be conducted
by and for the wealthy not by and for the people. Thirdly,
all those who contradict or criticize or call into
question the perfection of the present system as it
is with all its shortcomings are to be avoided as intellectual
lepers insofar as they are seriously tainted with the
red scourge of bolshevism.
In good faith, we hope, the first class of radical believes
with all his sincerity in such policies. In equal good
faith, I suppose, does the other type of extremist
expound his radicalism.
On street corners, in dimly lighted halls, or perchance,
in the cloisters of some of our great universities,
a discordant note is sounded by this second radical.
"Down with capitalism. Communize the mines, the
systems of transportation, the factories, the gold
which through oppression have fallen into the hands
of a few. If the capitalist endeavors to internationalize
the wealth of the world, let us checkmate him by tearing
down the flags of all nations. Institute in their stead
the red flag of revolt, and internationalize the workers
of the world. One coinage, one government, one equality,
one common religion which is based on the worship of
humanity - let this be the gospel founded upon the
new baptism of red sovietism."
Ladies and gentlemen, as we listen to the siren song
which floats to our ears from the pulpits of capitalism,
we begin to wonder whether or not there is a depression.
We are lulled into the belief that the evils of mass
production, of stock gambling, of unemployment, of
starvation, of discontent are nothing more than wicked
concoctions devised by diseased minds and propagated
by rebellious voices of soap box orators. Attune your
ears long enough, and you will be persuaded that our
economic evils have been foisted upon us by the witchery
of some preternatural agency over which good government
has no control.
However, this melody has become stale. The forcefulness
of its propaganda has become distasteful to the common
ear of our great Republic. Today, the overwhelming
majority of the American people regard as the real
radical the man who is tampering with the truth as
he finds it. The thoughtful American is convinced that
the most dangerous communist is the wolf in sheep's
clothing of conservatism who is bent upon preserving
the policies of greed, of oppression and of Christlessness.
No Catholic pulpit is opposed to the capitalist nor
to capitalism any more than it is hostile to the multitude
of people upon whom Christ long since has had compassion.
Yet on the other hand no Catholic pulpit is afraid
to remind those modern descendants of Annas and Caiaphas
of the hypocrisy which Christ once attached to the
Pharisees of old.
AN OBSERVATION
Human nature is the same today as it was in the years
of prosperity. The desire for clothing, for food, for
shelter and for the ordinary conveniences of life still
glows within the human heart. And lest we forget, the
right to liberty, the right to live, to eat, and to
preserve one's family in existence cannot be assailed
with impunity. The pages of history contain gruesome
but eloquent testimony as to the causes which have
made rebels out of citizens and radicals out of conservatives.
Substitutions for the inalienable rights of free and
peaceful citizenship have never proven effective. In
our own case, arguments based on promise, optimism
and inactivity can never overcome the logic of bread
and butter and peace of mind.
Thus, apple vendors and part time workers on a reduced
wage scale may alter the theoretical figures of the
unemployed. But these temporizing gestures can no longer
satisfy the public nor remove the causes which have
produced our discontent. Perhaps they explain, however,
the growth of bolshevism.
For instance, does not our national conscience react
in horror to the fact that the 1930 corporation dividends
have exceeded the 1929 total by more than one billion
dollars, almost in proportion with the increase of
unemployment? Does the national intelligence not comprehend
that there must be something rotten in the State of
Denmark when such a condition thrives? Or again: There
is the proposed new issue of eight billion dollars
of Government Bonds to replace outstanding Liberty
Bonds. These shall be free of all taxes including surtaxes.
They will enable the investors in these bonds to make
their capital tax free and place the whole burden of
carrying the cost of government upon the working class.
Does not our national intelligence appreciate the fact
that this travesty of finance shall breed an unpleasant
state of mind? Only on January 20th of this year the
House Ways and Means Committee reported favorably to
this proposal made by the Secretary of our Treasury.
Does not our national memory revert to the year of
1776 when there arose almost a similar question of
unjust taxation?
In that year England and its King George were regarded
as the radicals. But in this blessed year of 1931,
they who criticize such a measure because of its injustice
are looked upon as unfaithful descendants of the sufferers
who immortalized Valley Forge.
Ladies and gentlemen, why breed communism? Why feed
it with the fire of favoritism and injustice?
My reputation as one opposed to communistic radicalism
is sufficiently safe to suggest such things. But I
have studied it long enough to understand that men
do not become communists because of its atheism, its
hatred of their country, or their desire to see their
wives and children and themselves reduced to public
property in a militaristic state. Communists are merely
men as you and I, but soured and leaderless, generated
by the protected injustice which withholds from them
their bread and butter and their peace of mind.
As an example we have just listened to a national broadcast
to raise $10,000,000 for food relief for the drought
affected farmers of Arkansas and the South, while no
one has paused to mention the fact that the United
States Government has one hundred twenty-five million
bushels of wheat stored away as food for rats and rust.
No one has offered a valid argument against the bills
introduced by Senator Wagner and long since stowed
away by the undemocratic "gag" rule of Congress,
to insure the laborer against unemployment. No one
- even those officials who admit that the ordinary
American working man can not sustain a home under $2,000.00
a year - has cared to propose an investigation relative
to the fact that the average laborer is receiving much
less than $1,500.00 a year. What care they for the
primary law of human nature as long as the man made
laws of modern economics and capitalism are sustained?
I make mention of these things for no other reason than
to designate the ugly cancer upon which is breeding
the germs of discontent and communism.
Time was when one could play upon the people's ignorance.
But that time has passed.
To quote from the recent letter of Pope Pius XI "Such
social and economic measures must be set up as will
enable every head of a family to earn as much as, according
to his station in life, is necessary for himself, his
wife and for rearing his children, for 'the laborer
is worthy of his hire.'"
Unless this warning is heeded, how can we avert a catastrophe?
WERE CHRIST TO RETURN!
I wonder if the story of Bethlehem, of Nazareth, and
of Calvary had been postponed to our present day; I
wonder if in this year of 1931 the Divine Master had
just kissed His Blessed Mother farewell and had betaken
Himself to the desert before entering upon His public
life, what would be His reaction to our conditions?
Supposing it were our privilege both to be His companion
in the wilderness and to accompany Him as He traveled
throughout the Palestine of America, what would be
our observations? As the Scriptures tell us, we would
discover that He "began to do and then to teach."
As we watch Him kneeling in prayer, thin, hungry and
emaciated after His long fast, we know that His mind
is reverently thinking of Bethlehem and of Nazareth
and of us. He remembers how He was born in the cradle
of the laboring class. He is not forgetful of their
struggle for life, their hardships, and their temptations.
Thus, we envision Him as a young man setting forth upon
His life's work. We see Him carried by the Tempter
to some snow-capped peak of our Rocky Mountains. In
panoramic view there is unfolded before His eyes the
virgin mines of gold and silver, the flowing fields
of ripened grain, the bubbling wastes of precious oil.
But none of these must deter Him from His mission of
peace to a distracted world. Shall He be king of these?
Or does His mission call Him elsewhere? Of a sudden
He is transported to another scene. Picture Him as
He gazes from the observation tower of the Chrysler
Building. Pile on pile there are gleaming temples of
finance! In the distance the incense of smoke rises,
curling to the skies from the chimneys of industry.
Beyond the Statue of Liberty great ships melt into
the horizon as they carry their cargoes of commerce
and wealth across the distant seas. Shall He smile
and consent as the Tempter's hand proffers Him the
sceptre of power; as the Iying voice bids Him to cast
Himself down upon the pavements of Lexington Avenue?
Down, down from the ideals which He came into this
world to establish!
Oh, no! As in a mirage He glances into the windows of
the sweat shops of the textile industry where men and
girls are laboring forty-eight hours a week for sixteen
pitiless dollars. His cheeks grow wet with tears as
He beholds the millions of His brothers, some of them
working two or three days a week, others of them marshalled
into the ever growing army of the unemployed as, sounding
their requiem on the sidewalks of our city streets,
they march on and on into the valley of despair. The
mists gather before Him as the ancient chorus of lamentation
rises louder and louder. He is determined, though He
be God, not to break the bruised reed of His flock;
for they have been sheep without a shepherd. Not for
all the wealth and the commerce of this world will
He forsake them. It is His mission to be the Good Shepherd!
Thus, He mingles with the throngs of the mighty city,
flesh of His flesh! He is determined that the blind
shall see; the deaf shall hear; that bread shall be
fed to the hungry. His doctrine of brotherhood shall
be preached both to prince and to peasant. The poor
shall have the Gospel preached to them, for sin and
injustice must be driven from the face of America.
I am sure, my friends, that if this were the first year
of Christ's public ministry you would find Him either
in Central Park, New York City, or in Grant Park, Chicago,
preaching His doctrine of the immortality of the soul,
of the kingdom of heaven. Not one teaching which He
enunciated nineteen-hundred years ago would He omit.
Not one promise would He forget. In vibrant, manly
voice, knowing full well what it would cost Him, He
would repeat the words: "Woe to you Scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour the houses
of widows, praying long prayers. Woe to you Scribes
and Pharisees whosoever shall swear by the temple,
it is nothing; but he that shall swear by the precious
gold of the temple is a debtor. Ye foolish and blind;
whether it is greater, the gold or the temple that
sanctifieth the gold. Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites who have left the weightier things of the
law. You serpents, generation of vipers, how will you
flee from the judgment of hell? Therefore I send to
you prophets and wise men; and some of them you will
put to death and crucify, and some you will scourge
in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city:
that upon you may come all the just blood that hath
been shed upon the earth. Amen I say to you all these
things shall come upon this generation."
A VOICE FROM EUROPE
Inflammatory, perhaps, are these words of Jesus Christ.
Would to God they would inflame the hearts of those
whose only interests are profits and gains, gold and
bonds while they care not what heavy and unsupportable
burdens they place upon the shoulders of their weaker
fellowmen.
As the great Archbishop of Prague has recently preached:
"We live in an age of egotism and decline. This
general decline is the result of immoral capitalism,
of unproductive capital, which is being amassed by
exploiters and speculators, by individuals and great
corporations, be they banks or trusts. Instead of serving
progress, this capital becomes the fundamental cause
of universal poverty and decadence. I am by no means
prejudiced against capital, but I insist that capital
must fructify labor.
"We are living in a period of history characterized
by violent upheavals such as have not occurred since the
great migration of nations which ruinously terminated
the Greco-Roman epoch. At that time Christianity was
born as in a flood of blood. The conditions that are
prerequisite of such sanguinary cataclysms are today
present in human society. Thus, it was this consideration
which the Soviets recognized with particularly clear
vision; and it is to this fulcrum they apply all their
energy with the intention of setting in motion the
catastrophe which we cannot escape.
"If those in power and the capitalists fail to
recognize the laws of Christianity, the entire world will be engulfed
in a sea of fire."
If Christ were in the flesh today when gold is god and
men its broken slaves, most certainly He would repudiate
its high priests as He did the Pharisees and Scribes
of old who at that time were the political rulers of
the theocratic nation of the oppressed Jews.
WHO IS RADICAL NOW?
The word "radicalism" has become identified
with any theory which is associated with overturning
the constituted order of things. Cain who slew his
brother Abel was the first radical when he enunciated
his blasphemy: "Am I my brother's keeper?"
The Egyptians who led the Hebrews into bondage were
radicals when they denied the inalienable law of liberty.
The government of a nation which perpetuates the sophistry
of Cain and permits the continuance of Egyptian slavery
is just as radical in overturning the fundamental laws
of life. We who build monuments of glory and sound
words of praise to a Washington for his victorious
struggle on the tax question and to our Lincoln for
his proclamation that this country is
As I have once before mentioned this plutocratic type
of revolutionist is the first to take up stones and
cast them upon the prostrate body either of the poor
working man or of the starving farmer who cries aloud
for food. He is the first to condemn their leaders
as radicals though he himself has outstripped them
by far. Crumbs of temporary relief he will let fall
from his table. But legislation of a permanent value,
he will not permit our Senators and Congressmen to
consider.
It is not long since Mr. Lloyd George, leader of the
British Liberal Party, has just remarked that: "Without
the dole there would before this have been revolution
in England." It is only a few days since Colonel
Woods, the head of President Hoover's Committee on
Employment, has testified before a Congressional Committee
that: "This is the sort of situation that we cannot
permit to go on. Ultimately it is a menace to our society.
The danger is well off, but we have the warning."
From Europe, from England, from America, in pulpit,
in press and in Congress, the same voice has been raised,
but to no avail as a policy of apathy and plutocracy
is maintained!
THE OIL SITUATION
During the very crest of our depression we have watched
grow a situation in our southwestern states which is
adding more fuel to the fire of discontent. The word
"fuel" is more fortunate in its use than
I first suspected, because it deals with the tragedy
of oil.
In this mid-continent oil field there are approximately
two hundred fifty thousand wells which produce only
one barrel of oil a day. About fifty thousand wells
produce one to five barrels per day. While five hundred
thousand average between five and one hundred barrels
per day.
Some years ago when oil was selling at $2.80 a barrel
the farmers on whose property there was being operated
a leased well profited to the extent of $127.75 a year
per barrel.
Suddenly from some undefinable source there was a cry
raised of over-production of oil with the result that
heavy restrictions were placed upon the owners of these
wells. As a result most of them are closed down adding
over two hundred thousand oil workers to the army of
the unemployed. But this is not the tragedy. This is
only a minor consideration compared to the fact that
in erecting our tariff regulations some months ago
it was decreed that petroleum and petroleum products
may enter the United States free of all tariff duties.
And what has occurred? Oil is coming into the United
States from Venezuela by the millions of barrels at
a price of thirty cents a barrel laid down in New York!
A fictitious over-production cry was raised to heaven
to provide a market for Venezuelan oil in the United
States.
And who owns the Venezuelan oil fields? Not the poor
oppressed people of that country, who according to
the testimony of their Bishops, live in a condition
worse than slavery. Not the American farmer
whose own oil wells are either idle or destroyed. But
three giant oil companies, one of which I shall name
and two of which I shall not name because I would be
charged with indirectly attacking a plutocrat who is
too close to our government and insinuating that he
had something to do in keeping foreign oil exempt from
tariff taxation.
The Royal Dutch Shell Oil Company, which is owned not
by Americans, has since the year 1902 to the year 1929
paid dividends of forty-five and one-tenth per cent
on its stock. This is the English and Dutch money making
machine that is reaping the profits from the Venezuelan
oil fields along with the two other concerns at the
expense of the suffering of our fellow Americans in
the Southwestern States.
We have not been satisfied to loan millions of dollars
of our American capital to establish foreign industrial
competition to our American laborer. We have gone a
step further in perpetuating his poverty by permitting
this unfair competition in the oil industry. Meanwhile,
the price of your gasoline has not dropped very considerably.
A CONCLUSION
My friends, these things are mentioned in this broadcast
of the Golden Hour not with any spirit of animosity
but only for the purpose of arousing from their lethargy
those who sit at the banquet table of luxury and refuse
to see the handwriting on the wall.
There are other things in life besides the amassing
of wealth. There is peace and contentment and happiness.
There is the spirit of patriotism which teaches us
to love our country and our fellow citizens not only
through the agencies of private activity but through
the great agency of our government. There is the charity
of Jesus Christ which teaches us to love God above
all things and our neighbor as ourselves.
We are quite willing to accept the President's statement
that economic depression cannot be cured by legislative
action. We are quite willing to admit, as Mr. Hoover
pronounced, that our country is today stronger and
richer in resources than ever in history. However,
future economic depression can be prevented by legislative
action and by adopting the principles of Jesus Christ's
justice and charity. And discontent and communism can
be staved off by making proper use of our national
wealth.
In conclusion, my friends, may I remind you that if
Jesus Christ were speaking to us this evening as He
gathers about Himself the hungry, discontented unemployed
He would repeat what once He spoke in the Sermon on
the Mount: "Do not think that I am come to destroy
the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy but
to fulfil . . . and when thou shalt pray enter into
thy chamber and having shut the door, pray to thy Father
in secret: and thy Father Who seeth in secret will
repay thee. Thus? therefore, shalt thou pray: 'Our
Father Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name; Thy
kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth, as it is in
heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive
us our trespasses, as we forgive them who trespass
against us; and lead us not into temptation; but deliver
us from evil. Amen.' Give us this day our daily bread"
- give us only employment for "thou shalt earn
thy bread by the sweat of thy brow." It is Christ's
prayer. It is the prayer of every brother and sister
of Jesus Christ as they renew their faith and their
loyalty in their country's Constitution and their love
in their Elder Brother!
THE THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK
"BUILDING SKYSCRAPERS"
The ordinary mind is magnetized by the accomplishments
of a Julius Caesar or of a Napoleon. Sometimes we stand
spell-bound before the canvas of a Raphael or the marble
of a Michelangelo. What thoughts are ours as we read
those tragedies of Shakespeare's? Or again what are
our thoughts as we comprehend the vast fortunes gained
by those others through their industry and their intelligence?
My friends, things do not simply happen. There is a
cause behind every human achievement. Of course you
and I are both sensible enough to understand that Almighty
God in creating us has made us equals, equals all before
the bar of His justice and the throne of His mercy.
But to everyone He has bestowed some faculty by which
all shall be acquired.
On building skyscrapers in our own minds, magnificent
structures of achievement we sit and dream and plan
how we, too, shall rise from out the common grove of
things to higher planes of success.
I was once reading in the works of St. Augustine how
he who intends to build high must dig low. The higher
the building, the lower the foundation. The greater
the success, the meaner the humility which must precede
it. Humility, my dear friends, is a peculiar virtue
which is little understood. It is from that Latin derivative
"humus" which means earthly. It means that
we as creatures must remember that we obtain our origin
from this earth; that we are not gods, and yet, that
we may aspire to the throne of God and to that great
ambition of becoming one of the saints upon heaven's
throne. We must aspire and at the same time we must
burrow deep into our own soul's consciousness to eradicate
the earth and stones of bad habits, of faults, of immortal
things.
After all, what is Napoleon or Caesar or Michaelangelo
or Raphael or the great captain of industry in his
achievements compared to the ordinary man in his house
tonight who has the courage to go forth on
that greater warfare of overcoming the kingdom of depraved
nature within his own being; he who gains a victory
over his passions; he who, under the leadership of
his Captain and Guide, Jesus Christ, can marshal his
virtues to assist his power of will and to clad himself
with the armor of Jesus Christ's faith and hope and
charity, and dress himself with the light of His grace
- that individual has conquered more than Napoleon
and Caesar combined, and has carved out of the marble
of this life's rough hewn world a greater and more
lasting statue of immortality, which shall not perish
either through the rust of time or through the decadence
of mortality.
Tonight you heard pronounced the words which Jesus Christ
once let fall from His sacred lips - the Lord's Prayer:
"Our Father Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy
name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth,
as it is in heaven." Have you ever stopped to
pause and consider that the thing of paramount importance
for you and for me is to do the will of God; to let
Him Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Light shine
evermore before you; to realize that the temptations
to idleness, that the calling of the flesh to lust,
that the hatred that is born somehow in the human heart
against our fellowman, that these things must perish
because that is the will of God through which nothing
worthwhile can be gained unless this is accomplished?
So, my friends, as you, too, build your skyscrapers
of ambition and success, remember this - that they
who will soar to the heights of the rocks of glory
must first transcend the crimson paths of Calvary's
cross, must learn to suffer in Pilate's Hall, must
feel the lash of the scourge about his body, must experience
the press of the thorns about his brow, and must gladly
clench at times the nails that pinion him down to the
cross of life, because without Calvary's cross and
Calvary's death there can never be an Easter morn,
there never can be built up that everlasting skyscraper
that is intended for everyone of us.
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