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(In this timeless 1931 radio sermon, Father Coughlin
identified the real cause of both wars and economic
depressions: the unbridled avarice of the international
moneychangers.) "PROSPERITY" IN ANY discussion of a subject which is so intimately related with the greatest national question which has arisen since the days of our Civil War -- I refer to the question of labor -- there is necessarily a marked divergence of opinion. Both the moralist and the politician have views to propound. It is expected that no matter what their principles may be, both in common are anxious to advance the welfare of their fellow citizens: both are agreed upon the idea that present conditions as they exist are not totally satisfactory. There must have been some cause for the present condition because things do not happen of themselves. We are sensible enough to admit that we have not arrived at the millennium of things where there is perfect peace and contentment and fraternity. Like our forefathers we must continue battling against the unfriendly elements of a hostile nature, building new highways through the wilderness of doubt, erecting new fortifications of law against the destroyers of private property and of human rights. Let prosperity and progress be the watchwords of our civilization. "Prosperity" -- a word which we have borrowed from the Latin, is synonymous with "hope"; "progress" -- another latinism, which, being translated, means "a step forward." Our watchwords, therefore, are well chosen, because, dissatisfied with the poverty, the sufferings, the unemployment and the myriad national and international shortcomings which are so evident about us, we still possess both the courage to confront them and, thanks be to God, the virility to conquer them. Indeed, we hope for better things to come, as the word "prosperity" signifies. This pulpit has no apologies whatsoever to make for having ventured upon this vexed subject. Nor is it the least chagrined in having received notice to the effect that this is purely a political question in which the Church has no business to interfere. Let me once more repeat the attitude of the Catholic Church as expressed in Leo's Papal Encyclical Letter. He says, "that this is above all a moral and a religious matter which must be settled by the principles of morality and according to the dictates of religion." We are interested not in policies, but in principles. As a Church, we profess no loyalty to the Republican or to the Democratic or to any other party, but we have complete loyalty to the Constitution of the United States which we shall glory in defending in the future as well as we have done in the past. Lest the laborer be under the impression that he is the only type of citizen who has suffered outrageously during these past two years, let me remind him that his sufferings are perhaps equalled by the agricultural class of America. Let me recall for him the fact that approximately one-thousand banks have failed during this past year; that tens of thousands of investors in stocks and in bonds are left penniless; that hundreds of small corporations are operating at a loss; that the great middle class of our nation, in one word, is heavily suffering. But because the laborer of America has more or less existed on a hand to mouth policy without scarcely a reserve to tide him over such a period as this, his suffering has been more acute. In the face of this there can be little sympathy extended to him who in his self-pity thinks that he is the only one whose brow is crowned with the sharp thorns of worry or whose body is lashed with the scourges of depression. And even less sympathy is entertained for those others who advocate a philosophy of radical revolution. What we strive for today is not revolution, but the restoration of principles which have been shelved by that new type of radical who identifies prosperity with the international regime of a plutocracy. THE PEACE OF VERSAILLES In the previous discussions on the question of unemployment and depression, extensive reference was made to causes which were more or less national. Uncurtailed mass production, without, I suppose, mass information; the exportation of American gold by the billions to build up foreign industrial competition -- each has played its part upon the stage in this tragedy in which we are now the unwilling actors. This evening it is my privilege to invite you to consider a new aspect of both national and international depression; an aspect which has had more to do with our national depression and unemployment than has had any other human cause. It dates back to the year 1919. The scene is the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, France. The actors are the representatives of the nations of the world. Germany and Austria are the principal villains. Clemenceau and his associates wield the sword of justice. The plot which is fresh in their memories and in their experiences is laid in war-torn Europe. Visualize it, if you can: scarred and torn and wrecked, scarcely nothing left but the gaunt corpses of crops and homes and factories! As you pass in panoramic view over the fields of wind-blown poppies or down the white aisles of ghostly crosses, your mind is numbed when confronted with the ruin of the Great War upon whose altars so many millions of human lives had been offered up, for what foolish purpose no man knows. Yet no human beings comprehend those facts half so well as do those who sit in judgment in the Hall of Mirrors. Of one thing they are certain: they know that all Europe must begin this new post-war period in dire poverty and burdened with incalculable debts. They all know that reserve capital is a thing of the past. And more than that, they are not forgetful that you cannot bleed blood out of a barren stone. Thus, these plenipotentiaries convene to carry on their so-called negotiations. Days and weeks of discussion are spent. New colonies and territories, by a stroke of the pen, are contributed to England. New divisions of Europe are parcelled out irrespective either of national or lingual boundaries. And to climax the tragedy of this so-called "Peace" Treaty of Versailles where God's Name was not permitted to be mentioned; where Christ's charity and forgiveness were regarded as impractical, a fine of thirty-three-billion dollars to be paid within thirty-seven years is imposed upon an enemy with a hope of crushing her financially despite the fact that her purse is empty and that her heart conceives no honest notion of endeavoring to meet the impossible demands of this tragic Treaty of Versailles. Thirty-three billion dollars! Think of it for a moment. It is a stupendous amount of wealth. The international banker was magnetized by it. "Here," thought he, "is a real opportunity for me to play politics at the expense of a nation's misery." THE NEW AMBASSADORS Thus, in the year 1921, in the New Haven address which former Secretary Hughes delivered, we discover the birth of a novel philosophy of international settlements. Let the banker and not the statesman work out the settlement of peace! Thus, from that moment on we have been exhorted to leave the settlement of foreign problems to the economic experts and to the international bankers. We have been asked to shelve our lawfully elected Senators and Congressmen, as if bankers as a rule care more for the welfare of the mass of population than do our upright political representatives. You are aware of those historic days which witnessed the departure of the new type of ambassadors of finance to Europe to settle the world's problems. You are aware, too, of the volcano upon which were sitting Germany, Russia, Italy and Turkey on the one hand as opposed to France and England and the League of Nations on the other. These unelected ambassadors of finance departed from America to Europe. On arrival they began with the mistake of accepting as a working principle the honesty and the validity of the Treaty of Versailles. Instead of inquiring whether political re-adjustments were first to be made; instead of asking were the findings of that Treaty based upon justice; were they contrary to the psychology of human nature; were they freely entered into by both parties of the contract; was hatred the motivating force in the mind of one party; was dire necessity the actuating element in the heart of the other? What do we find them doing? We find them clinging to the principle that all adjustments could be made by the yard stick of dollars and cents. Assuming then that there were no political wrongs in the so-called Peace Treaty which first must be corrected, "they have proceeded," to quote the Honorable Louis McFadden, "to crystallize the blood money of a vast war tribute into billions of dollars of bonds which they have brought home with them to America and offered them for sale to the American people with the assurance that Europe's political troubles had been healed by their masterly statesmanship and, incidentally, that the bonds were an excellent investment for the American purchaser." A PROGRAM OF DECEPTION Thus, since the year 1919, we, the American people, have been led to believe that the Peace Treaty of Versailles actually made peace, whereas it has done little more than to perpetuate hostility. We were led to believe that victory had been achieved, only to find that unrest had been born. We have been fed upon the propaganda that when Secretary Hughes in 1921 accepted the German indemnity of thirty-three billion dollars as a reality and approved of the London ultimatum which imposed it upon Germany, that peace and prosperity were the reward for the victors, when as an actuality a new war cloud of revolution fomented by hatred and injustice was being formed upon the sky line of the world. To still quote the Honorable Louis McFadden, "the fact that the London ultimatum provided that twelve-billion dollars in reparation bonds were to be immediately commercialized; and the suggestion that the settlement in Europe be left to eminent American financiers which followed this commercialization did not even attract the slightest attention of the American public" as a catastrophe happened and that catastrophe witnessed our sovereignty passing out of our hands into the unholy hands of the international banker. GERMANY'S REACTION Now in the meantime, Germany had no stomach for this commercialization of bonds. It has been her argument that the preliminary agreement of the Armistice which brought hostilities to a close in 1918 had solidly incorporated in it, in terms guaranteed, I repeat, by international law, that there were to be no punitive damages. Bear in mind, ladies and gentlemen, that Germany did not surrender in November of 1918. On the contrary, as we all know, from our great feast day of November, she entered into an Armistice fully protected by the legality of international law. And one phase of that international law stated that no punitive damage be exacted of her. Thus, it is her argument that the Treaty of Versailles paid no heed to this preliminary and legal agreement. And what has been the result? From 1919 until 1924 no co-operation came from Germany in the matter of the sale of these blood bonds because punitive measures had been adopted at Versailles contrary to international law. But in 1925 on board a small vessel named the "Orange Blossom," floating serenely on the waters of Lake Locarno, Stresseman, the minister of foreign affairs for Germany, and Briand, for France, made "peace," as they called it, between their countries. Germany's unwillingness to pay the thirty-three-billion dollars then became dissipated in the minds of all possible investors both in America and abroad because of the importance which our newspapers in many instances attached to this empty travesty enacted between Stresseman and Briand, and later on by the League of Nations opening her arms to her erstwhile enemy, Germany. Shortly afterwards in a little rustic tavern at Thoiry, in the Vosges Mountains, Mr. Stresseman for Germany and Mr. Briand for France once more met. They agreed this time that bonds should be sold outside Europe and that Germany should, for its co-operation, receive one-third of the money thus obtained. Ladies and gentlemen, these are historic facts that you cannot deny. I wish at this juncture to bring to your mind this point, that a bond is no more valuable than the word either of the man or of the nation who issues it. A bond is not gold. It is merely a promise backed up by future expectancies and by honesty of intention. But to continue with the story: In 1927 Mr. Poincare of France openly advocated that secret agreement made at the Thoiry Tavern be made known. It was then this was followed in 1928 by the Powers of the World meeting at Geneva in Switzerland for the final and complete settlement of the reparation question. And behold! The result of the Geneva Conference was the appointment of a committee of more financial experts to handle the situation of peddling bonds throughout the world. Here, then, is the birth of the Young Reparation Committee! The mountains of the Geneva Conference groaned and, as history has proven, they brought forth a mouse! THE RESULT IN AMERICA Meanwhile, preparations had been made in America for the purchase of these blood bonds. The borrowing rate of money became surprisingly low in our Federal Reserve Banks. Credit was given to every Tom, Dick and Harry until playing the stock market became as popular as playing Bridge. Millions upon millions of dollars of stocks were bought on margin. Hundreds of millions of dollars of German bonds were sold at a price better than $90.00 each to hundreds of banks. But suddenly Mr. Stresseman, of Germany, passed out of the picture of German politics. The agreement which he made at Locarno with Briand became discredited in France. Simultaneously with the collapse of Mr. Stresseman's policy of selling bonds which in their hearts most of the Germans never had any intention of honoring, came the depression in the United States. Why? Because the price of these bonds fell from $91.00 to $68.00. The cat was out of the bag and left behind it the bones of the Geneva conference mouse. The banks which invested in these bonds feverishly called their loans made to speculative individuals to protect their bond purchases. The market crashed! Those who had bought on margin were ruined! Depression was with us, but the banks for the most part were saved. WITHOUT CHRIST Whether or not we are in accord with the Treaty of Versailles, we are forced to admit that its manipulation by international bankers has failed to produce either peace in Europe or prosperity in America. As a matter of fact, one of the basic principles of international law, I repeat, had been treated as a scrap of paper at this "Peace" Treaty, which ran true to its form from beginning to end by keeping the principles as well as the Name of Jesus Christ outside the Hall of Mirrors. Now, perhaps, ladies and gentlemen, you begin to understand why enormous sums of money have been exported from this country abroad especially to the national banks of allied governments whose policies have been identified with the Treaty of Versailles. Perhaps you begin to see why the growing opinion in Germany that these bonds would never be honored, because of the exorbitant reparation demanded, had something to do with the crash of the stock market, which had been artificially inflated to secure the money which was poured abroad. Perhaps, above all else, these facts offer you some explanation why there is so much anxiety in certain quarters for us to join the World Court of the League of Nations with France and England against Germany and Italy with the hope to save some of the billions invested by our international financiers in the blood bonds born of an unjust Treaty.
These things are cited, my friends, not with any animosity,
but rather to insist upon the salient Christian fact
that God is still the Lord of Nations. As the songs
of David express it, that "unless the Lord If in 1914 Germany regarded the sanctity of Belgian territory no better than a "scrap of paper," that was no argument why in 1919 the Great Powers should look upon the International Law of Armistice as a second "scrap of paper." Christ's Gospel of charity, of justice, must predominate. Hatred and injustice and revenge can have no part in any negotiation. "Revenge is Mine, sayeth the Lord." PAPER POISON During the past few years it has become a rather popular journalistic sport to belittle our Congressmen and sneer at our Senators, although they have been the choice of our people. And perhaps, God alone knows, that this sneering propaganda has been instituted so that unelected and selfish financiers can handle the international negotiations of our nation instead of the more capable and upright men whom we as conscientious citizens have elected to guide the ship of our political destiny. It is about time, my friends, that the reigns of management be rescued from the hands of private individuals and passed into the hands of our duly elected government. Judging from the foregoing incidents, the unrest of Europe and the industrial distress of the world are traceable, in great part, to the illegitimate cradle of the Treaty of Versailles, which only made a mockery of peace. It has wrecked corporation after corporation; has emptied thousands of purses and bank accounts; has weakened many capitalists and has paralyzed millions of the middle class, thus directly affecting the laboring man, who has had no reserve capital to see himself through the crisis, which was brought on by the desire of a certain few to worship at the altars of the international calf of gold and play financial politics at the expense of a world's misery. THE WAR CONTINUES But at this juncture there is no need for our crying over spilled milk. The evil has been done. We transferred the activities of the Great War from the Fields of Flanders and France into the Hall of Mirrors, where the pen has been more venomous than was any sword. Now, it is high time that we cease hostilities by trafficking in blood bonds or by entangling ourselves in foreign alliances with the hope of remedying the muddled investments of international financiers. "They who use the sword (I may also add the pen), shall perish by it!" So today, my friends, we are glad to give voice to our national watchword of "prosperity." Prosperity, which means hope. We hope for better things to come; we hope that the ancient spirit of our founders will walk once more through the halls of congress; we hope that the world will see the dawn of prosperity; we hope that the eternal Gospel of Jesus Christ shall be our guiding star. "Without Him we can do nothing." THE FARMER: A CHRISTIAN VIEW For the few minutes left at my disposal may I quote for you an excerpt taken from Pope Leo's letter on Christian Democracy. It is apposite in clarifying a Christian principle which today is being jeopardized. The paragraph reads as follows: "Speaking of the Last Judgment and of the rewards and punishments He will assign, Christ declared that He would take special account of the charity men exercised toward each other. In that discourse there is one thing that especially excites our surprise, viz: that Christ omits those works of mercy which comfort the soul and refers only to external works which, although done in behalf of men, He regards as being done to Himself. 'For I was hungry and you gave Me to eat; I was thirsty and you gave Me to drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; naked and you covered Me; sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to me . . .' Thus we are not to eliminate from the list of good works the giving of money for charity, in pursuance of what Christ has said: 'But yet that which remaineth give alms.' Against this the Marxian Socialist cries out and demands its abolition as injurious to the native dignity of men. But if it is done in the manner in which the Scripture enjoins, and in conformity with the true Christian spirit, it neither connotes pride in the giver nor inflicts shame upon the one who receives." During the past few weeks we have been hearing considerable about drought relief for the farmers and unemployment relief for the jobless. The socialistic tendency just touched upon by Leo XIII has found its way into the sentiments of our Secretary of Agriculture, who has declared openly against appropriating government money to feed the poor. Recently a sum of forty-five million dollars has been set aside for the relief of those farms which were devastated by last summer's drought. The bill of appropriation is so construed that this money shall be expended upon seed, upon food for animals, but none of it is to be used to buy food for the farmer himself, lest, perchance, the "insidious" dole system be inaugurated. Well, as Senator Tom Heflin has rather tersely expressed it: "They put the hog above the human and the mule above the man." I suppose it is radical of me to mention that in stricken Arkansas one-hundred-thousand farmers are suffering from starvation. This is the information which the conservative "New York Times" published last Sunday. OTHER APPROPRIATIONS
There is no need to have any qualms either of conscience
or of policies in feeding the starving or in clothing
the naked who find themselves victims of a passing
calamity. There is no danger that this thing be perpetuated
when normal times will have been restored. Was there
question asked when at least one-hundred-twenty-million
dollars was appropriated to feed the starving Belgians
who were victims of the war? No one protested when
thirty-five million dollars not so long ago was appropriated
to be loaned to large shipping interests so that they
can build boats and make money for themselves. Two
million dollars was charitably appropriated for the
Porto Rico Hurricane Commission. Two-million-five-hundred-thousand
dollars was again appro- priated for the study of bugs.
Ten-million dollars on still another occasion was set
aside for the great airline transportation companies.
Approximately Why do we squall and squirm and elevate bugs and hogs and tax refunds above the essentials of clothing and food for distressed human beings, when 100,000 people in Arkansas tonight are starving to death ? WORKS OF MERCY Can you show me a city wherein there is not a free soup kitchen maintained generally by private individuals? Our little parish here at Woodward and Twelve Mile Road has clothed approximately 7,000 people during these last three months and has fed twice that many with money which has been supplied mostly by the middle class and the poor. I repeat that there is no danger of perpetuating a system of doles by practicing the charity of Jesus Christ. But there is danger, if it is neglected, in giving birth to a more dangerous kind of socialism than we have ever expected. . My friends, these are perilous times through which we are passing. As usual those of the laboring class have been affected most severely. To add to our national financial discomfiture the blighting drought of last summer disabled thousands upon thousands of farmers. The small merchant, the independent manufacturer, every individual of the middle class has felt the weight of oppression upon his shoulders. Yet, our nation is not discouraged. It is in nowise impoverished. Which one of us lacks confidence in the outcome? We have every faith in our Government and in our Constitution. They will provide every laborer with steady employment. If necessary, old age pensions will be instituted to take care of those whom modern industry rejects in the maturity of life. The American people are too big and too imposing to hide behind the communistic invention as Pope Leo says, "that good works of giving money for charity are injurious to the native dignity of men." My friends, believe me, there is no great pleasure afforded me in having made mention of the Peace Treaty of Versailles. I have been asked by many since my discourse two weeks ago tonight what was meant by my reference to the fact that Clemenceau barred the Name of God and His principles, as is a historic fact, from the negotiations conducted in the Hall of Mirrors. I hope my answer has been satisfactory. Thanks be to God that as Americans we have not soiled our hands by exacting from a broken enemy what is physically impossible for him to surrender. Thanks be to God that we have not reached out to lay greedy hands upon his colonies. The occasion now has come for all of us both as individuals and as a nation to interpret the word "prosperity" in its Christian meaning. In the Epistle of Titus we read that "The grace of God our Saviour hath appeared to all men, instructing us that we should live godly in this world, looking for the blessed hope, and coming of the glory of the Great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ." Already He has appeared to us! It shall not be said that One has stood in our midst Whom we know not or that His light has shone in the darkness of modern doubt. He has come to take His place in every family's living room. He has come to melt the heart of every industrialist. He has come to sit silently both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate Chamber pleading and praying that "whatsoever you do unto the least of these My little ones you do unto Me." This policy and this alone is the foundation of true Prosperity.
THE THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK:
Out of the boiling cauldron of war comes a strange distillation that, following the Armistice, began to mingle with the noxious poisons and phrases of a new witch's broth that had been brewed in the capitals of the world behind the fighting lines. The money-changers came back into the temples of government. It has been part of the conspiracy against patriotism to belittle our soldiers with the preachments of a cowardly pacifism. It has become a portion of it to murder the love of one's country in the hearts of those to whom a nation should be most grateful. Thus, heaping insult upon injury, the malicious rumor has been spread throughout our country that the majority of the members of the American Legion are not in favor of having the so-called Soldiers' Bonus paid immediately. In a letter addressed to me December 26th by the Civil Service Post of Chicago, Illinois, a vote on this very question was taken by the members of the American Legion. Those in favor of the immediate payment of the Adjusted Compensation Certificates total 37,294. Those opposing it numbered 2,021. I am certain that our President and his Cabinet and such outstanding men as the Honorable Mr. Garner and the Honorable Wright Patman will succeed in bringing the truth of the facts before the minds of our Congressmen. In these gentlemen and their fellow Congressmen we have lost no faith whatsoever. A conscientious, brotherly, Christian attitude shall impel them to visualize the thousands of needy veterans, the thousands of children dependent upon them who can never wait until the year 1945 for the payment of this just debt. My friends, have we come to such a pass in our civilization that we classify the soldier with the felon; the patriot with the poltroon? Have we forgotten that it was to a soldier, a Roman centurion, to whom it was said, "Such faith have I not found, no, not in Israel"? Have we forgotten that on that lonely hill outside of Jerusalem it was the captain of the guard who looked up said: "Indeed this Man was the Son of God" ? Have we forgotten that it was Cornelius, the Roman centurion, a soldier in the armies of imperial Rome, who was the instrument used to teach even Peter the truth as to what was clean and unclean? It was not a soldier who betrayed the Man of Galilee, but the keeper of the silver.
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