Life — January 7, 1915 — page 28: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Protestants and Catholics N Ohio Democrat said the other day: “ There's too much prohi- bition and too much religious bigotry in Ohio politics just now.” He com- plained, a Protestant, of anti-Catholic agitation. What with hitting out and hitting back there was cnough of it, he said, to be a nuisance and an up- setting factor in politics. To something of the same effect spoke Mr. Bird (lately Candidate Bird) the other day in Boston's Faneuil Hall. Addressing the voters, he scolded about the “sinister influ- ence” that has crept into the political field; that “hides behind walls, lurks in the dark, never faces the sunlight”. Its name, he said, is Religious Bigotry. Vote, he said, against the man who asks your vote on the ground that he is a Protestant, a Catholic, a Jew, a Gentile, a Teuton or a Celt. Such men he felt to be “traitors to a truc democ- racy that the American people are struggling to establish”. Mr. Bird has been active in Massa- chusetts politics of late, and is not pitching into a mere straw man when he denounces bigotry. No doubt he has seen and felt what he denounces. There is always a smouldering distrust of political Roman Catholics by some political Protestants, and every now and then it gets blown into quite a lively flame. There have been traces of such ignition ia recent campaigns in New York, especially in the last one, when Mr. Glynn, a Roman Catholic, ran for Governo.. There are in the “TIE THIS ON MY FACE QUICK! HERE COMES DR. GOLDWATER!” His Satanic Majesty: A HUSBANDETTE, EH? New Arrival: y-F-s, sir. “WHY, YOU DON’T BELONG country a limited number of virulent anti-Catholics, who are ready to do secret electioneering against Catholic candidates. But that sort of activity is so unpopular with the great mass of the voters that one is never quite sure when the cry of bigotry is raised whether it is a real case or a mere noise made to help the Catholic candi- date. It is very apt to be bpth. Some perverse persons start an underground anti-Catholic campaign and then the adherents of the victim raise as big a roar of “bigotry” as they can to head it off. The whole activity of this sort seems to concern a relatively small number of voters. The trouble is, a relatively small number of voters may determine a close election. In Boston the Cath- olics have a majority of the votes; in Massachusetts they have nearly a ma- WERE; YOU'VE HAD YOURS.” jority, and are gaining. In Massachu- setts it may be a political advantage now for a candidate for Governor to be a Roman Catholic. In almost all the other States the advantage is the other way. In the country generally the Roman Catholics do not comprise one- fifth of the population. That is why the agitation we hear of is always anti-Catholic. Anti-Protestant agita- tion might work in Boston, but in most cases it would help a Protestant can- didate, There are few areas of ignorance so dense as the ignorance of Protestants about Roman Catholics. The one best compared with it is the ignorance of Roman Catholics about Protestants. Catholics are not very free talkers about their religious beliefs, and aver- age Protestants are not instructed about them. All that most Protestants comichooks.com Be = Ler a oa