Untitled article by Editor

Untitled article

Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · February 8, 1894

THREE is another fact in illustration of the point which we are making—that the Catholic Church is not in any sense the champion of law and order—and which is late enough to bear an air of considerable “freshness.” Thursday night, January 18, 1894, in Kansas City, Mo., an ex-priest was making a speech, when the meeting was broken up by a riot. As is always done in such cases, the “police,” instead of quelling the riot and arresting the rioters, arrested the speaker whom the rioters had attacked. Further proceedings are clearly enough described in the following dispatch to the Atlanta Constitution, a Catholic paper, January 21:—

KANSAS CITY, MO., January 20.—Had not the police authorities to-day taken extra precautions to guard the life of J. M. McNamara, the ex-Catholic priest, who lectured last Tuesday night when a riot occurred, he would probably have received rough treatment, if not lynched. At his preliminary hearing to answer to the charges of malicious libel and circulating foul and obscene literature, such a large crowd gathered that the authorities decided to transfer the hearing to the county jail, where McNamara was incarcerated. The news that the hearing was to be held there quickly spread, and a mob numbering fully 4,000 people gathered outside of the jail. A number of extra policemen were detailed to endeavor to keep the crowd in order. When McNamara was brought from his cell his countenance was very white. The court room was packed and the spectators regarded him with anything but friendly glances. When the case was called McNamara’s attorneys moved for a continuance, they not having conferred with him, and it was granted, not only for this reason, but because of the threatening aspect of the mob. The hearing was set for Thursday next.

Nobody will have any difficulty in deciding who these rioters were. Everybody knows well enough that this whole mob was made up of the “children” of “this glorious church,” which is confessedly so “largely represented” in the “hoodlum element” of the Nation. The despatch further states that a local paper declares that Mr. McNamara in his speech “said nothing that would warrant his arrest on the charges preferred against him.” This, however, is evident enough on the face of the report.