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Editorial

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jun 20, 1912

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 89, No. 25.

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Editorial

By Editor

The Columbus Unveiling

ON JUNE 8 there was unveiled in the city of Washington, in the great plaza between Union Station and the Capitol building, a beautiful statue to commemorate the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. For this monument the national government had appropriated one hundred thousand dollars. It occupies the most conspicuous spot in the national capital, next to the Capitol building itself. Standing directly in front of the great Union Station, it occupies the gateway of the city.
ON March 9, 1882, there was established in the State of Connecticut an organization known as the Knights of Columbus, a Roman Catholic secret society, which has grown rapidly in membership until at the present time it claims 274,221 members. Whether or not the government appropriation for the Columbus monument was secured through the influence of this Catholic organization, it is certain that it was made an affair of the Roman Church as soon as the appropriation became available. An officer of the Knights of Columbus was placed on the committee in charge of the construction and location of the monument, and the details of the unveiling and the ceremonies in connection therewith were given entirely into the hands of this Roman Catholic secret society, and the members of this society marched at the head of all the civic organizations represented in the procession on the day of the unveiling. It was thus made a Roman Catholic Church affair, with the government of the United States paying for it to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars, and bearing all the expense incident to the joining of its soldiers and sailors in the great procession.
To make this Catholic celebration more spectacular and more impressive, the city of Washington was put to an expense of thousands of dollars for decorations, illuminations, fireworks, and all the necessary incidentals. In fact, the city took on an air of gaiety and excitement such as is manifest only on inaugural occasions. Forty thousand men marched in the procession, and at the close of the unveiling ceremonies this host filed in review before President Taft and the dignitaries of church and state at the reviewing stand near the Columbus monument. Besides this host, the city entertained many thousands of visitors (principally Catholic) from various parts of the country.
The papal flags everywhere in evidence, and the flags and banners of visiting and local Catholic organizations, gave to the whole proceeding the air of a monster Roman Catholic festival, the greater portion of it at the expense of the national government, and all for the glorification of Catholicism.
This demonstration was directly in line with the policy adopted at the national capital, in recent years, of advancing the interests of the Catholic Church by means of such spectacular public functions and the influence of public officials. This has been shown in the Thanksgiving “masses” in a Catholic church with the President and other federal officials in attendance, in “field masses” on federal property where the President must join in the Catholic ceremony, and in similar demonstrations, in all of which there is an effort made to twine and weave together again the functions of the state and the church, to unite in the New World what is being so ruthlessly severed in the Old.
It is expected that the placing of this monument of Columbus in the gateway of the national capital will give great impetus to the movement now well under way for making October 12 (Columbus day) a national, legal holiday. That day has been made a legal holiday already in twenty-three States; and congressmen and Catholic societies are urging, with ever-increasing influence, that the nation follow the example of the States, and make Columbus day a legal holiday for the nation. The arguments and the influence and the persistence are having their effect; and without doubt it will not be long until another Catholic holiday will be fastened upon the people of this country by legal enactment. Then more and more will be made of that day by the Catholic Church, and more and more will her influence and power be extended through that instrumentality. All signs indicate the ascendancy of Rome in the politics and the destiny of America, and such manifestations and occasions as these are but steps along that way which leads up to the pinnacle of her ambition—and to that great catastrophe which will shake the world, and shake her and all who cling to her out of the world.
C. M. S.