A Leader in Lawlessness
By L. A. S.
News is received of a serious political situation in France. There is open and wide-spread rebellion against the government. Dispatches of the 23d inst. state:— France at the present moment is face to face with the gravest peril that can menace a democracy or any form of government. The law has bowed before the mob, . . . with the inevitable result. Rebellion has begun, and anarchy threatens to swiftly follow, not only at the scenes of the prevailing riots, but in Paris itself. The present disturbance is described as being a labor insurrection, which began with a strike in the mining districts. But there is much of interest and significance in other statements which are made regarding the beginning of the present disregard of governmental authority. Note the following:— It was in dealing with the rioters who opposed the authorities taking inventories of church property that the government first openly condoned violent defiance of the law. Citizens who flagrantly assaulted public officers and soldiers who refused to obey orders were allowed to go scot-free. Attempts to enforce the law in districts where it was especially unpopular were finally abandoned entirely under the plea of inexpediency. It was a foregone conclusion that this successful defiance of law should encourage agitators of various types to press forward their schemes for undermining the government. All the enemies of the present regime, though there was no direct co-operation, advanced to the attack simultaneously. The royalists, clericals, anarchists, and socialists were re-enforced by the great body of organized labor, whose rank and file are not enemies of the republic, but whose unscrupulous leaders seized the opportunity to press demands which they knew were impossible of attainment in ordinary times. There was “violent defiance of the law” on the part of those who opposed taking inventories of the church property; in other words, on the part of the Roman Catholic Church; and the present “appalling condition” of existing or threatened anarchy is the direct outcome of following Rome’s example. Let it be noted that the opposition to the government in the matter of church inventories did not take the form of “passive resistance,” as the English government has been opposed by the non-conformists in that country. It was not that adherence to the dictates of conscience which submits to the government officials and the penalties of the law, exemplified by the martyrs; but it was resistance by force and violence; it was open defiance of law and rebellion against the government. And now Rome’s example has been followed, and the lawless element in all France have been encouraged to strike against governmental authority and inaugurate a reign of terror and anarchy. The papacy could have repressed this lawlessness on the part of French Catholics if it had chosen to do so. And yet Rome never tires of posing as the one great conservative force in human society, upon which the nations of the world must depend for the preservation of law and order among their peoples! L. A. S.