THE POLES IN AMERICA

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 1, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 13.

THE POLES IN AMERICA.

It will surprise none who know anything of Poland’s sad history and present oppressed condition, that Poles are anxious to leave the land they may no longer call their own, in a large part of which the government is systematically suppressing Polish nationality and language, and to found new homes in this country of freedom and opportunity. But with most of them it is true, “Change the place and keep the pain”—or, rather, “the chief cause of the pain,” which in their case is the tyranny of their Roman Catholic priests, with the resulting ignorance, ghostly fear, bigotry, and violence. This makes their presence in large numbers a very serious matter.

It is impossible to obtain reliable statistics of the number of Poles in the United States, for many of them tell the census official that they are from Russia, or Germany, or Austria, and are set down as Russians, Germans, or Austrians. But it is safe to say that there are between 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 Poles in the United States. Chicago has about 70,000, Pittsburg 65,000, New York and Brooklyn 45,000, Buffalo, N. Y., 30,000, Detroit 25,000, Cleveland 8,000 to 10,000. I have before me a list of 79 Polish colonies in 14 States.

What an important social and political factor these compact Polish colonies are becoming, was pointed out by the New York Evening Post in its issue of April 13, 1892. The Post said: “In Milwaukee, Wis., there is a Polish population of 25,000 in a total of 200,000, and, as they are exceedingly clannish in politics, as in everything else, the Polish vote is cast almost solidly in a block, and this nationality already holds the balance of power in city elections.”

The Pole is as much under the control of his priest as is the Irishman. For him the priest is God’s representative, the priest’s word is law, and the priest’s anger most dangerous. A young Pole, who afterwards joined our Bohemian mission church in Cleveland, unable to pay the priest’s assessment towards building a fine new church, was summarily excommunicated, and thereupon thought himself lost forever; and he was much more intelligent than the majority of our Poles, mostly the descendants of the enslaved serfs.

Polish priests are very strong and even fierce in opposing not only all Protestant influences brought to bear on their people, but also the Americanizing influence of the public school. They have kept their people secluded in Polish colonies and Polish quarters of the cities, where the butcher and baker and grocer are Poles, and have made it an unpardonable sin to send children to our public schools.

A priest told one of our colporters that he had burned seventeen Bibles sold to his people. And when one of our Polish missionaries called on him to ask why he refused his people permission to read the Word of God, the priest became so angry that he set his dog on his visitor; fortunately, the dog had wound his chain around the priest’s legs, and could not reach our brother. Another priest drove away a young Pole, now a member of the Protestant church, by charging him $4.00 for absolution, which the young man was unwilling to pay. One of our female missionaries who worked among the Poles in Toledo, O., reported that the priest had roused the people very much against her, and had forbidden them to buy any books from her, or to send their children to her sewing-school, and ordered that if she visited any of their houses, they should take a broomstick to her.

I have before me a copy of a Cleveland paper of Dec. 8, 1894, in which there is a very remarkable account by a Polish editor of his efforts to start this new movement. He says that as the Polish people are very earnestly and patriotically devoted to their religion, the only way to lift them up is to reach their hearts through their devotion to the church. After he came to this country, eleven years before, he found out that “the Roman Catholic Church keeps the Poles in the worst kind of slavery for its own shallow and egotistical purposes.” He asserts that for a Pole the priest is “almost a personification of God on earth,” so that every Polish priest exercises a tremendous influence over his flock. This editor started to spread the ideas of religious freedom eight years before by means of a paper published in New York. The paper was put under the ban by the Polish clergy over all the country. He made two other attempts, one in Chicago and another in New York, but “in each case the Romish priest won the battle.” When he started this movement again in Cleveland, he determined to put a priest at the head of it. He picked out one who had been driven away from the largest Polish church in Cleveland by his people on account of his alleged immorality and dishonesty.

But later the editor thought himself mistaken, and expressed the conviction that the priest had made his peace with Rome. This led to their parting company. But it seems that the priest had not been reconciled with Rome, and his church continues to the present independent of Rome. On one occasion, when celebrating the anniversary of the giving of a Polish constitution, he invited one of our missionaries to make an address to his church, crowded full of Poles. It was an admirable opportunity to speak to them of the true liberty with which Christ makes us free. This priest has circulated Bibles and tracts among the people. This contest between the new church and the old has opened the eyes of many Poles, and led them to look upon Protestants and Protestant missionaries with much more favor.—Missionary Review.