p. 159 | Vaticanism in America by Eugene Lawrence

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 18, 1875

Vaticanism in America.

By Eugene Lawrence

The conflict at the polls this fall will be more than ever before between the Roman Catholics voters, led on by Tilden, O'Conor, Kernan, and their associates, and the people of New York. The pope and the Cura demand a repeal of the American law of education, and an enormous throng of ignorant and half-savage Irish Catholics and ultramontane Germans will cast their vote without reflection on the side of the Democracy. It is possible that the papal priests may not instruct their people openly, as in Ohio, to vote for Bigelow and Robinson, or use their churches, as in New Jersey, for the distribution of ballots and election circulars. But no one can doubt that the same process will be carried on in secret, and that every cathedral and convent will be a rallying point for “Democratic” clubs. Foolishly blind as we have chosen to remain for so many years to our dangerous condition and the swift spread of a papal party among us, we can continue so no longer. We have suffered the Catholic voters to rob the city, the State, the nation, until recently without a murmur. They have purchased the press, bribed legislators, terrified the timid, and cajoled the weak. But our bleeding and outraged city cries out against our negligence.

Once more fallen into the hands of thieves by the connivance of Tilden and O'Conor, what have we before us but ruin if we are silent? If Governor Tilden were a prudent politician, he could never consent to consort with the ruffians of Tammany Hall. If he had any real projects of reform, he would first labor to sweep away the thieves who hang ominously around our city treasury. But here the priests warn him away, and he tardily labors to hide the chains that bind him in a pretense of activity. Had the Republicans remained in power, the canal thieves would have suffered long ago the punishment of their crimes; and only the energy of the Republican Senate saved the city of New York from an unparalleled robbery. Would it not be madness to trust the schools of the State to the care of the men who sought to destroy them when they were last in power, or to invite the dishonest leaders of Tammany Hall to conduct the management of the city and State treasuries? Yet this is what the Democratic Convention requires us to do.

The same odious and ominous names appear everywhere on the Democratic committees. Behind them stand a thick array of papal priests. They make no secret of their design to fasten their sectarian institutions upon the public treasury, and to propagate their faith at the cost of the State. This they attempted to do in New Jersey, and were defeated. For this they opened clamor in every other State. For this every cathedral and monastery among us will this autumn be converted into a Democratic club-house, and for this the people of New York will administer in the fall election so grave a rebuke to Messrs. Tilden, O'Conor and Kernan as shall prove the impotence of the foreign priests.—EUGENE LAWRENCE, in Harper's Weekly.