textfiles-politics/pythonCode/personTestingOutput/mccabe04.xml

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<p> This file, its printout, or copies of either
are to be copied and given away, but NOT sold.</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
**** ****</p>

<p>THE BLACK INTERNATIONAL No. 4</p>

<p> THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>

<p> HOW MUSSOLINI AND THE YELLOW BROTHER
GOT THEIR SHARE</p>

<p> by Joseph McCabe</p>

<p> HALDEMAN-JULIUS PUBLICATION
GIRARD -- : -- KANSAS</p>

<div> **** ****</div>

<p> CONTENTS</p>

<p> CHAPTERS</p>

<p> I The Church's Record In <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> ........ 5</p>

<p> II Enter First and Second Murders
Under the Papal Banner ......... 11
III <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> and <ent type='ORG'>the Catholic League</ent> ....... 16</p>

<p> IV Papal Cowardice in <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent> -- And Why ... 22</p>

<p> V The <ent type='PERSON'>Jap</ent> Gets a Gold Medal for His
'<ent type='NORP'>Chinese</ent> Incident' ............. 28</p>

<div> **** ****</div>

<p> I</p>

<p> THE CHURCH'S VILE RECORD IN SPAIN</p>

<p> Some years ago I strolled on a summer day through the drowsy
streets of <ent type='GPE'>Toledo</ent>, an ancient city in the center of <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>. A
thousand years ago it was one of the richest and most populous
cities in Europe. More than a quarter of a million vivid,
prosperous, bright-eyed folk had filled its narrow streets and
bought luxuries from every part of the world in its teeming stores.
Such was the fame of its craftsmen that the "<ent type='GPE'>Toledo</ent> Blade" was
sought from end to end in Europe and is still famous in literature.
How high <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> would have risen if men had continued to build on
that superb foundation of that old <ent type='NORP'>Moorish</ent> civilization! But in
1923 I found only 30000 folk, mostly poor and illiterate, living
within the ancient walls; and I smiled sadly, when, as I passed
along the almost deserted streets, a boy offered to show me where
his ancestors had hanged "those wicked devils the <ent type='ORG'>Moors</ent>." It is
worse today.</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
1
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THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>

<p> It was the history of <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> and its <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in a phrase, <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>
inherited all the stupendous wealth and science of the <ent type='NORP'>Arab</ent>
civilization, one city of which could have bought up, ten times
over, all the cities of <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> Europe, and to this it had added
all the wealth it had acquired by the discovery of <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>. It was
literally choking with wealth by the middle of the sixteenth
century. And little more than a hundred years later it was the
poorest, most despised country in the world. About 5000000 folk,
most of them ragged and unkempt, eked out a poor living on soil
that had given rich sustenance to 30000000 <ent type='NORP'>Arab</ent>s and their
contented subjects. For this awful downfall, one of the saddest in
history, and for all the later disasters that fell upon one of the
most attractive peoples in Europe, <ent type='EVENT'>the Black International</ent> is
supremely responsible.</p>

<p> By the beginning of the twentieth century <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> had raised its
proud head once more amongst the nations. It had a fine literature
and a rising prosperity. The cities that had shrunk within the
shell of ancient walls were bursting through these in the
exuberance of the life. The people smiled again, like the roses of
<ent type='GPE'>Seville</ent> in spring. They had for 80 years fought the strangle-hold
of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and had loosened if not broken it. A distinguished
literary traveller, <ent type='GPE'>Thirlmere</ent>, went intimately amongst the people
and wrote this verdict: "The <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> knows that she is doomed in
<ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>" (Letters from <ent type='GPE'>Catalonia</ent>, 1905, p. 437). Mr. <ent type='GPE'>Thirlmere</ent> ought
to have been more cautious. He ought to have added: "Unless she can
return to her old policy of violence and torture." She has
recovered it. Today <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> is back in the ragged <ent type='EVENT'>Middle Ages</ent>, its
people begging food of other nations -- in a land which, with the
crude plows and other implements of a thousand years ago, had
richly nourished 30000000 folk and borne princely cities -- their
minds darkened, their hearts broken. And it is the work of the
<ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent>: of the bishops, priests, monks, and nuns, who
have returned to their old sleekness while the people have returned
to their poverty</p>

<p> In an earlier work I referred to certain evidence of
government by violence, indeed brutal violence, in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> today. It
may not have appeared in the <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n press, owing to the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
censorship, and it is material to compare it with the suave
professions of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> apologists and the beautiful words they
quote from Papal encyclicals. It is a simple account of the
experiences of a <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> girl, apparently a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>, of nineteen
who escaped from the purgatory of <ent type='GPE'>Vichy</ent> <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> into what she calls
the "hell" of <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>. It was published (as it makes no
reference to the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>) in <ent type='ORG'>the British</ent> News-Chronicle, a paper
that is very sensitive to <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> influence, on September 24
(1941).</p>

<p> Mlle. X was arrested soon after she crossed the frontier and
was put in jail at <ent type='GPE'>Badajoz</ent>. She was lodged in a large room with
about 250 women, "an appalling mixture": prostitutes, thieves, so-called <ent type='NORP'>Communists</ent>, etc. "Most of the prisoners were in rags,
filthy, and covered with vermin." There were no mattresses or
blankets for the night. After two days she was brought before the
Governor of <ent type='GPE'>Badajoz</ent> and, without trial or inquiry, sentenced to an
indefinite term of imprisonment. She claimed that she was of
<ent type='NORP'>British</ent> nationality, and a few days later, she was taken before the</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
2
.
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>

<p>prison director: a "brute", she says, who bullied her for two
hours, told her she was "a dirty little liar" and sent her "back to
hell." Every evening all the prisoners were assembled in the
courtyard and compelled to sing the <ent type='ORG'>Falangist</ent> anthem and at the
close cry lustily: "Long live <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>. Up with Free <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>. <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent>,
<ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent>, <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent>." The jailers lashed with whips any woman who did
not join heartily in the chorus. The girl endured several weeks of
this and she was then taken before a <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> Consul to prove her
claim of nationality. She was removed to a jail at <ent type='GPE'>Seville</ent>, which
was "worse than <ent type='GPE'>Badajoz</ent>" (which she describes as hell), removed
back to <ent type='GPE'>Badajoz</ent>, and removed to <ent type='GPE'>Madrid</ent>, where she bad a solitary
dark and freezingly cold cell; and all the time officers "tried to
be as cruel as they could to me", jeering at her as a <ent type='NORP'>Communist</ent> spy
and assuring her she would never leave <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>. These <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent>
gentlemen had her before them standing for two to three hours every
morning. A girl in the next cell one day cried, "Live, live,
<ent type='GPE'>Liberty</ent>, Long live <ent type='GPE'>England</ent>". She was taken out and beaten, and
presently there were shots in the courtyard. every day such shots
were heard. One less of those who refused to bow to the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>.</p>

<p> I gather that this girl was not <ent type='NORP'>British</ent>, but <ent type='ORG'>the British</ent>
authorities humanely lied, and admitted her claim of nationality,
and rescued her. But think of the thousands of women and girls, and
the tens of thousands of youths and men, suffering this living hell
in the jails of <ent type='GPE'>Badajoz</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Seville</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Madrid</ent> and a hundred
others, after fighting heroically for three years in the cause of
freedom. And the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> press assures you, the Vatican Assures
all the world, and far too much of the world-press repeats the
assurance or refuses to disturb it, that <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> has now resumed its
beautiful, happy life in the arms of Mother <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>; and won't you
please contribute for the alleviation of the misery which the
wicked <ent type='ORG'>Reds</ent> had brought upon the country. So it was in the
beginning -- or nearly 500 years ago, when the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> recovered
power -- is now, and never again shall be. Do you really wonder if
in the heat of the hundredth struggle against the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in 1936-1938 some of the men who knew the long record of brutality and knew
how the priests were using the callous and ambitious <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent> to
recover their mastery of the jails, shot a few of them and trampled
on their 'sacred' vestments and other paraphernalia of their trade?</p>

<p> It is nearly forty years since I began writing on <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> and
its <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, and the truth which I told was not a collection of
obscure and disputed facts resting upon the testimony of Radicals
and <ent type='ORG'>Reds</ent>. My first scalding indictment of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and the
cleric-controlled state (The Martyrdom of Ferrer, 1909) was fully
endorsed and whole pages of it translated in the following year by
one of the most distinguished scholars of <ent type='GPE'>Madrid</ent> University,
Professor Simarro, in his voluminous study of the trial (El Proceso
Ferrer). What I claimed for the <ent type='NORP'>Arab</ent> civilization (The Splendor of
<ent type='NORP'>Moorish</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> 1935) is based upon the works of half a dozen <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent>
professors who are masters of <ent type='NORP'>Arab</ent>ic and is no more than S.P. Scott
claims in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> in his '<ent type='NORP'>Moorish</ent> Empire in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>.' And the
appalling story I gave of the struggle with the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> since 1814
is fully and truly told in such standard and conservative works as
<ent type='EVENT'>the Cambridge Modern History</ent> (Vol. XI) and Major M. Hume's 'Modem
<ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>' (in the Story of Nations series). Yet every time the long
blood-soaked struggle is renewed in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> the public is puzzled and
is ready to admit every <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> lie about the innocent <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and
its "satanic" enemies. I must repeat a few points.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
3
.
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>

<p> On the broad map of our chaotic world <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> seems to be of
limited importance. In the fevered and crowded chronicle of events
during the last five years its recent <ent type='EVENT'>Civil War</ent> and the conquest of
it by that unholy alliance of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> armies and <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>-<ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent>
butchers seems to be just the third step -- after the disarming of
<ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent> and the rape of <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent> -- in the preparation of the
stage for the <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent> aggression. But in a study of the share of the
<ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> in the world-tragedy it is supremely important;
and it is to <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, with which it hopes to link <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>
once more, that the Vatican chiefly looks for the destruction of
our modern liberty and enlightenment by a bloc of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> powers.</p>

<p> As far as the last century is concerned it is not necessary
here to do more than repeat in a more definite form what I said in
the first book of this series: that in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, as in <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent> and
<ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>. "<ent type='ORG'>Reds</ent>" have always been the clergy and their allies. The
revolution which put <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent> in power in 1938 is the tenth major
revolution that has occurred in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> since the days of <ent type='NORP'>Napoleon</ent>.
In six of these the people wrested power, in five cases out of six
without war, from the clerical-<ent type='NORP'>royalists</ent>. Every member of the
Bourdon dynasty of <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> monarchs except <ent type='PERSON'>Alfonso XII</ent>, who died
prematurely, has been ignominiously driven from <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> for his or
her crimes and vices at one time or other. In four counter-revolutions the clerical-<ent type='NORP'>royalists</ent> recovered power, either by force
or by perjury or a mixture of the two. These four counter-revolutions, in which the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> was as busy as the state, were
followed by official reprisals of so brutal a character that
between 50000 and 100000 unarmed <ent type='NORP'>Spaniards</ent> were executed or
killed in jail and many hundreds of thousands suffered agonies. The
six popular revolutions were, nevertheless, never followed by
official reprisals, and the spontaneous local outbreaks in which
the exploited workers burned churches and killed a few priests and
monks were checked by the authorities.</p>

<p> All that may be read in Hume's standard history of the
Cambridge Modern History, I have told the relevant facts in my
'Revolt in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>' (1931) and given a condensed account in the
'Appeal to Reason' Library (No. 1). There is just one point of this
past history which I would recall, as <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writers are now apt
to say that all this butchery was perpetrated by the state, and
even that the clergy tried to check it. Major <ent type='PERSON'>Hume</ent>, the highest
recent authority on <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, describing the counter-revolution of
1822, says (Modern <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, p. 256):</p>

<p> Modern civilization has seen no such instance of brutal,
blind ferocity as that which followed the arrival of Ferdinand
at <ent type='GPE'>Madrid</ent>. There was neither justice nor mercy in the
government of the besotted churchmen who surrounded the King.
The gallows was the sole instrument and argument by which they
ruled . . . The frenzy of intolerance and cruelty spread from
the preaching friars and ignorant nobles to the brutal mob. .
. . It is a lamentable truth that much of the atrocities of
this persecution was owing to the influence of the friars and
the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. A hideous ecclesiastical society, founded by the
Bishop of Osuna and called "The Exterminating Angel", which
spread its ramifications. all over <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> organized vengeance
upon <ent type='NORP'>Liberals</ent>; every pulpit, every monastery, every royalist
club, was a center of persecution.</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
4
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THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>

<p> That <ent type='PERSON'>Hume</ent> was no friend of radicalism is shown in his remark
that they surpassed "even the most bloodthirsty wretches of the
<ent type='NORP'>French</ent> Reign of Terror", and he has to confess that the man who
"surpassed all previous efforts, even in this blood-thirsty reign"
was the very pious and priest-ridden Count de Espana.</p>

<p> It is enough that these horrors were perpetrated by an
intimate alliance of the clergy and the servants of a King,
Ferdinand VII who in his depravity is compared by historians to
<ent type='PERSON'>Nero</ent>; and about the same time even worse butchery was being
perpetrated in South <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> by the same alliance of the clergy with
his namesake and rival in vice, Ferdinand of <ent type='GPE'>Naples</ent>. Both <ent type='ORG'>Kings</ent> had
recovered power by a most solemn oath on the Bible during <ent type='PERSON'>Mass</ent> to
observe the Constitution -- Ferdinand of <ent type='GPE'>Naples</ent> had asked God to
strike him dead if he was not sincere -- and both were absolved
from their oaths the bishops and the <ent type='ORG'>Jesuit</ent>s and encouraged to
wallow in blood. Eighty years later <ent type='PERSON'>Alfonso XII</ent>I stood at the
perjured altar amidst the crowd of bishops and took this solemn
oath: "I swear before God and his holy gospels to maintain the
Constitution". And the priests were silent when the old fortress of
<ent type='PERSON'>Monjuich</ent> again resounded with the cries of tortured men and the
reports of rifles: when <ent type='PERSON'>Alfonso</ent>, to check the threatened revelation
of his theft of millions of dollars -- see <ent type='PERSON'>Alfonso XII</ent>I Unmasked,
by the greatest <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> writer of the time, <ent type='PERSON'>Blasco Ibanez</ent> -- tore
up the Constitution and set up the dictatorship of the brutal and
dissipated General de Rivers. <ent type='NORP'>Spaniards</ent> know these things. After
the revolution of 1931 a splendid system of education was created,
and freedom of discussion carried the truth into villages and
workshops. Did some soldier, worker here and there, knowing these
things and seeing the priests conspiring with the perjured <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent>
and the butchers of <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, lose his temper and run his bayonet
through one or two of them? I should not be surprised. But remember
that at present we have only <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> statement's about <ent type='ORG'>Red</ent>
outrages in the <ent type='EVENT'>Civil War</ent>.</p>

<p> We know what <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> literature is, but we have also here a
close parallel to guide us. The world-press was inundated with
similar <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> stories of <ent type='ORG'>Red</ent> outrages after the Socialist-<ent type='NORP'>Communist</ent> revolt of 1934. Fortunately, <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> had not yet passed
completely under the control of <ent type='EVENT'>the Black International</ent>, and,
though some investigators like, Lord <ent type='PERSON'>Listowel</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Ellen Wilkinson</ent>,
were obstructed at every turn and soon politely conducted to the
frontier, others got through; and there were weighty and
unassailable <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> investigations to which I will return later.
Here let me just quote an incident from <ent type='PERSON'>Leah Manning</ent>'s What I Saw
in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> (1934).</p>

<p> The mother-superioress of a convent was pressed to testify
that her nuns had been raped by the Red's. As it was false, she
refused. I gather, in fact, that the only outrage committed was to
the delicate ears of the nuns, as the insurgent miners who had
taken over the convent as a hospital were not very refined in their
talk to each other. Probably many of the nuns were disappointed. A
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> will reflect that here at least I confess to the honesty
of a nun. As not always admitted that there are some good men
amongst the priests and plenty of good nuns the world over! The
more important question that any impartial reader will ask himself </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
5
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THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>

<p>is whether this particular superioress, out of hundreds, is likely
to have been the only one to be pressed by the priests and <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
journalists to make a charge of outrages and reminded that the good
of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> is paramount.</p>

<p> These stories remind us of that historian of the <ent type='NORP'>Russian</ent>
Revolution. L. Lawton, much quoted by <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s, who tells how in
the <ent type='EVENT'>Civil War</ent> of 1919-1921 the sadistic <ent type='NORP'>Bolsheviks</ent> slaughtered 1275
archbishops and bishops, when even the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Encyclopedia
confesses that there were only about 80 in the entire country. But
we will return later to these things. Let me lead up briefly to the
immediate causes of the <ent type='EVENT'>Civil War</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>.</p>

<p> In view of its disreputable record the Bourbon dynasty was
irretrievably lost in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> when, in 1931, <ent type='PERSON'>Alfonso</ent> was compelled to
abdicate and fled for the frontier. For two years after that date
the opposition to the <ent type='NORP'>Republican</ent> government came overwhelmingly
from the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. Municipal election's in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> gave a little more
freedom of expression than general elections, which have been very
corrupt ever since the Conservative-<ent type='NORP'>Liberal</ent> alternation of crops
began to flourish in the parliamentary field. It was a striking
victory of the <ent type='NORP'>republicans</ent> and anti-clericals at the municipal
elections of 1931 that caused <ent type='PERSON'>Alfonso</ent>, after a fruitless attempt to
get the army to fight for him, to tuck his tail between his legs
and run. The urban or educated Spaniard's had voted against, him by
three to one, and it was only in the cities that voting was free
and the counting of votes honest. Even in a pro-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> history
like Professor E.A. Peers's '<ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> Tragedy' (1936) we find it
admitted that there, was "gerrymandering in the country districts
on a large scale." It used to be of the pleasantries of <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent>
political life -- it is this kind of thing that gives the country
so many anarchists -- to work out the results of elections some
days before the election.</p>

<p> Two points about these events of ten years ago must for the
stressed for the purpose of this inquiry. The first is that during
four weeks after the popular triumph there were not even isolated
outrages. I was not then in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> but I verified this in the
'Times,' day by day and that paper was on the alert for <ent type='ORG'>Red</ent>
outrages. The people knew the whole ghastly 'story of the alliance
of <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and corrupt monarchy which I have outlined and they had
just escaped from a seven years' brutal dictatorship which had been
in the closest association with the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. Yet it was not until
the twenty-eighth day after the election that the burning of
churches and convents began.</p>

<p> The second point explains why groups of young workers here and
there, dodging the police (who made every effort to check them),
then began to burn convents and churches; a very shocking thing, of
course, but compare it to the official <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> reprisals of
earlier years which I described. In the <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> illustrated papers
I saw photographs of the young incendiaries politely conducting
nuns and aged priests away from the burning buildings. Well, the
fact was that Cardinal Segura, head of the <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>,
supported by his three leading archbishops, had issued a most
vituperate attack on the new government and summoned the country to
resist. He started the myth which, ridiculous as it was, the </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
6
.
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>

<p><ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> press has repeated ever since, that in some mysterious way
a small minority of what he called "enemies of <ent type='GPE'>the Kingdom</ent> of Jesus
Christ" had won a majority at the election (when, under <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
about 12000000 votes were cast). This is still written in spite
of the fact that the election had been one of the cleanest that
<ent type='GPE'>Span</ent> had ever had; that in the cities, where there was little or no
corruption, the voting was three to one against the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> (<ent type='GPE'>Madrid</ent>
90000 to 30000; <ent type='GPE'>Barcelona</ent>, 90000 to 28000, and so on) and that
the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> won only in the smaller town's and villages where
"gerrymandering on a large scale" is admitted by admirers of the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>.</p>

<p> Segura was driven from <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> by the national flame of
indignation, and he went to talk matters over with <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent>-Pius at
<ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>. The <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> clergy remained free to agitate for the impending
general election, which was to ratify the verdict of the municipal
election; the establishment of a republic and the disestablishment
of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. The result of the general election showed that there
had been no snap-vote and no intrigue of a minority. The anti-clericals -- <ent type='NORP'>Liberals</ent>, Radicals, and Socialists -- won 315 seats,
the clerical-<ent type='NORP'>royalists</ent> 121.</p>

<p> The new government entered peacefully upon the work of framing
a Constitution. The <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> was to be disestablished and the annual
subsidy to it abandoned; the <ent type='ORG'>Jesuit</ent>s were to be expelled and monks
driven out of trade; divorce was to be instituted and secular
marriage recognized; 27000 new schools were to be built. The worst
sting was the confiscation of the wealth of the <ent type='ORG'>Jesuit</ent>s and some of
the orders. A <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> prelate who (like so many priests) detested
the <ent type='ORG'>Jesuit</ent>s and the monks, Msgr. <ent type='PERSON'>Jose Veleda</ent> de Gunjado, had shown
that the monks and nuns had in their hands two-thirds of the money
and one-third of the real estate of <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, yet the state had been
paying the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> annually more than it spent on education. The
elections proved that, as <ent type='ORG'>Azana</ent> said, <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> "had ceased to be a
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> country", and this state of things was intolerable. Month
by month the clauses of the new Constitution were carried by five
to one in the <ent type='ORG'>Cortes</ent>. The country was quiet, except for the shrieks
of the clergy and their dupes. The progress in education attracted
pedagogists from many lands, the prosperity of the country began to
rise, a fair progress was made with schemes of social betterment.
This in all sober history, is the regime of savagery, of
persecution of the majority by a small vicious minority, about
which you read in <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> literature.</p>

<p> II</p>

<p> ENTER FIRST AND SECOND MURDERERS --
UNDER THE PAPAL BANNER</p>

<p> I have now fully vindicated what I claimed in the first book;
that <ent type='EVENT'>the Black International</ent>, instead of having disowned the
violent and bloody policy of earlier years, still pursued it in the
one country, apart from <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>, where it was able to do so. I was
in the <ent type='NORP'>Canaries</ent>, returning from <ent type='GPE'>Australia</ent>, just after the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>
and King had set up the brutal General de Rivera as dictator in
1923, and men showed me where the pavement had been reddened with
the blood of anti-clericals. I was in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> next year and saw the </p>

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<p>country cowering under the Dictator and the clergy smiling and
richer than ever. This continued until 1931; and we saw that the
anti-clericals in spite of the red record of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> clung to
their tradition of humanity in their triumph.</p>

<p> This makes it all the more necessary to inquire closely how
the country fell back into the clutches of <ent type='EVENT'>the Black International</ent>.
You know the theory of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> press; in fact, at the time the
theory of almost the whole <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n press. The <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> nation, it
said, was roused to a consciousness of its enslavement by a small
<ent type='ORG'>Red</ent> minority, and <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> merely helped it to express
itself. This is made more comical sometimes by calling the wicked
minority "<ent type='NORP'>Communists</ent>". The <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Communists</ent> were so small a body
that they had only one representative in the 300 deputies of the
Left coalition in the <ent type='ORG'>Cortes</ent>! I may add that they had leaders of
high culture and character and often rendered humane service during
the war.</p>

<p> If you want a common-sense view of the tragedy in a few words
consider first the composition of the anti-clerical coalition. Most
of the deputies returned to the <ent type='ORG'>Cortes</ent> were <ent type='NORP'>Liberals</ent> (145) and
Radicals or Radical-Socialists (56). It is one of the painful but
inevitable facts of the struggle of democracy since 1848 that
whenever such a coalition as this wins a victory it splits up as
soon as constructive work begins. <ent type='NORP'>Liberalism</ent>, which had to that
time a very fine record in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, was still very powerful in the
cities, but it now had to face, as allies, a larger body of
Socialists, <ent type='NORP'>Communists</ent>, Syndicalists, and <ent type='NORP'>Anarchists</ent>. These had
been brought up in a tradition of hatred of the middle-class, and
in any case a split on the proposal to pass even moderately
collectivist legislation was inevitable. And the more advanced
workers, full of the mischievous principle that the proletariat
needs no help from any other class, were by no means averse to
irritating <ent type='ORG'>the Liberals</ent>. Government became very unstable and was
often changed. The <ent type='NORP'>Liberals</ent>, we shall see, for the most part
deserted the coalition against the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, and their leader,
<ent type='PERSON'>Lerroux</ent>, a grand fighter (as friends of his told me) in the
nineteenth century, but now a weakling, is strongly suspected of
accepting <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> bribes.</p>

<p> Further, the radical rump was composed of four mutually
antagonistic parties. The <ent type='NORP'>Anarchists</ent>, whose main principle was that
central government s always corrupt -- it always had been in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>
-- and the Syndicalists, who wanted the chief functions of state
transferred to the unions (syndicates), would not vote at
parliamentary elections until it was too late. In 1934 a Socialist
government (or largely Socialist) had to crush a revolt got up by
these elements and the <ent type='NORP'>Communists</ent>. We shall see what happened, but,
while the existence of these masses of <ent type='NORP'>Anarchists</ent> and syndicalists
who did not vote makes the anti-clerical majority in 1931 even
larger than the election-returns make it, they were an element of
great danger until they agreed to form a <ent type='NORP'>Frente</ent> Popular (Popular
Front). It was then too late.</p>

<p> A third point is of almost equal importance. With that noble
un-wisdom into which enthusiasts have so often driven advanced
governments the Socialists prematurely granted female suffrage. Not
only were there in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> 500000 more women than men but <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> </p>

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<p><ent type='NORP'>Liberals</ent> had, for selfish reasons, made the same blunder as the
<ent type='NORP'>French</ent> and resisted the modern movement for the emancipation of
women. They left them to the priests; and the priests raised their
neurotic mixture of thwarted sex and religion to fever heat in 1934
and 1935. There must have been smiles in Pacelli's gilded chambers
when the "<ent type='NORP'>Bolsheviks</ent>" enfranchised the women. Woman's place is the
home, except when her vote is of value the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>.</p>

<p> Meantime the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s got a leader, <ent type='PERSON'>Gil Robles</ent>, of just the
type that was fitted to take advantage of such a situation. Imagine
Hearst and a <ent type='ORG'>Jesuit</ent> rolled into one. The <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> was then organizing
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Action everywhere, or getting its lay members to do work
(intrigue, journalism, bribery, intimidation. etc.) which the
public might not allow the priests to do. <ent type='PERSON'>Robles</ent>, <ent type='ORG'>Jesuit</ent>-trained,
robust and unscrupulous, was a newspaper-owner, and he introduced
a new strident note into <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> papers. With funds supplied by
the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> millionaire, <ent type='PERSON'>Juan March</ent>, and the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, he began to
organize "<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Youth"; with a leaven of the sort of scum that
<ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> had attracted in <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>. People
began to hear of <ent type='ORG'>Falangist</ent>s, which is much the same as <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent>s, or
Soldiers. The prospect, of a fight gives pep to any creed.</p>

<p> In 1933 the Constitution was passed, and the government
appealed to the country; and a wave of enthusiasm swept over the
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> world when it was announced that the Right had won 207
seats, the Left only 99 (including one <ent type='NORP'>Communist</ent>), and the wobbling
Center (<ent type='NORP'>Liberals</ent>) 167. It was not explained that the Right now
included 150 <ent type='NORP'>Agrarians</ent> sent by peasants amongst whom the late
government had promised to divide the confiscated religious
property and had been too slow about it, or that women now had the
vote. <ent type='PERSON'>Robles</ent> knew that there had been no change of heart, and he
worked harder and more unscrupulously than ever. He drew <ent type='NORP'>Carlists</ent>
and <ent type='NORP'>royalists</ent> into his camp and encouraged the kind of rowdyism
that <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> had found attractive in <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>. He won <ent type='PERSON'>Lerroux</ent> -- one
hopes that it was not by money -- and <ent type='ORG'>the Liberals</ent> split. Against
the agreement of <ent type='NORP'>Liberals</ent> and Socialists three <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s were
planted in the cabinet, and the more radical workers began to
collect arms to meet a <ent type='NORP'>Liberal</ent>-<ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> coup. <ent type='PERSON'>Lerroux</ent> became Premier
and declared the country in a state of war, and the workers of the
north raised the flag of revolt.</p>

<p> It was the usual pathetic failure. Addressing a large meeting
organized by the <ent type='NORP'>Communists</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>London</ent> at the beginning of the Civil
War, I had to listen to one of the leading <ent type='NORP'>Communist</ent> speakers
predicting that the victory of democracy was certain, because she
had just heard that the government had served out rifles to the
workers. Rifles -- and to untrained men -- in an age of tanks,
planes, and big guns! When will such people cease to think about
the barricades of 1848 or even about the <ent type='NORP'>Russian</ent> revolution of 1918
with its unique conditions? The poor men made a heroic fight, but
<ent type='ORG'>Foreign Legionaries</ent> and <ent type='ORG'>Moors</ent> were brought over and the peasant-regiments of the army on which the clergy could rely were used. The
chief result was to accelerate the withdrawal of <ent type='NORP'>Liberals</ent> and give
more color to the clerical cry of bloody <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent>.</p>

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<p> Still the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s were far from having won <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>. <ent type='PERSON'>Robles</ent>
called for the execution of leaders of the revolt, and the
government refused. Very promptly, as we shall see, <ent type='NORP'>Spaniards</ent> of
great authority and integrity had established that the stories of
<ent type='ORG'>Red</ent> outrages were fabrications and that real and disgusting
outrages had been committed by the <ent type='NORP'>Moorish</ent> troops, the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
<ent type='ORG'>Civil Guards</ent>, and even by religious communities. But <ent type='PERSON'>Robles</ent> got the
post of Minister of War, and <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent>, Queips de Llano, and other
tools of the priests, were appointed to commanding positions in the
army.</p>

<p> In view of the seriousness of the situation, all radical
parties, united in a <ent type='ORG'>Popular Front</ent>, and at the election of
February, 1935, they -- though it is evident that at least more
than a million <ent type='NORP'>Anarchists</ent> and syndicalists still refused to vote --
proved that the educated <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> people remained, in spite of all
the scares, anti-clerical. Robles's Right coalition won 165 seats,
<ent type='ORG'>the Liberals</ent> -- those that remained <ent type='NORP'>republican</ent> and anti-clerical --
52, and the Left, 256. <ent type='ORG'>Azana</ent>, the able Radical-Socialist leader,
became Premier.</p>

<p> This last free expression of the will of the <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> people is
important because not only <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writers, but the press and
foreign statesmen, generally represented it as a victory for the
Right. This was done by a sophistical, indeed dishonest, quotation
of the votes cast instead of the seats won. <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> statesmen often
gave this as an excuse for their scandalous protection of the
intervention of the <ent type='NORP'>Germans</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Italians</ent>. The vote's cast for
deputies of the Right were 4750000; for those of the Left,
4536000. But apart from the fact that women now voted -- and aged
nuns were carried to the polling station in litters -- and that the
Right coalition included <ent type='NORP'>Agrarians</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Liberals</ent> who hated the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> but dreaded Communism, we have not only to add the <ent type='NORP'>Liberal</ent>
vote (340000) to the Left votes as far as the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> is concerned
but to take into account its immense number of <ent type='NORP'>Anarchists</ent> and
Syndicalists who still did not vote. It is enough to say that,
although no election was ever more fiercely contested, of a total
electorate of 12548000, less than 10000000 voted.</p>

<p> Broadly speaking, in any case, it was a scare-election, like
that which put <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> in power in <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>. There was no longer a
clear-cut issue on the question of supporting the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. The
tremendous fall in the <ent type='NORP'>Liberal</ent> vote sufficiently shows this. It was
a popular slogan of Freethinkers of the last century and the early
years of this that the destruction of superstition is "the greatest
of all causes." But when the economic issue was raised it was
discovered -- in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, and <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent>
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent> -- that the defense of the chance to make a fortune (which
not one in a thousand had any effective chance of making) was a
still greater cause. Let not the opponents of "the bloody
bourgeois" crow. In most countries they made a similar blunder in
abandoning the traditional Socialist fight against the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. It
was, they said, converted; and it smiles today over spacious
cemeteries of their dead. <ent type='ORG'>Reform</ent> has to be won by concentrated
movements, but they must be united in an ideal that all reaction
must die.</p>

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<p> These facts and reflections give the answer to the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
cry, which was lamentably accepted in the world at large, during
the <ent type='EVENT'>Civil War</ent>, that the <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> people had repented of the hasty
enthusiasm of 1931 and 1932, or had discovered that it had been
duped, that the <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent>-<ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>-<ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> combine was a force of
liberation. The <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> people did not vote on the same issues in
1931 and 1935, and they were in large part not the same votes.
There were the women, who had been left to the priests because this
was supposed to help to keep them chaste while their husbands had
mistresses's or frequented brothels, and there was a new generation
of voters of the age to which <ent type='PERSON'>Robles</ent> and the priests particularly
appealed.</p>

<p> But the chief fact to bear in mind is that the election-figures themselves testify that the country was still in the
majority anti-Papal. The 4750000 votes cast for the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>
candidates, swollen by seared <ent type='NORP'>Liberals</ent>, disgruntled <ent type='NORP'>agrarians</ent>,
credulous dupes of outrage-stories, etc., were little more than
one-third of the electorate, or of the adult <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> people. And,
like Hitler's push in 1932, it was a supreme effort. Other means
had to be sought, and the forces of the Right began at once to
organize them.</p>

<p> The <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> (and at that time general) theory is that, seeing
the tide flow against them, the <ent type='ORG'>Reds</ent> began to murder their
opponents and plunge the country in an anarchy from which it had to
be saved. We have just the same plea in the case of <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> and the
glorification of <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> as its savior, and Professor <ent type='PERSON'>Salvemini</ent>
has patiently and thoroughly proved that it is a tissue of lies.
What exactly happened in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> we do not know. The confusion of the
<ent type='EVENT'>Civil War</ent>, which soon opened, prevented any dispassionate Study of
the events which had immediately preceded it, and we can no more be
asked to accept statements about those events which were made under
the <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent> regime than we can be asked to pay serious attention to
<ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> legends about Mussolini's early struggle and his thousands
of <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> martyrs.</p>

<p> But so much is reliably known that even Professor <ent type='PERSON'>Peers</ent>, the
pro-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> author of 'The <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> Tragedy,' speaks of "an
epidemic of murder by gunmen, for at least some of which there was
an uncomfortably and rapidly growing suspicion that Fascism was
mainly responsible (p. 195). The phrase is inimitably professorial.
In the two chief incidents which were made the pretext for the
revolt the evidence is clear enough. A group of leading Socialists
coming out of a building in <ent type='GPE'>Madrid</ent> were shot down by gunmen. Can
there be a moment's serious doubt to which party the gunmen
belonged or by which they were hired? This led to the retaliatory
murder of a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Falangist</ent> leader, and we shall equally not
hesitate to judge to which party the murderers belonged. Frango at
once declared that the country must be delivered and organized his
mercenaries, the <ent type='ORG'>Moors</ent> and <ent type='ORG'>Foreign Legionaries</ent>.</p>

<p> <ent type='PERSON'>Robles</ent> had got <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent> appointed to the command in <ent type='GPE'>Morocco</ent>
where he had under his hand the force, which, as experience in the
revolt of 1934 had proved, could be relied upon to fight, and fight
brutally for its paymaster whatever the merits of the cause. In the
south of <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, which is much more <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> (largely for business </p>

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<p>reasons) than the <ent type='GPE'>Madrid</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Barcelona</ent> regions, the command was
given to the brutal and fanatical <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Queipo de Llano, the
<ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> gentleman, who, in a broadcast from <ent type='GPE'>Seville</ent> during the war,
said that they would pound up the <ent type='NORP'>Bolsheviks</ent> to make mortar for the
rebuilding of the churches. As many more <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> officers as
possible had been put in the higher commands in the army and navy.
Few of them had more military ability than <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent> and de Llano, but
they were Catholic's, at least in profession.</p>

<p> This had been done while <ent type='PERSON'>Robles</ent>, the friend of the <ent type='ORG'>Jesuit</ent>s,
was Minister of War (May to December, 1935), a year before <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent>,
on July 19, 1936, led his noble band of crusaders for the Holy
Faith, the half-savage and fanatically <ent type='NORP'>Moslem</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Moors</ent> and the scum of
<ent type='ORG'>the Foreign Legion</ent>, across the straits to the South of <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, where
his fellow-conspirators waited, No serious writer hesitates to
conclude that it was done in preparation for a revolt against the
government and Constitution to which these <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> gentlemen had,
and like <ent type='PERSON'>Alfonso</ent> the Great, taken an oath of loyalty. The
government leaders, in fact said, when the rebellion broke out,
that they were fully aware of the plot and did not fear it. They
believed that the far greater part of the <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> army was loyal,
and this proved to be the case in <ent type='GPE'>Madrid</ent> and many other places.
Their conduct seems feeble and incompetent unless we suppose that
they regarded a revolt, which they would certainly defeat, as an
opportunity to destroy the growing menace of the <ent type='ORG'>Falangist</ent>s.</p>

<p> The early course of the war fairly justifies that expectation.
and one cannot say that they ought to have foreseen that <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> and
<ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> would play the part of the First and Second Murderers.
Careful attention to Franco's pilgrimages to <ent type='GPE'>Berlin</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> in
1936 might have warned them but we must admit that no one would
have expected <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> to look on placidly, and even give
most vital assistance, while <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> troops butchered
the heroic <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> people and even, as in the bombing of <ent type='PERSON'>Guernica</ent>,
coldly gave their airmen practice for the coming war on <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> and
<ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent>. </p>

<p> In the case of <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> Vatican influence counted very
materially. We shall see in a later book how close at this time was
the cooperation between the Vatican and what it called "the
government of <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Freemasons</ent>." For the shame and hypocrisy of
Britain's action, there is no excuse. The so-called Committee for
the Protection of Non-Intervention in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> ought frankly to have
been called the <ent type='ORG'>Committee for the</ent> Protection of Intervention. The
very moderate supply of arms by distant <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> -- and even this
began only after the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> intervention -- was made an excuse for
condoning the massive and indispensable assistance of <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> and
<ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>. Nearer the truth was the plea that <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> "Could not
afford to see a <ent type='NORP'>Communist</ent> state established so near to <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>".
These <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> statesmen know now, to their cost, how
little they could afford to see a <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> state created in <ent type='GPE'>Span</ent>.
But the plain truth which illumines the whole of that dark and
ghastly and stupid period of preparation, is that they did not want
to see a Socialist state set up anywhere, and, with all their
hypocritical professions, they murder the <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> people, although
their Foreign Offices must have known that Communism was the
weakest element in the <ent type='NORP'>Frente</ent> Popular and there was no question of
following the <ent type='NORP'>Russian</ent> political model in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>.</p>

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<p> III</p>

<p> SPAIN AND <ent type='ORG'>THE CATHOLIC</ent> LEAGUE</p>

<p> Whether or no <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent>-Pius had from the start a further
intention than the restoration of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> he clearly
saw it in time as part of a larger plan. For <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>, the
conquest of <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> was, part of his design of securing mastery of
the Mediterranean and cutting one of the main arteries of the
<ent type='NORP'>British</ent> Empire. For <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> it was the removal of a possible menace
to his conquest of <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> and the possession of a bridge to <ent type='LOC'>Africa</ent>
when the time came to enslave the <ent type='NORP'>Italians</ent> as well as the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent>.
Blinded by their anti-Socialist zeal, no English statesman foresaw
this and realized of what enormous value to them in the coming
struggle against Fascism a <ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> would be. <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent>
shared their "sacred fury" against Socialism, but the course of
events now gave him the plan of a bloc or League of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Powers
by which he hopes to counteract <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> even if it is victorious,
and in any case to, in his own words, counterbalance the influence
of the <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n and <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> branches of his <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>.</p>

<p> There is no need to wait for the tranquil post-war days to
get a just estimate of the action of <ent type='EVENT'>the Black International</ent> in
<ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>. Even if there were not a scrap of documentary evidence no
one with even an elementary of the Vatican and of modern <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent>
history could daub that the plot was concerted and carried out in
the closest cooperation with the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, which would gain most of
all by the success of the revolt.</p>

<p> But there is plenty of evidence: not evidence of a secret
plot, but of the most open and enthusiastic support of the rebels
by the <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and the Vatican. There was nothing secret
about it. Whether <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent> in his visit to <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> before the revolt
apprised <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent> of his plans and asked the Papal blessing --
remember that this is just what the <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent> rebels had done in 1916
-- does not matter. He was in the closest touch with the hierarchy
in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> and as he raised the flag of revolt (and perjury) all the
<ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> bishops but three, who were in a delicate <ent type='ORG'>Position</ent>.
declared for him. Every priest and every convent welcomed the
rebels as they came along and helped them. It would be very
extraordinary if they had not done so, seeing that <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent> came as
a crusader to smite the infidels, who, they said, had persecuted
them for five years. <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s everywhere provided the mass of
traitors within the gates which has added a new term to military
literature: the Fifth Column.</p>

<p> But the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> or its Secretary of State very soon made a
declaration which identified it with the holy war from the
beginning. Bishops, priests, and nun, who had understood that
<ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent> and his had pious colleagues had corrupted the entire army
and had, in the expectation of speedy victory, declared themselves
prematurely, had to fly before the just anger of the people and the
government troops. It will be remembered that with all his <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
troops and <ent type='NORP'>Moslem</ent> fanatics, his jail-birds of <ent type='ORG'>the Foreign Legion</ent>
and his <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent> Brigade, his <ent type='NORP'>Germans</ent>, and his <ent type='NORP'>Italians</ent>, <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent> took
two years to conquer half of <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>: a very singular situation if it
were true that the anti-clerics were a minority. A large number of
bishops, priests, and nuns made their way to <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>, and on September
14, 1936, the aged them.
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<p> The speech which was published, has none of the halting
senility of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>. It was a carefully-prepared address. lt would
in any case commit the Vatican to the side of the rebels as well as
the local hierarchy, but it is easy to recognize the accents of
<ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent>, to whose department the preparing of the address properly
belonged. It was this document written for broadcasting through the
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> to world, to which <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent> was now appealing to work for
the extinction of <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent>. It was
published in <ent type='GPE'>England</ent> by the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Truth Society with the title
'The <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> Terror' and might be described as the bugle-call of
that war upon <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent>, which made the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> the intimate ally
of all the forces of privilege and of the vilest criminals in five
centuries of European history.</p>

<p> Frankly, though the press generally reproduced some of its
sonorous phrases with deep respect, it was ludicrous. "All that was
most fundamentally human and most profoundly divine" was being
trodden under foot. This is bad enough when we reflect on the
splendid human service that the Socialist-<ent type='NORP'>Liberal</ent> coalition had
rendered and the clerical <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent>s have destroyed, but Some of the
priests and nuns must have had difficulty in refraining from
Smiling when the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> included amongst the victims "the fruitful
activity of lives wholly dedicated to religion, to science, and to
charity." The morals of the <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> clergy are notorious, but their
devotion to science must be a profound secret. All these holy
things were "assaulted, violated, destroyed" -- it reads like the
first sentence of a famous speech of Cicero's -- "in the most
ruthless and barbarous ways, in an unbridled and unparalleled
confusion of forces so savage and cruel", etc. There had been a
"satanic preparation" -- a perfectly childish representation of the
facts -- for "the flame of hatred and savage persecution" such as
the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, and it alone, is so apt to experience. There
was, in fine, an attempt to "subvert established order of every
kind from <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> to <ent type='GPE'>China</ent>, from <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent> to South <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>."</p>

<p> The reader will not expect me to analyze this preposterous
stuff -- the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> talks as if it were the anti-clericals Who had
revolted -- but he will reflect that it served Pacelli's purpose.
From the time of its distribution over the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> world and the
reproduction of its gorgeous phrases in the secular press it
prepared men to swallow every tale of <ent type='ORG'>Red</ent> outrages that the
<ent type='ORG'>Falangist</ent>s cared to concoct; it made <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s more blindly bitter
than ever against <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>; it put in a good word for the Pope's
<ent type='NORP'>Japanese</ent> friends; and it represented <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> as
respectable crusaders who at great sacrifice, were striking a blow
for civilization. The Papal banner was the first foreign flag to
wave over Franco's diplomatic headquarters at <ent type='ORG'>Salamanca</ent>, and even
such ghastly massacres as that at <ent type='PERSON'>Guernica</ent> did not receive a word
of disapproval. <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent> was encouraged to act as a
feeding ground for Franco's armies. <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n and <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s
poured their dollars or pounds into a common collecting box with
the bankers and stock brokers. <ent type='GPE'>Ireland</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> -- pathetically
-- resounded with the slogan, "For God and <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>," and <ent type='PERSON'>Duffy</ent>
pompously led his <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent> Brigade to join the young English <ent type='NORP'>Tories</ent>
who were enlisted in a <ent type='GPE'>London</ent> hotel to serve under <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent>. So mean
a disposition was create by the Pope's words that <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s
threatened to secede from the Trade Unions if the collection of </p>

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<p>funds for loyalist <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> was not stopped, and <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> mothers in
some places compelled <ent type='ORG'>the Cooperative Movement</ent> to abandon its
humane plan of sending milk to the half-starved <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> children.
The activity of <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s materially helped to sustain the
government in that ignoble surrender to <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> by
allowing unlimited intervention, for which it has paid so dearly;
and they felt no misgivings when the Vatican, asked to join in the
<ent type='NORP'>French</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> protest against the beginning of the bombing of
civilians, replied that it must avoid even the suspicion of
interfering in polities!</p>

<p> At the time when the drowsy <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> spoke about the satanic
preparation and the unparalleled outpour of barbarism, phrases
which were simply an expression of Pacelli's bitter disappointment
at the failure of the rebellion -- no one seriously believes that
it would have won without the <ent type='NORP'>Italians</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Germans</ent> -- there had
probably been a lot of rough treatment on both sides. The <ent type='ORG'>Moors</ent>
were furious at winning so little of the promised loot; the <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent>
people were furious because the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> again resorted to bloodshed,
and against a government returned to power by the majority of the
people after the priests had called up every <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> voter in the
Republic. Some day we may know just what was done, on both sides,
in violation of what are called the usages of civilized warfare. We
cannot expect to learn this from <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> as it is today, but if any
man imagines that the priests and nuns just went on serenely saying
their prayers until the "sadistic" <ent type='ORG'>Reds</ent> burst in upon them he must
take his information from novels and <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> newspapers.</p>

<p> We are, however, not without helpful material. Two years
earlier there had been, as I said, a minor war of the same
combatants, and the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> press and much of the secular press
had given terrible stories of outrages by Socialists and
<ent type='NORP'>Communists</ent>, There always have been such stories since the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent>
Revolution, and <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s, being forbidden to read the truth, still
cherish some of the picturesque lies -- like that of the prostitute
on an altar of Notre Dame -- told by the refugee priests of a
century and a half ago.</p>

<p> After the suppression of the revolt of 1934, Lord <ent type='PERSON'>Listowel</ent> and
<ent type='PERSON'>Ellen Wilkinson</ent> went to <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> to investigate the stories. of
outrages. I had a talk with them after their return. They had the
written assurance of the President of the Republic Zamora (a
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>) and the <ent type='NORP'>Liberal</ent> premier <ent type='PERSON'>Lerroux</ent>, that the stories of
outrage's committed by the anti-clericals were false, and when they
went to the supposed locality of the outrages to verify this, the
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> authorities prevented them, and, on the absurd pretense
that their inquiry so infuriated the people that their lives were
in danger, rushed them to the frontier. But in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> itself the
boot was rather on the other foot. It was the champions of the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> who had committed outrages; the <ent type='ORG'>Moors</ent>, the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> soldiers
or <ent type='ORG'>Civil Guards</ent>, and in some cases religious brothers. These
stories of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> brutality were severely investigated on the
spot by Professor Fernando de los Rios, an ex-Minister of
Education, Senior F.G. <ent type='ORG'>Ordas</ent>, a <ent type='NORP'>Liberal</ent> ex-Minister of <ent type='ORG'>Commerce</ent>,
and the lawyer <ent type='PERSON'>Alvarez</ent> del <ent type='GPE'>Vayo</ent>, and they were found to be horribly
true. They made independent examinations and, unlike the retailers
of <ent type='ORG'>Red</ent> atrocities, they gave full names and places in their lengthy</p>

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<p>reports. Mrs. <ent type='PERSON'>Leah Manning</ent> has a digest of these three reports in
the appendix of her book, 'What I Saw In <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>' (1934), and she
tells how some of the stories of <ent type='ORG'>Red</ent> outrages were fabricated.</p>

<p> The best one can say, therefore, for Pacelli's scalding
rhetoric is that he had made no serious inquiry, but he inflamed
the entire <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> world and so gilded the action of <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> and
<ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> in the eyes of the world in general that he is in a large
measure responsible for the failure of democracies to see what the
real and ulterior aim of those butchers was. On the other hand,
<ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent>, like every <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writer in the world, and a good many
others, perpetrated an utter absurdity and declined to notice it.
It is the contention that <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> is overwhelmingly <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>, yet a
small minority of "satanic" folk carried every free election for
five years and held half the country for two year's against the
other half, and the fleets, air-fleets, tanks, and guns, of the two
most powerful nations in Europe! It is stupid to talk about <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>.
It did what it could, but for sheer geographical reasons it could
not do much.</p>

<p> Before the end of the war a reluctant press felt itself
compelled to speak admiringly of the heroism of the <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> people.
Theirs, on the anti-clerical side, was a war of the common folk,
the workers and their wives and sons and daughters. They had no
mercenary foreign troops, for the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> volunteers,
hampered in every way in their enlistment by their governments,
were comparatively very few, and there were still less <ent type='NORP'>Russian</ent>s, as
was proved at the close. It was the people of <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> who held up the
<ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>, and <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> armies, backed by Portuguese <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent>
help -- that was why <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent> had at once secured the Portuguese
frontier -- and <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n funds for two years. Yet the
same papers that told the story continued to repeat that <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> was
Solidly <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>, though every loyalist soldier, every boy and girl
who helped them, was under the direst ban of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. And
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s continued, and continue, to drone about that remarkable
minority of <ent type='ORG'>Satanists</ent> who are supposed to have carried every
<ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> election for five years and then somehow contrived to get
the people to fight passionately for them for two years. The
miracles of <ent type='PERSON'>Lourdes</ent> are pale in comparison.</p>

<p> Yet, in face of the most elementary common-sense, there is
hardly any lie that has been put out by the Vatican to cover its
policy of cooperation with crime and consecration of bloodshed that
has had a wider acceptance. I do not know whether <ent type='PERSON'>George Seldes</ent>,
author of 'The Vatican,' is or is not a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>, but on this point
he beat the <ent type='ORG'>Jesuit</ent>s, He says that there are only 30000 non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, and then he sees nothing to be explained in the
magnificent defense of the people of <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> under a shower of
anathemas from the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>! Then there is that quaint political
sport -- in the biological sense -- <ent type='PERSON'>McGovern</ent>, the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
Socialist Member of <ent type='ORG'>the British</ent> Parliament, the man who was chiefly
responsible for the abandonment of the anti-church policy of the
<ent type='NORP'>British</ent> advanced <ent type='ORG'>Labor</ent>; and his <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> now gloats over the
destruction of Communism. He is supposed to have studied <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> on
the spot, and he is an honest man whatever you think of his
ability. He says that all but about one million of the <ent type='NORP'>Spaniards</ent>
are <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s; which still leaves the tail wagging the dog for
seven years in a most mysterious way.</p>

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<p> Curiously enough the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writer who comes nearest to the
truth is a <ent type='ORG'>Jesuit</ent>, the <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent> priest, Father <ent type='PERSON'>Gannon</ent>. In the '<ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent>
Times' (January 23, 1937), he said that there are "ten or fifteen
million <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s" in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>. Apparently he thought it wise to admit
how far the corruption of the innocent people by the sadistic
minority (as the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>, sir P. <ent type='PERSON'>Gibbs</ent> deliberately calls them)
had gone. The phrase "ten or fifteen" is rather loose even for a
<ent type='ORG'>Jesuit</ent>, especially when you are thinking of millions. Let us split
the difference and say that the priest claims only about 12000000
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> out of a total population of 29000000. We get
near commons-sense at last, and we will not quibble with so
generous an admission. The only interpretation of <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> life from
1931 to 1938 that is not completely ridiculous is that the majority
of the <ent type='NORP'>Spaniards</ent> had quitted the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. That, means a loss of at
least 15000000 and fully explains the policy of the Black
International in that country.</p>

<p> The <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> shared the spoils, in fact got most of them. It was
restored to the despotic and parasitic position it had had before
1931, and the tinfoil Dictator, the most ridiculous specimen of the
brood in Europe, awarded it an annual subsidy of 65000000
pesetas. The country was and is, half-starved, reduced to
international beggary, but the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> has always been willing to
overlook that misfortune of its supporters. From all sides the
priests called for the rebuilding of their churches, seminaries,
monasteries, etc., and this made a further drain upon the slender
public purse. The remains of the dissipated General de Rivera,
whose character, Ibanez, had so ruthlessly revealed to the whole
civilized world, were transferred with gorgeous religious and
secular ceremony to the <ent type='NORP'>Escurial</ent>, the palace of the dead <ent type='ORG'>Kings</ent> of
<ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>. If the flimsy structure of the new dictatorship lasts long
enough I expect to hear of him being canonized. Many young ladies
in <ent type='GPE'>Madrid</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Paris</ent> will be interested.</p>

<p> Naturally all the fine work of the <ent type='NORP'>Liberal</ent>-Socialist coalition
was destroyed. It is one of the gems of the Papal speech which I
quoted above that the satanic <ent type='ORG'>Reds</ent> destroyed science, whereas, they
had done splendid work in restoring science in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, and a child
would know that the rebels and their priests would ruin this. The
system of education which had drawn hundreds of students of
pedagogy from all parts was abolished. Manuals of history of a
childishly mendacious character were substituted for the excellent
text books and priests and nuns had the run of the class rooms.
Whatever dropped and withered there must be money for "religion."
So greedy was the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> that by the end of 1940 there was bitter
murmuring against the priests among the <ent type='ORG'>Falangist</ent>s, and <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent> was
compelled to defy the Vatican over the appointment of bishops. It
only required this "quarrel over investitures" to complete the
restoration of the <ent type='EVENT'>Middle Ages</ent>. But the Vatican won, of course.
Without <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent>, and clerical protection, the <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent>
people, low as they have fallen, would sweep away the perjured
adventurer and his popin-jay brothier-in-law in a month. The army
is divided and in large part ripe for rebellion.</p>

<p> And the 15000000 who had quitted the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>? Turn back to
the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> girl's narrative which I have quoted. Tens of thousands
of the rank and file of them are taken out of vile jails to sing
hymns and <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> chants with a whip raised over their backs, while</p>

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<p>the chaplain enjoys his bottle in the background. Hundreds of their
leaders who survived the war are buried like dogs. Still the firing
squads are busy all over <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>. The <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> must not read
these things. He is told that there are only 30000 folk, who had
quitted the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and they are "under restraint." He will find it
out when Fascism is destroyed and something more painful than the
"terrific propaganda" which Cardinal <ent type='ORG'>Hinsley</ent> foresees will fall
upon his <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>. <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, and <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent>
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>. The <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> knows it and stakes everything on the victory of
Fascism.</p>

<p> The <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> linked <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent> with <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> in the <ent type='EVENT'>Civil War</ent>. Here
again the record of <ent type='EVENT'>the Black International</ent> is vile. To the middle
of the last century, <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent> had the same fate as <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>. A king of
disreputable character surrounded by fawning bishops, slew or
tortured tens of thousands of rebels against <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and feudalism.
But reform, or moderation set in earlier in that compact little
country than in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>. When another disreputable monarch began to
play tricks in the early years of this century the middle-class
<ent type='NORP'>Liberals</ent> drove him out, set up a Republic and stripped the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>
of all its privileges. Then came the tragic dilemma -- feudalism or
Socialism, finance or freedom -- and before the specter of the down
the <ent type='ORG'>Reds</ent>, men took down their anti-clerical banners. <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent>
became a military dictatorship with the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in full power once
more.</p>

<p> Under President General <ent type='PERSON'>Cremona</ent> and Premier Dr. <ent type='PERSON'>Salazar</ent>,
<ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent> is what is humorously called a corporative state. The late
<ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>, who knew as much about economics and sociology as a child in
a primary school does, gave the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> world one of those
Encyclicals which it admires so much, saying that Italy's
corporative state is the ideal for reconciling capital and labor
and honoring the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. Naturally, you would not expect a
churchman to notice that this corporative state was a ghastly
failure, even economically, in his own country, <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>; that crime
was rising by leaps and bounds, and the schools were rotting. In
<ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent>, where more than half the people are still pious,
illiterate, and densely ignorant, it was comparatively easy; and
the <ent type='ORG'>Jesuit</ent>s, who had been expelled, were brought back to help. So
the corporative state was established. What did it matter to the
<ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> that, concentrating power over capital and labor in one pair
of hands, it was the ideal form of state for an aggressive
imperialistic dictator? <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> must have smiled.</p>

<p> We may take it that <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent> was the chief author of the
Encyclical 'Quadragesimo Anno' (1931) in which the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> summoned
all <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries to adopt the form of the corporative state.
They were then a ragged regiment; <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>, Eire, and (more or
less) Hungary. To these <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent> in 1934 added <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent> and in 1935
most of <ent type='GPE'>the Republics</ent> of South and Central <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>. When he saw
<ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> guaranteeing the success of his plot in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>,
and <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent> had bowed to the Papal orders in 1934, he began to
dream larger dreams. He worked, we shall see, in <ent type='GPE'>Yugo</ent>-<ent type='NORP'>Slavia</ent>, to
prepare the way for Mussolini's legions and win at least a Croatian
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> for the Vatican. He courted <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> and encouraged the
<ent type='GPE'>Rexists</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent>. His dream took the shape of a bloc or League of
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> corporative states, very docile to the Black </p>

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<p>International, spanning the planet, following Mussolini's
"victorious eagles" eastward, ready in time to check either a
<ent type='NORP'>German</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent> empire in north Europe or a <ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent> Anglo-<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n
combination.</p>

<p> IV</p>

<p> PAPAL COWARDICE IN <ent type='ORG'>ABYSSINIA</ent> -- AND WHY</p>

<p> The <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writer Teeling (The <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> in <ent type='ORG'>Polities</ent>) is
generally understood to have made a protest in the name of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
<ent type='NORP'>democrats</ent> against the anti-<ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent> policy of the Vatican. He is
not very emphatic on any point except the Papal attitude to the
conquest of <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent>, and he is far from satisfactory on the
point. He says that <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s "sighed in vain" for a Papal
condemnation of Mussolini's crime, but "the poor old man" was
content with a refusal to bless the war, as <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> pressed him
to do, or to restrain the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> from blessing it.</p>

<p> It is something to have a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writer admitting that all
the world condemned <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> except the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>" (p. 130). The
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> press generally tried to twist vague Papal words into a
condemnation. But it is misleading to talk about the "poor old
man." <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent> was the director of the Papal policy, and there was
nothing vague or evasive about it. For ages the Vatican has cast a
covetous eye on the <ent type='GPE'>Ethiopia</ent>n <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. The existence of a branch of
<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>ity which had as much right to call itself <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> as
that of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> and was equally Apostolic in its foundation, has
always been a challenge and a reproach to the Vatican, but it was
little use dreaming of getting the submission of the Greek <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>.
At the <ent type='NORP'>Russian</ent> Revolution, we shall see, there was some hope of
inducing the atheistic new rules to sacrifice to the Vatican the
rich and populous branch of the Greek <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in that country, and
for Years the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> courted the <ent type='PERSON'>Hammer</ent> and Sickle as eagerly as it
later courted the Swastika. The hope died, but the Vatican kept its
eye on such independent branches of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> as that of <ent type='GPE'>Ethiopia</ent>.</p>

<p> This was the bait which <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> dangled before the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> in
1934. By the "gentleman's agreement" he had made with the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> in
1929, he had, he supposed, secured Papal support in advance for his
imperial adventures, but the whole world was so shocked in 1934 by
Mussolini's obvious preparations to attack <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent>, so disgusted
that his "invincible legions" chose the weakest possible opponent,
that the Vatican had to consider its position in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> and
<ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent>. The solution of the difficulty was Pacellesque, if I may
coin the word. Let the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> pose as a moral coward; a poor old man
who was bewildered by the sudden development -- so bishops said in
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent> -- and its menace, and let the entire <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>
boisterously support <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> and secure the unanimous support of
the nation. The Vatican tried at a later stage to explain the
situation by saying that the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> hierarchy and clergy acted in
this as <ent type='NORP'>Italians</ent>, not as representatives of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, and there
were <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> who repeated this miserable subterfuge.
As if it were not one of the very strongest claims for the moral
influence of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> that on any moral issue it
sublimely ignores national limitations and judges them in the light</p>

<div> </div>

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<p>of eternal principle alone! You might as well imagine the police of
<ent type='GPE'>Washington</ent> consorting with criminals under the window's of the
White House as the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> hierarchy acting on so delicate an issue
without Papal instructions.</p>

<p> As to the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> himself, which really means <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent>, we will
not waste time discussing whether he condemned the war, especially
when we have <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writers saying that he did not, until someone
quotes a clear and verifiable word of condemnation. The editor of
<ent type='ORG'>the British</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> paper (<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Times, July 17, 1936),
challenged by the Protestant Bishop of Durham, replied: "I grant
you that throughout these months of crisis the Holy Father has said
no word in favor of <ent type='ORG'>the League</ent> of Nations nor in favor of that
united stand against <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, which was so much desired in this
country." Cardinal <ent type='ORG'>Hinsley</ent>, it is true, says in his Preface to
Rankin's eulogy of <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent>, 'The <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> Speaks' (1940), that in his
presence the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>, before the invasion of <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent>, spoke of "all
my efforts to prevent the barbarous tragedy." What a pity <ent type='ORG'>Hinsley</ent>
did not quote the words six years earlier and spare <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s in
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> so much pain and humiliation! And what a pity
<ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> did not hear that the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> was talking of his grand
imperialist design as "barbarous."</p>

<p> Cardinal <ent type='ORG'>Hinsley</ent> does not think it necessary to explain why a
<ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> who privately thought the invasion of <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent> barbarous had
not one word of public condemnation of it. He could be very
eloquent on events far away in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, of which he could have no
exact knowledge and on events still farther away and more difficult
to check in <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>China</ent>. They hurt the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. But on
an outrage which was organized under his nose, a tragedy which was
so notorious that all the world except himself condemned it, he had
nothing to say as a world-oracle. It would hurt the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> if he
said it.</p>

<p> Once or twice he tried the tactics of that other famous
oracle, the ancient oracle of <ent type='ORG'>Delphi</ent>. On July 28, 1934, speaking
(domestically) on a saintly missionary who had worked in <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent>,
he glanced at the war-talk and said that he "hoped for peace,
truth, justice, and charity." On August 28th he had to address a
body of <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> nurses, many of whom were destined for the
war-zone, and he could hardly ignore it. He said, with a calculated
vagueness that <ent type='ORG'>Delphi</ent> never surpassed, that while folk abroad
described it as "a war of sheer conquest and nothing else", which
would certainly be an "unjust war", the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> authorities said
that it was a war of defense against <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent>n aggression and to
find room for some of Italy's surplus population (for which the
priests were even more responsible than <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>). He ended in a
mumble that God would find a way to a just peace. <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s
rejoiced that the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> had endorsed Mussolini's motivation of the
war and we shall see that archbishop's declared it to be a war of
defense. <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n and <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s boasted that he had
denounced the war of conquest.</p>

<p> It occurred to some that if there is a particle of truth in
the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> claim for the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> it was the Pope's duty to go
beyond abstract principles which everybody recognized and say in
plain <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> whether Mussolini's enterprise, which had not the </p>

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<p>least ambiguity in the eyes of the rest of the world, was or was
not criminal. <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent> therefore had an explanatory note put in the
<ent type='PERSON'>Osservatore</ent>, (August 29) saying that surplus population was "not by
itself a ground of war", which left matters just as they were.
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s felt that all the gorgeous claims that their
apologists had made for the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> were stultified, and Price Bell
of the 'Chicago Daily News' was instructed to get the truth from
the Pope's own lips. He wrote a moving four-page article on
"interview" in '<ent type='GPE'>Liberty</ent>' (October 19, 1935), but had to confess
that he had not got a word on <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent> from the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>. One gathers
that he had just paid the usual fee from $10 upward, according to
the size of the crowd -- to be admitted to a reception.</p>

<p> <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent> knew that, after a little grumbling behind closed
doors <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n and <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s would, in their own interest,
submit to anything that the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> said or did, so he let him pose to
the outside world as a moral coward and effectively satisfied
<ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> by a glorious unity of the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in support of
the war. Professor <ent type='PERSON'>Salvemini</ent> has collected the utterances of 7
cardinal archbishops, 23 archbishops, 44 bishops, and 6 archbishops
with titles abroad. It is almost enough to quote from the Papal
organ, the '<ent type='PERSON'>Osservatore</ent>' (August 22, 1935), the fact that from the
Eucharistic Congress at <ent type='ORG'>Teramo</ent> a telegram was sent to <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> in
the name of 19 archbishops and 57 bishops saying: "<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>
thanks Jesus Christ for the renewed greatness of the <ent type='ORG'>Fatherland</ent>
made stronger by Mussolini's policy." Will anyone suggest that the
dispatch of this telegram and the Publication of it in the Papal
newspaper were contrary to the wishes of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> and his vigorous
Secretary of State, the real and very despotic ruler of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>?</p>

<p> The prelates continued all through the war to keep <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s
-- and practically all <ent type='NORP'>Italians</ent> were now compulsory <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> --
loyal to <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>. They gave a most unctuous consecration to a
shameful war of aggression, barbarously conducted, and openly
represented it as a gain to the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. In a diocesan letter of
October 15, 1935, the Bishop of <ent type='ORG'>Nocera</ent> explained that <ent type='GPE'>Ethiopia</ent> was
uncivilized be cause it was not subject to the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> and the war
would be a great blessing for it:</p>

<p> It is a People which, having became detached from <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>,
can cannot get full benefit of the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> ideas: which has
not been able, therefore, to produce those beneficial
conditions to which <ent type='LOC'>the West</ent> of Europe owes its greatness.
Roman <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> has the duty of bringing to populations
deprived of them its principles of equity, charity, and
fraternity. We pray God that he should use <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> as His divine
instrument for the evangelization of the whole world.</p>

<p> One can say these things in a country where the Black
International controls education. A bishop ought at least to know
that until the 15th century the <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent>n <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> had had no
connection whatever with <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>; that submission to <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> was then
imposed from Portuguese as a condition of their help in saving the
country from the <ent type='NORP'>Moslem</ent>; and that it led to a grave demoralization
of <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent> and was fiercely rejected as soon as possible. And
note carefully the hope of <ent type='EVENT'>the Black International</ent> that God will go
on to choose <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> to "evangelize" -- that is to say, bring into </p>

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<p>submission to the Vatican -- the whole world. We know how it was
evangelizing <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent>; with poison gas, bombing natives, and
massacre (as at Addis <ent type='GPE'>Ababa</ent>). The interesting point is the allusion
to Pacelli's growing Plan of a league of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> powers.</p>

<p> A fortnight before this the Archbishop of Taranto had said
<ent type='PERSON'>Mass</ent> in a submarine and given an address to the officers and men.
They were, he said, fighting a war of defense -- was there ever a
more brazen apology? -- not conquest, and it would not only relieve
<ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> of over-population and supply it with raw material, but it
would lead to "the expansion of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> faith". It was
therefore "a holy war, a crusade". The archbishop was worse than
the bishop and the cardinal-archbishop, Sehuster, of <ent type='GPE'>Milan</ent>, bead of
the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> was worse than the archbishop. Speaking on
October 28 he said, as quoted by <ent type='ORG'>Salvemin</ent>:</p>

<p> The <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> flag is at this moment bringing in triumph
<ent type='ORG'>the Cross</ent> of Christ in <ent type='GPE'>Ethiopia</ent> to free the road for the
emancipation of the slaves, opening it at the same time to our
missionary enterprise.</p>

<p> Apart from their lies about <ent type='ORG'>Red</ent> outrage one can at least
understand the action of the <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> prelates in supporting <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent>,
but these <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> prelates, the nearest to <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> and the most
rigorously controlled by the Vatican, consecrated the crime of
their dictator and their Papal Secretary of State with all entirely
nauseous mixture of greed for the country and greed for the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>.
I saw two of the picture postcards that then circulated in <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>.
One bore a map of <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent> showing treasures of corn, gold, oil,
etc., in different regions. The other was a tank taking a statue of
the Virgin to the <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent>ns.</p>

<p> So it was to the end. When, in May, 1936, the <ent type='NORP'>Italians</ent> entered
Abbis <ent type='GPE'>Ababa</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> announced victory, the church bells rang
everywhere and the churches were illuminated and decorated. There
was one exception, St. Peter's. Its bells rang -- because peace had
come, of course -- but it was not illuminated. The fox retained his
cunning, and probably <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> grudgingly allowed that he had to
save his face as well as he could in <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>. It had to
suffice that the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> blessed "the triumphant happiness of a great
and good people for a peace that will further and will initiate the
true European and world-wide peace" (News Times and <ent type='GPE'>Ethiopia</ent> News,
October 31, 1936), and that the bishops fell over each other in
hastening to congratulate the <ent type='NORP'>Duce</ent> and his "defence of <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>
civilization". Not a word was said when <ent type='PERSON'>Graziani</ent> perpetrated one of
the foulest massacres of this foul period as when the butcher's
butcher-son published a book glorifying war as such and explaining
what fun it was to drop bombs on natives.</p>

<p> <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> did little for <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent>. Production fell, and a mere
title of the surplus population of <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> which was supposed to be
panting for room beyond the seas would go to <ent type='LOC'>Africa</ent>. The <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent>
authorities made no haste to educate the natives, and such
industries as were set up were reserved for <ent type='NORP'>Italians</ent>. <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent>ns
were not allowed to become artisans. They were to be the hewers of
wood and the drawers of water. Make all allowance you like for
Italy's lack of capital, of which <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> had drained the </p>

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<p>country, but the truth cannot be obscured, <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> wanted only
two things: the "glory" of founding an <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> empire and a
backward country for Italian's to exploit. And in 1937, the
'<ent type='PERSON'>Osservatore</ent>' announced, the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> blessed this enterprise by
awarding the Golden Rose, the supreme honor that the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> has for
mere women, to the Queen of <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> as <ent type='ORG'>Empress</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent>.</p>

<p> He had ground to do this. Whatever else <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> failed to do for
the <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent>ns it spent a vast sum in giving them the treasure of
the Papal faith. At government expense priests, monks, and nuns
were shipped out and chalets and houses built for them. There is an
account of it all in the '<ent type='ORG'>International Review</ent> of Missions,'
(January, 1937, p. 103). The Vatican sent out a set of <ent type='GPE'>Ethiopia</ent>n
type and a press, and <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> papers told how the natives
eagerly pressed for the good words. Protestant missionaries found
that they might as well pack up. <ent type='NORP'>Moslem</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> had hitherto
shown a mutual toleration. Now they were set against each other
Whatever the state gained or failed to gain by the conquest of
<ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent> the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> was determined to profit. All this, the
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> protests, follows inevitably from <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> principles. So
much the worse for those principles; though we seem to have heard
a hundred times that the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> emphatically disowns the maxim that
the end justifies the means.</p>

<p> It is impossible to write these chapters on the action of the
<ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> without irony and
repugnance, and many will find that it raises a problem about the
attitude of the <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> layman. As far as <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> is
concerned there is little to explain. His daily paper spoke of the
<ent type='ORG'>Reds</ent> probably in the same language as his <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> weekly.
<ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent> was growing like a poisonous plant in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, and
practically all the world wanted it eradicated. There was, it is
true, that intriguing paradox which I have discussed; how the <ent type='ORG'>Red</ent>
tail -- and such a small one -- had succeeded in wagging the
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> dog for seven whole years. But when there is a question of
smiting <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent>, you do not notice these trifles.</p>

<p> In the case of <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent> the situation was very different. The
whole world, outside Eire, <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>, and a few other potato patches,
condemned <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>, and the facts were not in dispute. Such
writers as <ent type='PERSON'>Seldes</ent> and Teeling make it clear that there was some
dissatisfaction in the body of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> laity, but the tone of
the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> press and the utterances of the hierarchy show that it
did not reach very far. Yet you find it impossible to believe that
the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> men and women whom you meet in business or at the club
or a friend's house, are so docile to their priests that they will
read without a shudder the shocking language of the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent>
prelates I have quoted, or be easily persuaded that turning
Oriental <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s into Roman <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s throws a mantle of justice,
if not nobility, over Mussolini's enterprise.</p>

<p> I cannot here go deeply into this matter, but I may make one
point. The relation of a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> to his priest is not the same as
that of a Protestant to his minister. Periodically he hears a
sermon on the priesthood, and the gist of it is that, if he accepts
the creed at all, he must regard the priest as something totally
different from any other minister of religion. The preacher insists</p>

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<p>that he shall not look to the priest as a man -- his intelligence
and even his character do not matter -- but to his office and
powers. He can turn bread and wine into God (in the <ent type='PERSON'>Mass</ent>) and can
forgive sins. He has, whatever his personality, been endowed with
tremendous supernatural powers. You may find this difficult to
follow, but a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> is as strictly bound to believe these things
as to believe in God. That medieval superstition, on which the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> still literally insists, is the root of the power of the
priests. That is why, for instance, they can do what no other
ministers can do, such as to forbid a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> to read any
literature that criticizes the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> or its teaching, and in this
way they protect the superstition which is the root of their power.
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>ism is not a collection of beliefs. It is an organic whole,
and you cannot be a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> and question a single "article of
faith." If in addition to this you remember the tremendous hypnotic
force wielded by the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, corresponding very closely to the
<ent type='NORP'>German</ent> boasting of <ent type='NORP'>Aryan</ent> blood or the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> boasting of
Mussolini's infallibility you will begin to understand. But it is
not a case of "to understand all is to forgive all." Your
conclusion is more apt to be: Away with the whole damn lot -- to
give a rough translation of Voltaire's polite phrase.</p>

<p> V</p>

<p> THE JAP GETS A GOLD MEDAL FOR HIS
'<ent type='ORG'>CHINESE INCIDENT</ent>'</p>

<p> It is one of the consequences of this doctrinal mentality of
the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> that he can be persuaded to accept propositions which
to you and me look childish. I am, of course, speaking of the
general body of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s and am quite aware that you will meet a
man here and there who seems fairly liberal; though you will find
that either he is not liberal at all on these dogmas which the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, for reasons (as they are the basis of the power of the
clergy), declares indispensable, or he is a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> only
nominally. One such proposition is that the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> faith is so
unique, so profoundly important for this life and the next, that
when there is a prospect of getting further millions of men to
accept it, he, in spite of his having the same sentiments as we
have, agrees to wars, executions, imprisonments without trial,
compulsory hymn-Singing and jailers'
whips. After all, the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> has "the right of the sword" over
these people. That is an indispensable article of the creed.</p>

<p> A second proposition which is relevant here is -- this will
seem incredible to any who are not familiar with <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
literature -- that the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> accepts the belief, on which the
priests insist, that his <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> is hated and persecuted by wicked
men with a rancor that other <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>es do not experience. It is a
sheer legend, but very useful to the clergy. For the last fifty
years at least the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> has been treated by non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s with an indulgence, even an admiration, which has enabled
it to secure by intrigue, a power far out of proportion to the
number of its members in <ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent> countries. In <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> doctrine
-- again indispensable doctrine -- a large part of the explanation
of this legendary hatred is the devil. Naturally he hates, and
moves bad men to hate, that which is holiest . . . I feel that I
ought to apologize for talking like this to educated men and women,</p>

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<p>but believe me, that is the ordinary <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> mentality. And it is
in virtue of this proposition that <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent> is in the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
mind associated with the devil, and he is ready to cry for its
extinction in <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>. <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent>. You will not be so
churlish as to remind him that he is really calling for aggressive
war.</p>

<p> Hence the Vatican's beautiful friendship with <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> and
positive hatred of <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>. We will consider in a later book the lie
which is used to give an odor of sanctity to this hatred, the claim
that <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> persecutes religion, but by 1934, when <ent type='ORG'>the British</ent>
government had officially reported to the contrary, as we shall
see, any ground for a charge of persecution had disappeared. Yet
when, in that year, <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> applied for admission to <ent type='ORG'>the League</ent> of
Nations, the Vatican whipped up its representatives at <ent type='GPE'>Geneva</ent> to
oppose the application. I will deal at length with the matter
later, but it is necessary here to point the contrast. <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent>
stirred every nerve to get a great civilization, which already had
the finest record in Europe of humane service and social
betterment, publicly insulted and represented as a nation far
inferior to Mussolini's <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> or Piludski's miserable <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> (which
was at the time very seriously persecution religion). On the other
hand, he drew nearer to <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>. <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> had long discarded the idea,
which some had had, of spreading Socialism by aggressive war. It
was, if only in its own interest, very earnest for the peace of the
world. But it was damned and vituperated by <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>. <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> was just as
clearly aiming at, indeed already engaged in, a disgraceful
aggressive war. The Vatican took it to its bosom.</p>

<p> The point arises here because just in that year there was some
prospect of war between <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>, and <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s everywhere
loudly proclaimed that, should it occur, they would side with
<ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>. "In the event of a war between <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>," said an
editorial in one of the leading <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> papers, (<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
Times, November 23, 1934) "<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s would sympathize with <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>,
at least in so far as religion is concerned, so let us beware of an
Anglo-<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n 'bloc' against <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> involving us on the side of
<ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>." These apologists for a bad case find it difficult to write
plain English. The editor obviously means that <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s would hope on religious grounds -- that is to say, for
the profit of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>China</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> -- to see <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> beat
<ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>. We do not think less of sympathy with crime because its
motive is said to be religious. It is only one mare of a hundred
proofs that the interest of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, which always the means the
interest or profit of <ent type='EVENT'>the Black International</ent>, is different from
and often opposed to the interest of the race.</p>

<p> In the second book I described the beginning of the alliance
of the Vatican with <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>. The country had just taken the first
step in a monstrous plan of aggression and exploitation which must
have been known in <ent type='ORG'>every Foreign Office</ent> in the world, and its
conquest of <ent type='GPE'>Manchuria</ent> was sternly condemned everywhere. The <ent type='NORP'>French</ent>
were, as we shall see, then playing a dangerous game, for which
they now pay so dearly, with the Vatican, and -- I quoted this on
<ent type='NORP'>French</ent> clerical authority -- the advised the <ent type='PERSON'>Jap</ent>s to apply to the </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
25
.
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>

<p><ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> for recognition. As the idea was put to the <ent type='NORP'>Japanese</ent> by <ent type='NORP'>French</ent>
missionaries, you may wonder whether the initiative did not come
from the Vatican; but you will have to be content to wonder, as the
beginning of the negotiations is left in obscurity.</p>

<p> It was not difficult to persuade the <ent type='PERSON'>Jap</ent>s to apply to <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>.
Most of the educated and ruling men of <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> are atheists of the
type who regard religion as a very useful institution -- for women
and workers, In 1871, when the Europeanization of the country
began, they sent a large and unique deputation to Europe to study
<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>ity and report whether it was a more 'suitable -- that is
to say, more effective in securing the docility of the masses --
religion to give to their people than Buddhism. Lafeadio Hearn
tells how their report on the influence of <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>ity in its own
field was so poor that they abandoned the idea, but much water had
gone down to the sea since 1871. One change was that the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> was
again a secular as well as a spiritual monarch, since <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> had
created the state of the <ent type='GPE'>Vatican City</ent>, and the mixture of small
sovereignty and vast international religious power gave him a
unique position.</p>

<p> We saw what happened. Even <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent> dare not, while the whole
world was inflamed against <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>, pledge the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> as a temporal
ruler to alliance with <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>, but he appointed a Vicar Apostolic
"to negotiate with the government of <ent type='GPE'>Manchukuo</ent> about religious
affairs." Other powers might sacrifice their trade-interests to
their principles by declaring that they would have no truck with a
bloody usurpation, but the interests of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> missions are too
sacred to be sacrificed for mundane considerations. Whether there
was an understanding that the Vatican promised to work to prevent
<ent type='ORG'>the League</ent> of Nations from applying sanctions to <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>, as it later
worked for the exclusion of <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, we do not know. The Vatican
does not issue a <ent type='ORG'>Blue Book</ent> -- not even a Little <ent type='ORG'>Blue Book</ent> -- when
it has completed a deal. Few would trust the book if it did.</p>

<p> What we do know, however, is enough. The representatives of
the Vatican in <ent type='GPE'>Manchukuo</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> worked so amiably with the army
and the government that by 1934 the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writer I quoted
was able to boast that "no <ent type='NORP'>Japanese</ent> prince or mission now passes
through <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> without paying its homage to the Sovereign Pontiff."
Incidentally, <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> trade in the <ent type='LOC'>East</ent> benefitted very happily.
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s raised their familiar cry of libel of Holy See,
wicked suspicion, etc., when the growing intimacy was mentioned in
the press, and it transpired that the news had came from the
clerical officials (whose pockets are always wide open) of the
<ent type='GPE'>Vatican City</ent> pres's bureau that negotiations were in progress for
an exchange of ambassadors between <ent type='GPE'>Tokyo</ent> and the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent>. There was
more indignation and surprise that people should malign Holy <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>
so much; and on May 5, 1935, the Papal organ, the '<ent type='PERSON'>Osservatore</ent>,'
joyously announced that the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> was sending a representative to
<ent type='GPE'>Tokyo</ent> and the Mikado sending an ambassador to <ent type='ORG'>the Papal Court</ent>.</p>

<p> You make short work of all the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> sophistry, about this
ominous development if you consider the run of events at the time.
The world at the conquest of <ent type='GPE'>Manchuria</ent> had evaporated. Trade-interests had again beaten principles. Sanctions against <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> had
not been imposed, and the trading nations were on friendly terms </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
26
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THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>

<p>with the <ent type='PERSON'>Jap</ent> and willing to take his word, as they would take
Mussolini's word after <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent> and Hitler's word after <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent>,
that absolutely no further advance would be attempted; while all
three adventurers were quite openly dangling before the eyes of
their respective peoples a program of conquests that promised
wealth to every class in the nation.</p>

<p> The case of the alliance of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> and his Yellow Brother"
was the worst of all. At the beginning of the century Count <ent type='PERSON'>Hayashi</ent>
(Secret Memoirs, 1915), had written that "<ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> must keep quite and
lull suspicion and wait her day; then not only put the meddling
powers out but meddle herself." After 1930, with the growth of an
aggressive Fascism in Europe and a general profession of admiration
of its efficiency, the <ent type='NORP'>Japanese</ent> concluded that they need not keep
quiet in their own country; they could not, indeed, if they were to
educate their people in the ground plan of dominating <ent type='LOC'>Asia</ent>. One of
the most spluttering firebrands was <ent type='PERSON'>Yosuke Matsuoka</ent>. He had been
educated in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> and was a <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>, so he was very useful for
lulling suspicions abroad, especially in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, but he was very
patriotic in <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>. Upton Close in his book, 'The <ent type='ORG'>Challenge</ent>,'
translates an article which <ent type='PERSON'>Matsuoka</ent> published in 1933. It
coruscated with gems like this: "The mission of the <ent type='PERSON'>Yamata</ent> race is
to prevent the human race from becoming devilish ... The one
nation not subject to the universal law of decline is that which is
ruled by a divinity and a permeated by the spirit of the Gods ...
the fated time has come to effulge its benefits to the world". Not
very <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>, but plain enough. At the following <ent type='EVENT'>New Year</ent>,
<ent type='NORP'>Japanese</ent> stores displayed gorgeous paint-and-pasteboard panoramas
of Japan's coming victory, the sinking of the <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n fleet, etc.</p>

<p> This was the symphony of events which accompanied the
negotiations in Pacelli's opulent chambers in the Vatican. Let us
charitably suppose that in 1935, <ent type='PERSON'>Matsuoka</ent> earnestly assured <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent>
that <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> would not steal another acre of <ent type='NORP'>Chinese</ent> soil, that
<ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent> was simple-minded enough to believe him, and that the
highly favored <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> missionaries in <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> did not report to the
Vatican that the entire country, including the <ent type='NORP'>Buddhist</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Shinto</ent>
priests, was joyously chanting the national anthem of domination of
the <ent type='LOC'>East</ent>. A <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> can probably believe that, although the
steeling of <ent type='GPE'>Jehol</ent> from <ent type='GPE'>China</ent> had already followed the stealing of
<ent type='GPE'>Manchuria</ent>. But in 1935 the sacred representative of the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> in
<ent type='GPE'>Tokyo</ent> would find it one of his first duties to report that, under
cynically mendacious pretexts, the <ent type='NORP'>Japanese</ent> were moving south over
<ent type='GPE'>China</ent> proper. By June, 1935, they had appropriated a further vast
area of <ent type='GPE'>China</ent>. In November, 1936, they tried to set up a puppet
government for five whole provinces besides <ent type='GPE'>Manchuria</ent>.</p>

<p> In short, from that day to this, it has been one long story of
conquest officially described in the most brazen language. It was
not a war, but an "incident" -- thus escaping the economic
inconveniences of a war -- it was for the "cooperative prosperity"
of <ent type='GPE'>China</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>, Europe, and <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, it was just a police measure,
and so on. And all the time it was exultingly represented in <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>
itself as the mere beginning of a career of conquest that would
enrich every class in the country. It was, further, a war conducted
with the full bestiality of the methods of the Pope's allies.
Brutality to civilians in actual fighting was supplemented by
brutality after conquest. The <ent type='NORP'>Chinese</ent> subjects were debased with </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
27
.
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>

<p>dope and exploited mercilessly. Soldiers and officers used <ent type='NORP'>Chinese</ent>
women as <ent type='NORP'>Goths</ent> and <ent type='ORG'>Vandals</ent> had never used <ent type='ORG'>Roman Women</ent>. A <ent type='NORP'>Chinese</ent>
lady told me of an incident reported to her by her family in <ent type='GPE'>China</ent>:
an old woman in the occupied zone traveling from village to village
was raped six times in a few hours by soldiers of the nation which
is "ruled by a divinity and permeated by the spirit of the gods."
. . .</p>

<p> By 1941 the whole diabolical plan was clear. Japan's service
was to be to draw off a very large part of the <ent type='NORP'>Russian</ent> forces to
the <ent type='LOC'>East</ent> while the "crusade" destroyed <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> in Europe. We now
know -- if anybody required any evidence -- that the <ent type='NORP'>Russian</ent>
campaign was decided and plotted very early in 1941 after the
failure to reduce <ent type='GPE'>England</ent> by aerial bombardment or invasion, which
was originally intended to precede the attack on <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>. <ent type='PERSON'>Matsuoka</ent>;
the <ent type='ORG'>Versatile</ent> was sent to Europe. He visited <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>;
and the '<ent type='PERSON'>Osservatore</ent>' (March 31, 1941) told with pride how he
visited <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent>. Did he carefully conceal from <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent> that
the war for the extinction of <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent>, the bloodiest war in
history, the most ardent desire of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>, was to be launched?
That <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>, besides its designs in Southern <ent type='LOC'>Asia</ent> and its bestiality
in <ent type='GPE'>China</ent>, was to help by destroying <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> and threatening to
intercept <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n supplies? Believe that if you can. the Vatican
organ tells us that at the close of their cordial interview, the
<ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> presented <ent type='PERSON'>Matsuoka</ent> with a gold medal; and <ent type='PERSON'>Matsuoka</ent> declared in
the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> press that his talk with the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> was "the prettiest
moment in my life."</p>

<div> **** ****</div>

<p> Reproducible <ent type='ORG'>Electronic Publishing</ent> can defeat censorship.</p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>The Bank</ent> of Wisdom is a collection of the most thoughtful,
scholarly and factual books. These computer books are reprints of
suppressed books and will cover <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n and world history; the
<ent type='ORG'>Biographies</ent> and writings of famous persons, and especially of our
nations Founding Fathers. They will include philosophy and
religion. all these subjects, and more, will be made available to
the public in electronic form, easily copied and distributed, so
that <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> can again become what its Founders intended --</p>

<p> The Free Market-Place of Ideas.</p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>The Bank</ent> of Wisdom is always looking for more of these old,
hidden, suppressed and forgotten books that contain needed facts
and information for today. If you have such books please contact
us, we need to give them back to <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>.</p>

<div> **** ****</div>

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Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
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</p></xml>